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The Stillwater Tragedy

T >> Thomas Bailey Aldrich >> The Stillwater Tragedy




"Yes, yes! If you will only keep quiet, Margaret shall come."

"Margherita, we say. You are to we her,--is it nnot so?"

Richard turned down the wick of the lamp, which was blazing and
spluttering, and did not answer. Then Torrini lay silent a long
while, apparently listening to the hum of the telegraph wires
attached to one end of the roof. At odd intervals the freshening
breeze swept these wires, and awoke a low æolian murmur. The moon
rose in the mean time, and painted on the uncarpeted floor the shape
of the cherry bough that stretched across the window. It was two
o'clock; Richard sat with his head bent forward, in a drowse.

"Now the cousin is dead, you are as rich as a prince,--are you
not?" inquired Torrini, who had lain for the last half hour with his
eyes wide open in the moonlight.

Richard straightened himself with a jerk.

"Torrini, I positively forbid you to talk any more!"

"I remember you said that one day, somewhere. Where was it? Ah, in
the yard! 'You can't be allowed to speak here, you know.' And then I
struck at you,--with that hand they've taken away! See how I remember
it!"

"Why do you bother your mind with such things? Think of just
nothing at all, and rest. Perhaps a wet cloth on your forehead will
refresh you. I wish you had a little of my genius for not keeping
awake."

"You are tired, you?"

"I have had two broken nights, traveling."

"And I give you no peace?"

"Well, no," returned Richard bluntly, hoping the admission would
induce Torrini to tranquilize himself, "you don't give me much."

"Has any one been here?" demanded Torrini abruptly.

"Not a soul. Good Heaven, man, do you know what time it is?"

"I know,--I know. It's very late. I ought to keep quiet; but, the
devil! with this fever in my brain! . . . . Mr. Shackford!" and
Torrini, in spite of his imprisoned limb, suddenly half raised
himself from the mattress. "I--I"--

Richard sprung to his feet. "What is it,--what do you want?"

"Nothing," said Torrini, falling back on the pillow.

Richard brought him a glass of water, which he refused. He lay
motionless, with his eyes shut, as if composing himself, and Richard
returned on tiptoe to his bench. A moment or two afterwards Torrini
stirred the blanket with his foot.

"Mr. Shackford!"

"Well?"

"I am as grateful--as a dog."

Torrini did not speak again. This expression of his gratitude
appeared to ease him. His respiration grew lighter and more regular,
and by and by he fell into a profound sleep. Richard watched awhile
expectantly, with his head resting against the rail of the bedstead;
then his eyelids drooped, and he too slumbered. But once or twice,
before he quite lost himself, he was conscious of Brigida's thin face
thrust like a silver wedge through the half-open door of the hall
bedroom. It was the last thing he remembered,--that sharp, pale face
peering out from the blackness of the inner chamber as his grasp
loosened on the world and he drifted off on the tide of a dream. A
narrow white hand, like a child's, seemed to be laid against his
breast. It was not Margaret's hand, and yet it was hers. No, it was
the plaster model he had made that idle summer afternoon, years and
years before he had ever thought of loving her. Strange for it to be
there! Then Richard began wondering how the gold ring would look in
the slender forefinger. He unfastened the leather bag and took out
the ring. He was vainly trying to pass it over the first joint of the
dead white finger, when the cast slipped from his hold and fell with
a crash to the floor. Richard gave a shudder, and opened his eyes.
Brigida was noiselessly approaching Torrini's bedside. Torrini still
slept. It was broad day. Through the uncurtained window Richard saw
the blue sky barred with crimson.






XXIV





"Richard did come home last night, after all," said Mr. Slocum,
with a flustered air, seating himself at the breakfast table.

Margaret looked up quickly.

"I just met Peters on the street, and he told me," added Mr.
Slocum.

"Richard returned last night, and did not come to us!"

"It seems that he watched with Torrini,--the man is going to die."

"Oh," said Margaret, cooling instantly. "That was like Richard; he
never thinks of himself first. I would not have had him do
differently. Last evening you were filled with I don't know what
horrible suspicions, yet see how simply everything explains itself."

"If I could speak candidly, Margaret, if I could express myself
without putting you into a passion, I would tell you that Richard's
passing the night with that man has given me two or three ugly
ideas."

"Positively, papa, you are worse than Mr. Taggett."

"I shall not say another word," replied Mr. Slocum. Then he
unfolded the newspaper lying beside him, and constructed a barrier
against further colloquy.

An hour afterwards, when Richard threw open the door of his
private workshop, Margaret was standing in the middle of the room
waiting for him. She turned with a little cry of pleasure, and
allowed Richard to take her in his arms, and kept to the spirit and
the letter of the promise she had made to herself. If there was an
unwonted gravity in Margaret's manner, young Shackford was not keen
enough to perceive it. All that morning, wherever he went, he carried
with him a sense of Margaret's face resting for a moment against his
shoulder, and the happiness of it rendered him wholly oblivious to
the constrained and chilly demeanor of her father when they met. The
interview was purposely cut short by Mr. Slocum, who avoided Richard
the rest of the day with a persistency that must have ended in
forcing itself upon his notice, had he not been so engrossed by the
work which had accumulated during his absence.

Mr. Slocum had let the correspondence go to the winds, and a
formidable collection of unanswered letters lay on Shackford's desk.
The forenoon was consumed in reducing the pile and settling the
questions that had risen in the shops, for Mr. Slocum had neglected
everything. Richard was speedily advised of Blake's dismissal from
the yard, but, not knowing what explanation had been offered, was
unable to satisfy Stevens' curiosity on the subject. "I must see
Slocum about that at once," reflected Richard; but the opportunity
did not occur, and he was too much pressed to make a special business
of it.

Mr. Slocum, meanwhile, was in a wretched state of suspense and
apprehension. Justice Beemis's clerk had served some sort of legal
paper--presumably a subpoena--on Richard, who had coolly read it in
the yard under the gaze of all, and given no sign of discomposure
beyond a momentary lifting of the eyebrows. Then he had carelessly
thrust the paper into one of his pockets and continued his directions
to the men. Clearly he had as yet no suspicion of the mine that was
ready to be sprung under his feet.

Shortly after this little incident, which Mr. Slocum had witnessed
from the window of the counting-room, Richard spoke a word or two to
Stevens, and quitted the yard. Mr. Slocum dropped into the carving
department.

"Where is Mr. Shackford, Stevens?"

"He has gone to Mitchell's Alley, sir. Said he'd be away an hour.
Am I to say he was wanted?"

"No," replied Mr. Slocum, hastily; "any time will do. You needn't
mention that I inquired for him," and Mr. Slocum returned to the
counting-room.

Before the hour expired he again distinguished Richard's voice in
the workshops, and the cheery tone of it was a positive affront to
Mr. Slocum. Looking back to the week prior to the tragedy in Welch's
Court, he recollected Richard's unaccountable dejection; he had had
the air of a person meditating some momentous step,--the pallor, the
set face, and the introspective eyes. Then came the murder, and
Richard's complete prostration. Mr. Slocum in his own excitement had
noted it superficially at the time, but now he recalled the young
man's inordinate sorrow, and it seemed rather like remorse. Was his
present immobile serenity the natural expression of a man whose heart
had suddenly ossified, and was no longer capable of throbbing with
its guilt? Richard Shackford was rapidly becoming an awful problem to
Mr. Slocum.

Since the death of his cousin, Richard had not been so much like
his former self. He appeared to have taken up his cheerfulness at the
point where he had dropped it three weeks before. If there were any
weight resting on his mind, he bore it lightly, with a kind of
careless defiance.

In his visit that forenoon to Mitchell's Alley he had arranged for
Mrs. Morganson, his cousin's old housekeeper, to watch with Torrini
the ensuing night. This left Richard at liberty to spend the evening
with Margaret, and finish his correspondence. Directly after tea he
repaired to the studio, and, lighting the German student-lamp, fell
to work on the letters. Margaret came in shortly with a magazine, and
seated herself near the round table at which he was writing. She had
dreaded this evening; it could scarcely pass without some mention of
Mr. Taggett, and she had resolved not to speak of him. If Richard
questioned her it would be very distressing. How could she tell
Richard that Mr. Taggett accused him of the murder of his cousin, and
that her own father half believed the accusation? No, she could never
acknowledge that.

For nearly an hour the silence of the room was interrupted only by
the scratching of Richard's pen and the rustling of the magazine as
Margaret turned the leaf. Now and then he looked up and caught her
eye, and smiled, and went on with his task. It was a veritable return
of the old times. Margaret became absorbed in the story she was
reading and forgot her uneasiness. Her left hand rested on the pile
of answered letters, to which Richard added one at intervals, she
mechanically lifting her palm and replacing it on the fresh
manuscript. Presently Richard observed this movement and smiled in
secret at the slim white hand unconsciously making a paper-weight of
itself. He regarded it covertly for a moment, and then his disastrous
dream occurred to him. There should be no mistake this time. He drew
the small morocco case from his pocket, and leaning across the table
slipped the ring on Margaret's finger.

Margaret gave a bewildered start, and then seeing what Richard had
done held out her hand to him with a gracious, impetuous little
gesture.

"I mean to give it you this morning," he said, pressing his lip to
the ring, "but the daylight did not seem fine enough for it."

"I thought you had forgotten," said Margaret, slowly turning the
band on her finger.

"The first thing I did in New York was to go to a jeweler's for
this ring, and since then I have guarded it day and night as
dragonishly as if it had been the Koh-i-Noor diamond, or some
inestimable gem which hundreds of envious persons were lying in wait
to wrest from me. Walking the streets with this trinket in my
possession, I have actually had a sense of personal insecurity. I
seemed to invite general assault. That was being very sentimental,
was it not?"

"Yes, perhaps."

"That small piece of gold meant so much to me."

"And to me," said Margaret. "Have you finished your letters?"

"Not yet. I shall be through in ten minutes, and then we'll have
the evening to ourselves."

Richard hurriedly resumed his writing and Margaret turned to her
novel again; but the interest had faded out of it; the figures had
grown threadbare and indistinct, like the figures in a piece of old
tapestry, and after a moment or two the magazine glided with an
unnoticed flutter into the girl's lap. She sat absently twirling the
gold loop on her finger.

Richard added the address to the final envelope, dried it with the
blotter, and abruptly shut down the lid of the inkstand with an air
of as great satisfaction as if he had been the fisherman in the
Arabian story corking up the wicked afrite. With his finger still
pressing the leaden cover, as though he were afraid the imp of toil
would get out again, he was suddenly impressed by the fact that he
had seen very little of Mr. Slocum that day.

"I have hardly spoken to him," he reflected. "Where is your
father, to-night?"

"He has a headache," said Margaret. "He went to his room
immediately after supper."

"It is nothing serious, of course."

"I fancy not; papa is easily excited, and he had had a great deal
to trouble him lately,--the strike, and all that."

"I wonder if Mr. Taggett has been bothering him."

"I dare say Mr. Taggett has bothered him."

"You knew of his being in the yard?"

"Not while he was here. Papa told me yesterday. I think Mr.
Taggett was scarcely the person to render much assistance."

"Then he has found nothing whatever?"

"Nothing important."

"But anything? Trifles are of importance in a matter like this.
Your father never wrote me a word about Taggett."

"Mr. Taggett has made a failure of it, Richard."

"If nothing new has transpired, then I do not understand the
summons I received to-day."

"A summons!"

"I've the paper somewhere. No, it is in the pocket of my other
coat. I take it there is to be a consultation of some kind at Justice
Beemis's office to-morrow."

"I am very glad," said Margaret, with her face brightening.
To-morrow would lift the cloud which had spread itself over them all,
and was pressing down so heavily on one unconscious head. To-morrow
Richard's innocence should shine forth and confound Mr. Taggett. A
vague bitterness rose in Margaret's heart as she thought of her
father. "Let us talk of something else," she said, brusquely breaking
her pause; "let us talk of something pleasant."

"Of ourselves, then," suggested Richard, banishing the shadow
which had gathered in his eyes at his first mention of Mr. Taggett's
name.

"Of ourselves," repeated Margaret gayly.

"Then you must give me your hand," stipulated Richard, drawing his
chair closer to hers.

"There!" said Margaret.

While this was passing, Mr. Slocum, in the solitude of his
chamber, was vainly attempting to solve the question whether he had
not disregarded all the dictates of duty and common sense in allowing
Margaret to spend the evening alone with Richard Shackford. Mr.
Slocum saw one thing with painful distinctness--that he could not
help himself.






XXV





The next morning Mr. Slocum did not make his appearance in the
marble yard. His half-simulated indisposition of the previous night
had turned into a genuine headache, of which he perhaps willingly
availed himself to remain in his room, for he had no desire to see
Richard Shackford that day.

It was an hour before noon. Up to that moment Richard had been
engaged in reading and replying to the letters received by the
morning's mail, a duty which usually fell to Mr. Slocum. As Richard
stepped from the office into the yard a small boy thrust a note into
his hand, and then stood off a short distance tranquilly boring with
one toe in the loose gravel, and apparently waiting for an answer.
Shackford hastily ran his eye over the paper, and turning towards the
boy said, a little impatiently:

"Tell him I will come at once."

There was another person in Stillwater that forenoon whose
agitation was scarcely less than Mr. Slocum's, though it greatly
differed from it in quality. Mr. Slocum was alive to his finger-tips
with dismay; Lawyer Perkins was boiling over with indignation. It was
a complex indignation, in which astonishment and incredulity were
nicely blended with a cordial detestation of Mr. Taggett and vague
promptings to inflict some physical injury on Justice Beemis. That
he, Melanchthon Perkins, the confidential legal adviser and personal
friend of the late Lemuel Shackford, should have been kept for two
weeks in profound ignorance of proceedings so nearly touching his
lamented client! The explosion of the old lawyer's wrath was so
unexpected that Justice Beemis, who had dropped in to make the
disclosures and talk the matter over informally, clutched at his
broad-brimmed Panama hat and precipitately retreated from the office.
Mr. Perkins walked up and down the worn green drugget of his private
room for half an hour afterwards, collecting himself, and then
dispatched a hurried note to Richard Shackford, requesting an instant
interview with him at his, Lawyer Perkins's, chambers.

When, some ten minutes subsequently, Richard entered the
low-studded square room, darkened with faded moreen curtains and
filled with a stale odor of law-calf, Mr. Perkins was seated at his
desk and engaged in transferring certain imposing red-sealed
documents to a green baize satchel which he held between his knees.
He had regained his equanimity; his features wore their usual
expression of judicial severity; nothing denoted his recent
discomposure, except perhaps an additional wantonness in the stringy
black hair falling over the high forehead,--that pallid high forehead
which always wore the look of being covered with cold perspiration.

"Mr. Shackford," said Lawyer Perkins, suspending his operations a
second, as he saluted the young man, "I suppose I have done an
irregular thing in sending for you, but I did not see any other
course open to me. I have been your cousin's attorney for over
twenty-five years, and I've a great regard for you personally. That
must justify the step I am taking."

"The regard is mutual, I am sure," returned Richard, rather
surprised by this friendly overture, for his acquaintance with the
lawyer had been of the slightest, though it had extended over many
years. "My cousin had very few friends, and I earnestly desire to
have them mine. If I were in any trouble, there is no one to whom I
would come as unhesitatingly as to you."

"But you are in trouble."

"Yes, my cousin's death was very distressing."

"I do not mean that." Mr. Perkins paused a full moment. "The
district attorney has suddenly taken a deep interest in the case, and
there is to be a rigorous overhauling of the facts. I am afraid it is
going to be very unpleasant for you, Mr. Shackford."

"How could it be otherwise?" asked Richard, tranquilly.

Lawyer Perkins fixed his black eyes on him. "Then you fully
understand the situation, and can explain everything?"

"I wish I could. Unfortunately, I can explain nothing. I don't
clearly see why I have been summoned to attend as a witness at the
investigation to be held to-day in Justice Beemis's office."

"You are unacquainted with any special reason why your testimony
is wanted?"

"I cannot conceive why it should be required. I gave my evidence
at the time of the inquest, and have nothing to add to it. Strictly
speaking, I have had of late years no relations with my cousin.
During the last eighteen months we have spoken together but once."

"Have you had any conversation on this subject with Mr. Slocum
since your return from New York?"

"No, I have had no opportunity. I was busy all day yesterday; he
was ill in the evening, and is still confined to his room."

Mr. Perkins was manifestly embarrassed.

"That is unfortunate," he said, laying the bag on the desk. "I
wish you had talked with Mr. Slocum. Of course you were taken into
the secret of Taggett's presence in the marble yard?"

"Oh, yes; that was all arranged before I left home."

"You don't know the results of that manoeuvre?"

"There were no results."

"On the contrary, Taggett claims to have made very important
discoveries."

"Indeed! Why was I not told!"

"I can't quite comprehend Mr. Slocum's silence."

"What has Taggett discovered?"

"Several things, upon which he builds the gravest suspicions."

"Against whom?"

"Against you."

"Against me!" cried Richard, recoiling. The action was one
altogether of natural amazement, and convinced Mr. Perkins, who had
keenly watched the effect of his announcement, that young Shackford
was being very hardly used.

Justice Beemis had given Mr. Perkins only a brief outline of the
facts, and had barely touched on details when the old lawyer's anger
had put an end to the conversation. His disgust at having been left
out in the cold, though he was in no professional way concerned in
the task of discovering the murderer of Lemuel Shackford, had caused
Lawyer Perkins instantly to repudiate Mr. Taggett's action. "Taggett
is a low, intriguing fellow," he had said to Justice Beemis; "Taggett
is a fraud." Young Shackford's ingenuous manner now confirmed Mr.
Perkins in that belief.

Richard recovered himself in a second or two. "Why did not Mr.
Slocum mention these suspicions to me?" he demanded.

"Perhaps he found it difficult to do so."

"Why should he find it difficult?"

"Suppose he believed them."

"But he could not believe them, whatever they are."

"Well, then, suppose he was not at liberty to speak."

"It seems that you are, Mr. Perkins, and you owe it to me to be
explicit. What does Taggett suspect?"

Lawyer Perkins brooded a while before replying. His practice was
of a miscellaneous sort, confined in the main to what is technically
termed office practice. Though he was frequently engaged in small
cases of assault and battery,--he could scarcely escape that in
Stillwater,--he had never conducted an important criminal case; but
when Lawyer Perkins looked up from his brief reverie, he had fully
resolved to undertake the defense of Richard Shackford.

"I will tell you what Taggett suspects," he said slowly, "if you
will allow me to tell you in my own way. I must ask a number of
questions."

Richard gave a half-impatient nod of assent.

"Where were you on the night of the murder?" inquired Lawyer
Perkins, after a slight pause.

"I spent the evening at the Slocums', until ten o'clock; then I
went home,--but not directly. It was moonlight, and I walked about,
perhaps for an hour."

"Did you meet any one?"

"Not that I recollect. I walked out of town, on the turnpike."

"When you returned to your boarding-house, did you meet any one?"

"No, I let myself in with a pass-key. The family had retired, with
the exception of Mr. Pinkham."

"Then you saw him?"

"No, but I heard him; he was playing on the flute at his chamber
window, or near it. He always plays on the flute when he can't
sleep."

"What o'clock was that?"

"It must have been after eleven."

"Your stroll was confined to the end of the town most remote from
Welch's Court?"

"Yes, I just cruised around on the outskirts."

"I wish you had spoken with somebody that night."

"The streets were deserted. I wasn't likely to meet persons on the
turnpike."

"However, some one may have seen you without your knowing it?"

"Yes," said Richard curtly. He was growing restive under these
interrogations, the drift of which was plain enough to be
disagreeable. Moreover, Mr. Perkins had insensibly assumed the tone
and air of a counsel cross-examining a witness on the other side.
This nocturnal cruise, whose direction and duration were known only
to young Shackford, struck Lawyer Perkins unpleasantly. He meditated
a moment before putting the next question.

"Were you on good terms--I mean fairly good terms--with your
cousin?"

"No," said Richard; "but the fault was not mine. He never liked
me. As a child I annoyed him, I suppose, and when I grew up I
offended him by running away to sea. My mortal offense, however, was
accepting a situation in Slocum's Yard. I have been in my cousin's
house only twice in three years."

"When was the last time?"

"A day or two previous to the strike."

"As you were not in the habit of visiting the house, you must have
had some purpose in going there. What was the occasion?"

Richard hung his head thoughtfully. "I went there to talk over
family matters,--to inform him of my intended marriage to Margaret
Slocum. I wanted his good-will and support. Mr. Slocum had offered to
take me into the business. I thought perhaps my cousin Lemuel, seeing
how prosperous I was, would be more friendly to me."

"Did you wish him to lend you capital?"

"I didn't expect or wish him to; but there was some question of
that."

"And he refused?"

"Rather brutally, if I may say so now."

"Was there a quarrel?"

Richard hesitated.

"Of course I don't press you," said Mr. Perkins, with some
stiffness. "You are not on the witness stand."

"I began to think I was--in the prisoner's dock," answered
Richard, smiling ruefully. "However, I have nothing to conceal. I
hesitated to reply to you because it was painful for me to reflect
that the last time I saw my cousin we parted in anger. He charge me
with attempting to overreach him, and I left the house in
indignation."

"That was the last time you saw him?"

"The last time I saw him alive."

"Was there any communication between you two after that?"

"No."

"None whatever?"

"None."

"Are you quite positive?"

"As positive as I can be that I live and have my senses."

Lawyer Perkins pulled a black strand of hair over his forehead,
and remained silent for nearly a minute.

"Mr. Shackford, are you sure that your cousin did not write a note
to you on the Monday preceding the night of his death?"

"He may have written a dozen, for all I know. I only know that I
never received a note or a letter from him in the whole course of my
life."

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