Hand and Ring

"I will go for him," signified the other.

But it was not necessary. Scarcely had the lawyer turned to execute this mission, when a sudden murmur was heard at the door, and a dozen or so citizens burst into the house, among them the very person named. Being coroner as well as physician, he at once assumed authority. The widow was carried into her room, which was on the same floor, and a brother practitioner sent for, who took his place at her head and waited for any sign of returning consciousness. The crowd, remanded to the yard, spent their time alternately in furtive questionings of each other's countenances, and in eager look-out for the expected return of the strange young man who had been sent after the incomprehensible humpback of whom all had heard. The coroner, closeted with the District Attorney in the dining-room, busied himself in noting certain evident facts.

"I am, perhaps, forestalling my duties in interfering before the woman is dead," intimated the former. "But it is only a matter of a few hours, and any facts we can glean in the interim must be of value to a proper conduct of the inquiry I shall be called upon to hold. I shall therefore make the same note of the position of affairs as I would do if she were dead; and to begin with, I wish you to observe that she was hit while setting the clock." And he pointed to the open door of the huge old-fashioned timepiece which occupied that corner of the room in which she had been found. "She had not even finished her task," he next remarked, "for the clock is still ten minutes slow, while her watch is just right, as you will see by comparing it with your own. She was attacked from behind, and to all appearances unexpectedly. Had she turned, her forehead would have been struck, while, as all can see, it is the back of her head that has suffered, and that from a right-hand blow. Her deafness was undoubtedly the cause of her immobility under the approach of such an assailant. She did not hear his step, and, being so busily engaged, saw nothing of the cruel hand uplifted to destroy her. I doubt if she even knew what happened. The mystery is that any one could have sufficiently desired her death to engage in such a cold-blooded butchery. If plunder were wanted, why was not her watch taken from her? And see, here is a pile of small change lying beside her plate on the table, – a thing a tramp would make for at once."

"It was not a thief that struck her."

"Well, well, we don't know. I have my own theory," admitted the coroner; "but, of course, it will not do for me to mention it here. The stick was taken from that pile laid ready on the hearth," he went on. "Odd, significantly odd, that in all its essential details this affair should tally so completely with the supposable case of crime given a moment before by the deformed wretch you tell me about."

"Not if that man was a madman and the assailant," suggested the District Attorney.

"True, but I do not think he was mad – not from what you have told me. But let us see what the commotion is. Some one has evidently arrived."

It was Mr. Byrd, who had entered by the front door, and deaf to the low murmur of the impatient crowd without, stood waiting in silent patience for an opportunity to report to the District Attorney the results of his efforts.

Mr. Ferris at once welcomed him.

"What have you done? Did you find the constable or succeed in laying hands on that scamp of a humpback?"

Mr. Byrd, who, to explain at once, was a young and intelligent detective, who had been brought from New York for purposes connected with the case then before the court, glanced carefully in the direction of the coroner and quietly replied:

"The hump-backed scamp, as you call him, has disappeared. Whether he will be found or not I cannot say. Hunt is on his track, and will report to you in an hour. The tramp whom you saw slinking out of this street while we stood on the court-house steps is doubtless the man whom you most want, and him we have captured."

"You have?" repeated Mr. Ferris, eying, with good-natured irony, the young man's gentlemanly but rather indifferent face. "And what makes you think it is the tramp who is the guilty one in this case? Because that ingenious stranger saw fit to make him such a prominent figure in his suppositions?"

"No, sir," replied the detective, flushing with a momentary embarrassment he however speedily overcame; "I do not found my opinions upon any man's remarks. I only – Excuse me," said he, with a quiet air of self-control that was not without its effect upon the sensible man he was addressing. "If you will tell me how, where, and under what circumstances this poor murdered woman was found, perhaps I shall be better able to explain my reasons for believing in the tramp as the guilty party; though the belief, even of a detective, goes for but little in matters of this kind, as you and these other gentlemen very well know."

"Step here, then," signified Mr. Ferris, who, accompanied by the coroner, had already passed around the table. "Do you see that clock? She was winding it when she was struck, and fell almost at its foot. The weapon which did the execution lies over there; it is a stick of firewood, as you see, and was caught up from that pile on the hearth. Now recall what that humpback said about choosing a thoroughfare for a murder (and this house is a thoroughfare), and the peculiar stress which he laid upon the choice of a weapon, and tell me why you think he is innocent of this immediate and most remarkable exemplification of his revolting theory?"

"Let me first ask," ventured the other, with a remaining tinge of embarrassment coloring his cheek, "if you have reason to think this woman had been lying long where she was found, or was she struck soon before the discovery?"

"Soon. The dinner was still smoking in the kitchen, where it had been dished up ready for serving."

"Then," declared the detective with sudden confidence, "a single word will satisfy you that the humpback was not the man who delivered this stroke. To lay that woman low at the foot of this clock would require the presence of the assailant in the room. Now, the humpback was not here this morning, but in the court-room. I know this, for I saw him there."

"You did? You are sure of that?" cried, in a breath, both his hearers, somewhat taken aback by this revelation.

"Yes. He sat down by the door. I noticed him particularly."

"Humph! that is odd," quoth Mr. Ferris, with the testiness of an irritable man who sees himself contradicted in a publicly expressed theory.

"Very odd," repeated the coroner; "so odd, I am inclined to think he did not sit there every moment of the time. It is but a step from the court-house here; he might well have taken the trip and returned while you wiped your eye-glasses or was otherwise engaged."

Mr. Byrd did not see fit to answer this.

"The tramp is an ugly-looking customer," he remarked, in what was almost a careless tone of voice.

Mr. Ferris covered with his hand the pile of loose change that was yet lying on the table, and shortly observed:

"A tramp to commit such a crime must be actuated either by rage or cupidity; that you will acknowledge. Now the fellow who struck this woman could not have been excited by any sudden anger, for the whole position of her body when found proves that she had not even turned to face the intruder, much less engaged in an altercation with him. Yet how could it have been money he was after, when a tempting bit like this remained undisturbed upon the table?"

And Mr. Ferris, with a sudden gesture, disclosed to view the pile of silver coin he had been concealing.

The young detective shook his head but lost none of his seeming indifference. "That is one of the little anomalies of criminal experience that we were talking about this morning," he remarked. "Perhaps the fellow was frightened and lost his head, or perhaps he really heard some one at the door, and was obliged to escape without reaping any of the fruits of his crime."

"Perhaps and perhaps," retorted Mr. Ferris, who was a quick man, and who, once settled in a belief, was not to be easily shaken out of it.

"However that may be," continued Mr. Byrd, without seeming to notice the irritating interruption, "I still think that the tramp, rather than the humpback, will be the man to occupy your future attention."

And with a deprecatory bow to both gentlemen, he drew back and quietly left the room.

Mr. Ferris at once recovered from his momentary loss of temper.

"I suppose the young man is right," he acknowledged; "but, if so, what an encouragement we have received this morning to a belief in clairvoyance." And with less irony and more conviction, he added: "The humpback must have known something about the murder."

And the coroner bowed; common-sense undoubtedly agreeing with this assumption.

II.

AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN

Her step was royal – queen-like. – Longfellow.

IT was now half-past one. An hour and a half had elapsed since the widow had been laid upon her bed, and to all appearance no change had taken place in her condition. Within the room where she lay were collected the doctor and one or two neighbors of the female sex, who watched every breath she drew, and stood ready to notice the slightest change in the stony face that, dim with the shadow of death, stared upon them from the unruffled pillows. In the sitting-room Lawyer Orcutt conversed in a subdued voice with Mr. Ferris, in regard to such incidents of the widow's life as had come under his notice in the years of their daily companionship, while the crowd about the gate vented their interest in loud exclamations of wrath against the tramp who had been found, and the unknown humpback who had not. Our story leads us into the crowd in front.

"I don't think she'll ever come to," said one, who from his dusty coat might have been a miller. "Blows like that haven't much let-up about them."

"Doctor says she will die before morning," put in a pert young miss, anxious to have her voice heard.

"Then it will be murder and no mistake, and that brute of a tramp will hang as high as Haman."

"Don't condemn a man before you've had a chance to hear what he has to say for himself," cried another in a strictly judicial tone. "How do you know as he came to this house at all?"

"Miss Perkins says he did, and Mrs. Phillips too; they saw him go into the gate."

"And what else did they see? I warrant he wasn't the only beggar that was roaming round this morning."

"No; there was a tin peddler in the street, for I saw him my own self, and Mrs. Clemmens standing in the door flourishing her broom at him. She was mighty short with such folks. Wouldn't wonder if some of the unholy wretches killed her out of spite. They're a wicked lot, the whole of them."

"Widow Clemmens had a quick temper, but she had a mighty good heart notwithstanding. See how kind she was to them Hubbells."

"And how hard she was to that Pratt girl."

"Well, I know, but – " And so on and so on, in a hum and a buzz about the head of Mr. Byrd, who, engaged in thought seemingly far removed from the subject in hand, stood leaning against the fence, careless and insouciant. Suddenly there was a lull, then a short cry, then a woman's voice rose clear, ringing, and commanding, and Mr. Byrd caught the following words:

"What is this I hear? Mrs. Clemmens dead? Struck down by some wandering tramp? Murdered and in her own house?"

In an instant, every eye, including Mr. Byrd's, was fixed upon the speaker. The crowd parted, and the young girl, who had spoken from the street, came into the gate. She was a remarkable-looking person. Tall, large, and majestic in every proportion of an unusually noble figure, she was of a make and possessed a bearing to attract attention had she borne a less striking and beautiful countenance. As it was, the glance lingered but a moment on the grand curves and lithe loveliness of that matchless figure, and passed at once to the face. Once there, it did not soon wander; for though its beauty was incontestable, the something that lay behind that beauty was more incontestable still, and held you, in spite of yourself, long after you had become acquainted with the broad white brow, the clear, deep, changing gray eye, the straight but characteristic nose, and the ruddy, nervous lip. You felt that, young and beautiful as she was, and charming as she might be, she was also one of nature's unsolvable mysteries – a woman whom you might study, obey, adore, but whom you could never hope to understand; a Sphinx without an Œdipus. She was dressed in dark green, and held her gloves in her hand. Her appearance was that of one who had been profoundly startled.