To Look and Pass

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  I am certain that I had not been thinking of her objectively; in reality I had not been really thinking at all, conscious only of mental confusion and rapidly increasing physical distress. She had always seemed somewhat unreal to me, even when alive, a sort of bright, disembodied evil that had for a moment caught with avid fingers at a lump of immobile flesh, and manifested itself for a very short while in alien gestures, grotesque words. (I think I said once before that in the light of newer, more modern knowledge, Beatrice seems to me to be the only natural, fully rounded personality I have ever known, because she rarely troubled to hide her true self from fairly intelligent people, and because she knew absolutely what she wanted. And yet, because of this naturalness, she seemed unreal.)

  No, I had not been thinking of Beatrice, and when I heard, or thought I heard, her voice, I involuntarily jerked at the reins. My horse stopped apathetically. I stared around me with affrighted eyes, stared at the farmhouse, at the silent and dazzling landscape. I had always wondered if that phrase, “And his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth” was merely a picturesque figure of speech, but I knew it was not in that moment. My throat contracted, my dry tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and an indescribable horror clutched me. Then for some reason my horse moved on, slowly, as though touched by an invisible hand. He began to trot and finally to gallop. I found myself panting and I slowed down the animal. I did not look back until I was sure that I had put some two miles between myself and that dreadful house.

  In my dreamlike state induced by fever, a thousand formless and terrifying thoughts passed through my mind. I had never been one to speculate very much on the immortality of the individual, and my medical education had wiped out any faint speculations I might have had. But now I began to wonder. If souls do survive, I found myself thinking in my sickness, then they are not purged and given noble enlightenment immediately. They must, if they survive at all, carry with them into the outer spaces of reality their own identities, personalities, evils, and virtues. If Beatrice survived, then she was just as she had been, and was invisible evil as she had been a visible one, bent on hurt, on malice and cruelty. I confess the idea did nothing to restore my confidence, and I urged my horse into a gallop again, running full into a raw wind as though fleeing from something. Why, she can still hurt Dan! I thought wildly. She can still hate him, and pursue him!

  I don’t know how I arrived at Ripley, but that whole awful ride was obsessed by the fiendish thought. I could see nothing but Beatrice’s face; I could not escape its smile; if ever a man was haunted, I was. But what she had said, or what I had imagined she had said, did not occupy me actively, so she defeated her own purpose.

  It was only two o’clock when I arrived, and in accordance with my plans, I went to the jail to see Dan before the inquest. Something obscure was urging me there. The first person I encountered was the sheriff. He looked important and pompous, but grinned amiably when he saw me.

  “Hi, Doc,” he said, shaking hands. “Say, your little hick town has had more doin’ in it the last few years than Warburton itself has had in twenty years. Always someone shootin’ someone, or killin’ himself, or gettin’ murdered. You ought to incorporate; too much doin’ in South Kenton for a village. Ought to spread itself out.”

  I wasn’t amused at this joke, and I told him I wanted to see Dan. He led me into the jail proper. I could see that this tragedy did not displease him; he informed me that three reporters from Warburton were waiting for the inquest, and that he shouldn’t wonder if New York itself gave a prominent place in its news to the case. He had had his photograph taken that morning, and he told me candidly that the boys had gotten him in a bad pose, he was sure of it. He also told me that old Mortimer had ridden over to Ripley at the crack of dawn that morning, and that he had just left after an interview with Dan. I imagined very clearly what was said in that interview. The sheriff volunteered the information that Dan had suffered no inconvenience during the night, but was occupying the best cell. I did not make any answer to all this, for I felt the ominous waning of my strength and so conserved it as much as possible.

  He opened a cell door with a flourish, and Dan, who was sitting on his bed looked up without surprise when I came in.

  “When you are through, yell,” said the amiable sheriff, and strode humming down the dank corridor.

  Dan did not seem to be the worse, for his experience. In fact, he looked as though he had had his first good night’s rest for a long time. He was neatly dressed, shaved, smiling and calm. We Shook hands in silence, but even in that intimate moment I had the old feeling that he stood behind a thick wall of transparent glass, that he could speak to me, gesture to me, but that I could not touch him. For one moment I had the childish thought that this was no way to treat a friend who had your life in his hands. What he was thinking I did not know.

  “Sit down, Jim” he said genially. “Smoke? No?” He had offered me a box of cigars. “Jim,” he added in a kindly voice, “you look sick. Anyone would think you were the suspect and not I.”

  I was silent. I could think of nothing to say; my thoughts ran around dully, like stupefied animals. My body was alternately icy cold and burningly hot.

  “Can anyone hear us in here?” I asked heavily, after several moments.

  “No, not if we sit close together and talk softly,” he answered. He raised his eyebrows, as though surprised that I might have something dangerous or too intimate to say. I moved from the wooden chair to the cot beside him. I stared at him somberly and piercingly. I am sure there was no excuse for the sudden amused twitching of his mouth as he returned my regard, as though a child were subjecting him to scrutiny.

  That expression of his broke down all my composure, and I cried, half-hysterically, half-frenziedly: “For God’s sake, man, don’t pretend now that I am being preternaturally solemn and funny! I’m not, and you know I am not!”

  My breath was hoarse and painful, and I think that concerned him more than what I said, for he put his hand over mine gently. It was only when his calm flesh came over my hand that I realized that it was trembling violently.

  “Jim,” he said, “you are sick. You are flushed, too. You ought not to have come. I’m not laughing at you. What do you want to say to me?”

  “You are always so damned untouched, as though nothing really concerned you,” I said bitterly. “Always the impersonal spectator.”

  He said nothing, and looked away from me. That opaque look came over his face again. I edged closer to him, shivering in my thick coat.

  “Dan,” I whispered, “please tell me. Where did you go after nine o’clock last night?”

  He continued to smoke for a moment or two, then turned an unreadable face to me. “Why do you ask that, Jim? Do you think I murdered my wife?”

  “No!” I shouted violently. “Of course I don’t!” I lowered my voice. “But someone—might have seen you. What will you do if old Mort’s alibi falls down?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder, smiling. “Suppose you let me take care of that, Jim. Let me do the worrying.”

  And that was as far as I got. I fumed miserably. I wiped my face with my handkerchief. My irritation against him became frantic. I heard myself talking again, but it was an instant or two after I had begun to speak before I realized what I was saying. Fever, and a mounting sense of unreality, broke down all my reserve.

  “I’ve always been your friend. But these last few years, you’ve put me off, as though I was your enemy. I couldn’t get close to you. You wouldn’t let me. What have I done? I admit I’m a coward; you’ll notice I don’t say ‘was.’ I still am. I’ll run from anything disagreeable. That’s the way I’m made. But discretion still seems the better part of valor to me. But that’s no excuse for the way you’ve put up something between us—”

  “Excuse?” he broke in. He was completely serious now. “I’ve never excused myself to you, Jim, for anything. Look here: when a man is loathsomely sick, or taking a bath, or doing other intimate things,
he doesn’t make a public display of it, does he? He shuts his doors. It is a private matter, kept apart even from his friends. Friends are damnable! They think they ought to be admitted to your bedroom and your privy. They think they can walk through your house, and demand that every door be wide open for their casual inspection at any hour, on any day. They give you no privacy; you are not a dignified individual to them, with decent doors and reticences; you are a book they can open any time, a table they can sit at and eat whenever they wish, a tramping place for their muddy boots. Jim, you are a fine fellow, but you always wanted to walk through my house uninvited and got all huffed up when I tried to inform you that there were rooms closed even to you. You invaded my privacy.”

  “Thank you,” I said angrily.

  He nodded his head gravely. “It’s true, Jim, and you know it. Hell, I have no patience with people who let their friends in all the time. It’s because they have nothing valuable to hide or have no self-respect. I don’t trust a man who has nothing to hide, nothing he considers inviolate or private. You wanted to swarm into my life, touching everything, leaving prints on things I didn’t want touched, that were half a secret to me, myself. Beatrice,” and he spoke without visible wincing or awkwardness, “Beatrice always said you were a ‘prober.’ And once I said to her: ‘No, he is merely a friend.’”

  He looked at me mildly, and in spite of my humiliation I could not keep up my anger.

  “You can be sure,” I said stiffly, that I won’t go into your bedroom, or your privy, as you say so elegantly, anymore. Keep your damn secrets.”

  He smiled. “I shall,” he promised, and once again I had the feeling that he was warning me off.

  “Hell, I only wanted to help you, Dan,” I said brokenly and humbly.

  “I know it, Jim,” he said gently. “But there are things that can’t be helped, that only get festered from handling. Old Mort doesn’t handle; he touches what I let him touch, and keeps away from the things that I don’t want touched, But I know I haven’t any better friend than you.”

  I had wanted to talk about the inquest, but I did not, now. I left him a few moments later, very heavy-hearted.

  Ripley had no personal animosity toward Dan, not knowing him. In fact, the crowds gathered about the jail seemed to wear grateful expressions. Dan had brought color and excitement into their monotonous lives. The Ripleyites, being on the scene, occupied all the available seats in the room where the inquest was held, much to the annoyance of arriving visitors from South Kenton. But the Ripleyites placidly refused to be turned from their seats by angry hints and angrier looks. “We are personally interested in this,” the visitors seemed to say, “and so we are entitled to your seats.”

  The inquest jury was composed of sunburned farmers and small tradesmen unknown to me, and for this I was deeply grateful and relieved. Dan would have a fair hearing. He had waived immunity, he had told me, and the famous criminal lawyer was going to be present to protect his interests. That lawyer was a tiny and emaciated Jew, with a clever, ugly face, and a pair of the most brilliant and beautiful eyes I have ever seen in either man or woman. He looked like a midget beside Dan as he accompanied his client into the inquest room. I was not particularly impressed with either the stature or the manner of the lawyer, for he seemed fussy and had a high, piercing voice. Dan sat down, but his lawyer stood up, full of nervous energy, perpetually shifting his position, cracking his knuckles, and talking, talking incessantly to the reporters about the table, to Dan, or to some casual acquaintance. I was disappointed and apprehensive; I had expected some imposing personality, someone who would dominate the proceedings, a man who would charm, hypnotize, awe and intimidate. It was not until the proceedings began that I realized his genius and his power. His name was Sam Walstein.

  Disappointed and threatening-faced South Kentonites and Ripleyites who had arrived too late had actually climbed up on the window ledges outside and were pressing their faces whitely against the glass in an effort to see. The heat and odors in the small room were stifling; the jury sat in its box, all round and solemn faces, removed and important. Luckily, for some mysterious reason, I had been able to gain a seat in front. I saw Mortimer at a little distance, haggard and absent of expression, and old Martha, shivering in a shabby coat, her ancient face blotched with tears, her eyelids continually trembling. I tried to catch Mortimer’s eyes, but when I did so he remained aloof and blank.

  The sheriff entered, swollen with importance, but happily genial. Thank God, I thought, he’s not inimical towards Dan, but he’s out for a show and will make himself chief actor.

  The hum in the room died down into complete silence. The coroner was called, and made a lengthy and prosy report. He might have been talking about a slaughtered hog, for any horror or color that he gave the proceedings. I remarked one or two errors in his report. He did not want to give up his place in the spotlight; poor man, this was probably the only important spot he had ever occupied in his life. He submitted with relish to questioning by the sheriff, and was hurt and annoyed when Sam Walstein said that he had nothing to ask the witness. The coroner left the stand with visible reluctance. But he had definitely established the time of Beatrice’s death as between nine-thirty and ten o’clock the previous night.

  The next witness was old Martha. She was helped to the stand by the constable, and sat shaking on her chair, sunken, in her coat, her jet-strung bonnet twinkling. She gave Dan a wild and pleading glance. He did not move an inch, but he smiled at her encouragingly. She began to cry. The sheriff questioned her.

  Yes, Mr. Dan had told her after supper that she could go see her daughter, who was sick, and that she might stay overnight if she wanted to. No, he did not seem to want to get rid of her, exactly. In fact, she replied, with a suddenly hopeful lighting of her old face, he had not told her she might go until she had asked him. She repeated this over and over, until the sheriff irritatedly halted her.

  The sheriff cleared his throat.

  “What were the family relations between Mr. Hendricks and his wife, I mean, what you could see of them?” he asked.

  Again she sent Dan that wild and pleading glance and wrung her hands together before she replied. Well, sir, she was always a-naggin’ him and a-naggin’ him. She, Martha, didn’t know just what about, because she didn’t listen—much. (Laughter) Anyways, it was about him ruinin’ her life, or somethin’, because he didn’t like sassiety and was always a-disgracin’ of her. There was somethin’ about her mother that she said, too, but Martha couldn’t understand it, for Mrs. Hendricks didn’t say right out what it was, but just sort of hinted about it. It was Martha’s opinion that she was a nasty, mean woman, never a kind word to say to anybody or of anybody.

  At this Sam Walstein broke in, with a deferential bow towards the sheriff.

  “If it may please the sheriff,” he said courteously, “this isn’t a murder trial, where justification for a murder is being brought out. No one is being accused of the murder, yet. In fact, it hasn’t yet been established that there is a murder.”

  The sheriff glared at him. “You ain’t, I mean, you aren’t trying to say she might’ve cut her head off herself with the ax, Mr. Walstein?”

  “Not exactly,” replied the attorney, still courteous, “but until we have evidence that someone did murder her, we must assume that she did.”

  “Well, it’s irregular,” said the sheriff, somewhat nonplussed. He resumed his questioning of old Martha. I felt some respect for him. With surprising adroitness, considering the watchfulness of Sam Walstein, he did bring out that there had been a more serious quarrel that night between Dan and his wife, and though Sam objected to some leading questions, I could see that the jury was impressed. The sheriff was no fool.

  The inquest, Sam remarked gently, was to discover if there had been a murder, and if so, to disclose sufficient evidence against anyone to submit to the grand jury. One must always keep in mind that there might have been a half-dozen murderers, and no particular man. His voice
, suddenly soft and calm, began to dominate the proceedings; I saw he was deliberately trying to disconcert the sheriff. And yet, neither by gesture nor word nor voice, was this evident. However, he succeeded so well that the sheriff missed several good points that could have been used advantageously against Dan; this was evident even to my inexperienced eyes. The jury did not seem to notice this.

  Mortimer was called. He came deliberately to the stand, submitted to routine questions put him by the sheriff. He repeated, calmly and unemotionally, the story he had told the night before. He referred repeatedly to his wife. Sam took him over.

  “You are positive it was nearly twelve, or twelve, when Mr. Hendricks left your house, Mr. Rugby?”

  “Yes, positive. I remember that I was worried about Mrs. Rugby, and I looked at the clock. I hoped I should not have to go after her, and then remembered that Jack, my son, would probably bring her home. And then she came home.”

  “There was no earthly reason, if someone other than Mr. Hendricks was in your study, to tell your wife it was he?”

  “None at all,” was the calm reply. “I invited her in to say goodnight to him.”

  Sam looked calmly about the room.

  “I hope, if anyone else was with Mr. Rugby last night, that he will come forward now.”

  There was a prolonged silence. Nobody moved. I looked at Mortimer, but he did not look at me.