Gabriel Conroy

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH MR. DUMPHY TAKES POINSETT INTO HIS CONFIDENCE

The cool weather of the morning following Mr. Dumphy's momentous interview with Colonel Starbottle, contributed somewhat to restore the former gentleman's tranquillity, which had been considerably disturbed. He had, moreover, a vague recollection of having invited Colonel Starbottle to visit him socially, and a nervous dread of meeting this man, whose audacity was equal to his own, in the company of others. Braced, however, by the tonic of the clear exhilarating air, and sustained by the presence of his clerks and the respectful homage of his business associates, he despatched a note to Arthur Poinsett requesting an interview. Punctually at the hour named that gentleman presented himself, and was languidly surprised when Mr. Dumphy called his clerk and gave positive orders that their interview was not to be disturbed and to refuse admittance to all other visitors. And then Mr. Dumphy, in a peremptory, practical statement which his business habits and temperament had brought to a perfection that Arthur could not help admiring, presented the details of his interview with Colonel Starbottle. "Now, I want you to help me. I have sent to you for that business purpose. You understand, this is not a matter for the Bank's regular counsel. Now what do you propose?"

"First, let me ask you, do you believe your wife is living?"

"No," said Dumphy, promptly, "but of course I don't know."

"Then let me relieve your mind at once, and tell you that she is not."

"You know this to be a fact?" asked Dumphy.

"I do. The body supposed to be Grace Conroy's and so identified, was your wife's. I recognised it at once, knowing Grace Conroy to have been absent at the culmination of the tragedy."

"And why did you not correct the mistake?"

"That is my business," said Arthur, haughtily, "and I believe I have been invited here to attend to yours. Your wife is dead."

"Then," said Mr. Dumphy, rising with a brisk business air, "if you are willing to testify to that fact, I reckon there is nothing more to be done."

Arthur did not rise, but sat watching Mr. Dumphy with an unmoved face. After a moment Mr. Dumphy sat down again, and looked aggressively but nervously at Arthur. "Well," he said, at last.

"Is that all?" asked Arthur, quietly; "are you willing to go on and establish the fact?"

"Don't know what you mean!" said Dumphy, with an attempted frankness which failed signally.

"One moment, Mr. Dumphy. You are a shrewd business man. Now do you suppose the person – whoever he or she may be, who has sent Colonel Starbottle to you, relies alone upon your inability to legally prove your wife's death? May they not calculate somewhat on your indisposition to prove it legally; on the theory that you'd rather not open the case, for instance?"

Mr. Dumphy hesitated a moment and bit his lip. "Of course," he said, shortly, "there'd be some talk among my enemies about my deserting my wife" —

"And child," suggested Arthur.

"And child," repeated Dumphy, savagely, "and not coming back again – there'd be suthin' in the papers about it, unless I paid 'em, but what's that! – deserting one's wife isn't such a new thing in California."

"That is so," said Arthur, with a sarcasm that was none the less sincere because he felt its applicability to himself.

"But we're not getting on," said Mr. Dumphy, impatiently. "What's to be done? That's what I've sent to you for."

"Now that we know it is not your wife– we must find out who it is that stands back of Colonel Starbottle. It is evidently some one who knows, at least, as much as we do of the facts; we are lucky if they know no more. Can you think of any one? Who are the survivors? Let's see; you, myself, possibly Grace" —

"It couldn't be Grace Conroy, really alive!" interrupted Dumphy hastily.

"No," said Arthur, quietly, "you remember she was not present at the time."

"Gabriel?"

"I hardly think so. Besides, he is a friend of yours."

"It couldn't be" – Dumphy stopped in his speech, with a certain savage alarm in his looks. Arthur noticed it – and quietly went on.

"Who 'couldn't' it be?"

"Nothing – nobody. I was only thinking if Gabriel or somebody could have told the story to some designing rascal."

"Hardly – in sufficient detail."

"Well," said Dumphy, with his coarse bark-like laugh, "if I've got to pay to see Mrs. Dumphy decently buried, I suppose I can rely upon you to see that it's done without a chance of resurrection. Find out who Starbottle's friend is and how much he or she expects. If I've got to pay for this thing I'll do it now, and get the benefit of absolute silence. So I'll leave it in your hands," and he again rose as if dismissing the subject and his visitor, after his habitual business manner.

"Dumphy," said Arthur, still keeping his own seat, and ignoring the significance of Dumphy's manner. "There are two professions that suffer from a want of frankness in the men who seek their services. Those professions are Medicine and the Law. I can understand why a man seeks to deceive his physician, because he is humbugging himself; but I can't see why he is not frank to his lawyer! You are no exception to the rule. You are now concealing from me, whose aid you have sought, some very important reason why you wish to have this whole affair hidden beneath the snow of Starvation Camp."

"Don't know what you're driving at," said Dumphy. But he sat down again.

"Well, listen to me, and perhaps I can make my meaning clearer. My acquaintance with the late Dr. Devarges began some months before we saw you. During our intimacy he often spoke to me of his scientific discoveries, in which I took some interest, and I remember seeing among his papers frequent records and descriptions of localities in the foot-hills, which he thought bore the indications of great mineral wealth. At that time the Doctor's theories and speculations appeared to me to be visionary, and the records of no value. Nevertheless, when we were shut up in Starvation Camp, and it seemed doubtful if the Doctor would survive his discoveries, at his request I deposited his papers and specimens in a cairn at Monument Point. After the catastrophe, on my return with the relief party to camp, we found that the cairn had been opened by some one and the papers and specimens scattered on the snow. We supposed this to have been the work of Mrs. Brackett, who, in search of food, had broken the cairn, taken out the specimens, and died from the effects of the poison with which they had been preserved."

He paused and looked at Dumphy, who did not speak.

"Now," continued Arthur, "like all Californians I have followed your various successes with interest and wonder. I have noticed, with the gratification that all your friends experience, the singular good fortune which has distinguished your mining enterprises, and the claims you have located. But I have been cognisant of a fact, unknown I think to any other of your friends, that nearly all of the localities of your successful claims, by a singular coincidence, agree with the memorandums of Dr. Devarges!"

Dumphy sprang to his feet with a savage, brutal laugh. "So," he shouted, coarsely, "that's the game, is it! So it seems I'm lucky in coming to you – no trouble in finding this woman now, hey? Well, go on, this is getting interesting; let's hear the rest! What are your propositions, what if I refuse, hey?"

"My first proposition," said Arthur, rising to his feet with a cold wicked light in his grey eyes, "is that you shall instantly take that speech back and beg my pardon! If you refuse, by the living God, I'll throttle you where you stand!"

For one wild moment all the savage animal in Dumphy rose, and he instinctively made a step in the direction of Poinsett. Arthur did not move. Then Mr. Dumphy's practical caution asserted itself. A physical personal struggle with Arthur would bring in witnesses – witnesses perhaps of something more than that personal struggle. If he were victorious, Arthur, unless killed outright, would revenge himself by an exposure. He sank back in his chair again. Had Arthur known the low estimate placed upon his honour by Mr. Dumphy he would have been less complacent in his victory.

"I didn't mean to suspect you," said Dumphy at last, with a forced smile, "I hope you'll excuse me. I know you're my friend. But you're all wrong about these papers; you are, Poinsett, I swear. I know if the fact were known to outsiders it would look queer if not explained. But whose business is it, anyway, legally, I mean?"

"No one's, unless Devarges has friends or heirs."

"He hadn't any."

"There's that wife!"

"Bah! – she was divorced!"

"Indeed! You told me on our last interview that she really was the widow of Devarges."

"Never mind that now," said Dumphy, impatiently. "Look here! You know as well as I do that no matter how many discoveries Devarges made, they weren't worth a d – n if he hadn't done some work on them – improved or opened them."

"But that is not the point at issue just now," said Arthur. "Nobody is going to contest your claim or sue you for damages. But they might try to convict you of a crime. They might say that breaking into the cairn was burglary, and the taking of the papers theft."

"But how are they going to prove that?"

"No matter. Listen to me, and don't let us drift away from the main point. The question that concerns you is this. An impostor sets up a claim to be your wife; you and I know she is an impostor, and can prove it. She knows that, but knows also that in attempting to prove it you lay yourself open to some grave charges which she doubtless stands ready to make."

"Well, then, the first thing to do is to find out who she is, what she knows, and what she wants, eh?" said Dumphy.

"No," said Arthur, quietly, "the first thing to do is to prove that your wife is really dead, and to do that you must show that Grace Conroy was alive when the body purporting to be hers, but which was really your wife's, was discovered. Once establish that fact and you destroy the credibility of the Spanish reports, and you need not fear any revelation from that source regarding the missing papers. And that is the only source from which evidence against you can be procured. But when you destroy the validity of that report, you of course destroy the credibility of all concerned in making it. And as I was concerned in making it, of course it won't do for you to put me on the stand."

Notwithstanding Dumphy's disappointment, he could not help yielding to a sudden respect for the superior rascal who thus cleverly slipped out of responsibility. "But," added Arthur, coolly, "you'll have no difficulty in establishing the fact of Grace's survival by others."

Dumphy thought at once of Ramirez. Here was a man who had seen and conversed with Grace when she had, in the face of the Spanish Commander, indignantly asserted her identity and the falsity of the report. No witness could be more satisfactory and convincing. But to make use of him he must first take Arthur into his confidence; must first expose the conspiracy of Madame Devarges to personate Grace, and his own complicity with the transaction. He hesitated. Nevertheless, he had been lately tortured by a suspicion that the late Madame Devarges was in some way connected with the later conspiracy against himself, and he longed to avail himself of Arthur's superior sagacity, and after a second reflection he concluded to do it. With the same practical conciseness of statement that he had used in relating Colonel Starbottle's interview with himself, he told the story of Madame Devarges' brief personation of Grace Conroy, and its speedy and felicitous ending in Mrs. Conroy. Arthur listened with unmistakable interest and a slowly brightening colour. When Dumphy had concluded he sat for a moment apparently lost in thought.

"Well?" at last said Dumphy, interrogatively and impatiently.

Arthur started. "Well," he said, rising, and replacing his hat with the air of a man who had thoroughly exhausted his subject, "your frankness has saved me a world of trouble."

"How?" said Dumphy.

"There is no necessity for looking any further for your alleged wife. She exists at present as Mrs. Conroy, alias Madame Devarges, alias Grace Conroy. Ramirez is your witness. You couldn't have a more willing one."

"Then my suspicions are correct."

"I don't know on what you based them. But here is a woman who has unlimited power over men, particularly over one man, Gabriel! – who alone, of all men but ourselves, knows the facts regarding your desertion of your wife in Starvation Camp, her death, and the placing of Dr. Devarges' private papers by me in the cairn. He knows, too, of your knowledge of the existence of the cairn, its locality, and contents. He knows this because he was in the cabin that night when the Doctor gave me his dying injunctions regarding his property – the night that you – excuse me, Dumphy, but nothing but frankness will save us now – the night that you stood listening at the door and frightened Grace with your wolfish face. Don't speak! she told me all about it! Your presence there that night gained you the information that you have used so profitably; it was your presence that fixed her wavering resolves and sent her away with me."

Both men had become very pale and earnest. Arthur moved toward the door. "I will see you to-morrow, when I will have matured some plan of defence," he said, abstractedly. "We have" – he used the plural of advocacy with a peculiar significance – "We have a clever woman to fight who may be more than our match. Meantime, remember that Ramirez is our defence; he is our man, Dumphy, hold fast to him as you would to your life. Good-day."

In another moment he was gone. As the door closed upon him a clerk entered hastily from the outer office. "You said not to disturb you, sir, and here is an important despatch waiting for you from Wingdam."

Mr. Dumphy took it mechanically, opened it, read the first line, and then said hurriedly, "Run after that man, quick! – Stop! Wait a moment. You need not go! There, that will do!"

The clerk hurriedly withdrew into the outer office. Mr. Dumphy went back to his desk again, and once more devoured the following lines: —

"Wingdam, 7th, 6 A.M. – Victor Ramirez murdered last night on Conroy's Hill. Gabriel Conroy arrested. Mrs. Conroy missing. Great excitement here; strong feeling against Gabriel. Wait instructions. – Fitch."

At first Mr. Dumphy only heard as an echo beating in his brain, the parting words of Arthur Poinsett, "Ramirez is our defence; hold fast to him as you would your life." And now he was dead – gone; their only witness; killed by Gabriel the plotter! What more was wanted to justify his worst suspicions? What should they do? He must send after Poinsett again; the plan of defence must be changed at once; to-morrow might be too late. Stop!

One of his accusers in prison charged with a capital crime! The other – the real murderer – for Dumphy made no doubt that Mrs. Conroy was responsible for the deed – a fugitive from justice! What need of any witness now? The blow that crippled these three conspirators had liberated him! For a moment Mr. Dumphy was actually conscious of a paroxysm of gratitude toward some indefinitely Supreme Being – a God of special providence – special to himself! More than this, there was that vague sentiment, common, I fear, to common humanity in such crises, that this Providence was a tacit endorsement of himself. It was the triumph of Virtue (Dumphy) over Vice (Conroy et al.).

But there would be a trial, publicity, and the possible exposure of certain things by a man whom danger might make reckless. And could he count upon Mrs. Conroy's absence or neutrality? He was conscious that her feeling for her husband was stronger than he had supposed, and she might dare everything to save him. What had a woman of that kind to do with such weakness? Why hadn't she managed it so as to kill Gabriel too? There was an evident want of practical completeness in this special Providence that, as a business man, Mr. Dumphy felt he could have regulated. And then he was seized with an idea – a damnable inspiration! – and set himself briskly to write. I regret to say that despite the popular belief in the dramatic character of all villany, Mr. Dumphy at this moment presented only the commonplace spectacle of an absorbed man of business; no lurid light gleamed from his pale blue eyes; no Satanic smile played around the corners of his smoothly shaven mouth; no feverish exclamation stirred his moist, cool lips. He wrote methodically and briskly, without deliberation or undue haste. When he had written half-a-dozen letters he folded and sealed them, and without summoning his clerk, took them himself into the outer office and thence into the large counting-room. The news of the murder had evidently got abroad; the clerks were congregated together, and the sound of eager, interested voices ceased as the great man entered and stood among them.

"Fitch, you and Judson will take the quickest route to One Horse Gulch to-night. Don't waste any time on the road or spare any expense. When you get there deliver these letters, and take your orders from my correspondents. Pick up all the details you can about this affair and let me know. What's your balance at the Gulch, Mr. Peebles? never mind the exact figures!"

"Larger than usual, sir, some heavy deposits!"

"Increase your balance then if there should be any d – d fools who connect the Bank with this matter."

"I suppose," said Mr. Fitch, respectfully, "we're to look after your foreman, Mr. Conroy, sir?"

"You are to take your orders from my correspondent, Mr. Fitch, and not to interfere in any way with public sentiment. We have nothing to do with the private acts of anybody. Justice will probably be done to Conroy. It is time that these outrages upon the reputation of the California miner should be stopped. When the fame of a whole community is prejudiced and business injured by the rowdyism of a single ruffian," said Mr. Dumphy, raising his voice slightly as he discovered the interested and absorbed presence of some of his most respectable customers, "it is time that prompt action should be taken." In fact, he would have left behind him a strong Roman flavour and a general suggestion of Brutus, had he not unfortunately effected an anti-climax by adding, "that's business, sir," as he retired to his private office.