The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  DEATHBED REVELATIONS.

  When Emily Barlow ran down to Shagarach's office at noon this Saturdayshe was accompanied by her friend, Beulah Ware. Beulah Ware was as darkas Emily was fair. In temperament, as in complexion, the two girlsoffered a contrast, Beulah's carriage having the recollected dignity ofa nun's, while Emily's sensibilities were all as fine as those Japaneseswords which are whetted so keenly they divide the light leaves thatfall across their edges.

  "We should like to leave a note with the flowers, Mr. Aronson. Could youfurnish us paper?"

  Aronson was only too eager to furnish not only paper, but envelope,ink-well and a ready-filled pen. When the young ladies went out hethought a cloud passed over the arid chapters of his Pickering XII. Thiswas the note, pinned to a graceful bouquet, that Shagarach read on hisreturn:

  "My Dear Mr. Shagarach: You must have read of the riot yesterday in which Robert behaved so nobly. But he is even more pleased with a discovery which he made during the affair. It seems that one of the wounded convicts, who has been passing under the name of Quirk, is no other than the coachman, Mungovan, whom none of us could find. Could you manage to call at the prison to-day? The poor fellow is seriously injured and may have important evidence in his possession. Yours truly,

  "EMILY BARLOW."

  The violets seemed to move Shagarach far more than the note, momentousas its revelation might be. His hand trembled when he reached to claspthe stems. Then he withdrew it and stood irresolute. A procession waspassing through the street below. From the window he could see thetilted necks of a line of fifers. Was it a horror of music that made himshut out these sounds so often? A dread of perfume and loveliness thatmade him leave the room at once with brief directions to Aronson? Thecasual observer would have said that he merely hurried to obey thesuggestion of Emily's note, for he took his way at once to the stateprison across the river.

  When Col. Mainwaring took hold of the prison that morning it wasexpected that two out of every five of the convicts would have to bebastinadoed before peace could be restored. Against the advice of allthe deputies, including Hawkins, he had summoned his wards to therotunda and outlined his course of action in a cool speech. The burdenof it was that he intended to begin with a clean sheet and to look outfor their interests rather than their sensibilities, or, as he expressedit, "to give them hard words but soft mattresses."

  The matter and manner of the address had a tranquillizing effect andsome of the shops that day wore as quiet and decent an aspect as anyfactory-room in the state. Moreover, as soon as it became known that thecolonel had resolved to adopt several of the reforms demanded in DickonHarvey's petition, even the moodiest of the ring-leaders felt that theycould submit without any hurt to pride.

  Stretched on a hospital cot, whispering with contrite eyes to ablack-robed clergyman, lay Dennis Mungovan. The look on his face waspeaceful and exalted. His hands were clasped. The groans of patients andthe odor of drugs which filled the chamber did not reach his senses. Hehad just finished his deathbed confession and stood upon a securefooting on the terra firma of faith, awaiting the summons from above.

  "A lawyer to speak with Quirk," announced the attendant.

  "Not Quirk, but Mungovan," said the clergyman, making way.

  "And must you lave me, father dear?" besought the patient, stretchingout his hands as a cold man in winter reaches toward the fire.

  "I have a wedding to perform, my son. Remember, your hours in thisvalley of tears are few, and you have left everything worldly behindyou. Thank God, who in His infinite mercy has given you the grace of ahappy death."

  "I do, father, I do," cried the pallid sufferer.

  "And an opportunity to repent of your sins. God bless you. Good-by."

  The clergyman bowed to Shagarach and departed--from the deathbed to thewedding service, from the grave to the cradle of life, so wide was thecompass of his ministrations.

  "You are dying, then?" asked Shagarach.

  "Wid a bullet in me breast, misthur, that the doctors can't rache. Och,they murdhered me wid their probin'. And all for what? All for nawthin'.What was I to be mixin' in their riots for? Wirrasthrue! Wirrasthrue!"

  "You know Robert Floyd is in the prison here?"

  "Robert Floyd! For the love o' heaven, misthur, don't tell him it's me.Tell him I'm Quirk. Och, that lie is a sin on me sowl."

  "The truth will be best when you are so near death," said Shagarach,quietly. "Perhaps it would be better at all times. Besides, Mr. Floydknows you are here."

  "Misther," the dying man drew Shagarach toward him. "Misther! Do me afavor for the love o' doin' good."

  "What is it?"

  "Will you do it--an' I'll pray for your sowl before the throne, so helpme----"

  "I will if I can. What is it?"

  "Keep it from Ellen."

  "Keep what?"

  "My name, my disgrace. Never let the poor girl know. She was my wife."

  "Your wife?" Shagarach was puzzled a moment. "You mean Ellen Greeley?"

  "Ellen Mungovan, before God."

  "Ellen Greeley is dead. She perished in the fire."

  The man started up in his bed so violently as to burst the bandage ofhis wound. His blood began to stain the linen and Shagarach was obligedto call an attendant, who adjusted it and tucked the patient snugly in.Still his glassy eyes were fixed on Shagarach and his muttering lipsseemed to say over the word: "Dead! Dead! Dead!"

  "She was burned to death in the Arnold fire. Robert Floyd is accused ofsetting it and causing her death."

  "Burned to death!" The man's brain seemed bewildered.

  "Didn't you know these things?"

  "Shure, how would I know them, misther, all cooped in here like a bat ina cave?"

  "How did you come here?"

  "Och, the foolishness came over me, wid my head tangled in dhrink. Whatdoes a man know in dhrink? He can't tell his friend from his inimy. Andme that had a dacent mother in the ould counthry and a dacent wife inthe new, look at this, where it druv me."

  "What crime are you charged with?"

  "Wid breakin' and enterin', misther; and, sure, it was the stableman putme up to it that night I was full, and they got away and I was caughtwid the watches on me and I was so shamed of Ellen and me mother athome, says I, I'll niver disgrace them, says I, and so I gev in me nameQuirk, and none of them could tell the differ."

  "When was it you were arrested?" asked Shagarach.

  "It's three weeks and three days yesterday, misther; that I know by thescratches I made in me cell."

  "Can't you read?"

  "Only the big, black letthers, misther."

  This explained Mungovan's ignorance of Floyd's arrest. It seemed to bean accident that the two had never met in prison. Though they occupiedcells in the same ward, their daily work carried them to opposite partsof the yard, Mungovan's to the harness-shop under "Slim" Butler;Robert's to the greenhouses near the team gate.

  "Misther!" The poor wretch clasped Shagarach's wrist and drew thelawyer's ear to his lips again.

  "Misther, will you bury me where Ellen is buried?"

  "I'll see if that can be done."

  "Misther!" The man's eyes were glazing. "Look!" He fumbled with aspenfingers in his breast, finally drawing forth an envelope. From this heremoved a ringlet of black hair, probably a love-lock of Ellen's. Thenhe showed the inclosed writing to Shagarach. It was not addressed.

  "Read it," he whispered. "Ellen gev it me to carry."

  Shagarach opened the envelope and read in a servant-girl's painstakinghand the following words:

  "The peddler has not come for two days, so I send you this by a trustworthy messanger. As I rote you in my last, the professor said in the study, 'Harry gets his deserts.' That was all I could hear only he and Mr. Robert talked for a long time afterwards. The will is in the safe in the study. If I hear ennything more I will let you know, and please send me the money you promise
d me soon."

  There was neither address nor signature to this document.

  "To carry where?" asked Shagarach, but the man's brain was all clottedwith a single idea.

  "Will you bury me by Ellen's side, misther, in the green churchyardunder the soft turf that the wind combs smooth like in my own dearcounthry? Will you bury me beside Ellen I disgraced so, misther? She'llknow I'm wid her there. Will you bury me, misther?"

  "I will. I will. Where did Ellen bid you carry the letter?"

  "The letther? Och, I carried the letther in me mouth. Sure, I wouldn'tbe afther givin' up Ellen's letther to the warden."

  "I mean----" But the man was passing through the delirium that precedesthe last fainting calm. Several times his lips moved, murmuring "Ellen."His fingers clutched the love-lock to his breast. Once he turned hishead and asked for "Father Flynn." But Father Flynn was ministering nowat another ceremony as opposite to this as laughter is to tears.

  Toward the end a smile of singular sweetness irradiated his rough face,made delicate by the waxy color of death. Were his thoughts playing backagain among the memories of childhood, in the beloved island, perhaps atthe knee of that honest mother whom he feared to disgrace? Or were theyleaping forward to the joy of the cool bed under the churchyard daisiesat Ellen's side? Shagarach, holding the shred of paper in his hand,brooding over the answer to his unanswered question, could only watchthe flickering spark in reverential awe.

  But he did not default his side of the pact they had made, he and DennisMungovan, with clasped hands in the hospital alcove. At a greatsacrifice of time he sought out Ellen Greeley's sister, explained thesecret of Ellen's marriage and Mungovan's repentance for his follies,and, with the help of Father Flynn, persuaded her to consent to aninterment of the couple together. He even went to the pains ofcommunicating the death to Mungovan's worthy mother, having obtained heraddress from Ellen Greeley's sister and heir. But the circumstances andplace of the "accident" which killed him were humanely concealed.

  In return for all this solicitude the lawyer had an unaddressed andambiguous scrawl in his possession. Three facts were established inrelation to the person for whom it was intended. In the first placewhoever it was he knew that Harry Arnold had "got his deserts" under hisuncle's will. Secondly, he had employed Ellen Greeley as a spy upon thedoings in the professor's household. Thirdly, he was in league with themissing peddler, who seemed to act as a go-between for Ellen and hercorrespondent.