by Howard Pyle
Patty did not seem to understand him, and her father spoke to her in a low voice. Then she sat down mechanically, as though she did not know what she was doing.
“Take courage, Patty!” burst out Tom. “God knows I am innocent of this! God knows I am!”
“The prisoner must be silent!” said the magistrate, rapping on the desk before him with his knuckles. Then, speaking to Patty again: “At what hour in the afternoon was it that you saw him?”
Patty looked up and her eyes met Tom’s. He tried to smile. “Speak out, Patty, and tell everything,” said he.
“About five o’clock,” said she, faintly.
“What was said between you?” said the magistrate.
There was a pause of dead silence, every one listening to catch the answer. At last the magistrate, after waiting a while for her to speak, repeated:
“Can you tell me what was said between you?”
There was another pause, and still Patty made no answer. Suddenly she burst forth: “Oh, I can’t! — I can’t! — I can’t!” She covered her face with her hands as she spoke, rocking her body back and forth, while convulsive sobs shook her through and through.
I think that few eyes were dry in the magistrate’s office. Tom stood looking at his darling with trembling lips, the tears trickling unnoticed down his cheeks. Old Elihu Penrose sat gazing stonily ahead of him, his hands clasped tightly together upon his lap.
Nothing was said for some time, and Mr. Morrow sat wiping his spectacles. After a while he spoke in a gentle and soothing manner: “You must answer me — you must, indeed. It is sad, very sad. I wouldn’t ask you these things if I didn’t have to. But you must answer me. Can’t you tell me what was said between you when you saw him last?”
“I — I — I told-him — that I was to — to be married — to-day.”
There was a moment of hesitation before the magistrate asked the next question. Then it came;
“Was there a promise of marriage between you and the prisoner before he left Eastcaster a year and a half ago?”
Again there was no answer given to Mr. Morrow’s question, and, after a little pause, the magistrate repeated it.
Still Patty said nothing; her face sank lower, lower, lower upon her breast and her hands slid helplessly to her lap; then she swayed slowly from one side to the other. Tom was looking intently at her, and suddenly he gave a sharp and bitter cry: —
“Catch her; she’s falling! My God, you’ve killed her!”
As he spoke she sank forward, and would have fallen if her father had not caught her in his arms and so saved her. Then he looked at Tom for the first time since he had come into the magistrate’s office.
“If she’s killed, it’s thy doings, Thomas Granger,” said he, in a low, constrained voice. He stood grimly holding her, but all around him was confusion and tumult. Mr. Morrow pushed his chair back hastily and arose and Dr. Winterapple ran to her.
“Let her lie on the floor!” he cried, “she’s fainted! Some water, quick!”
Her father laid her down upon the floor and Dr. Winterapple, snatching up a pitcher of water that sat upon the table, began sprinkling her face and bathing her temples. Mrs. Bond kneeled beside her, chafing and slapping her hands.
Elihu Penrose sat down in his chair again, staring at Patty with the same expressionless look that he had worn all along. After a while her bosom rose with a deep, convulsive sigh and she partially unclosed her eyes, moving her head from side to side. They lifted her up and sat her in a chair, and Mrs. Bond fanned her. Then Tom turned to the magistrate.
“Mr. Morrow,” said he, “for the love of heaven, don’t torture her any more; I’ll tell everything!”
“Take care,” said Mr. Morrow, warningly; “I tell you plainly that what you say will be taken in evidence against you. Your case is dark enough — don’t make it any blacker.”
“I don’t care how black the case is against me! I’d rather have anything happen to me than have you make that poor girl convict me out of her own mouth! I’ve kept my lips shut too long already.”
“I have only to say, take care what you say!” said the magistrate again.
“I’ll take care! You asked her if there was any promise of marriage between us before I sailed away on this last cruise. There was a promise of marriage! I’ll tell you farther—”
“I’ll have to commit you from your own lips, if there’s more such evidence to come.”
“I don’t care!” said Tom, in a ringing voice, “I’ll tell you that I was half crazy after I left her, for I didn’t know that she was going to be married till she told me herself. I met Isaac Naylor at the very place where he was killed, and I did use violence to him; but I neither struck him nor killed him.”
“That’ll do,” said Mr. Morrow, “I’ll have to commit you for trial. I’d have had to commit you, anyhow, even if you hadn’t spoken a word, for there was evidence enough for it. I’m sorry for you; very sorry.”
He dipped his pen in the ink as he spoke, and began writing.
Tom’s father laid his horny palm on Tom’s hand as he stood clutching the railing in front of him. “Thee’s done right to speak, even if it weighs against thee, Thomas,” said he. The tears arose in Tom’s eyes at his father’s words. All the time he had been speaking, he was looking at Patty. She was leaning back in her chair with her lips apart, and her eyes just showing through the half-closed lids. He saw that she had heard nothing of what he had said, and he was glad of it.
The magistrate reached across the railing, and handed the commitment to the constable.
“Farewell, father,” said Tom, “thee believes that I’m innocent; don’t thee?”
“Yes; I do,” said his father, in a husky voice. Then he gave way to his feelings, as no one had ever seen him do before — he laid both hands on his son’s shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Farewell, John; farewell, William,” said he, reaching out his hands to his brothers.
“Farewell, Thomas,” said John, clapping him upon the shoulder, and trying to speak cheerfully; “thee’ll come out all right; I know thee will!”
“I hope so,” said Tom.
“You’ll have to come along, now,” said the constable. Then they went out again through the curious crowd, Johnson pushing a way through the people for himself and his prisoner. They stepped into the gig, and drove away to the gaol.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TOM GRANGER HAD been in Eastcaster gaol about an hour, when Will Gaines came to see him.
Since the click of the lock that shut him in his cell as a murderer had sounded in his ears, a calmness and a peace almost akin to happiness had fallen upon his spirit. This may sound strange, but there are periods, in times of trouble and grief, when the soul is relaxed from its tension of pain, and quietude comes for the time being. Tom’s brain was as clear as crystal, and he reviewed his position with a keenness that surprised himself He saw that the evidence was strong against him — damningly strong. As he walked up and down his cell, thinking over all that the witnesses had said — and he seemed to remember every word — he felt as though he were shut in by a wall of evidence that he could never hope to break through. But, though realizing all this, he had none of that anxiety regarding it, that it would have seemed natural for him to feel; it was almost as though these things concerned another person.
So he walked up and down his cell, going over all that had passed in the squire’s office. Of a sudden, a flaw in a certain part of the evidence struck him; it was but a small thing, but it was sufficient to arouse a new thought within him. Then he stood quite still in the middle of the cell, looking down upon the floor, and sunk in meditation, for his mind was busy in following up point after point of this thought, as a hound follows up the scent of game that it has freshly started.
How long he stood there I do not know, but he was aroused at last by the opening of the door of his cell, and Will Gaines came in to him. Will did not say a word; neither did he look at Tom, but he flung his hat and
cloak despondingly upon the table.
“Sit down, Will,” said Tom, “take that chair; I’ll sit here on the edge of the cot.”
“Thank’ee,” said Will, “I will sit down, if you don’t mind. I’m kind of tired and fagged out.”
“How did you leave mother and Susan?” said Tom, after a moment or two of silence had passed.
“Oh, pretty well. Of course, your mother is very troubled at what has occurred, but, on the whole, she bears it better than I could have hoped for. She believes that you’re innocent.”
“She’s right.”
Will heaved a sigh. “I hope she is,” said he.
“Thank’ee,” said Tom, a little grimly, and then the talk lapsed between them again.
“Tom,” said Will, breaking the silence, “your father has engaged me to act as your attorney in this matter. The Lord knows, I wish I had more experience. I haven’t always worked as hard as I might have done, and now, when it has fallen to my lot to have to defend the brother of the girl that I hope to marry from a charge of murder, it seems likely that I’ll have to pay a bitter price for all the time that I have wasted. However, I’ll go to Philadelphia to-morrow and see Mr. Fargio, and get him to take up your case. I’ve come to talk over the matter with you, Tom.”
“Wait a minute, Will. I have a question to ask you, first. Do you believe me guilty?”
Will Gaines looked fixedly out of the window of the cell, but he did not answer. Tom smiled a little sadly.
“I think I know how you feel about it, without the asking, Will,” said he. “Now, do you think that I’d have a man defend me who didn’t believe that I was innocent?”
“Of course; you’d have to have some one to defend you.”
“I don’t see that. If I really was guilty of this thing, it seems to me that I ought to be punished as the law calls for. However, that is neither here nor there, for I hope to make you believe in my innocence before you quit this cell.”
“I wish to Heaven you could,” said Will, but his tone was rather gloomy than hopeful.
“Well, I’ll have a try at it. In the first place, I’ll have to ask you whether you think that I’m the kind of man that would murder another in cold blood?”
“Of course I don’t believe that,” said Will.
“You don’t think that I’m capable of lying in wait for Isaac Naylor, and deliberately killing him — not in heat of passion, but with a cool hand?”
“Certainly not. You don’t think that I’d believe such a thing of you as that, do you?”
“Then, if I had killed him, I would have been in a rage, and hardly conscious of what I was doing?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, I think that I can easily convince you that I didn’t do it at all.”
“I wish you could,” said Will, again.
“Do you believe what I told you up home, about meeting Isaac Naylor, and fighting with him?”
Will nodded his head.
“If I’d killed him at all, I would have killed him then, and in that struggle, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. Now, Dr. Winterapple affirmed before the magistrate that only one blow had been given, and that that blow was immediately behind and under the right ear.”
Will was looking very earnestly at Tom. “I heard his evidence before the coroner’s jury,” said he.
“Well, I’m right, ain’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Where are your wits, man? How could I strike him in the back part of the head, and under the right ear, if I struck him while he was fighting me off, as he must have been doing under the circumstances? Look here; suppose you and I are facing one another, so — I have a club in my hand to strike you with; I couldn’t possibly reach you to strike you where Isaac received the blow that finished him. If I were to strike you a blow in a moment of fury, it would be on the top or on the left side of the head. It would be impossible to strike you on the right side, without I were left handed.”
“Tom,” said Will, “I hadn’t thought of that — what a fool I have been.”
“Well, I suppose you didn’t think of it,” said Tom, “but I don’t see that that makes a fool of you.”
“You’ve made a great point,” said Will; “I see now; of course you couldn’t.”
“Wait a bit,” said Tom, “you’re going too fast, now. Any one, except a friend, who wanted to believe in my innocence, would say that Isaac might have broken away from me, and have run. If I’d struck him while he was running away, I’d have given him just such a blow as killed him.”
“That’s true.”
“But, if he’d tried to run away from me, he’d have run in the beaten track, and not in the grass and briars along the roadside. Now, he was found lying in the grass just as he had fallen, and surely, it isn’t likely that if I had struck him down in the middle of the road, I would afterward have dragged him into the grass. My first instinct, after I had done the deed, would be to run away, and leave him lying where he was. He was sitting on the ‘big stone’ when he was struck, and he fell forward just where Ephraim Whiteley found him.”
So Tom ended and stood looking at Will. Will said nothing at first, but at last he spoke.
“Tom,” said he, drawing a deep breath, “I am more thankful to you than I can tell; you have lifted a great load off my mind. I don’t think that I ever fully believed that you were guilty of this thing, but, I was afraid — I was afraid. The evidence was strong against you — you did meet Isaac Naylor, according to your own confession, and you kept that meeting secret from every one. You had just seen Patty, and had heard all, and I know that you must have been half crazy with it. I believe in your innocence now, but the circumstances were very strong against you.”
“Yes; they were, Will,” said Tom; “you had good reason to suspect me; nevertheless, I own freely, I felt kind of cut up when I saw what you thought. Even this that I’ve just said to you, wouldn’t go for much, only that you are ready and anxious to believe me. It wouldn’t weigh a moment with a jury.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
Tom made no answer to this last speech; he took a turn or two up and down his cell, and then stopped suddenly in front of the other.
“You believe I’m innocent now, do you?”
“Yes.”
“Firmly?”
“Firmly.”
“And you won’t think that anything further that I may say to you’ll be for the purpose of throwing the blame off my own shoulders and upon those of another man?”
“No.”
“Then I believe I know who it was that did kill Isaac Naylor.”
“Who?” said Will, almost breathlessly.
Tom looked him in the eyes for a moment or two before he spoke.
“Edmund Moor,” said he, quietly.
For a time Will glared at him with wide-opened eyes and mouth. “Tom,” said he, at last, in a low voice, “what makes you say such a thing as that? What leads you to make so horrible an accusation against such a man as Mr. Moor?”
“That horrible accusation was made against me.”
“But the circumstances were strong against you.”
“I think the circumstances are strong against him.”
“I don’t see it.”
Tom sat down on the edge of the table facing the other. “Look here, Will;” said he, “suppose that a man bearing testimony against another accused of murder should give evidence that was faulty in nearly every point; wouldn’t your first thought be that he knew more of the real story than he was inclined to tell, and that he was willing to let the accused suffer for it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Mr. Moor did; you didn’t hear his evidence before the magistrate, but I did, and what’s more, I remember every word of it. This is what he said: That he was riding out the turnpike for pleasure, and that he saw Isaac Naylor turn into Penrose’s road; that he stopped his horse to water it at the shallow beside the bridge; t
hat he saw me run out of the mill road and up the turnpike, and that he did not know who I was; that he heard no sound of any kind to make him suspect that something was going wrong; that he thought nothing more about Isaac Naylor, but went along the turnpike without looking up the road where Isaac had gone. Now, Will, is there nothing that strikes you as strange in all that?”
“Well, no; I can’t see anything strange in it. It sounds straightforward enough to me.”
“It sounds straightforward enough, Will, but it won’t bear looking into. When a man invents a story, it may seem to be reasonable enough, but, you may depend upon it, it’s not sound in all it’s parts, and must give way somewheres. The first thing that struck me as strange in this was a small matter enough, but it set me to thinking. Mr. Moor’s horse was standing in the shallow beside the bridge when I ran out into the turnpike. Now, in thinking the matter over, it occurred to me that, if I was out riding for pleasure, and my horse was fresh from the stable, I wouldn’t stop within three quarters of a mile from home to water it; would you?”
Will was gazing fixedly into Tom’s eyes; he made no answer to the question, but he shook his head.
“That, as I say, was the first thing that struck me; it was a little thing, but it set me athinking, and I began to wonder why Mr. Moor should have stopped his horse. The day wasn’t warm enough to make it any pleasure to drive through a shallow; one wouldn’t think of doing such a thing on a cool autumn day. So I began turning things over and over in my mind and, after a while, the whole story went to pieces, like a card house when you take away one of the cards. Now, I think I can prove to you from Mr. Moor’s own evidence before the magistrate, that he was within three hundred yards of Isaac Naylor and me during the whole time that we were together, and that he saw all that passed between us. Mr. Moor said that he saw Isaac Naylor turn into the mill road. To do that, he must have been pretty well down the hill or he couldn’t have seen him for the trees; he couldn’t have been over five hundred yards away from him, could he?”
Will shook his head.
“Now, Isaac Naylor walked about two or three hundred yards down the mill road before he met me, and there’s where he was found the next morning — killed. While he walked that three hundred yards, Mr. Moor, on horseback, could easily have covered the five hundred yards between the spot from where he saw him to the place where the mill road opens into the turnpike, so that he could have come up to the opening of the road just about the time that Isaac Naylor met me. Now,” said Tom, patting the edge of the table upon which he was sitting to give force to that which he was saying, “is it reasonable that I could have talked to Isaac Naylor, have fought with him and have killed him, and then have run the three hundred yards to the turnpike while Mr. Moor sat on his horse watering it at the shallow? Is it reasonable, say?”