“What was I saying, Sheriff? Oh, yes. Well, you can ask my wife, Alice. She knows Dan was there; she heard us talking, and I invited her in to say goodnight to Dan. But she was tired out, and she went upstairs. Yes, I heard the telephone ring, but didn’t mind, thinking it was something about old Mrs. Burnett, Alice just having came from her house. Dan was just going, anyways, and he had been gone only a couple of seconds when Alice ran down to tell me about poor Bee being murdered. Ask her yourself. She heard him ride away. And here’s the pipe he left behind.”
The sheriff shrugged, spat into a cuspidor, and rubbed the back of his head distractedly. “Well, we’ll ask her tomorrow, Mr. Rugby. No use upsettin’ her tonight.” He turned to Dan and said surlily: “Well, you ain’t said nothin’ yet, Dan Hendricks. Got anythin’ to say? I got to warn you anythin’ you might say will be used against you, so you can please yourself.”
Dan lifted his hands and let them fall casually on his knees. He smiled. Did you, Dan? I thought passionately. Did you? I don’t blame you. But did you? He did not look at me. He was regarding the sheriff and smiling.
“You’ve heard Mr. Rugby. I haven’t much else to add to it. I left Mr. Rugby’s house, as he said, about forty-five minutes ago, and started home. I remember looking at the clock. It was about ten minutes to twelve. My farm’s six miles out, and takes about half an hour or more to get there, fast riding. Your men picked me up half an hour ago, just halfway to the farm. I was just jogging along. I missed my pipe, and was half decided to go back for it, but thought it was too late. Yes, I heard the telephone ring in the house just when I was going out and saying goodnight to Mr. Rugby. He said something to me about it being a sick call, most likely. Yes, I had seen Mrs. Rugby earlier in the evening, and when she came back Mr. Rugby invited her into his study, but she must have been tired, for she merely said goodnight. No, she didn’t say that, I don’t think, but she did say something about his going to bed. Well, we heard her calling him; she must have left the telephone, and I went out and rode away.”
“That,” said Mortimer in a trembling voice, as he turned to the sheriff, “was the news that Bee had been found murdered, dead about two—three hours. Dan never left me a minute, from eight o’clock on, until almost twelve. You can see yourself that he couldn’t have done it.”
He looked from one to the other of the men imploringly. They were nearly strangers to me, all living in Ripley, big burly men like the sheriff. They stared at the sheriff, discomfited, half convinced, and discouraged. He shook his head.
“Well, seems like we’ve got to a stone wall. If what you say is true, Mr. Rugby, Dan here couldn’t have been murdering his wife at around half past nine or ten, and been with you. Coroner says it was between half past nine or ten when she was murdered, her head half chopped off with a hatchet. Hatchet belongs to the house, too. No one was at home. I thought it looked bad, the old housekeeper being told to go home for the evening, and by Dan here, too. But folks around here think he did it, though they don’t know why. I talked to a few of ’em, and they said they never heard anythin’ about quarrels or anythin’, but you seem to have gotten a reputation in South Kenton, Dan.” He smiled at Dan in a friendly way. Dan smiled in return. His face was still bland, his eyes quiet and inscrutable.
I leaned against the ink-scarred table, feeling increasingly ill. Had he done it? Could a man commit such a ferocious murder like that and look so calm, so indifferent, so almost amused?
“You don’t seem much concerned over your wife’s death, Dan,” said the sheriff suddenly, his smile dying. He pushed aside Mortimer, whose arms fell like dead sticks to his side.
“Concerned?” said Dan slowly, as though he were considering. “I can’t seem to think much at all.” He shuddered a little, and it were as though a thin, opaque skin fell over his eyes. “Beatrice and I had had some trouble lately. She insisted on staying in town with her mother, and came out to visit me only occasionally. We quarreled a lot,” and he raised candid eyes to the sheriff with an expression of distress. “It was a long quarrel; I did not want to do the things she did. We didn’t see things the same. Quarrels like that, lasting for years—and they did last between us, though no one knew about it—kill most affection between married people. We never saw alike. In the last year, we were almost like strangers. I know I’m not making things better for myself by saying this; you can use it against me, if you want to. But that’s not the point. The point is that I couldn’t have been with Mr. Rugby and been at home at half past nine, murdering my wife,” and he gave a twisted smile. He looked slowly from one to the other, but he did not look at me.
The sheriff seemed impressed by Dan’s candor. I saw Mortimer close his eyes for a moment as though he were about to collapse, but when he opened them again they were steady and alert. The sheriff scratched his head aimlessly.
“No prints or marks on the hatchet, either,” he mused. “And nothin’ was taken from the house.”
I cleared my tight throat. “Where was the body found?” I asked. It was the first time I had spoken, and the sheriff turned to me in surprise.
“Eh? Oh, Dr. Marcy. Well, it was found in the settin’ room, near the fire. The old woman, the housekeeper, decided to come back to the farm after all. Seems like she had a quarrel with her daughter. She thought she heard the front door shut soft-like when she come in the back door, and thought it was someone comin’ in. She called, but no one answered, and she got kind of scared, thinkin’ that someone must be home, for it’s lonely out here, and no near neighbors, and she’d left Dan and his poor wife there when she went out about seven o’clock. So she came into the settin’ room and found Mrs. Hendricks lyin’ there dead. That was about fifteen minutes to ten or somethin’. She said she almost fainted, but she got herself together and called the constable here in South Kenton, and he called me, and I took Doc Andrews out there with me; he’s kind of our coroner. We got out there about eleven-o’clock, fast ridin’; might have been a little after eleven. The constable Was waitin’ for us.
“Well, there she was, all dressed, and lyin’ in blood. So, we started to look for Dan Hendricks here, especially after the old woman got hysterical and said that she, Mrs. Hendricks, got just what she deserved, that she was always raggin’ Dan, and naggin’ him, and raisin’ Cain, and that she, the old woman, was glad he’d done it, and ought to get a medal!” He smiled at us ruefully. “Well, we found Dan ridin’ slowly down the road towards his farm, as he says, about forty-five minutes ago. He was more than four miles from it, and we brought him back here.”
The constable came into the room. “Say, Sheriff, I ain’t easy ’bout that crowd out there. They’re plottin’ mischief. They’re threatenin’ to break in and take Dan out and hang him. What’ll I do? If they rush the jail we can’t hold it.”
The sheriff scowled. “They’ll take him out over my dead body.” He went to the wall and took down the receiver of the telephone, and called his office in Ripley. “Sam? Say, Sam, bring over about fifty of the boys, with shotguns. The folks here think they’re goin’ to have a little hangin’ party, but they ain’t. We’re bringin’ a prisoner back for safekeepin’. Hurry up, now.” He hung up and turned to us.
“You’re not holding Dan, are you?” cried Mortimer, almost hysterically. “You know he didn’t do it. You have no right to hold him.”
“Easy now, Mr. Rugby,” said the sheriff soothingly. “In the first place, we got to hold him, until we talk to your wife, anyway. If you’re all tellin’ the truth, he’s got nothin’ to worry about. He’ll be free tomorrow. He can get a lawyer, if he wants to, but don’t seem like it’s necessary. Then, in the second place, we can’t let him go now, if we wanted to. That mob out there would tear him apart. So, we’ll take him to Ripley, and then we’ll have an inquest, and you and your wife will testify, and then if there’s no evidence against him, he’ll be released. But, we got to take him to Ripley anyway for his own good, safekeeping, until everyone knows he’s not guilty, and believes it.”
“I’m willing to go,” broke in Dan quietly. He stood up, and, taking Mortimer by the arm, he shook him affectionately. “It’s all right, Mr. Rugby. And, thank you.”
For the first time the two men stared intently into each other’s eyes, and then Mortimer’s mouth worked. He put his hands on Dan’s shoulders. “Dan,” he said deeply, slowly, “I’m your friend. Remember that, I’m your friend.”
“Yes, I know,” said Dan softly. His face was suddenly very sad. “You are my friend. I’ll never forget that.”
Mortimer suddenly began to sob. Dan helped him to a chair. The old man shed no tears, but he covered his face with his hands and trembled frightfully. I went to him, and patted his back.
“Brace up, sir,” I said in a low voice as I bent over him. “Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right.”
Mortimer removed his hands slowly and looked up at me earnestly, as though he were questioning me, imploring me. And I nodded my head. He sighed with a heartbroken sound.
“You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you, Dr. Marcy?” asked the sheriff halfheartedly. My flesh became rigid, and I felt sweat break out over my hands. But I looked at the sheriff calmly.
“No, nothing. Except that I’ve known Dan Hendricks all my life, and I know he couldn’t have done it.”
“Well, you’ve got a character witness, anyway, Dan,” said the sheriff, smiling at him.
In all this time Dan and I had not exchanged a word, but now he looked at me directly, and I looked at him. His face was grave and quiet, but his eyes were as inscrutable as ever, as unknowable. They were like shallow water lying over a slab of rock that hid secret things. I could see the rock very distinctly. Behind that, he and everything he thought, were safely hidden.
Oh, my God! I thought desperately. Did you do it, Dan? Can’t you let me know? You know my silence is the only thing that will save you. Where were you after nine o’clock? Where did you go?
For a moment I had a vivid picture of Bee Hendricks lying in her pool of blood, her bright hair dabbling it, her head half severed. The vision nauseated me, and I looked again at Dan. It were almost as if he saw my thoughts, and again presented the water-covered rock for my answer.
We had to wait a long time for the arrival of deputies from Ripley, and in the meantime the mob outside became restive. The sheriff went out to talk to them, to gain time. We heard his booming and bawling voice outside, but did not listen. We were all very still.
They took Dan to Ripley under cover of many rifles, and I finally went home. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I went to bed, but not to sleep. There was a burning weight in my head, and I shivered with icy cold at intervals. I knew the symptoms, but grimly refused to give way to them. Not now; later, I thought stubbornly. I had to see the end of all this before I succumbed.
One thought rolled in my feverish mind: If Dan had not done this, where had he been between nine o’clock at night and midnight? If he had done it—I refused to let my mind go on, for it went on into horrors. But it was not horror for the murder; it was horror that perhaps something might slip, some fatal little word, and he would be lost. What would Alice Rugby say? With feverish clarity in the darkness, I could see the psychological deceit that Mortimer had practiced on her. Would the deceit be sufficient to delude her so thoroughly so that she would say positively that she had heard Dan’s voice at midnight in the study? I knew she had heard mine; would she mistake it? Was mental suggestion in her case sufficient to deceive her as Mortimer meant it to deceive? The slightest doubt would resolve itself into conviction.
But if he had done it, what agonies of mind he must have endured to be whipped up into sufficient frenzy to kill Bee, evil and monstrous though she was? What must he have suffered for years, unseen, unknown, to anyone? I was more horrified at this thought than at the thought of her bloody murder.
I came downstairs for breakfast, weak and haggard, dreading to meet my father and to give him a long story of what I had seen and heard in the jail at night. To my unspeakable relief, he had already heard the story from an early visitor. He looked sullen and suspicious, like a beast deprived of its prey. He kept shaking his head and muttering, wondering aloud if there wasn’t something fishy about it, and if Mortimer was telling the truth. The inquest, he informed me, was being held in Ripley, the county seat, at three o’clock that afternoon. Bee would be buried tomorrow morning. Sarah was very ill, unconscious, and so would be no use even if it were desired to produce her at the inquest. My father was going to visit her that morning; as for me, he said, I’d better rest today, for I looked half-dead.
My mother was really ill over the tragedy. She wept continually about Beatrice, staring at us in horror as she exclaimed feebly. Poor Bee, poor dear, sweet little Bee, so dreadfully done to death. And by an ax, too!
“What’s so bad about an ax?” grunted my father. “Good, clean killing. Better than being choked or shot, anyway. Once the spinal column was severed, and they say it was, there’s no pain or anything. Out, like a lamp.”
“You’re—you’re heartless!” cried my mother. But my father and I exchanged involuntary smiles.
I tried to lie down while my father went on his calls. But though I passionately longed for rest, I could not relax. A thousand frightening thoughts possessed me, even against my better judgment. What if someone had seen me entering Mortimer’s house, or leaving it? What if someone had seen the same of Dan? Where would I stand, then, keeping silent? I would be an accessory to the act. I had lurid visions of going to prison, and Livy in tears, my life ruined. Dan would be lynched legally or illegally. Because of the hatred in which everyone held him, he would have no defense. He would never be believed. He could never tell about Bee, for their ears would be deafened with their hatred. He would be considered maligning a helpless and well-liked young woman, dead now, unable to defend herself.
I groaned and tossed on the parlor sofa. The door opened and Livy came in, returned from her sister’s. She was still in her hat and coat, my mother gesticulating and crying behind her, telling the news.
“I’ve heard it, Mother,” she said gravely. She came to me, very grave and composed. Her eyes were shadowed in deep violet, her lips bloodless. She kissed me gently.
“Jim, dear, you don’t look well,” she said. “Come upstairs with me and lie down.” She took my cold hand and rubbed it. I went upstairs to our own apartment with her, leaving my mother very offended.
Livy made me eat some lunch. She would not let me talk until I had swallowed the hot soup. Then she listened while I told her the story I had heard in the jail, and of Dan’s quick removal to Ripley. She got up and went to the door, opened it quickly, shut it, then returned to me. For a long time she studied me thoughtfully.
“Jim,” she whispered, “you haven’t told me everything. What do you know about it?”
I started, and choked over a piece of bread. She moistened her lips as she waited for me to speak. Her expression was affectionate and sad, but her eyes were intent and full of terror.
I felt an hysterical relief. It would be a blessing to have someone else share my secret. I opened my mouth to speak, but she suddenly put her soft hand over my mouth.
“No!” she whispered. “I knew there was something! But I don’t want to hear it! No! You mustn’t ever speak of it to anyone, not even to me. No, I won’t listen!”
I subsided, and after a moment she removed her hand. She looked utterly exhausted.
“Well,” I said hoarsely, “perhaps you are right. I’ll never speak of it to anyone. But Livy, I know he is innocent, anyway.” I did not know that my voice had risen on a question until she smiled slightly.
She looked off into the distance. “Yes, Jim, whether he did it or not, he is still innocent,” she said.
At noon I was burning with fever, but I set out for Ripley, nevertheless. Only a pair of broken legs would have kept me away. Livy was not going, and
neither was my father. I took the obscure road that led by Dan’s farm, which lengthened the journey by three miles. But I wished to avoid the exodus from South Kenton, which was going to Ripley. And indeed, fully a third of the population of our little town was headed there.
I remember distinctly the pale and brilliant sunlight of the early winter day, the sharp frost that tingled in the air, the brown bare trees, the long gray winding of the country road, the smoky floating of the distant hills. So clear and empty was the atmosphere that I could distinctly hear the clucking of distant chickens about lonely farmhouses, and the noises of barnyard animals. It was a landscape of complete emptiness, drained of all color, drained of life. I seemed to be the only moving thing. An awful depression settled on me, so that I kept glancing over my shoulder in the hope of any comforting sight. There was none. My horse trotted heavily, as though he too was weighed down, not by any visible oppression in the landscape, but by the psychic apathy that emanated from me.
I passed Dan’s house, deserted and motionless behind its line of pines, the small fields about it stricken and sterile. No smoke came from its chimneys; it did not seem to brood in the manner of many farmhouses, but looked merely like a painted house, without dimension.
My fever was mounting, and I had begun to cough sorely. I am sure I was a little giddy, also, for I found myself clutching the saddle with cold, damp hands. And I am sure it was because of this that that inexplicable thing happened to me just as I came abreast of Dan’s house; in the indeterminate region of the early fever of an illness, almost any delusion might occur to the victim. But at any rate, when things for a moment became unreal to all my senses, and the landscape seemed to float in a sick brilliance not at all real, I distinctly heard Beatrice’s sly, sweet voice in my ear, or rather in my inner ear. First there was a soft weird ringing in that ear, like a warning note, (a faint “ping,” to be exact), and then I heard her say, idly, amusedly: “You are saving the life of the man your wife loves, Jim.”