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The Stillwater Tragedy

T >> Thomas Bailey Aldrich >> The Stillwater Tragedy




"Then how do you account for the letter which has been found in
your rooms in Lime Street,--a letter addressed to you by Lemuel
Shackford, and requesting you to call at his house on that fatal
Tuesday night?"

"I--I know nothing about it," stammered Richard. "There is no such
paper!"

"It was in this office less than one hour ago," said Lawyer
Perkins sternly. "It was brought here for me to identify Lemuel
Shackford's handwriting. Justice Beemis has that paper!"

"Justice Beemis has it!" exclaimed Richard.

"I have nothing more to say," observed Lawyer Perkins, reaching
out his hand towards the green bag, as a sign that the interview was
ended. "There were other points I wished to have some light thrown
on; but I have gone far enough to see that it is useless."

"What more is there?" demanded Richard in a voice that seemed to
come through a fog. "I insist on knowing! You suspect me of my
cousin's murder?"

"Mr. Taggett does."

"And you?"

"I am speaking of Mr. Taggett."

"Well, go on, speak of him," said Richard desperately. "What else
has he discovered?"

Mr. Perkins wheeled his chair round until he faced the young man.

"He has discovered in your workshop a chisel with a peculiar break
in the edge,--a deep notch in the middle of the bevel. With that
chisel Lemuel Shackford was killed."

Richard gave a perceptible start, and put his hand to his head, as
if a sudden confused memory had set the temples throbbing.

"A full box of safety matches," continued Mr. Perkins, in a cold,
measured voice, as though he were demonstrating a mathematical
problem, "contains one hundred matches. Mr. Taggett has discovered a
box that contains only ninety-nine. The missing match was used that
night in Welch's Court."

Richard stared at him blankly. "What can I say?" he gasped.

"Say nothing to me," returned Lawyer Perkins, hastily thrusting a
handful of loose papers into the open throat of the green bag, which
he garroted an instant afterwards with a thick black cord. Then he
rose flurriedly from the chair. "I shall have to leave you," he said;
"I've an appointment at the surrogate's."

And Lawyer Perkins passed stiffly from the apartment.

Richard lingered a moment alone in the room with his chin resting
on his breast.






XXVI





There was a fire in Richard's temples as he reeled out of Lawyer
Perkins's office. It was now twelve o'clock, and the streets were
thronged with the motley population disgorged by the various mills
and workshops. Richard felt that every eye was upon him; he was
conscious of something wild in his aspect that must needs attract the
attention of the passers-by. At each step he half expected the
leveling of some accusing finger. The pitiless sunshine seemed to
single him out and stream upon him like a calcium light. It was
intolerable. He must get away from this jostling crowd, this babel of
voices. What should he do, where should he go? To return to the yard
and face the workmen was not to be thought of; if he went to his
lodgings he would be called to dinner, and have to listen to the
inane prattle of the school-master. That would be even more
intolerable than this garish daylight, and these careless squads of
men and women who paused in the midst of their laugh to turn and
stare. Was there no spot in Stillwater where a broken man could hide
himself long enough to collect his senses?

With his hands thrust convulsively into the pockets of his
sack-coat, Richard turned down a narrow passage-way fringing the rear
of some warehouses. As he hurried along aimlessly his fingers
encountered something in one of his pockets. It was the key of a new
lock which had been put on the scullery door of the house in Welch's
Court. Richard's heart gave a quick throb. There at least was a
temporary refuge; he would go there and wait until it was time for
him to surrender himself to the officers.

It appeared to Richard that he was nearly a year reaching the
little back yard of the lonely house. He slipped into the scullery
and locked the door, wondering if his movements had been observed
since he quitted the main street. Here he drew a long breath and
looked around him; then he began wandering restlessly through the
rooms, of which there were five or six on the ground-floor. The
furniture, the carpets, and all the sordid fixtures of the house were
just as Richard had known them in his childhood. Everything was
unchanged, even to the faded peacock-feather stuck over the parlor
looking-glass. As he regarded the familiar objects and breathed the
snuffy atmosphere peculiar to the place, the past rose so vividly
before him that he would scarcely have been startled if a lean, gray
old man had suddenly appeared in one of the doorways. On a peg in the
front hall hung his cousin's napless beaver hat, satirically ready to
be put on; in the kitchen closet a pair of ancient shoes, worn down
at the heel and with taps on the toe, had all the air of intending to
step forth. The shoes had been carefully blacked, but a thin skin of
mould had gathered over them. They looked like Lemuel Shackford. They
had taken a position habitual with him. Richard was struck by the
subtile irony which lay in these inanimate things. That a man's hat
should outlast the man, and have a jaunty expression of triumph! That
a dead man's shoes should mimic him!

The tall eight-day clock on the landing had run down. It had
stopped at twelve, and it now stood with solemnly uplifted finger, as
if imposing silence on those small, unconsidered noises which
commonly creep out, like mice, only at midnight. The house was full
of such stealthy sounds. The stairs creaked at intervals,
mysteriously, as if under the weight of some heavy person ascending.
Now and then the woodwork stretched itself with a snap, as though it
had grown stiff in the joints with remaining so long in one position.
At times there were muffled reverberations of footfalls on the
flooring overhead. Richard had a curious consciousness of not being
alone, but of moving in the midst of an invisible throng of persons
who elbowed him softly and breathed in his face, and vaguely
impressed themselves upon him as being former occupants of the
premises. This populous solitude, this silence with its busy
interruptions, grew insupportable as he passed from room to room.

One chamber he did not enter,--the chamber in which his cousin's
body was found that Wednesday morning. In Richard's imagination it
was still lying there, white and piteous, by the hearth. He paused at
the threshold and glanced in; then turned abruptly and mounted the
staircase.

On gaining his old apartment in the gable, Richard seated himself
on the edge of the cot-bed. His shoulders sagged down and a stupefied
expression settled upon his face, but his brain was in a tumult. His
own identity was become a matter of doubt to him. Was he the same
Richard Shackford who had found life so sweet when he awoke that
morning? IT must have been some other person who had sat by a window
in the sunrise thinking of Margaret Slocum's love,--some Richard
Shackford with unstained hands! This one was accused of murdering his
kinsman; the weapon with which he had done it, the very match he had
used to light him in the deed, were known! The victim himself had
written out the accusation in black and white. Richard's brain reeled
as he tried to fix his thought on Lemuel Shackford's letter. That
letter!--where had it been all this while, and how did it come into
Taggett's possession? Only one thing was clear to Richard in his
inextricable confusion,--he was not going to be able to prove his
innocence; he was a doomed man, and within the hour his shame would
be published to the world. Rowland Slocum and Lawyer Perkins had
already condemned him, and Margaret would condemn him when she knew
all; for it was evident that up to last evening she had not been
told. How did it happen that these overwhelming proofs had rolled
themselves up against him? What malign influences were these at work,
hurrying him on to destruction, and not leaving a single loophole of
escape? Who would believe the story of his innocent ramble on the
turnpike that Tuesday night? Who could doubt that he had gone
directly from the Slocums' to Welch's Court, and then crept home
red-handed through the deserted streets?

Richard heard the steam-whistles recalling the operatives to work,
and dimly understood it was one o'clock; but after that he paid no
attention to the lapse of time. It was an hour later, perhaps two
hours,--Richard could not tell,--when he roused himself from his
stupor, and descending the stairs passed through the kitchen into the
scullery. There he halted and leaned against the sink, irresolute, as
though his purpose, if he had had a purpose, were escaping him. He
stood with his eyes resting listlessly on a barrel in the further
corner of the apartment. It was a heavy-hooped wine-cask, in which
Lemuel Shackford had been wont to keep his winter's supply of salted
meat. Suddenly Richard started forward with an inarticulate cry, and
at the same instant there came a loud knocking at the door behind
him. The sound reverberated through the empty house, filling the
place with awful echoes,--like those knocks at the gate of Macbeth's
castle the night of Duncan's murder. Richard stood petrified for a
second; then he hastily turned the key in the lock, and Mr. Taggett
stepped into the scullery.

The two men exchanged swift glances. The bewildered air of a
moment before had passed from Richard; the dullness had faded out of
his eyes, leaving them the clear, alert expression they ordinarily
wore. He was self-possessed, but the effort his self-possession cost
him was obvious. There was a something in his face--a dilation of the
nostril, a curve of the under lip--which put Mr. Taggett very much on
his guard. Mr. Taggett was the first to speak.

"I've a disagreeable mission here," he said slowly, with his hand
remaining on the latch of the door, which he had closed on entering.
"I have a warrant for your arrest, Mr. Shackford."

"Stop a moment!" said Richard, with a glow in his eyes. "I have
something to say."

"I advise you not to make any statement."

"I understand my position perfectly, Mr. Taggett, and I shall
disregard the advice. After you have answered me one or two
questions, I shall be quite at your service."

"If you insist, then."

"You were present at the examination of Thomas Blufton and William
Durgin, were you not?"

"I was."

"You recollect William Durgin's testimony?"

"Most distinctly."

"He stated that the stains on his clothes were from a certain
barrel, the head of which had been freshly painted red."

"I remember."

"Mr. Taggett, _the head of that barrel was painted blue!"_






XXVII





Mr. Taggett, in spite of the excellent subjection under which he
held his nerves, caught his breath at these words, and a transient
pallor overspread his face as he followed the pointing of Richard's
finger. If William Durgin had testified falsely on that point, if he
had swerved a hair's-breadth from the truth in that matter, then
there was but one conclusion to be drawn from his perjury. A flash of
lightning is not swifter than was Mr. Taggett's thought in grasping
the situation. In an instant he saw all his carefully articulated
case fall to pieces in his hands. Richard crossed the narrow room,
and stood in front of him.

"Mr. Taggett, do you know why William Durgin lied? He lied because
it was life or death with him! In a moment of confusion he had
committed one of those simple, fatal blunders which men in his
circumstances always commit. He had obliterated the spots on his
clothes with red paint, when he ought to have used blue!"

"That is a very grave supposition."

"It is not a supposition," cried Richard. "The daylight is not a
plainer fact."

"You are assuming too much, Mr. Shackford."

"I am assuming nothing. Durgin has convicted himself; he has
fallen into a trap of his own devising. I charge him with the murder
of Lemuel Shackford; I charge him with taking the chisel and the
matches from my workshop, to which he had free access; and I charge
him with replacing those articles in order to divert suspicion upon
me. My unfortunate relations with my cousin gave color to this
suspicion. The plan was an adroit plan, and has succeeded, it seems."

Mr. Taggett did not reply at once, and then very coldly: "You will
pardon me for suggesting it, but it will be necessary to ascertain if
this is the cask which Durgin hoped, and also if the head has not
been repainted since."

"I understand what your doubt implies. It is your duty to assure
yourself of these facts, and nothing can be easier. The person who
packed the meat--it was probably a provision dealer named
Stubbs--will of course be able to recognize his own work. The other
question you can settle with a scratch of your penknife. You see.
There has been only one thin coat of paint laid on,--the grain of the
wood is nearly distinguishable through it. The head is evidently new;
but the cask itself is an old one. It has stood here these ten
years."

Mr. Taggett bent a penetrating look on Richard. "Why did you
refuse to answer the subpoena, Mr. Shackford?"

"But I haven't refused. I was on my way to Justice Beemis's office
when you knocked. Perhaps I am a trifle late," added Richard,
catching Mr. Taggett's distrustful glance.

"The summons said two o'clock," remarked Mr. Taggett, pressing the
spring of his watch. "It is now after three."

"After three!"

"How could you neglect it,--with evidence of such presumable
importance in your hands?"

"It was only a moment ago that I discovered this. I had come here
from Mr. Perkins's office. Mr. Perkins had informed me of the
horrible charge which was to be laid at my door. The intelligence
fell upon me like a thunder-clap. I think it unsettled my reason for
a while. I was unable to put two ideas together. At first he didn't
believe I had killed my cousin, and presently he seemed to believe
it. When I got out in the street the sidewalk lurched under my feet
like the deck of a ship; everything swam before me. I don't know how
I managed to reach this house, and I don't know how long I had been
sitting in a room up-stairs when the recollection of the subpoena
occurred to me. I was standing here dazed with despair; I saw that I
was somehow caught in the toils, and that it was going to be
impossible to prove my innocence. If another man had been in my
position, I should have believed him guilty. I stood looking at the
cask in the corner there, scarcely conscious of it; then I noticed
the blue paint on the head, and then William Durgin's testimony
flashed across my mind. Where is he?" cried Richard, turning swiftly.
"That man should be arrested!"

"I am afraid he is gone," said Mr. Taggett, biting his lip.

"Do you mean he has fled?"

"If you are correct--he has fled. He failed to answer the summons
to-day, and the constable sent to look him up has been unable to find
him. Durgin was in the bar-room of the tavern at eight o'clock last
night; he has not been seen since."

"He was not in the yard this morning. You have let him slip
through your fingers."

"So it appears, for the moment."

"You still doubt me, Mr. Taggett?"

"I don't let persons slip through my fingers."

Richard curbed an impatient rejoinder, and said quietly, "William
Durgin had an accomplice."

Mr. Taggett flushed, as if Richard had read his secret thought.
Durgin's flight, if he really had fled, had suggested a fresh
possibility to Mr. Taggett. What if Durgin were merely the pliant
instrument of the cleverer man who was now using him as a shield?
This reflection was precisely in Mr. Taggett's line. In absconding
Durgin had not only secured his own personal safety, but had
exonerated his accomplice. It was a desperate step to take, but it
was a skillful one.

"He had an accomplice?" repeated Mr. Taggett, after a moment. "Who
was it?"

"Torrini!"

"The man who was hurt the other day?"

"Yes."

"You have grounds for your assertion?"

"He and Durgin were intimate, and have been much together lately.
I sat up with Torrini the night before last; he acted and talked very
strangely; the man was out of his head part of the time, but now, as
I think it over, I am convinced that he had this matter on his mind,
and was hinting at it. I believe he would have made disclosures if I
had urged him a little. He was evidently in great dread of a visit
from some person, and that person was Durgin. Torrini ought to be
questioned without delay; he is very low, and may die at any moment.
He is lying in a house at the further end of the town. If it is not
imperative that I should report myself to Justice Beemis, we had
better go there at once."

Mr. Taggett, who had been standing with his head half bowed,
lifted it quickly as he asked the question, "Why did you withhold
Lemuel Shackford's letter?"

"It was never in my possession, Mr. Taggett," said Richard,
starting. "That paper is something I cannot explain at present. I can
hardly believe in its existence, though Mr. Perkins declares that he
has had it in his hands, and it would be impossible for him to make a
mistake in my cousin's writing."

"The letter was found in your lodgings."

"So I was told. I don't understand it."

"That explanation will not satisfy the prosecuting attorney."

"I have only one theory about it," said Richard slowly.

"What is that?"

"I prefer not to state it now. I wish to stop at my boarding-house
on the way to Torrini's; it will not be out of our course."

Mr. Taggett gave silent acquiescence to this. Richard opened the
scullery door, and the two passed into the court. Neither spoke until
they reached Lime Street. Mrs. Spooner herself answered Richard's
ring, for he had purposely dispensed with the use of his pass-key.

"I wanted to see you a moment, Mrs. Spooner," said Richard, making
no motion to enter the hall. "Thanks, we will not come in. I merely
desire to ask you a question. Were you at home all day on that Monday
immediately preceding my cousin's death?"

"No," replied Mrs. Spooner wonderingly, with her hand still resting
on the knob. "I wasn't at home at all. I spent the day and part of the
night with my daughter Maria Ann at South Millville. It was a boy,"
added Mrs. Spooner, quite irrelevantly, smoothing her ample apron with
the disengaged hand.

"Then Janet was at home," said Richard. "Call Janet."

A trim, intelligent-looking Nova Scotia girl was summoned from the
basement kitchen.

"Janet," said Richard, "do you remember the day, about three weeks
ago, that Mrs. Spooner was absent at South Millville?"

"Yes," replied the girl, without hesitation. "It was the day
before"--and then she stopped.

"Exactly; it was the day before my cousin was killed. Now I want
you to recollect whether any letter or note or written message of any
description was left for me at this house on that day."

Janet reflected. "I think there was, Mr. Richard,--a bit of paper
like."

Mr. Taggett riveted his eyes on the girl.

"Who brought the paper?" demanded Richard.

"It was one of the Murphy boys, I think."

"Did you hand it to me?"

"No, Mr. Richard, you had gone out. It was just after breakfast."

"You gave it to me when I came home to dinner, then?"

"No," returned Janet, becoming confused with a dim perception that
something had gone wrong and she was committing herself.

"I remember, I didn't come home. I dined at the Slocums'. What did
you do with that paper?"

"I put it on the table in your room up-stairs."

Mr. Taggett's eyes gleamed a little at this.

"And that is all you can say about it?" inquired Richard, with a
fallen countenance.

Janet reflected. She reflected a long while this time. "No, Mr.
Shackford: an hour or so afterwards, when I went up to do the
chamber-work, I saw that the wind had blow the paper off of the
table. I picked up the note and put it back; but the wind blew it off
again."

"What then?"

"Then I shut up the note in one of the big books, meaning to tell
you of it, and--and I forgot it! Oh, Mr. Richard, have I done
something dreadful?"

"Dreadful!" cried Richard. "Janet, I could hug you!"

"Oh, Mr. Richard," said Janet with a little coquettish movement
natural to every feminine thing, bird, flower, or human being,
"you've always such a pleasant way with you."

Then there was a moment of dead silence. Mr. Spooner saw that the
matter, whatever it was, was settled.

"You needn't wait, Janet!" she said, with a severe, mystified air.

"We are greatly obliged to you, Mr. Spooner, not to mention
Janet," said Richard; "and if Mr. Taggett has no questions to ask we
will not detain you."

Mrs. Spooner turned her small amiable orbs on Richard's companion.
That silent little man Mr. Taggett! "He doesn't look like much," was
the landlady's unuttered reflection; and indeed he did not present a
spirited appearance. Nevertheless Mrs. Spooner followed him down the
street with her curious gaze until he and Richard passed out of
sight.

Neither Richard nor Mr. Taggett was disposed to converse as they
wended their way to Mitchell's Alley. Richard's ire was slowly
kindling at the shameful light in which he had been placed by Mr.
Taggett, and Mr. Taggett was striving with only partial success to
reconcile himself to the idea of young Shackford's innocence. Young
Shackford's innocence was a very awkward thing for Mr. Taggett, for
he had irretrievably committed himself at head-quarters. With
Richard's latent ire was mingled a feeling of profound gratitude.

"The Lord was on my side," he said presently.

"He was on your side, as you remark; and when the Lord is on a
man's side a detective necessarily comes out second best."

"Really, Mr. Taggett," said Richard, smiling, "that is a handsome
admission on your part."

"I mean, sir," replied the latter, slightly nettled, "that it
sometimes seems as if the Lord himself took charge of a case."

"Certainly you are entitled to the credit of going to the bottom
of this one."

"I have skillfully and laboriously damaged my reputation, Mr.
Shackford."

Mr. Taggett said this with so heavy an air that Richard felt a
stir of sympathy in his bosom.

"I am very sorry," he said good-naturedly.

"No, I beg of you!" exclaimed Mr. Taggett. "Any expression of
friendliness from you would finish me! For nearly ten days I have
looked upon you as a most cruel and consummate villain."

"I know," said Richard. "I must be quite a disappointment to you,
in a small way."

Mr. Taggett laughed in spite of himself. "I hope I don't take a
morbid view of it," he said. A few steps further on he relaxed his
gait. "We have taken the Hennessey girl into custody. Do you imagine
she was concerned?"

"Have you questioned her?"

"Yes; she denies everything, except that she told Durgin you had
quarreled with the old gentleman."

"I think Mary Hennessey an honest girl. She's little more than a
child. I doubt if she knew anything whatever. Durgin was much too
shrewd to trust her, I fancy."

As the speakers struck into the principal street, through the
lower and busier end of which they were obliged to pass, Mr. Taggett
caused a sensation. The drivers of carts and the pedestrians on both
sidewalks stopped and looked at him. The part he had played in
Slocum's Yard was now an open secret, and had produced an excitement
that was not confined to the clientèle of Snelling's bar-room. It was
known that William Durgin had disappeared, and tdhat the constables
were searching for him. The air was thick with flying projectures,
but none of them precisely hit the mark. One rumor there was which
seemed almost like a piece of poetical justice,--a whisper to the
effect that Rowland Slocum was suspected of being in some way mixed
up with the murder. The fact that Lawyer Perkins, with his green bag
streaming in the wind, so to speak, had been seen darting into Mr.
Slocum's private residence at two o'clock that afternoon was
sufficient to give birth to the horrible legend.

"Mitchell's Alley," said Mr. Taggett, thrusting his arm through
Richard's, and hurrying on the escape the Stillwater gaze. "You went
there directly from the station the night you got home."

"How did you know that?"

"I was told by a fellow-traveler of yours,--and a friend of mine."

"By Jove! Did it ever strike you, Mr. Taggett, that there is such
a thing as being too clever?"

"It has occurred to me recently."

"Here is the house."

Two sallow-skinned children, with wide, wistful black eyes, who
were sitting on the stone step, shyly crowded themselves together
against the door-jamb to make passage-way for Richard and Mr.
Taggett. Then the two pairs of eyes veered round inquiringly, and
followed the strangers up the broken staircase and saw one of them
knock at the door which faced the building.

Richard's hasty tap bringing no response, he lifted the latch
without further ceremony and stepped into the chamber, Mr. Taggett a
pace or two behind him. The figure of Father O'Meara slowly rising
from a kneeling posture at the bedside was the first object that met
their eyes; the second was Torrini's placid face, turned a little on
the pillow; the third was Brigida sitting at the foot of the bed,
motionless, with her arms wrapped in her apron.

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