by Anthology
“The guilty man,” I interposed, “is not a subject for sympathy. But he whom you love is not the guilty man,” I bravely assured her. “Take my word and my hope for that. A man who could win your regard has no such black spot in his breast.”
And, bowing over her hand, I escaped before she could propound any of the many questions my declared purpose was likely to call up.
XVII. The Monogram
I HAD made my promise to Miss Meredith with an apparent hopefulness which may have deceived her, but did not deceive myself. When, the glow of my first enthusiasm passed, I sat down in the solitude of my own room to reconsider the events of the day, but one thing was clear to me, and that was the unpromising nature of the task I had set myself to perform. What excuse had I for the self-confidence I had shown? What means were at my command which were not also at the command of the police? She herself had asked this same question, and I had parried it. But I could not parry the demands of my own intelligence. They must be met and answered. But how? In vain I pondered ways and means; laid innumerable plans and relentlessly discarded them; projected interviews which I knew were fruitless, and worked myself through labyrinths of reasoning which ended in nothing and left me no farther advanced at the end than I was in the beginning.
Wearied at last in mind and body, I retired, and during my sleep had an inspiration upon which I proceeded to act early the next morning. Revisiting Sam Underhill’s apartment, I told him my difficulty and opened up my scheme. Sam Underhill, with all his faults and numberless eccentricities, was a good fellow at bottom, and just the man to respect my confidence. He was, besides, the only person within the range of my acquaintances who could assist me in the plan I had formed; a plan which demanded the active cooperation of someone not so well known to the police as myself. Hampered as I was by my well-known connection with the Gillespie poisoning case, I could not personally make a move towards the ravelment of its mystery without subjecting myself to the curiosity of the people among whom my investigations might carry me, even if I escaped drawing upon myself the attention of the District Attorney’s office and the suspicion of the men whose business I was in a measure attempting to usurp. But he was a free agent; he could come and go without arousing distrust or awakening professional jealousy. At all events he, and he alone, could put me into communication with the private detective whom I had decided to employ. As I had always been accustomed to visit Sam’s rooms, my presence there at any hour of the day or night would raise no comment. I had only his laziness to fear, a laziness which with him was as marked a characteristic as it was with Alfred Gillespie, whom he so carelessly criticised.
Seated with him over an impromptu chafing-dish breakfast, I first tested his good nature by a sally or two, and finding it well up to the mark, took him, as I have already said, sufficiently into my confidence to rouse his interest; then I put the blunt question:
“Which of the three Gillespie boys do you, upon mature reflection, consider the most capable of the crime attributed to this family?”
His manner changed at once.
“Oh, come now!” he cried, “don’t calculate upon putting me in that box. Like the rest of the world I prefer to await developments before committing myself on so delicate a matter. Why, Outhwaite, prejudice is as bad as the hangman! If I had settled positively in my own mind which of the three had emptied that phial of poison into the old gentleman’s evening glass, I would not impart my convictions. These fellows have enough to carry without my throwing the least weight into so trembling a balance.”
I girded myself for the struggle.
“Wait,” said I; “have I fully made clear to you Miss Meredith’s position?”
“Yes, I comprehend that well enough.”
“Very well, then. Which is most important; to assist this unhappy woman to escape from her anomalous position, or to prevent prejudice from being formed in my mind, when you know how impossible it would be for me to misuse it to my advantage?”
“I am not so sure of that,” he retorted. “I don’t know of a fellow more likely to be carried away by his convictions than yourself. If you were not a lawyer you would be doing all sorts of quixotic things; but, being hemmed in by professional conventionalities, you show some restraint, though not enough to warrant me in trusting you with my opinion on this matter—since it is only an opinion.”
Naturally, I became eager to know what lay behind this break. Opinions are not formed without some show of reason, and the lightest reason might suffice to put me on the track I sought. He saw my resolution in my face, and made an effort to resist.
“I am as sorry as you are for Miss Meredith,” he drawled, helping me to fresh coffee. “If I had seen her the day she gave her testimony I might be sorrier still; but I did not have that pleasure, and so am willing to leave the matter with those whose duty it is to see that justice is meted out to the guilty.”
“Do you think their efforts are likely to be successful?”
“Oh, the question will be solved some day.”
“Do you think so?”
At this repetition of the phrase, which I had made forcible by my intonation, he raised his eyebrows and, emptying his cup before answering, gave me an opportunity to add:
“With nothing to go upon but an accusation which, while involving all three of Mr. Gillespie’s sons, specifies none, how can any official action be taken beyond that very ordinary one of submitting the whole house hold to a continual surveillance? Unless fresh evidence comes in, or conscience drives the guilty to confession, weeks, months, nay, years will go by, and the hand which hesitates to move now will hesitate still; justice needing something more definite to go upon than a suspicion equally divided amongst three men.”
“You are right there, but what can you do to better the situation? It appears to me that you will have to wait too.”
“Which contradicts your former assertion.”
“Very possibly; man is full of contradictions at so early an hour as this, and with only one cup of coffee between him and the possible nightmare of the night before.”
“Drink another cup, then, while I tell you what my hopes are. Guided by impressions which more than once in my life have proved infallible, I mean to run my man down till he succumbs to the pressure I will bring upon him, and confesses. This, I believe, can be done if all my force is concentrated on one man. At all events it is the only way I see of attaining the desired end. Now, will you assist me to choose the one out of these three most open to attack?”
“I don’t like it; it is against all my principles, but if you must know the exact state of my feelings on this matter, come to these rooms to-night at nine sharp and I will allow you to hear from the lips of a certain acquaintance of mine a story which may serve to give you some enlightenment. He’s not a man you will want to meet, so I must ask you to content yourself with an easy chair in my den. He will be received in this room, and the door yonder can be left conveniently open. Do you object to this arrangement? It smacks of conspiracy and other things not altogether agreeable; but it’s the best I can do for you at this time, and poor Yox won’t care; it’s your feelings I am mainly considering.”
“I will be here,” I doggedly replied. I was resolved to let nothing, not even my prejudices as a gentleman, interfere with the successful pursuit of this undertaking. “Will his story contain any reference to Miss Meredith?”
“Not the least in the world. Why?”
“Because I always find it difficult to sit still when I hear ladies spoken of in any way short of the deepest respect; and you say he is not a gentleman.”
“He won’t transgress to that degree. If he does, trust to my bringing him to order. Sorry I must place an embargo on the cigars you will find on the table. Smoking on your part would give away your presence; for the man whose story you are coming to hear is one of those fellows who smell a rat round the corner. In other words, he’s a private detective with whom I was once thrown in a peculiar way. What now?”
“Perhaps he’s the very fellow I want. I have use for a private detective.”
“So—I—suppose.”
This sentence, so long in coming, was uttered in a peculiar way, and at the moment we were rising from table. Though I said nothing, I experienced an access of courage. Unpromising as Sam’s manner had been, he was really in sympathy with me, and willing to lend me a helping hand.
That day the law suffered, or, rather, I should say, such clients as were misguided enough to come to my office. The uncertain nature of the disclosure I awaited, and the doubt as to which of the three brothers it would chiefly affect, kept me restless up to the hour set apart for my return to Sam Underhill’s room. Not till nine o’clock arrived and I found myself in the small apartment called his den, did I recover my poise and show anything like a steady countenance in the long mirror stretched above the mantel. This has always been a characteristic of mine. Great agitation up to the moment of action, and then an unnatural calmness. In this case it was an event I awaited; but the characteristic remained unchanged.
Sam Underhill, on the contrary, never appeared more at his ease. I could hear him singing between the whiffs of his cigar, and, as I followed the mellow strains of one of the finest tenors I have ever known, I recalled the fact that I myself had not sung a note since the experience which had made such heavy inroads into my life. Was I growing misanthropic? Sam had not been without his dark days. I remembered quite well all the talk that went about at the time of his mad passion for Dorothy Loring,—that bewitching madcap who afterwards found her match in Steve Wilson,—and I could not reconcile that disappointment with his present gaiety.
But these reflections cannot be of any interest to my readers; enough that they occupied me at the time and killed my impatience, till a sudden stop page in the strain I objected to warned me that the expected visitor had arrived. I squared myself for the ordeal, held my breath, and prepared to listen.
The greetings were commonplace. Sam is a proud chap and does not put himself out much for anybody. To this man he scarcely showed common courtesy. Perhaps he was afraid of awakening distrust by any betrayal of interest in the coming interview; perhaps he recognised that a barely civil greeting was all the man expected or desired. “Halloo, Yox!”
“Good evening, Mr. Underhill.”
“Did I ask you to call on me to-night?”
“You certainly did, Mr. Underhill, and set the hour.”
“Well, well, I suppose you are correct. Sit down. My memory is not much longer than this cigar, which you may observe is almost smoked up. Have one, Yox; you won’t get a better in your shop; and now, what have you come to tell me?”
“Not much. Dennison bought seven shares last Tuesday and Little invested in as many more yester day. Both men show confidence, and to-morrow’s report will be all you can wish.”
Good! How much do I owe you? Will that do?”
I heard a rustle, then a short laugh preceding the remark, “You might halve it and still please me. Oh, I’ll take it. Not too much grist comes to my mill.”
Here there was a silence. Underhill was evidently lighting a fresh cigar. When they spoke again it was to drift into generalities, to which I listened with an impatience in marked contrast to the complacency of Sam, who seemed just too tired to live; that is, if I could judge from his tone and the total absence of interest he expressed in anything said either by himself or his somewhat vulgar guest. But suddenly there was a change, not in Underhill, whose voice was even more languishing than before, but in myself; for I heard Sam remark between two prolonged whiffs:
“What is that story you were trying to tell me the other night about the row in lower —— Street? I thought it promised to be interesting at the time, but the other fellows were in such a hurry I couldn’t stay to hear it out. Tell it again, Yox, just as you did then; perhaps it will wake me up.”
The answer came more quickly than I expected.
“Oh, that? Well, I don’t mind. It was a curious adventure and brought me too near the police for me to forget it in a hurry. I wish I knew who that fellow was. Did I show you the match-box I found in one of the pockets of the coat he gave me? The monogram—”
“Never mind the monogram. We’ll talk about that afterwards,” broke in Sam in the sleepiest tones imaginable. “I don’t care so much about the man as the way he acted. This struck me as being strange for a gentleman. But begin, Yox; you relate adventures well. I have heard you talk more than once.”
Yox, who was not above flattery, hemmed, hawed, and launched out in the following tale. I transcribe his words as nearly as I can remember them. At first he did not interest me much.
“You see, I had business at old Mother Merry’s. Do you know the place? It’s not likely, so I will describe it; you need to know something about it in order to understand my story.
“It’s an old fish-market, or, rather, that was its use once; now it’s a sort of lodging-house, standing half on the dock and half on piles, somewhere down near —— Street. I like the place. That is, it has a mysterious air which we fellows don’t object to. Seen from the docks and in daylight, it has the appearance of four squat walls without windows. But if you take the trouble to crawl around on the river side, you will find two glazed loopholes overlooking the water, one on the lower story and one under the roof. There is also, I am told, a skylight or two up above, but I can’t swear to that. By night, the one bright glimmer you see on getting near it shines through the door. This stands open in the summer, or, rather, the upper half of it does, for it is made in two parts, like the old Dutch ones you see in the pictures; but in winter time an agreeable light shines through the four small holes arranged along the top half. A calico curtain blows in and out of this door on such nights as we have been having lately; for Mother Merry likes a fire, and the little stove she sits at, netting, heats the one big room below to smotheration, and the men won’t stand it. If this curtain blows high you can, if you’re nervy enough, get a peep at the inside, stewing with a horrible smell of fish, and bright with kerosene lamps and the busy little stove. You won’t see much furniture, for Mother Merry don’t spend her money on anything she can do without; but there is a table or two and some chairs, and in one of the corners a door which sometimes stands half open, but more often is to be seen tight shut. Behind this door whatever mischief the house hides takes place. You can tell this from the old woman’s eye, which is always on it; and, if you know her well, it is quite enough to watch her twitching underlip to satisfy yourself as to whether the mischief is big or little; prosperous in its character, or of a kind likely to damage her reputation and empty her well-stuffed pockets. She is no fool, this old Mother Merry; and though she has not much of what we men call nerve, and trembles like a leaf at the approach of a policeman, she has more control than you would think over the tough crowd of boatmen who knock their heads together in that little room. I have even been told that she is feared quite beyond all reason by the few stray females who find a refuge in the scanty garret rooms, which have given to this shanty the highfalutin name of lodging-house. What harm goes on under her twinkling red eye, I do not know. I have been in the place altogether three times, but have never yet found out what that door conceals. The men play at some sort of game around a large table, on which black bottles and thick glasses take up as much room as the cards; but I do not think it is gambling only which makes it next to impossible for a fellow to get in there at night. There is something else—but I won’t stop over that. It is a hell of a place, as you can judge, and unless one’s business led him there, scarcely a spot where a man would brag of being found.
“One night—the night I am telling you about—I got in, but got in late. There was some sort of pass-word necessary, and I had a hard time getting hold of it, and a harder time yet making old Mother Merry hear it when I had got hold of it. Yet she isn’t deaf and doesn’t pretend to be. This trouble over, and the door passed, I encountered another check. A man was there; a slouchy, disreputable
wretch, and it was he, instead of Mother Merry, who was watching that mysterious door, which for once stood far enough ajar for one room to share the smells, sights, and uproar of the other. I did not like this man. I did not like the way he stood, or looked, or held his tongue. There was something peculiar and unnatural in his whole manner, and I glanced at Mother Merry to see what she thought of him.
“Evidently nothing bad; for she moved about quite comfortable-like, and did not so much as look at the door I had never before seen her let out of her sight a moment.
“‘Who can he be?’ I naturally asked myself, a little put out by my doubts; for my business would soon take me into the inner room, and I did not like to imagine myself under his eye.
“‘Drink!’ I suddenly shouted, to see if I could make any impression on him.
“But I might as well have shouted at a hitching-post. Mother Merry brought me whiskey, but the man did not budge. I began to think of putting off my affair to a more convenient season, when I was taken with a sudden curiosity to see just what he was staring at.
“Approaching gently, I looked over his shoulder. A portion of the inside room was all I could see, but in that portion sat a man with a red face and a cruel jaw. It was this face which held the attention of the boatman before me; and while I was wondering what he found in it to hold him stock-still for so long, I heard a sigh escape from under the coarse jacket I dreaded touching with my own, and, much amazed at this show of feeling in a den of such boiled-down filth and wickedness, I moved back to where Mother Merry stood, and whispered in her ear:
“Who’s that man? Do you know him? Has he any business here?
“Her gaunt shoulders lifted in a shrug—she is far from jolly, cheerful as her name is—then she drew near the man and I saw her touch him. At that, or some low words she uttered, he roused and cast a quick look about him, then he pointed towards a door on the other side of the room.