VI.
THE SKILL OF AN ARTIST
A hit, a very palpable hit. – Hamlet.
HE found it occupied by some half-dozen men, one of whom immediately attracted his attention, by his high-bred air and total absorption in the paper he was reading. He was evidently a stranger, and, though not without some faint marks of a tendency to gentlemanly dissipation, was, to say the least, more than ordinarily good-looking, possessing a large, manly figure, and a fair, regular-featured face, above which shone a thick crop of short curly hair of a peculiarly bright blond color. He was sitting at a small table, drawn somewhat apart from the rest, and was, as I have said, engrossed with a newspaper, to the utter exclusion of any apparent interest in the talk that was going on at the other end of the room. And yet this talk was of the most animated description, and was seemingly of a nature to attract the attention of the most indifferent. At all events Mr. Byrd considered it so; and, after one comprehensive glance at the elegant stranger, that took in not only the personal characteristics I have noted, but also the frown of deep thought or anxious care that furrowed a naturally smooth forehead, he passed quietly up the room and took his stand among the group of loungers there assembled.
Mr. Byrd was not unknown to the habitués of that place, and no cessation took place in the conversation. They were discussing an occurrence slight enough in itself, but made interesting and dramatic by the unconscious enthusiasm of the chief speaker, a young fellow of indifferent personal appearance, but with a fervid flow of words and a knack at presenting a subject that reminded you of the actor's power, and made you as anxious to watch his gesticulations as to hear the words that accompanied them.
"I tell you," he was saying, "that it was just a leaf out of a play. I never saw its equal off the stage. She was so handsome, so impressive in her trouble or anxiety, or whatever it was that agitated her, and he so dark, and so determined in his trouble or anxiety, or whatever it was that agitated him. They came in at different doors, she at one side of the depot and he at another, and they met just where I could see them both, directly in the centre of the room. 'You!' was her involuntary cry, and she threw up her hands before her face just as if she had seen a ghost or a demon. An equal exclamation burst from him, but he did not cover his eyes, only stood and looked at her as if he were turned to stone. In another moment she dropped her hands. 'Were you coming to see me?' came from her lips in a whisper so fraught with secret horror and anguish that it curdled my blood to hear it. 'Were you coming to see me?' was his response, uttered in an equally suppressed voice and with an equal intensity of expression. And then, without either giving an answer to the other's question, they both shrank back, and, turning, fled with distracted looks, each by the way they had come, the two doors closing with a simultaneous bang that echoed through that miserable depot like a knell. There were not many folks in the room just at that minute, but I tell you those that were looked at each other as they had not done before and would not be likely to do again. Some unhappy tragedy underlies such a meeting and parting, gentlemen, and I for one would rather not inquire what."
"But the girl – the man – didn't you see them again before you left?" asked an eager voice from the group.
"The young lady," remarked the other, "was on the train that brought me here. The gentleman went the other way."
"Oh!" "Ah!" and "Where did she get off?" rose in a somewhat deafening clamor around him.
"I did not observe. She seemed greatly distressed, if not thoroughly overcome, and observing her pull down her veil, I thought she did not relish my inquiring looks, and as I could not sit within view of her and not watch her, I discreetly betook myself into the smoking-car, where I stayed till we arrived at this place."
"Hum!" "Ha!" "Curious!" rose in chorus once more, and then, the general sympathies of the crowd being exhausted, two or three or more of the group sauntered up to the bar, and the rest sidled restlessly out of the room, leaving the enthusiastic speaker alone with Mr. Byrd.
"A strange scene!" exclaimed the latter, infusing just enough of seeming interest into his usually nonchalant tone to excite the vanity of the person he addressed, and make him more than ever ready to talk. "I wish I had been in your place," continued Mr. Byrd, almost enthusiastically. "I am sure I could have made a picture of that scene that would have been very telling in the gazette I draw for."
"Do you make pictures for papers?" the young fellow inquired, his respect visibly rising.
"Sometimes," the imperturbable detective replied, and in so doing told no more than the truth. He had a rare talent for off-hand sketching, and not infrequently made use of it to increase the funds of the family.
"Well, that is something I would like to do," acknowledged the youth, surveying the other over with curious eyes. "But I hav'n't a cent's worth of talent for it. I can see a scene in my mind now – this one for instance – just as plain as I can see you; all the details of it, you know, the way they stood, the clothes they wore, the looks on their faces, and all that, but when I try to put it on paper, why, I just can't, that's all."
"Your forte lies another way," remarked Mr. Byrd. "You can present a scene so vividly that a person who had not seen it for himself, might easily put it on paper just from your description. See now!" And he caught up a sheet of paper from the desk and carried it to a side table. "Just tell me what depot this was in."
The young fellow, greatly interested at once, leaned over the detective's shoulder and eagerly replied: "The depot at Syracuse."
Mr. Byrd nodded and made a few strokes with his pencil on the paper before him.
"How was the lady dressed?" he next asked.
"In blue; dark blue cloth, fitting like a glove. Fine figure, you know, very tall and unusually large, but perfect, I assure you, perfect. Yes, that is very like it," he went on watching the quick, assured strokes of the other with growing wonder and an unbounded admiration. "You have caught the exact poise of the head, as I live, and – yes, a large hat with two feathers, sir, two feathers drooping over the side, so; a bag on the arm; two flounces on the skirt; a – oh! the face? Well, handsome, sir, very handsome; straight nose, large eyes, determined mouth, strong, violently agitated expression. Well, I will give up! A photograph couldn't have done her better justice. You are a genius, sir, a genius!"
Mr. Byrd received this tribute to his skill with some confusion and a deep blush, which he vainly sought to hide by bending lower over his work.
"The man, now," he suggested, with the least perceptible change in his voice, that, however, escaped the attention of his companion. "What was he like; young or old?"
"Well, young – about twenty-five I should say; medium height, but very firmly and squarely built, with a strong face, large mustache, brilliant eyes, and a look – I cannot describe it, but you have caught that of the lady so well, you will, doubtless, succeed in getting his also."
But Mr. Byrd's pencil moved with less certainty now, and it was some time before he could catch even the peculiarly sturdy aspect of the figure which made this unknown gentleman, as the young fellow declared, look like a modern Hercules, though he was far from being either large or tall. The face, too, presented difficulties he was far from experiencing in the case of the lady, and the young fellow at his side was obliged to make several suggestions such as: – "A little more hair on the forehead, if you please – there was quite a lock showing beneath his hat;" or, "A trifle less sharpness to the chin, – so;" or, "Stay, you have it too square now; tone it down a hair's breadth, and you will get it," before he received even the somewhat hesitating acknowledgment from the other of: "There, that is something like him!"
But he had not expected to succeed very well in this part of the picture, and was sufficiently pleased to have gained a very correct notion of the style of clothing the gentleman wore, which, it is needless to state, was most faithfully reproduced in the sketch, even if the exact expression of the strong and masculine face was not.
"A really remarkable bit of work," admitted the young fellow when the whole was completed. "And as true to the scene, too, as half the illustrations given in the weekly papers. Would you mind letting me have it as a souvenir?" he eagerly inquired. "I would like to show it to a chap who was with me at the time. The likeness to the lady is wonderful."
But Mr. Byrd, with his most careless air, had already thrust the picture into his pocket, from which he refused to withdraw it, saying, with an easy laugh, that it might come in play with him some time, and that he could not afford to part with it. At which remark the young fellow looked disappointed and vaguely rattled some coins he had in his pocket; but, meeting with no encouragement from the other, forbore to press his request, and turned it into an invitation to join him in a social glass at the bar.
To this slight token of appreciation Mr. Byrd did not choose to turn a deaf ear. So the drinks being ordered, he proceeded to clink glasses with the youthful stranger, taking the opportunity, at the same time, of glancing over to the large, well-built man whose quiet absorption in the paper he was reading had so attracted his attention when he first came in.
To his surprise he found that person just as engrossed in the news as ever, not a feature or an eyelash appearing to have moved since the time he looked at him last.
Mr. Byrd was so astonished at this that when he left the room a few minutes later he took occasion in passing the gentleman, to glance at the paper he was studying so industriously, and, to his surprise, found it to be nothing more nor less than the advertising sheet of the New York Herald.
"A fellow of my own craft," was his instantaneous conclusion. But a moment's consideration assured him that this could not be, as no detective worthy the name would place so little value upon the understanding of those about him as to sit for a half-hour with his eyes upon a sheet of paper totally devoid of news, no matter what his purpose might be, or how great was his interest in the conversation to which he was secretly listening. No; this gentleman was doubtless what he seemed to be, a mere stranger, with something of a serious and engrossing nature upon his mind, or else he was an amateur, who for some reason was acting the part of a detective without either the skill or experience of one.
Whichever theory might be true, this gentleman was a person who at this time and in this place was well worth watching: that is, if a man had any reason for interesting himself in the pursuit of possible clues to the mystery of Mrs. Clemmens' murder. But Mr. Byrd felt that he no longer possessed a professional right to such interest; so, leaving behind him this fine-looking gentleman, together with all the inevitable conjectures which the latter's peculiar manner had irresistibly awakened, he proceeded to regain his room and enter upon that contemplation of the picture he had just made, which was naturally demanded by his regard for one of the persons there depicted.
It was a vigorous sketch, and the slow blush crept up and dyed Mr. Byrd's forehead as he gazed at it and realized the perfection of the likeness he had drawn of Miss Dare. Yes, that was her form, her face, her expression, her very self. She it was and no other who had been the heroine of the strange scene enacted that day in the Syracuse depot; a scene to which, by means of this impromptu sketch, he had now become as nearly a witness as any one could hope for who had not been actually upon the spot. Strange! And he had been so anxious to know what had altered the mind of this lady and sent her back to Sibley before her journey was half completed – had pondered so long and vainly upon the whys and wherefores of an action whose motive he had never expected to understand, but which he now saw suggested in a scene that seriously whetted, if it did not thoroughly satisfy, his curiosity.
The moment he had chosen to portray was that in which the eyes of the two met and their first instinctive recoil took place. Turning his attention from the face of the lady and bestowing it upon that of the man, he perceived there the horror and shrinking which he had imprinted so successfully upon hers. That the expression was true, though the countenance was not, he had no doubt. The man, whatever his name, nature, calling, or history, recoiled from a meeting with Imogene Dare as passionately as she did from one with him. Both had started from home with a simultaneous intention of seeking the other, and yet, at the first recognition of this fact, both had started and drawn back as if death rather than life had confronted them in each other's faces. What did it mean? What secret of a deep and deadly nature could lie between these two, that a scene of such evident import could take place between them? He dared not think; he could do nothing but gaze upon the figure of the man he had portrayed, and wonder if he would be able to identify the original in case he ever met him. The face was more or less a failure, of course, but the form, the cut of the clothes, the manner of carriage, and the general aspect of strong and puissant manhood which distinguished the whole figure, could not be so far from correct but that, with a hint from surrounding circumstances, he would know the man himself when he saw him. At all events, he meant to imprint the possible portrait upon his mind in case – in case what? Pausing he asked himself this question with stern determination, and could find no answer.
"I will burn the sketch at once, and think of it and her no more," he muttered, half-rising.
But he did not do it. Some remembrance crossed his mind of what the young fellow downstairs had said about retaining it as a souvenir, and he ended in folding it up and putting it away somewhat carefully in his memorandum-book, with a vow that he would leave Sibley and its troublous mystery at the first moment of release that he could possibly obtain. The pang which this decision cost him convinced him that it was indeed high time he did so.
VII.
MISS FIRMAN
I confess with all humility that at times the line of demarcation between truth and fiction is rendered so indefinite and indistinct, that I cannot always determine, with unerring certainty, whether an event really happened to me, or whether I only dreamed it. – Longfellow.
MR. BYRD, upon waking next morning, found himself disturbed by a great perplexity. Were the words then ringing in his ears, real words, which he had overheard spoken outside of his door some time during the past night, or were they merely the empty utterances of a more than usually vivid dream?
He could not tell. He could remember the very tone of voice in which he fancied them to have been spoken – a tone which he had no difficulty in recognizing as that of the landlord of the hotel; could even recall the faint sounds of bustle which accompanied them, as though the person using them had been showing another person through the hall; but beyond that, all was indistinct and dream-like.
The words were these:
"Glad to see you back, sir. This murder following so close upon your visit must have been a great surprise. A sad occurrence, that, sir, and a very mysterious one. Hope you have some information to give."
"If it is a remembrance and such words were uttered outside of my door last night," argued the young detective to himself, "the guest who called them forth can be no other than the tall and florid gentleman whom I encountered in the bar-room. But is it a remembrance, or only a chimera of my own overwrought brain struggling with a subject it will not let drop? As Shakespeare says, 'That is the question!'"
Fortunately, it was not one which it behooved him to decide. So, for the twentieth time, he put the subject by and resolved to think of it no more.
But perplexities of this kind are not so easily dismissed, and more than once during his hurried and solitary breakfast, did he ask himself whether, in case the words were real, he had not found in the landlord of this very hotel the one witness for which the coroner was so diligently seeking.
A surprise awaited him after breakfast, in the sudden appearance at his room door of the very gentleman last alluded to.
"Ha, Byrd," said he, with cheerful vivacity: "here is a line from the superintendent which may prove interesting to you."
And with a complacent smile, Dr. Tredwell handed over a letter which had been brought to him by the detective who had that morning arrived from New York.
With a dim sense of foreboding which he would have found difficult to explain, Mr. Byrd opened the note and read the following words:
Dear Sir, – I send with this a man fully competent to conduct a case of any ordinary difficulty. I acknowledge it is for our interest that you employ him to the exclusion of the person mentioned in your letter. But if you or that person think that he can render you any real assistance by his interference, he is at liberty to act in his capacity of detective in as far as he can do so without divulging too widely the secret of his connection with the force. – .
"The superintendent need not be concerned," said Mr. Byrd, returning the note with a constrained bow. "I shall not interfere in this matter."
"You will miss a good thing, then," remarked the coroner, shortly, looking keenly at the young man.
"I cannot help it," observed the other, with a quick sigh of impatience or regret. "I should have to see my duty very clearly and possess the very strongest reasons for interfering before I presumed to offer either advice or assistance after a letter of this kind."
"And who knows but what such reasons may yet present themselves?" ventured the coroner. Then seeing the young man shake his head, made haste to add in the business-like tone of one preparing to take his leave, "At all events the matter stands open for the present; and if during the course of to-day's inquiry you see fit to change your mind, it will be easy enough for you to notify me." And without waiting for any further remonstrance, he gave a quick nod and passed hastily out.
The state of mind in which he left Mr. Byrd was any thing but enviable. Not that the young man's former determination to let this matter alone had been in any wise shaken by the unexpected concession on the part of the superintendent, but that the final hint concerning the inquest had aroused his old interest to quite a formidable degree, and, what was worse, had reawakened certain feelings which since last night it had been his most earnest endeavor to subdue. He felt like a man pursued by an implacable fate, and dimly wondered whether he would be allowed to escape before it was too late to save himself from lasting uneasiness, if not lifelong regret.
A final stroke of business for Mr. Ferris kept him at the court-house most of the morning; but his duty in that direction being at an end, he no longer found any excuse for neglecting the task imposed upon him by the coroner. He accordingly proceeded to the cottage where the inquest was being held, and finding each and every available room there packed to its uttermost by interested spectators, took up his stand on the outside of a curtained window, where with but a slight craning of his neck he could catch a very satisfactory view of the different witnesses as they appeared before the jury. The day was warm and he was by no means uncomfortable, though he could have wished that the advantages of his position had occasioned less envy in the breasts of the impatient crowd that was slowly gathering at his back; or, rather, that their sense of these advantages might have been expressed in some more pleasing way than by the various pushes he received from the more or less adventurous spirits who endeavored to raise themselves over his shoulder or insinuate themselves under his arms.
The room into which he looked was the sitting-room, and it was, so far as he could judge in the first casual glance he threw into it, occupied entirely by strangers. This was a relief. Since it had become his duty to attend this inquiry, he wished to do so with a free mind, unhindered by the watchfulness of those who knew his interest in the affair, or by the presence of persons around whom his own imagination had involuntarily woven a network of suspicion that made his observation of them at once significant and painful.
The proceedings were at a standstill when he first came upon the scene.
A witness had just stepped aside, who, from the impatient shrugs of many persons present, had evidently added little if any thing to the testimony already given. Taking advantage of the moment, Mr. Byrd leaned forward and addressed a burly man who sat directly under him.
"What have they been doing all the morning?" he asked. "Any thing important?"
"No," was the surly reply. "A score of folks have had their say, but not one of them has told any thing worth listening to. Nobody has seen any thing, nobody knows any thing. The murderer might have risen up through the floor to deal his blow, and having given it, sunk back again with the same supernatural claptrap, for all these stupid people seem to know about him."
The man had a loud voice, and as he made no attempt to modulate it, his words were heard on all sides. Naturally many heads were turned toward him, and more than one person looked at him with an amused smile. Indeed, of all the various individuals in his immediate vicinity, only one forbore to take any notice of his remark. This was a heavy, lymphatic, and somewhat abstracted-looking fellow of nondescript appearance, who stood stiff and straight as an exclamation point against the jamb of the door-way that led into the front hall.
"But have no facts been obtained, no conclusions reached, that would serve to awaken suspicion or put justice on the right track?" pursued Mr. Byrd, lowering his voice in intimation for the other to do the same.
But that other was of an obstinate tendency, and his reply rose full and loud.
"No, unless it can be considered proved that it is only folly to try and find out who commits a crime in these days. Nothing else has come to light, as far as I can see, and that much we all knew before."
A remark of this kind was not calculated to allay the slight inclination to mirth which his former observation had raised; but the coroner rapping with his gavel on the table at this moment, every other consideration was lost in the natural curiosity which every one felt as to who the next witness would be.
But the coroner had something to say before he called for further testimony.
"Gentlemen," he remarked, in a clear and commanding tone that at once secured attention and awakened interest, "we have spent the morning in examining the persons who live in this street, with a view to ascertaining, if possible, who was in conversation with Mrs. Clemmens at the time the tramp went up to her door."
Was it a coincidence, or was there something in the words themselves that called forth the stir that at this moment took place among the people assembled directly before Mr. Byrd? It was of the slightest character, and was merely momentary in its duration; nevertheless, it attracted his attention, especially as it seemed to have its origin in a portion of the room shut off from his observation by the corner of the wall already alluded to.
The coroner proceeded without pause.
"The result, as you know, has not been satisfactory. No one seems to be able to tell us who it was that visited Mrs. Clemmens on that day. I now propose to open another examination of a totally different character, which I hope may be more conclusive in its results. Miss Firman, are you prepared to give your testimony?"
Immediately a tall, gaunt, but pleasant-faced woman arose from the dim recesses of the parlor. She was dressed with decency, if not taste, and took her stand before the jury with a lady-like yet perfectly assured air that promised well for the correctness and discretion of her answers. The coroner at once addressed her.
"Your full name, madam?"
"Emily Letitia Firman, sir."
"Emily!" ejaculated Mr. Byrd, to himself, with a throb of sudden interest. "That is the name of the murdered woman's correspondent."
"Your birthplace," pursued the coroner, "and the place of your present residence?"
"I was born in Danbury, Connecticut," was the reply, "and I am living in Utica, where I support my aged mother by dress-making."
"How are you related to Mrs. Clemmens, the lady who was found murdered here two days ago?"
"I am her second cousin; her grandmother and my mother were sisters."
"Upon what terms have you always lived, and what can you tell us of her other relatives and connections?"
"We have always been friends, and I can tell you all that is generally known of the two or three remaining persons of her blood and kindred. They are, first, my mother and myself, who, as I have before said, live in Utica, where I am connected with the dress-making establishment of Madame Trebelle; and, secondly, a nephew of hers, the son of a favorite brother, whom she has always supported, and to whom she has frequently avowed her intention of leaving her accumulated savings."
"The name of this gentleman and his place of residence?"
"His name is Mansell – Craik Mansell – and he lives in Buffalo, where he has a situation of some trust in the large paper manufactory of Harrison, Goodman, & Chamberlin."
Buffalo! Mr. Byrd gave an involuntary start, and became, if possible, doubly attentive.
The coroner's questions went on.
"Do you know this young man?"
"Yes, sir. He has been several times to our house in the course of the last five years."
"What can you tell us of his nature and disposition, as well as of his regard for the woman who proposed to benefit him so materially by her will?"
"Well, sir," returned Miss Firman, "it is hard to read the nature and feelings of any man who has much character, and Craik Mansell has a good deal of character. But I have always thought him a very honest and capable young man, who might do us credit some day, if he were allowed to have his own way and not be interfered with too much. As for his feelings toward his aunt, they were doubtless those of gratitude, though I have never heard him express himself in any very affectionate terms toward her, owing, no doubt, to a natural reticence of disposition which has been observable in him from childhood."
"You have, however, no reason to believe he cherished any feelings of animosity toward his benefactress?" continued the coroner, somewhat carelessly, "or possessed any inordinate desire after the money she was expecting to leave him at her death?"
"No, sir. Both having minds of their own, they frequently disagreed, especially on business matters; but there was never any bitterness between them, as far as I know, and I never heard him say any thing about his expectations one way or the other. He is a man of much natural force, of strong, if not violent, traits of character; but he has too keen a sense of his own dignity to intimate the existence of desires so discreditable to him."
There was something in this reply and the impartial aspect of the lady delivering it that was worthy of notice, perhaps. And such it would have undoubtedly received from Mr. Byrd, at least, if the words she had used in characterizing this person had not struck him so deeply that he forgot to note any thing further.
"A man of great natural force – of strong, if not violent traits of character," he kept repeating to himself. "The description, as I live, of the person whose picture I attempted to draw last night."
And, ignoring every thing else, he waited with almost sickening expectation for the question that would link this nephew of Mrs. Clemmens either to the tragedy itself, or to that person still in the background, of whose secret connection with a man of this type, he had obtained so curious and accidental a knowledge.
But it did not come. With a quiet abandonment of the by no means exhausted topic, which convinced Mr. Byrd that the coroner had plans and suspicions to which the foregoing questions had given no clue, Dr. Tredwell leaned slowly forward, and, after surveying the witness with a glance of cautious inquiry, asked in a way to concentrate the attention of all present:
"You say that you knew the Widow Clemmens well; that you have always been on friendly terms with her, and are acquainted with her affairs. Does that mean you have been made a confidante of her troubles, her responsibilities, and her cares?"
"Yes, sir; that is, in as far as she ever made a confidant of any one. Mrs. Clemmens was not of a complaining disposition, neither was she by nature very communicative. Only at rare times did she make mention of herself or her troubles: but when she did, it was invariably to me, sir – or so she used to say; and she was not a woman to deceive you in such matters."
"Very well, then, you are in a position to tell us something of her history, and why it is she kept herself so close after she came to this town?"
But Miss Firman uttered a vigorous disclaimer to this. "No, sir," said she, "I am not. Mrs. Clemmens' history was simple enough, but her reasons for living as she did have never been explained. She was not naturally a quiet woman, and, when a girl, was remarkable for her spirits and fondness for company."
"Has she had any great sorrow since you knew her – any serious loss or disappointment that may have soured her disposition, and turned her, as it were, against the world?"