The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery
Page 7
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLOUDS THICKEN.
"Shagarach is the man to defend him, Miss Barlow," said old JohnDavidson. She was lying back against the cushions of the cab, withcheeks as white as the handkerchief she held to her lips. For themarshal had kindly offered to accompany her home and she had told himpart of her story.
She was, as McCausland had said to the district attorney, a photographicretoucher. You must know that a negative when it leaves the camera is nomore fit for display than milk fresh from the cow is drinkable. All theminor blemishes which you and I, not being made in the stamp of bluffold Oliver, dislike to see perpetuated in our counterfeit presentments,must be carefully stippled out. The work is not without its irksomeness,requiring long hours of labor as well as firmness of touch. The strainupon the young lady's eyes was evident, and her face, for all itsbeauty, was as delicate as thinnest porcelain. One felt that herfingers, if she held them toward the sun, would show the red suffusionof a child's. But her earnings supported a family of five, and hercharacter had won the love of Robert Floyd.
"Who is Shagarach?" she asked, as if struck by the name.
"Shagarach! Why, Shagarach's the coming man, the greatest criminallawyer in the state and the greatest cross-examiner in the world--a mindreader, black art in it. Never lost a case."
"This is my number, Mr. Davidson."
"Ho, there! John! Cabby!" The marshal rapped at the window.
"What was the number, miss?"
"Four hundred and twelve."
"Stop at 412."
"You have been very kind to interest yourself in one who is not known toyou, Mr. Davidson. I should have been badly off without yourassistance."
"Didn't do half enough," answered the marshal. "Glad to be of service.Call on me again. Here's Shagarach's address. Take my advice and lookhim up."
He had been writing on the back of a card while the cab-driver wasslowing his team around in front of Miss Barlow's door. It read in ascrawl, rendered half-illegible by the jolting: "Meyer Shagarach, 31Putnam Street."
Emily looked twice at the singular name. McCausland never failed toconvict his prisoners. Shagarach's clients invariably escaped. Whatwould happen if the two were pitted against each other? This was herthought when she mounted the dear steps of home and fell weeping intothe arms of her mother.
The following morning a remarkable discovery was made on the site ofProf. Arnold's house. The burned district had been roped off and wasguarded by policemen, owing to the danger from the standing walls andstill smoking debris. But tip-carts had begun to remove what wasremovable of the wreck, and the work of clearing away the ground wasalready well under way. Sight-seers in great numbers went out of theircourse to pass the ruins, for the Harmon building was of recent erectionand had been styled a model of business architecture.
But "Toot" Watts, "Turkey" Fenton and "The Whistler" were not indulgingin reminiscences of departed architectural glories that morning. Theyaveraged 14 years and 110 pounds, a combination hostile to sentiment inany but its most robust forms. "That nutty duffer gives me a pain," wastheir unanimous criticism from the gallery of the "Grand Dime," upon thegarden rhapsodies of their co-mate and brother in adolescence, Romeo.But in the evenings, if that long fence, which is the gamin's delight,happened to be under surveillance from the "cop," they would march upstreet and down, Turkey mouthing his harmonica, Toot opening andshutting a wheezy accordion, the Whistler fifing away with thatthrush-like note to which he owed his nickname, and all three beatingtime by their own quick footsteps to the melody of some sweet, familiarsong. Amid such surroundings even the ditties sung by our mothers manyseasons ago can bring up wholesome sentiments in which the boyishmusicians who evoke them are surely sharers.
On the day before Toot had surreptitiously conveyed a fresh egg toschool and rolled it playfully down the aisle, whereupon Turkey, as hewas walking out at 4, had set the stamp of approval on his friend'sproperty. All three had decided to take a day off until the affairshould blow over, and no better pastime suggested itself than a visit tothe fire, in which they took a sort of proprietary interest, since theyhad been the first after the bake-shop girl, to arrive on the spot. Thepassageway beside the house was still left open and unguarded. So oururchins, approaching from the Broad street side, coolly entered theforbidden precincts thereby, thus eluding the blue-coated watchers by aflank movement as simple as it was effective.
"I'm goin' to pick up junk and sell it to Bagley," said Turkey, fillinghis pocket with bolts, nuts and other fragments which he deemed ofvalue. The others followed his example and began rummaging about withinsecure footing among the heaps.
"Whew!" the Whistler emitted a long-drawn note no flute could possiblyrival. He had been brushing away the ashes from a heavy object, when hiseye was attracted by a fragment of cloth, which clung about it. Hiswhistle drew the attention of his companions, but it also invited a lesswelcome arrival, no other than one of the patrolmen doing guard duty,who swooped down and seized Turkey and the Whistler by their collars,while Toot scrambled off with unseemly haste and escaped down thealleyway.
"What are you doing here?" said the officer, shaking the boys till theirteeth chattered, and several pieces of iron, dropping out of Turkey'spockets, disclosed the object of their visit. "Stealing junk, eh?"
"Say, look," said the Whistler, who was cool and inventive; "it's awoman." He was pointing to the object he had laid bare. The officerslackened his grip.
"My God!" he cried; then stooped and by a full exertion of his strengthlifted the thing out of the ashes and half-burned timbers which overlayit. It was, indeed, the body of a woman, short and stout. The boys didnot run. They looked on, spellbound, in open-mouthed wonder.
"Run and call the sergeant," said the policeman to his quondam captives.
The news spread like wildfire. Hundreds swarmed to the scene, but noneamong them who had the key to the woman's identity. Her charred face andburned body rendered identification difficult. It was InspectorMcCausland who, after consulting his notebook, recognized the garmentand the form which it clad as Ellen Greeley's. An ambulance was calledand the corpse of the poor woman carried away to the morgue, to awaither sister's instructions.
Senda Wesner, the bake-shop girl, had described this discovery for theeleventh time to her customers, and was standing on the steps of herstore alone--a condition to which she was by nature averse--when thegolden-haired lady "flashed in upon her," as she afterward said, "like aBaltimore oriole." It was Emily Barlow, who had run down during herlunch hour to the scene of the tragedy. At the first mention of hername, Miss Wesner knew her.
"Oh, you're the young lady he kept company with," she said. "Isn't ittoo bad? I don't believe he ever did it. No man in his senses would sethis own house afire and then walk out in broad daylight, as I saw Mr.Floyd do."
"You saw Mr. Floyd coming out, then? Pardon my curiosity, but I am sodeeply interested----"
"I shouldn't think much of you if you were not," said Senda Wesner. "I'mglad to tell all I know about it, and I can't see for the life of me whythey didn't call me to the stand."
Emily saw that no apology was needed for questioning the bake-shop girl.She was easy to make free with and fond of running on. Being a littlereticent herself, Emily was glad to be relieved of the necessity ofputting inquiries. So she simply guided the little gossip's talk.
"You did see Mr. Floyd leave the house? Was it long before the firebroke out?"
"Four or five minutes. I'd noticed Bertha raising the curtains--twoWashington pies? yes'm--I'd seen Bertha up in the study, I say, but thenJoe Tyke, Joey, we call him, the cripple newsboy, though he is quite aman now, but he never grew, deformed, you know--Joey was trundlinghimself along on his little cart, and I couldn't take my eyes off ofhim--20 cents, yes'm." The bake-shop girl continued to spread jam, ladlemilk and wrap warm loaves in fresh brown paper, all the while, but herinterruptions only formed tiny ripples on her flowing stream of prattle."Then Mr. Robert came out and walked down to the corner
slowly. But doyou know what puzzled me? What was he stooping over the hearth for andpicking up those pieces of paper?"
"People often do that. Perhaps he had torn up a letter and some of ithad scattered outside the fireplace."
"Well, I didn't see another thing, not one thing, against him," saidMiss Wesner, decidedly. Her ideas on the value of evidence werecertainly of the most feminine order. "I'm sure he's a young man of thehighest reputation. Never smoked or drank or----"
"You didn't see any other person coming out of the house?"
"No, I didn't. Yes, Gertrude, and how's your mamma? That's a sweetthing, only 10 years old, but does all the errands and half thehousework for her mother, that's sick, and never slaps the baby."
"Or any stranger about?" edged in Emily again, when the spigot wasfinally turned off and the waters of gossip had ceased to run.
"Do you know----" The bake-shop girl dimpled her cheek with herforefinger. It was a healthy cheek, but not beautiful. "Do you know,there has been the oddest peddler around here for the last three weeks?"
"Do tell me about him. What did he look like? A stranger?"
"Never passed this street before as long as I know and that's a goodmany years. He was a sunburnt sort of man, like all the peddlers (onlyI'd say homelier, if I wasn't a fright myself), and with crazy blueeyes. Always came in a green cart and sold vegetables, no, once pottedplants. But how he would yodel. Why, he'd make you deaf. Ellen used tobuy of him sometimes. Nobody else ever did, and it's my opinion when heleft the Arnolds he used to whip up his horse and hurry right round thecorner."
"Was this peddler here lately?"
"Not since Friday, the day before the fire; I'm positive."
"He wasn't here Saturday?"
"No, he wasn't. But I must say, peddler or no peddler, I don't believeRobert Floyd ever set that fire."
There was more that Senda Wesner believed and disbelieved--so much,indeed, that when Emily left her she had asked herself twice what a roomfull of Senda Wesners would be like. But she checked this uncharitablethought. The girl was good-hearted and her information about the peddlermight prove a clew. After making a half-circuit of the house which wasso familiar to her, for she had visited it often, she returned to herstippling pencil in the photograph gallery, pondering now upon theidentity of the strange peddler, now upon the sad fate of Ellen Greeley,and oftenest of all on the lover who was spending his first day in thesolitude of a felon's cell.