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CHAPTER I: THE TRAGEDY
(From notes written by Miss Sarah Fairbanks immediately after the report of the Grand Jury.)
AS I TAKE my pen to write this, I have a feeling that I am on the witness stand—for or against myself, which? The place of the criminal in the dock I will not voluntarily take. I will affirm neither my innocence nor my guilt. I will present the facts of the case as impartially and as coolly as if I had nothing at stake. I will let all who may read this judge me as they will.
This I am bound to do, since I am condemned to something infinitely worse than the life-cell or the gallows. I will try my own self in lieu of judge and jury; my guilt or my innocence I will prove to you all, if it be in mortal power. In my despair I am tempted to say I care not which it may be, so something be proved. Open condemnation could not overwhelm me like universal suspicion.
Now, first, as I have heard is the custom in courts of law, I will present the case. I am Sarah Fairbanks, a country schoolteacher, twenty-nine years of age. My mother died when I was twenty-three. Since then, while I have been away teaching at Digby, a cousin of my father’s, Rufus Bennett, and his wife have lived with my father. During the long summer vacations they returned to their little farm in Vermont, and I kept house for my father.
For five years I have been engaged to be married to Henry Ellis, a young man whom I met in Digby. My father was very much opposed to the match, and has told me repeatedly that if I insisted upon marrying him in his lifetime he would disinherit me. On this account Henry has never visited me at my own home. While I could not bring myself to break off my engagement, I wished to avoid an open rupture with my father. He was quite an old man, and I was the only one he had left of a large family.
I believe that parents should honor their children, as well as children their parents, but I had arrived at this conclusion: In nine-tenths of the cases wherein children marry against their parents’ wishes, even when the parents have no just grounds for opposition, the marriages are unhappy.
I sometimes felt that I was unjust to Henry, and resolved that if ever I suspected that his fancy turned toward any other girl I would not hinder it, especially as I was getting older, and, I thought, losing my good looks.
A little while ago, a young and pretty girl came to Digby to teach the school in the south district. She boarded in the same house with Henry. I heard that he was somewhat attentive to her, and I made up my mind I would not interfere. At the same time it seemed to me my heart was breaking. I heard her people had money, too, and she was an only child. I had always felt that Henry ought to marry a wife with money, because he had nothing himself, and was not very strong.
School closed five weeks ago, and I came home for the summer vacation. The night before I left Henry came to see me, and urged me to marry him. I refused again; but I never before had felt that my father was so hard and cruel as I did that night. Henry said that he should certainly see me during the vacation, and when I replied that he must not come, he was angry, and said—but such foolish things are not worth repeating. Henry has really a very sweet temper, and would not hurt a fly.
The very night of my return home Rufus Bennett and my father had words about some maple sugar which Rufus made on his Vermont farm and sold to my father, who made a good trade for it to some people in Boston. That was father’s business. He had once kept a store, but had given it up, and sold a few articles that he could make a large profit on here and there at wholesale. He used to send to New Hampshire and Vermont for butter, eggs, and cheese. Cousin Rufus thought father did not allow him enough of his profit on the maple sugar, and in the dispute father lost his temper and said that Rufus had given him under weight. At that, Rufus swore an oath and seized father by the throat. Rufus’s wife screamed, “Oh, don’t! don’t! Oh, he’ll kill him!”
I went up to Rufus and took hold of his arm.
“Rufus Bennett,” said I, “you let my father go!”
But Rufus’s eyes glared like a madman’s, and he would not let go. Then I went to the desk-drawer where father had kept a pistol since some houses in the village were broken into. I got out the pistol, laid hold of Rufus again, and held the muzzle against his forehead.
“You let go my father,” said I, “or I’ll fire!”
Then Rufus let go, and father dropped like a log. He was purple in the face. Rufus’s wife and I worked a long time over him to bring him to.
“Rufus Bennett,” said I, “go to the well and get a pitcher of water.” He went, but when father had revived and got up, Rufus gave him a look that showed he was not over his rage.
“I’ll get even with you yet, Martin Fairbanks, old man as you are!” he shouted out, and went into the other room.
We got father to bed soon. He slept in the bedroom downstairs, out of the sitting room. Rufus and his wife had the north chamber, and I had the south one. I left my door open that night, and did not sleep any. I listened; no one stirred in the night. Rufus and his wife were up very early in the morning, and before nine o’clock left for Vermont. They had a day’s journey and would reach home about nine in the evening. Rufus’s wife bade father good-bye, crying, while Rufus was getting their trunks downstairs, but Rufus did not go near father nor me. He ate no breakfast; his very back looked ugly when he went out of the yard.
That very day, about seven o’clock in the evening, after tea, I had just washed the dishes and put them away and went out on the north doorstep, where father was sitting, and sat down on the lowest step. There was a cool breeze there; it had been a very hot day.
“I want to know if that Ellis fellow has been to see you any lately?” said father all at once.
“Not a great deal,” I answered.
“Did he come to see you the last night you were there?” said father.
“Yes, sir,” said I, “he did come.”
“If you ever have another word to say to that fellow while I live, I’ll kick you out of this house like a dog, daughter of mine though you be!” said he. Then he swore a great oath and called God to witness. “Speak to that fellow again, if you dare, while I live!” said he.
I did not say a word; I just looked up at him as I sat there. Father turned pale, and shrank back, and put his hand to his throat, where Rufus had clutched him. There were some purple finger-prints there.
“I suppose you would have been glad if he’d killed me,” father cried out.
“I saved your life,” said I.
“What did you do with that pistol?” he asked.
“I put it back in the desk-drawer.”
I got up and went around and sat on the west doorstep, which is the front one. As I sat there the bell rang for the Tuesday evening meeting, and Phoebe Dole and Maria Woods, two old maiden ladies, dressmakers, our next-door neighbors, went past on their way to the meeting. Phoebe stopped and asked if Rufus and his wife had gone. Maria went around the house. Very soon they went on, and several other people passed. When they had all gone it was as still as death.
I sat alone a long time, until I could see by the shadows that the full moon had risen. Then I went up to my room and went to bed.
I lay awake a long time, crying. It seemed to me that all hope of marriage between Henry and me was over. I could not expect him to wait for me. I thought of that other girl; I could see her pretty face wherever I looked. But at last I cried myself to sleep.
At about five o’clock I woke and got up. Father always wanted his breakfast at six o’clock, and I had to prepare it now.
When father and I were alone, he always built the fire in the kitchen stove. But that morning I did not hear him stirring as usual, and I fancied that he must be so out of temper with me that he would not build the fire.
I went to my closet for a dark-blue calico dress which I wore to do housework in. It had hung there during all the school term. As I took it off the hook, my attention was caught by something strange about the dress I had worn the night before. This dress was made of thin summer silk; it was
green in color, sprinkled over with white rings. It had been my best dress for two summers, but now I was wearing it on hot afternoons at home, for it is the coolest dress I have. The night before, too, I had thought of the possibility of Henry’s driving over from Digby and passing the house. He had done this sometimes during the last summer vacation, and I wished to look my best if he did.
As I took down the calico dress I saw what seemed to be a stain on the green silk. I threw on the calico hastily and then took the green silk and carried it over to the window. It was covered with spots—horrible great splashes and streaks down the front. The right sleeve, too, was stained, and all the stains were wet.
“What have I got on my dress?” said I.
It looked like blood. Then I smelled of it, and it was sickening in my nostrils, but I was not sure what the smell of blood was like. I thought I must have got the stains by some accident the night before.
“If that is blood on my dress,” I said, “I must do something to get it off at once, or the dress will be ruined.”
It came to my mind that I had been told that blood-stains had been removed from cloth by an application of flour paste on the wrong side. I took my green silk and ran down the back stairs, which lead, having a door at the foot, directly into the kitchen.
There was no fire in the kitchen stove, as I had thought. Everything was very solitary and still, except for the ticking of the clock on the shelf. When I crossed the kitchen to the pantry, however, the cat mewed to be let in from the shed. She had a little door of her own by which she could enter or leave the shed at will—an aperture just large enough for her Maltese body to pass at ease beside the shed door. It had a little lid, too, hung upon a leather hinge. On my way I let in the cat; then I went to the pantry and got a bowl of flour. This I mixed with water into a stiff paste and applied to the under surface of the stains on my dress. I then hung the dress up to dry in the dark end of a closet leading out of the kitchen, which contained some old clothes of father’s.
Then I made up the fire in the kitchen stove; I made coffee, baked biscuits, and poached some eggs for breakfast.
Then I opened the door into the sitting room and called, “Father, breakfast is ready.” Suddenly I started. There was a red stain on the inside of the sitting-room door. My heart began to beat in my ears.
“Father!” I called out; “father!”
There was no answer.
“Father!” I again called, as loud as I could scream. “Why don’t you speak? What is the matter?”
The door of his bedroom stood open. I had a feeling that I saw a red reflection in there. I gathered myself together and went across the sitting room to father’s bedroom door. His little looking-glass hung over his bureau directly opposite his bed, which was reflected in it.
That was the first thing I saw when I reached the door. I could see father in the looking-glass, and the bed. Father was dead there; he had been murdered in the night.
CHAPTER II: THE KNOT OF RIBBON
I THINK I MUST have fainted away; for presently I found myself upon the floor, and for a minute I could not remember what had happened. Then I remembered; and an awful, unreasoning terror seized me. “I must lock all the doors quick,” I thought, “quick, or the murderer will come back!” I tried to get up, but I could not stand. I sank down again. I had to crawl out of the room on my hands and knees.
I went first to the front door. It was locked with a key and a bolt. I went next to the north door, and that was locked with a key and a bolt. I went to the north shed door, and that was bolted. Then I went to the little-used east door in the shed, beside which the cat has her little passageway, and that was fastened with an iron hook. It has no latch.
The whole house was fastened on the inside. The thought struck me like an icy hand. “The murderer is in this house!” I rose to my feet then; I unhooked that door and ran out of the house and out of the yard, as for my life.
I took the road to the village. The first house, where Phoebe Dole and Maria Woods live, is across a wide field from ours. I did not intend to stop there, for they were only women and could do nothing; but seeing Phoebe looking out of the window, I ran into the yard. She opened the window.
“What is it?” said she. “What is the matter, Sarah Fairbanks?”
Maria Woods came and leaned over her shoulder. Her face looked almost as white as her white hair, and her blue eyes were dilated. My face must have frightened her.
“Father—father is murdered in his bed!” I said.
There was a scream, and Maria Woods’s face disappeared from over Phoebe Dole’s shoulder—she had fainted. I don’t know whether Phoebe looked paler—she is always very pale—but I saw in her black eyes a look I shall never forget. I think she began to suspect me at that moment.
Phoebe glanced back at Maria, but she asked me another question. “Has he had words with anybody?” said she.
“Only with Rufus,” I said; “but Rufus is gone.”
Phoebe turned away from the window to attend to Maria, and I ran on to the village.
A hundred people can testify what I did next—can tell how I called for the doctor and the deputy sheriff; how I went back to my own home with the horror-stricken crowd; how they flocked in and looked at poor father—but only the doctor touched him, very carefully, to see if he were quite dead; how the coroner came, and all the rest.
The pistol was in the bed beside father, but it had not been fired; the charge was still in the barrel. It was blood-stained, and there was one bruise on father’s head which might have been inflicted by the pistol, used as a club. But the wound which caused his death was in his breast, and made evidently by some cutting instrument, though the cut was not a clean one; the weapon must have been dull.
They searched the house, lest the murderer should be hidden away. I heard Rufus Bennett’s name whispered by one and another. Everybody seemed to know that he and father had had words the night before; I could not understand how, because I had told nobody except Phoebe Dole, who had had no time to spread the news, and I was sure that no one else had spoken of it.
They looked in the closet where my green silk dress hung, and pushed it aside, to be sure nobody was concealed behind it, but they did not notice anything wrong about it. It was dark in the closet, and besides, they did not look for anything like that until later.
All these people—the deputy sheriff, and afterward the high sheriff and other out-of-town officers for whom they had telegraphed, and the neighbors—all hunted their own suspicion, and that was Rufus Bennett. All believed that he had come back and killed my father. They fitted all the facts to that belief. They made him do the deed with a long, slender screwdriver which he had recently borrowed from one of the neighbors and had not returned. They made his finger-marks, which were still on my father’s throat, fit the red prints on the sitting-room door. They made sure that he had returned and stolen into the house by the east shed door, while father and I sat on the doorsteps the evening before; that he had hidden himself away, perhaps in that very closet where my dress hung, and afterward stolen out and killed my father and then escaped.
They were not shaken when I told them that every door was bolted and barred that morning. They themselves found all the windows fastened down, except a few which were open on account of the heat, and even these last were raised only the width of a sash, and fastened with sticks so that they could be raised no higher. Father was very cautious about fastening the house, for he sometimes had considerable sums of money by him. The officers saw all these difficulties in the way, but they fitted them somehow to their theory, and two deputy sheriffs were at once sent to apprehend Rufus.
They had not begun to suspect me then, and not the slightest watch was kept on my movements. The neighbors were very kind, and did everything to help me, relieving me altogether of all those last offices—in this case much sadder than usual.
An inquest was held, and I told freely all I knew, except about the blood-stains on my dress. I hardly
knew why I kept that back. I had no feeling then that I might have done the deed myself, and I could not bear to convict myself, if I was innocent.
Two of the neighbors, Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Adams, remained with me all that day. Toward evening, when there were very few in the house, they went into the parlor to put it in order for the funeral, and I sat down alone in the kitchen. As I sat there by the window I thought of my green silk dress, and wondered if the stains were out. I went to the closet and brought the dress out to the light. The spots and streaks had almost disappeared. I took the dress out in the shed and scraped off the flour paste, which was quite dry; I swept up the paste, burned it in the stove, took the dress upstairs to my own closet, and hung it in its old place. Neighbors remained with me all night.
At three o’clock in the afternoon of the next day, which was Thursday, I went over to Phoebe Dole’s to see about a black dress to wear to the funeral. The neighbors had urged me to have my black silk dress altered a little and trimmed with crape.
I found only Maria Woods at home. When she saw me she gave a little scream and began to cry. She looked as if she had already been weeping for hours. Her blue eyes were bloodshot.
“Phoebe’s gone over to—Mrs. Whitney’s to—try on her dress,” she sobbed.
“I want to get my black silk dress fixed a little,” said I.
“She’ll be home—pretty soon,” said Maria.
I laid my dress on the sofa and sat down. Nobody ever consults Maria about a dress. She sews well, but Phoebe does all the planning.
Maria Woods continued to sob like a child, holding her little soaked handkerchief over her face. Her shoulders heaved. As for me, I felt like a stone; I could not weep.
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century Page 47