Page 33 of One of My Sons


  XXXI

  SWEETWATER HAS AN IDEA

  I was greatly interested. Taking out a box of cigars, I laid it beforehim on the table.

  "Be free with them," said I. "If there is any help to be got out ofsmoke let us make use of it."

  He eyed the cigars ruefully.

  "Too bad," he murmured; "unfortunately, it does not work that way withme. Some people think better between whiffs, but smoking clouds myfaculties, and I would be no friend to Mr. Gillespie if I took yourcigars now. Free air and an undisturbed mind for Caleb Sweetwater whenhe settles down to work. Smoke yourself, sir; that won't affect me;but draw the box to your side of the table and give me a rebuking lookif my hand goes out to it before this subject is settled."

  I did as he requested, but not to the point of taking a cigar. I couldthink without its aid as well as he.

  "Now, sir," he immediately began, "you were the first man to enterupon the scene of crime. May I ask if you will be so good as to relateafresh and circumstantially your whole experience with Mr. Gillespie?You cannot be too minute in your details. Somehow or somewhere we havemissed the clue necessary to the clearing up of this case. You may beable to supply it. Will it bore you too much to try?"

  "Not in the least. I am as anxious as yourself to get at the bottom ofthis business."

  "Begin, then, sir. You won't mind my closing my eyes? I find it somuch easier to identify myself with the situation when I see nothingabout to distract me. And, sir, since I dread speaking when activelyabsorbed in this kind of work, will you pardon me if I simply raise myfinger when I want a minute for reflection? I know I am a crank, andnot much used to gentlemen's ways, but I appreciate kindness more thanmost folks, especially when it takes the form of respect paid to mywhims."

  I assured him I was only too ready to do anything which would serve tofurther the end we had in view; and all preliminaries being thusamicably settled he dropped his head into his hands and I began mytale in much the same language I have used in these pages. He listenedwithout a movement while I spoke of Claire and of my entrance into thehouse, but his finger went up when I mentioned the appearancepresented by Mr. Gillespie as he stood propping himself against thetable in a condition of impending collapse.

  "Was the house quiet?" he asked. "Did you hear no sneaking step in thehalls or adjacent dining-room?"

  "Not a step. I remember receiving the impression that this oldgentleman and his grandchild were all alone in the house. One of thegreatest surprises of my life was the discovery that there wereservants in the basement and more than one member of the family on thefloors above."

  "A discovery which leads to our first argument, sir. We have taken itfor granted (and certainly we were justified in doing so) that Mr.Gillespie knew whose hand poured out the poison he felt burning intohis vitals. We have argued that it was this knowledge which led him tospend the final moments of his life in an extraordinary effort tosettle the doubts of his favourite niece. But, sir, if he had had thisknowledge, would he not have mentioned outright and without anycircumlocution the name of the son he had finally settled upon as theguilty one, rather than have made use of the same vague phrase whichhad been his torment and hers, ever since the hour he told her of theshadowy hand he had detected hovering over his glass of medicine? Withthe remembrance in your mind of the few words he left behind him, areyou ready to declare that you find in them any proof of his knowingthen, any better than before, which of his three sons had mingledpoison with his drink? And, sir,--you are a lawyer,--does it followfrom any evidence we have since received that he even positively knewit was one of these three men? Might not his fears and the hauntingmemory of that former attempt have so worked upon his failingfaculties that he took for granted it was one of his sons who had madethis last effort at poisoning him?"

  "It is possible," I admitted, "but----"

  "You don't place much stress on the suggestion."

  "No," said I, "I don't. Anxious as I am that each and all of theseyoung men should be relieved from the appalling charge of parricide, Isaw too great a display of anxiety on his part for the right deliveryof what he believed to hold the last communication he had to make tohis favourite niece, for me to think these final words of hiscontained nothing more definite than a repetition of his former vaguesurmise. He was facing immediate death, yet all his thought, all hisfast-ebbing strength, were devoted to the effort of making her knowthat he had not been mistaken in his former conclusion: that it _was_one of his sons who sought his life, and that this son had nowactually succeeded in poisoning him. That he did not proceed furtherand name which one, was due probably to a sudden loss of strength.That he meant to say more than he did is evident from the _he_ whichfollows the four words we have been considering."

  "True, true, but my argument holds; an argument which the difficultiesof the case surely justify me in advancing. You say he would neverhave made such an effort to insure the safe delivery of words thatwere a mere repetition of a former statement. Yet what more were theyin the unfinished condition in which we find them? Do you think hecould have been blind to the fact that he had not succeeded inmentioning the name which alone could give value to his accusation,and make its safe delivery a matter of real moment to Miss Meredith?Surely, sir, you do not believe his wits were so far gone that heregarded himself as having made his suspicions clear in those fivewords: _one of my sons he_?"

  "No, I do not. Yet who can tell. Bright as his eye was, his faculty ofmemory as well as of observation may have left him. Witness how hetore off the blank edge of the paper, instead of the words he wishedto send."

  "I know."

  Sweetwater's tone was gloomy; a cloud seemed to have settled upon hisnewly risen hopes.

  "Nevertheless," I now felt bound to admit, "I cannot quite bringmyself to believe that he was so bewildered. On the contrary, I feelconfident that he was in full possession of his faculties when he castthat dramatic glance upward, which, by a happy inspiration, I was ledto interpret as meaning Hope. If we could penetrate this matter to itsvery core, I believe we should find the truth we seek either in thosefive words themselves or in the means he took of getting them to MissMeredith. Have you ever thought, Sweetwater, that we have not givenall the attention we should to the latter fact?"

  "Yes, sir." His hands had fallen from his face, and he spoke withvolubility. "It has struck you, I see, as oddly as it has us, that itwas a very strange thing for him to send into the street for amessenger when he had one right at his hand."

  "Claire, do you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "But Claire is a child; the slip of paper to which he attached suchimportance was unsealed and he dreaded its falling into wrong hands.Miss Meredith already knew his secret, but for him to proclaim openlythat his death was due to the hatred or cupidity of one of hischildren would not be the act of a father who already, at the cost ofso much misery to himself,--nay, as it proved, at the cost of hislife,--had kept back from every ear save that of the one confidant ofhis misery, a knowledge of the fact that a previous attempt had beenmade upon his life."

  "Yet to send into the street for a messenger! Why not send for one ofthe servants? Or why, if he knew which son he had cause to fear, didhe not bid the child bring down one of the others?"

  "Leighton was out, George was half drunk, and Alfred was two flightsup. Besides, he might have thought that an alarm of this kind wouldprevent the delivery of the letter on which he laid such stress. Whoknows what goes on in the mind of a man conscious of having but oneminute in which to perform the most important act of his life?"

  "True, true, sir; and yet there is something unnatural in his conduct,something I fail to understand. But I don't despair. I won't despair;we have only begun the recapitulation of details from which I hope somuch; supposing we go on." And he sunk his head again in his hands.

  I at once took up the thread of my relation at the point where I haddropped it.

  "When I approached Mr. Gillespie I noted three things besides histortured face and sinking fi
gure. First, that the shade was pulled upover his desk; second, that a typewriter stood close to his hand; andthird, that a pot of paste, knocked over by some previous movement onhis part, lay near the typewriter, with its contents oozing over asheet of unused paper. You ask me to mention all details and I havedone so."

  Dreamily he moved his finger, but whether in thanks or in aninjunction for me to continue, I could not determine. I thereforeremained still.

  "I saw the paste," he murmured. And taking this as an intimation toproceed, I went on till I came to the moment when I pulled down theshade.

  "You glanced out as you did that?" said he, lifting his finger as asignal for me to pause.

  "Yes."

  "And saw Mr. Rosenthal in his room in the neighbouring extension?"

  "Yes."

  "Standing how? With his back or his face to the window?"

  "His back. He was sauntering about his room."

  "So that settles one fact. He had not been looking into Mr.Gillespie's room at a critical moment. Had he seen that gentleman in asuffering condition or noted the curious incidents following yourentrance, he would have been held to the spot by his curiosity, andyou would have encountered his eager face staring down upon a scene ofsuch uncommon interest."

  "Very true. All he saw was the seemingly insignificant incident of Mr.Gillespie emptying the contents of a wine-glass out of his window."

  As Sweetwater had no remark to make to this, I proceeded with mynarrative, relating, with a careful attention to details, my journeyupstairs, the words I had overheard at the door of Alfred's room, myfirst sight of Hope, and--I was proceeding to describe the results ofmy intrusion into the Gillespie attic, when I perceived thatSweetwater was no longer listening. His head, which he had raised frombetween his hands, was turned my way, but his eyes were looking intospace and his whole body was quivering in intense excitement, such asI have seldom seen. As I paused, he came back to earth and jumped tohis feet.

  "Come," he cried. "Come with me to the Gillespie house. I have anidea. It may not stand the test, it may prove a fatuous one, but----"

  The very hair on his forehead was bristling; the eagerness he tried tokeep out of his voice showed itself in his eyes and in every jerkingmovement which he made.

  "Come," he cried again; "it is not late. We will find the younggentlemen at home and perhaps----"

  He added nothing to that significant "perhaps," but his repressedexcitement had awakened mine, and my hat was on and I was followinghim down stairs before I realised that I had failed to turn out mygas.

  As I wheeled about with the intention of rectifying this oversight, Iencountered Underhill's languid figure loitering in his doorway. Heaccosted me with an easy:

  "Halloo, Outhwaite!" Then, as he leaned close enough to whisper in myear, he added, in an indescribable drawl, these unexpected words:

  "I recognise your friend there. If you are piling up the evidenceagainst poor Leighton Gillespie, you are doing wrong. No fellow with aheart like his ever put poison into his father's wine."

  Which shows the folly of thinking you know a man's mind before hespeaks it.