Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  The proceedings passed quickly. The district attorney made a very eloquent speech, painting in colors of crimson and black the damnable crime of this treacherous boy who could poison his uncle while the murdered man was drinking his nephew’s long life and happiness. The jury shook its collective head and scowled again on John Barrett, as if they dared him to come on and fight now. But all the time Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett sat teetering slowly back and forth in his armchair, staring blankly from face to face and picking his teeth. As has been said before, he was not only a villain, but a very vulgar man.

  The prosecutor’s case was in. There was only the plea of John Barrett to be heard. The judge frowned his defiance on Barrett; the district attorney did likewise; the jury deepened its scowls; the fair mourners covered their faces and waited.

  Barrett rose in the most matter-of-fact manner, with the most unmoved face, and crossed to the table on which stood the damning exhibit, the vial of poison. He finished picking his teeth, but continued to chew the toothpick. Indeed, he was a very vulgar man.

  “Your honor and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “the prosecution has proved conclusively that certain drops from this bottle were poured by the defendant into a glass of whisky, which was drunk by William McCurtney, who thereafter died.”

  It was like the fall of the first sods on the coffin. The defense was throwing down its cards. McCurtney raised his head; a greenish-yellow was invading the pallor of his poetic face. Something extremely un-poetic was in his eyes.

  “The court has been informed by various experts that the contents of this bottle are deadly poison. If they are, unquestionably the defendant is guilty of murder, most damnable murder.”

  It was a strange exordium. The crowd frowned with wonder and waited for the appeal which must follow — sounding periods, moving eloquence. But it must be always remembered that our villain was a most vulgar man. He raised the little vial.

  “The proof of the pudding,” he said, “is in the eating.”

  And he drank the liquid in the vial — he drained it slowly to the last drop. Then he turned and extended an arm of command over the jury, which had arisen to the last man, staring upon him with pallid faces and open mouths.

  “Now set that man free!” he thundered, and strode from the courtroom.

  The man was set free. The jury was out one and one-half minutes before it reached its verdict. And the first one to get to the acquitted man, who sat as if stunned, with wandering eyes, was Elizabeth Barrett. Love will find a way, even through a courtroom jam.

  A note was brought to McCurtney; they read it together.

  “Bring Elizabeth to my house, McCurtney,” ran the note. “I have something to say to you both.”

  As they sat in her car, she said:

  “He knows, Harry!”

  “Knows what?” asked Harry.

  “About us,” said Elizabeth tenderly.

  “About which?” said the hero vaguely.

  “About our love, dear,” explained the beautiful woman.

  “My God!” said the hero. “Stop the car! Turn it about!”

  “Harry!” cried the beautiful woman. “You aren’t afraid?”

  “Afraid?” stammered the hero. “No, of course not!” “Poor dear! Of course that hideous trial has destroyed your nerves; but think of the long years of beautiful peace which we will spend together!”

  “John Barrett!” muttered the hero. “He knows?” “I told him.”

  “Elizabeth, were you mad, to tell that brute of a man?”

  “He didn’t care. In fact, that’s how I induced him to defend you.”

  The hero wiped his brow.

  “He won’t oppose,” said the beautiful woman, and she looked out the window with something of a sigh. “He won’t hinder us in anything. I suppose — I suppose the divorce will be easily granted me. And then—”

  “Yes, yes!” murmured the hero. “But let’s talk about that later. The important thing now is John Barrett.”

  “We’ll talk to him in a moment. It won’t take long. I suppose he wants to make the necessary arrangements for the — the divorce.”

  She leaned back against the cushion and smiled that twentieth-century smile.

  “By Heaven!” said the hero, “I don’t really know whether you’re glad or sorry, Elizabeth.”

  “Neither do I,” she answered, and then, opening her eyes suddenly to the matter of fact: “Neither do I know whether I’m gladder to have my freedom, or sorrier to wade through the disgrace of the divorce court.”

  “Hm!” said the hero.

  The car stopped in front of the columned entrance to the Barrett home.

  “Aren’t you coming, Harry?” she asked with some impatience.

  “Give me time, dear,” said the hero. “My wits are still back there in the courtroom waiting for John Barrett to begin his appeal.”

  “And mine,” said the beautiful woman, “are in the bright future!”

  And again she smiled the twentieth-century smile.

  III

  THEY entered, and a servant told them that Mr. Barrett expected them in his private library. They climbed to the third story.

  “This climb,” smiled Elizabeth, when they arrived, a little breathless, at the door, “is the only thing, I’m sure, which keeps John from becoming stout.”

  “Hm!” said the hero.

  They entered, and the door clicked behind them. It was a circular room, with a vaulted ceiling. The walls were lined with unbroken rows of books. There was not even a window; the air came through two ventilators. John Barrett stood in front of an open fireplace with his back to them, so that they could not tell, at first, exactly what he was doing there.

  “We are here, John,” said Elizabeth in a rather thin voice.

  “Oh!” boomed Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett. “Are you here?”

  And as he turned half toward them they discerned his employment — he was heating the end of a stout poker in a bed of white-hot coals. “Good God!” whispered the hero.

  He seized the knob of the door; but it did not budge. He could not even elicit a rattle from it when he shook it frantically.

  “The door locks with a spring,” explained John Barrett, turning squarely toward them, and still twirling the poker in the coals.

  “Help!” yelled the hero.

  “Harry!” said the beautiful woman in some disdain.

  “It is often necessary for me to hold the most secret conferences here,” said the villain, “and therefore I have had these walls built so thick that no sounds can enter or leave. The room is impervious to noise. It is necessary, because some really strange things have happened here.”

  “What do you mean?” said the hero, his voice changed beyond recognition.

  “It is a suggestion,” said the impassive villain, “for those who desire privacy. A room like this, for instance, would be ideal for writing your poetry, McCurtney.”

  “John!” said the beautiful woman sharply. “What are you driving at?”

  In that vulgar atmosphere it was no wonder if she had learned to use slang. The hero, however, did not seem to notice it. His curiosity, for the moment, overwhelmed any other emotions.

  “How in the name of Heaven,” he said, “did you survive that poison?”

  “Was it poison?” queried the villain. “Well, albumen coagulates and collects around certain poisons. I had swallowed several raw eggs just before I entered the courtroom. It is not a new trick. The moment I left I was taken by two doctors to a private room, and my stomach was pumped out.”

  “Oh!” said the hero scornfully. “I thought it was some ingenious thing you did!”

  “Oh!” said the villain. “Did you?”

  “John, why have you sent for us?” said the beautiful woman.

  Barrett buried the poker in the coals so deep that it would not topple out, produced one of his villainous long cigars and lighted it. He then picked up a riding whip which had fallen to the floor, and hung it again above the f
ireplace.

  “It is about your leaving,” said the villain, and took the handle of the poker.

  “Have you made up your mind to oppose me?” she asked.

  “If you love this man,” he said in his calm voice, “I sha’n’t raise a hand to stop you or to hinder your happiness. I would even drink poison again to help you along.”

  “You?” said the beautiful woman.

  “Because I love you,” said the villain.

  “You?” said the beautiful woman.

  “Rot!” said the hero.

  “But,” went on the villain, “if you really care for this fellow here — this sneaking cur who makes my hand itch — if you really care for him, I’m sure that I can get along without you.”

  “Do you mean — ?” cried the hero.

  “I mean, Elizabeth,” said the villain, “that I’ve probably made many mistakes in my treatment of you. I’ve never been a man of many words — outside the courtroom. I’ve usually depended on actions instead. After I married you, I didn’t think you required more proofs of my love. If you do, I’ll try to give them to you — not in words, because this is not a courtroom; but I want you to know that I’ve crossed the line from my old life and stepped into a new. This is the proof.”

  He drew out the poker from the coals. It sparkled and glittered and radiated snapping sparks in showers. The iron indeed, seemed instinct with a terrible life, a volition of its own.

  “God!” whispered the hero, and cowered against the locked door.

  The beautiful woman said nothing at all.

  Coming to a point halfway across the room, the villain took the glowing iron and with it seared a smoking furrow, crooked and deep, across the polished wood from one side of the room to the other. The mark still fumed when he stepped back and cast the poker clanging on the hearth. It was an ugly mark, and a melodramatic thing to do, but the villain was a vulgar man.

  “If you doubt that I love you hereafter,” said the villain, “don’t wait for me to tell you, but come up here and look at this mark on the floor, Elizabeth. You’ve done to me what I’ve done here.”

  “John!” whispered his wife.

  He turned his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. Truly, a very vulgar man!

  “Elizabeth!” groaned the hero. “Are you going to leave me?”

  “John!” whispered the beautiful woman, and she ran across the smoking furrow on the floor, stretching out her arms to her husband. He removed his cigar.

  “You will be able to open that other door,” he said. She opened the door and went out.

  “And now?” asked the hero hoarsely.

  “And now,” said the villain, “I have always been a man of few words.”

  So saying, he took down the riding whip from above the fireplace. The room was impervious to noise. It was necessary, because some strange things happened there.

  THE END

  JOHN OVINGTON RETURNS

  § I

  THE OLD SERVANT stopped and faced him. The light from the candle he carried flickered across his bald head as he nodded wonderingly, and John Ovington hardly repressed a smile.

  “You are quite sure you were never in the house before?” asked Hillton.

  “No,” said Ovington, “I was never here before, but somehow it seems to me that a big amber-coloured vase with black figures tracing down the sides should stand by that window. It’s just a fancy, but rather unusual in its clearness.”

  “The Ovingtons are an unusual family, sir,” said Hillton, and he raised his candle so that its light fell more fully on the sternly graven face of his new master. After his moment’s scrutiny he shook his head as one who gives up a problem.

  “A vase like the one you speak of stood there ever since the house was built, but last week Mrs Worth broke it while she was cleaning the room. Every week I have the rooms cleaned, sir, but for the past year they have never been used, none except the kitchen and Mr Ovington’s bedroom where he lay sick for so long.”

  “And died?” said Ovington.

  “And died, sir. He wouldn’t trust any one save me. I wrote the letter which brought you here, and I signed it for him.”

  “I shall never forget that letter,” said Ovington. “And that is the room where I sleep now?”

  “The master has always slept in that room since the family came here to live,” he answered. “Now I think you have seen the whole house, Mr Ovington.”

  “But isn’t there a room behind those folding doors?” asked Ovington.

  “That is the library, and it hasn’t been opened these past fifteen years. Fifteen dreary years, sir. It must be fearful thick with dust.”

  “And why has it been closed all this time?”

  “That was the time when young Master Ovington died, and since then the master couldn’t bear to go into that room. For the family pictures hang there, and he couldn’t stand to look on them, he having lost his heir. The family name ended with him, as he thought. It was only through the lawyers that we traced the line to you, sir, through your great-grandfather, John Ovington, the man who disappeared.”

  “So I understand,” said Ovington. “But let’s have a look at the room.”

  Hillton drew in his wrinkled lips anxiously.

  “Tonight, sir?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a fearsome place to go into at night with all the great, stern old Ovingtons painted and hanging on the wall. It’s most like a graveyard, sir, with the ghosts up and sitting on their tombs. I’m sure you will not like it to be there at night, Mr Ovington.”

  “Tut!” smiled Ovington, and he laid a reassuring hand on the old man’s shoulder. “We’ll risk the dust and the family pictures.”

  It was only after much reluctant fumbling and many sidewise glances as if in hope that Ovington’s resolution would die away that Hillton finally produced the key. The lock had set so fast that it required a great effort for Ovington to send it gritting back. He swung the door wide and stepped into the high, dark room. The wavering of the light behind him made him turn to Hillton, who stood outside the door, the candle fairly shaking in his hand.

  “Come, come!” laughed Ovington. “After all, it’s only a room with nothing more dangerous in it than shadows.”

  “No, sir,” said Hillton, “I’m not afraid. But it’s a strange house and a strange people.”

  He entered slowly, the candle held high above his head, and he peered about at every step.

  Into the highest shadows of the raftered ceiling the wavering candle-light hardly reached, but it shone on the ponderous table, thickly dusted, and into the black throat of the fireplace, and picked out the long row of portraits receding dimly on either side of the room. Among them were a few dressed in the ruffs of the Tudor period. Others appeared in sombre Puritan grey, straight faces under tall hats. Among these one caught Ovington’s eye.

  He took the candle from Hillton and held it close to the portrait. He almost thought for a moment that he was dressed for a fancy ball and stood before a mirror, for it was his own face which returned his gaze with a half scowl and a half sneer, the same strong nose, thin cheeks, and unflinching eyes. He blinded himself with his hand and looked again, but the resemblance persisted. He felt that his forehead had grown very cold.

  “And who is this, Hillton?” he asked, wondering if the servant would notice the resemblance.

  “That is your great-grandfather, whose name was John Ovington, like your name,” said Hillton, forgetting his uneasiness as he talked. “He was the strangest of all the Ovingtons, for he rode away one day and never came back, and that is the last people ever heard of him. And all that was many and many years ago. So long that my father could not remember.”

  He led the way to the window and drew aside the curtain, loosing a cloud of choking dust. Outside the moon glimmered on the garden terraces, which stepped down to a tree-covered hollow, but the other side of the valley rose dark and steep, with a great square house topping it.


  “That is the Jervan house,” said Hillton, and his pointing hand trembled in the moonlight. “That is the house where Beatrice Jervan lived, who was the sweetheart of our John Ovington in those old days, but John Ovington went across the seas and fought in France. So when he came back Beatrice Jervan loved him no longer, and they say that he would have forced her to marry him, for he was a stark fierce man, but she fled away in the night with another man. And John Ovington waited for them at a forking of the Newbury Road as they fled on their horses. He stopped them and would have made them turn back, but the man drew a horse-pistol and shot him through the shoulder and rode on with Beatrice Jervan, and God knows what became of them both. We only know that a granddaughter of that couple married back into the Jervan family, and now there is a Beatrice Jervan over there again in that house; and over here” — he laughed tremulously in the moonlight— “is a John Ovington again.

  “Well, when the man rode on with Beatrice that other John Ovington rose up from the road where he had fallen and called after them: ‘I have failed this time, but I shall not fail twice. I shall come again. I shall wait for you in this place, Beatrice Jervan, and carry you away with me forever.’

  “But that he never did, for shortly afterwards he went and took ship in Boston Harbour and went across the sea to other countries. And he was your great-grandfather. All that he left was this picture on the wall and a little cedar chest of his papers which sits on that shelf next to the brass-bound Bible. He was the last of the old family, for after him his cousin took the name and the inheritance.”

  Through a long moment Ovington stood staring at the opposite house.

  “I am going to stay here and read some of those papers,” said he at last, “so you can leave the candle, Hillton.”

  “Will you sit here all alone, sir, on your first night?”

  He folded his hands in his anxiety, and when Ovington nodded he turned and went falteringly from the room, shaking his head solemnly as he walked.