CHAPTER XXVIII
“A RESEMBLANCE SOMEWHERE”
While G. B. Stiles and the big Swede were taking their drive and bargaining away Harry King’s liberty, he had loitered about the town, and visited a few places familiar to him. First he went to the home of Elder Craigmile and found it locked, and the key in the care of one of the bank clerks who slept there during the owner’s absence. After sitting a while on the front steps, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, he rose and strolled out along the quiet country road on its grassy footpath, past the Ballards’ home.
Mary and Bertrand were out in the little orchard at the back of the house, gazing up at the apple blossoms that hung over their heads in great pale pink clouds. A sweet odor came from the lilacs that hung over the garden fence, and the sunlight streamed down on the peaceful home, and on the opening spring flowers–the borders of dwarf purple iris and big clusters of peonies, just beginning to bud,–and on the beehives scattered about with the bees flying out and in. Ah! It was still the same–tempting and inviting.
He paused at the gate, looking wistfully at the open door, but did not enter. No, he must keep his own counsel and hold to his purpose, without stirring these dear old friends to sorrowful sympathy. So he passed on, unseen by them, feeling the old love for the place and all the tender memories connected with it revived and deepened. On he went, strolling toward the little schoolhouse where he had found dear Betty Ballard sleeping at the big school desk the evening before, and passed it by–only looking in curiously at the tousled heads bent over their lessons, and at Betty herself, where she sat at the desk, a class on the long recitation bench before her, and a great boy standing at the blackboard. He saw her rise and take the chalk from the boy’s hand and make a few rapid strokes with it on the board.
Little Betty a school-teacher! She had suffered much! How much did she care now? Was it over and her heart healed? Had other loves come to her? All intent now on her work, she stood with her back toward him, and as he passed the open door she turned half about, and he saw her profile sharply against the blackboard. Older? Yes, she looked older, but prettier for that, and slight and trim and neat, dressed in a soft shade of green. She had worn such a dress once at a picnic. Well he remembered it–could he ever forget? Swiftly she turned again to the board and drew the eraser across the work, and he heard her voice distinctly, with its singing quality–how well he remembered that also–“Now, how many of the class can work this problem?”
Ah, little Betty! little Betty! Life is working problems for us all, and you are working yours to a sweet conclusion, helping the children, and taking up your own burdens and bearing them bravely. This was Harry King’s thought as he strolled on and seated himself again under the basswood tree by the meadow brook, and took from his pocket the worn scrap of paper the wind had brought him and read it again.
“Out of my life, and into the night,
But never out of my heart, my own.
Into the darkness, out of the light,
Bleeding and wounded and walking alone.”
Such a tender, rhythmic bit of verse–Betty must have written it. It was like her.
After a time he rose and strolled back again past the little schoolhouse, and it was recess. Long before he reached it he heard the voices of the children shouting, “Anty, anty over, anty, anty over.” They were divided into two bands, one on either side of the small building, over which they tossed the ball and shouted as they tossed it, “Anty, anty over”; and the band on the other side, warned by the cry, caught the ball on the rebound if they could, and tore around the corner of the building, trying to hit with it any luckless wight on the other side, and so claim him for their own, and thus changing sides, the merry romp went on.
Betty came to the door with the bell in her hand, and stood for a moment looking out in the sunshine. One of the smallest of the boys ran to her and threw his arms around her, and, looking up in her face, screamed in wildest excitement, “I caught it twice, Teacher, I did.”
With her hand on his head she looked in his eyes and smiled and tinkled her little bell, and the children, big and little, all came crowding through the door, hustling like a flock of chickens, and every boy snatched off his cap as he rushed by her.
Ah, grave, dignified little Betty! Who was that passing slowly along the road? Like a wild rose by the wayside she seemed to him, with her pink cheeks and in her soft green gown, framed thus by the doorway of the old schoolhouse. Naturally she had no recognition for this bearded man, walking by with stiff, soldierly step, yet something caused her to look again, turning as she entered, and, when he looked back, their eyes met, and hers dropped before his, and she was lost to his sight as she closed the door after her. Of course she could not recognize him disguised thus with the beard on his face, and his dark, tanned skin. She did not recognize him, and he was glad, yet sore at heart.
He had had all he could bear, and for the rest of the morning he wrote letters, sitting in his room at Decker’s hotel. Only two letters, but one was a very long one–to Amalia Manovska. Out in the world he dared not use her own name, so he addressed the envelope to Miss McBride, in Larry Kildene’s care, at the nearest station to which they had agreed letters should be sent. Before he finished the second letter the gong sounded for dinner. The noon meal was always dinner at the hotel. He thrust his papers and the unfinished letter in his valise and locked it–and went below.
G. B. Stiles was already there, seated in the same place as on the day before, and Harry took his seat opposite him, and they began a conversation in the same facile way, but the manner of the dry-goods salesman towards him seemed to have undergone a change. It had lost its swagger, and was more that of a man who could be a gentleman if he chose, while to the surprise of Stiles the manner of the young man was as disarmingly quiet and unconcerned as before, and as abstracted. He could not believe that any man hovering on the brink of a terrible catastrophe, and one to avert which required concealment of identity, could be so unwary. He half believed the Swede was laboring under an hallucination, and decided to be deliberate, and await developments for the rest of the day.
After dinner they wandered out to the piazza side by side, and there they sat and smoked, and talked over the political situation as they had the evening before, and Stiles was surprised at the young man’s ignorance of general public matters. Was it ignorance, or indifference?
“I thought all you army men would stand by Grant to the drop of the hat.”
“Yes, I suppose we would.”
“You suppose so! Don’t you know? I carried a gun under Grant, and I’d swear to any policy he’d go in for, and what I say is, they haven’t had quite enough down there. What the South needs is another licking. That’s what it needs.”
“Oh, no, no, no. I was sick of fighting, long before they laid me up, and I guess a lot of us were.”
G. B. Stiles brought his feet to the floor with a stamp of surprise and turned to look full in the young man’s face. For a moment he gazed on him thus, then grunted. “Ever feel one of their bullets?”
“Oh, yes.”
“That the mark, there over your temple?”
“No, it didn’t do any harm to speak of. That’s–where something–struck me.”
“Oh, you don’t say!” Harry King rose. “Leaving?”
“No. I have a few letters to write–and–”
“Sorry to miss you. Staying in town for some time?”
“I hardly know. I may.”
“Plans unsettled? Well, times are unsettled and no money stirring. My plans are all upset, too.”
The young man returned to his room and continued his writing. One short letter to Betty, inclosing the worn scrap of paper the wind had brought him; he kissed it before he placed it in the envelope. Then he wrote one to her father and mother jointly, and a long one to Hester Craigmile. Sometimes he would pause in his writing and tear up a page, and begin over again, but at last all were done and inclosed in a letter to the Elder and placed in a heavy envelope and sealed. Only the one to Amalia he did not inclose, but carried it out and mailed it himself.
Passing the bank on the way to the post office, he dropped in and made quite a heavy deposit. It was just before closing time and the clerks were all intent on getting their books straight, preparatory to leaving. How well he remembered that moment of restless turning of ledgers and the slight accession of eagerness in the younger clerks, as they followed the long columns of figures down with the forefinger of the left hand–the pen poised in the right. The whole scene smote him poignantly as he stood at the teller’s window waiting. And he might have been doing that, he thought! A whole lifetime spent in doing just that and more like it, year in and year out!
How had his life been better? He had sinned–and failed. Ah! But he had lived and loved–lived terribly and loved greatly. God help him, how he loved! Even for life to end here–either in prison or in death–still he had felt the tremendous passions, and understood the meaning of their power in a human soul. This had life brought him, and a love beyond measure to crown all.
The teller peered at him through the little window behind which he had stood so many years peering at people in this sleepy little bank, this sure, safe, little bank, always doing its conservative business in the same way, and heretofore always making good. He reached out a long, well-shaped hand,–a large-veined hand, slightly hairy at the wrist, to take the bank notes. How often had Harry King seen that hand stretched thus through the little window, drawing bank notes toward him! Almost with a shock he saw it now reach for his own–for the first time. In the old days he had had none to deposit. It was always for others it had been extended. Now it seemed as if he must seize the hand and shake it,–the only hand that had been reached out to him yet, in this town where his boyhood had been spent.
A young man who had preceded Harry King at the teller’s window paused near by at the cashier’s desk and began asking questions which Harry himself would have been glad to ask, but could not.
He was an alert, bright-eyed young chap with a smiling face. “Good afternoon, Mr. Copeland. Any news for me to-day?”
Mr. Copeland was an elderly man of great dignity, and almost as much of a figure there as the Elder himself. It was an act of great temerity to approach him for items of news for the Leauvite Mercury. Of this fact the young reporter seemed to be blithely ignorant. All the clerks were covertly watching the outcome, and thus attention was turned from Harry King; even the teller glanced frequently at the cashier’s desk as he counted the bank notes placed in his hand.
“News? No. No news,” said Mr. Copeland, without looking up.
“Thank you. It’s my business to ask for it, you know. We’re making more of a feature of personal items than ever before. We’re up to date, you see. ‘Find out what people want and then give it to them.’ That’s our motto.” The young man leaned forward over the high railing that corralled the cashier in his pen apart from the public, smilingly oblivious of that dignitary’s objections to an interview. “Expecting the return of Elder Craigmile soon?”
At that question, to the surprise of all, the cashier suddenly changed his manner to the suave affability with which he greeted people of consequence. “We are expecting Elder Craigmile shortly. Yes. Indeed he may arrive any day, if the voyage is favorable.”
“Thank you. Mrs. Craigmile accompanies him, I suppose?”
“It is not likely, no. Her health demands–ahem–a little longer rest and change.”
“Ah! The Elder not called back by–for any particular reason? No. Business going well? Good. I’m told there’s a great deal of depression.”
“Oh, in a way–there may be,–but we’re all of the conservative sort here in Leauvite. We’re not likely to feel it if there is. Good afternoon.”
No one paid any attention to Harry King as he walked out after the Leauvite Mercury reporter, except Mr. Copeland, who glanced at him keenly as he passed his desk. Then, looking at his watch, he came out of his corral and turned the key in the bank door.
“We’ll have no more interruptions now,” he said, as he paused at the teller’s window. “You know the young man who just went out?”
“Sam Carter of the Mercury. Old Billings no doubt sent him in to learn how we stand.”
“No, no, no. Sam Carter–I know him. Who’s the young man who followed him out?”
“I don’t know. Here’s his signature. He’s just made a big deposit on long time–only one thousand on call. Unusual these days.”
Mr. Copeland’s eyes glittered an instant. “Good. That’s something. I decided to give the town people to understand that there is no need for their anxiety. It’s the best policy, and when the Elder returns, he may be induced to withdraw his insane offer of reward. Ten thousand dollars! It’s ridiculous, when the young men may both be dead, for all the world will ever know.”
“If we could do that–but I’ve known the Elder too long to hope for it. This deposit stands for a year, see? And the ten thousand the Elder has set one side for the reward gives us twenty thousand we could not count on yesterday.”
“In all the history of this bank we never were in so tight a place. It’s extraordinary, and quite unnecessary. That’s a bright boy–Sam Carter. I never thought of his putting such a construction on it when I admitted the fact that Mrs. Craigmile is to remain. Two big banks closed in Chicago this morning, and twenty small ones all over the country during the last three days. One goes and hauls another down. If we had only cabled across the Atlantic two weeks ago when I sent that letter–he must have the letter by now–and if he has, he’s on the ocean.”
“This deposit tides us over a few days, and, as I said, if we could only get our hands on that reserve of the Elder’s, we’d be safe whatever comes.”
“He’ll have to bend his will for once. He must be made to see it, and we must get our hands on it. I think he will. He’d cut off his right hand before he’d see this bank go under.”
“It’s his son’s murder that’s eating into his heart. He’s been losing ground ever since.”
The clerks gradually disappeared, quietly slipping out into the sunshine one by one as their books were balanced, and now the two men stood alone. It was a time used by them for taking account of the bank’s affairs generally, and they felt the stability of that institution to be quite personal to them.
“I’ve seen that young man before,” said Mr. Copeland. “Now, who is he? Harry King–Harry King,–the Kings moved away from here–twelve years ago–wasn’t it? Their son would not be as old as this man.”
“Boys grow up fast. You never can tell.”
“The Kings were a short, thickset lot.”
“He may not be one of them. He said nothing about ever having been here before. I never talk with any one here at the window. It’s quite against my rules for the clerks, and has to be so for myself, of course. I leave that sort of thing to you and the Elder.”
“I say–I’ve seen him before–the way he walks–the way he carries his head–there’s a resemblance somewhere.”
The two men also departed, after looking to the safe, and the last duties devolving on them, seeing that all was locked and double-locked. It was a solemn duty, always attended to solemnly.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ARREST
Sam Carter loitered down the street after leaving the bank, and when Harry King approached, he turned with his ready smile and accosted him.
“Pleasant day. I see you’re a stranger here, and I thought I might get an item from you. Carter’s my name, and I’m doing the reporting for the Mercury. Be glad to make your acquaintance. Show you round a little.”
Harry was nonplussed for a moment. Such things did not use to occur in this old-fashioned place as running about the streets picking up items from people and asking personal questions for the paper to exploit the replies. He looked twice at Sam Carter before responding.
“Thank you, I–I’ve been here before. I know the place pretty well.”
“Very pretty place, don’t you think so? Mean to stop for some time?”
“I hardly know as yet.” Harry King mused a little, then resolved to break his loneliness by accepting the casual acquaintance, and to avoid personalities about himself by asking questions about the town and those he used to know, but whom he preferred not to see. It was an opportunity. “Yes, it is a pretty place. Have you been here long?”
“I’ve been here–let’s see. About three years–maybe a little less. You must have been away from Leauvite longer than that, I judge. I’ve never left the place since I came and I never saw you before. No wonder I thought you a stranger.”
“I may call myself one–yes. A good many changes since you came?”
“Oh, yes. See the new courthouse? It’s a beauty,–all solid stone,–cost fifty thousand dollars. The Mercury had a great deal to do with bringing it about,–working up enthusiasm and the like,–but there is a great deal of depression just now, and taxes running up. People think government is taking a good deal out of them for such public buildings, but, Lord help us! the government is needing money just now as much as the people. It’s hard to be public spirited when taxes are being raised. You have people here?”
“Not now–no. Who’s mayor here now?”
“Harding–Harding of the iron works. He makes a good one, too. There’s the new courthouse. The jail is underneath at the back. See the barred windows? No breaking out of there. Three prisoners did break out of the old one during the year this building was under construction,–each in a different way, too,–shows how badly they needed a new one. Quite an ornament to the square, don’t you think so?”
“The jail?”
“No, no,–The building as a whole. Better go over it while you’re here.”
“I may–do so–yes.”
“Staying some time, I believe you said.”
“Did I? I may have said so.”
“Staying at the hotel, I believe?”
“Yes, and here we are.” Harry King stood an instant–undecided. Certain things he wished to know, but had not the courage to ask–not on the street–but maybe seated on the veranda he could ask this outsider, in a casual way. “Drop in with me and have a smoke.”
“I will, thank you. I often run in,–in the way of business,–but I haven’t tried it as a stopping place. Meals pretty good?”
“Very good.” They took seats at the end of the piazza where Harry King led the way. The sun was now low, but the air was still warm enough for comfort, and no one was there but themselves, for it lacked an hour to the return of the omnibus and the arrival of the usual loafers who congregated at that time.
“You’ve made a good many acquaintances since you came, no doubt?”
“Well–a good many–yes.”
“Know the Craigmiles?”
“The Craigmiles? There’s no one there to know–now–but the Elder. Oh, his wife, of course, but she stays at home so close no one ever sees her. They’re away now, if you want to see them.”
“And she never goes out–you say?”
“Never since I’ve been in the town. You see, there was a tragedy in the family. Just before I came it happened, and I remember the town was all stirred up about it. Their son was murdered.”
Harry King gave a quick start, then gathered himself up in strong control and tilted his chair back against the wall.
“Their son murdered?” he asked. “Tell me about it. All you know.”
“That’s just it–nobody knows anything. They know he was murdered, because he disappeared completely. The young man was called Peter Junior, after his father, of course–and he was the one that was murdered. They found every evidence of it. It was there on the bluff, above the wildest part of the river, where the current is so strong no man could live a minute in it. He would be dashed to death in the flood, even if he were not killed in the fall from the brink, and that young man was pushed over right there.”
“How did they know he was pushed over?”
“They knew he was. They found his hat there, and it was bloody, as if he had been struck first, and a club there, also bloody,–and it is believed he was killed first and then pushed over, for there is the place yet, after three years, where the earth gave way with the weight of something shoved over the edge. Well, would you believe it–that old man has kept the knowledge of it from his wife all this time. She thinks her son quarreled with his father and went off, and that he will surely return some day.”
“And no one in the village ever told her?”
“All the town have helped the old Elder to keep it from her. You’d think such a thing impossible, wouldn’t you? But it’s the truth. The old man bribed the Mercury to keep it out, and, by jiminy, it was done! Here, in a town of this size where every one knows all about every one else’s affairs–it was done! It seems people took an especial interest in keeping it from her, yet every one was talking about it, and so I heard all there was to hear. Hallo! What are you doing here?”
This last remark was addressed to Nels Nelson, who appeared just below them and stood peering up at them through the veranda railing.
“I yust vaiting for Meestair Stiles. He tol’ me vait for heem here.”
“Mr. Stiles? Who’s he?”
“Dere he coomin’.”
As he spoke G. B. Stiles came through the hotel door and walked gravely up to them. Something in his manner, and in the expectant, watchful eye of the Swede, caused them both to rise. At the same moment, Kellar, the sheriff, came up the front steps and approached them, and placing his hand on Harry King’s shoulder, drew from his pocket a pair of handcuffs.
“Young man, it is my duty to arrest you. Here is my badge–this is quite straight–for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr.”
The young man neither moved nor spoke for a moment, and as he stood thus the sheriff took him by the arm, and roused him. “Richard Kildene, you are under arrest for the murder of your cousin, Peter Craigmile, Jr.”
With a quick, frantic movement, Harry King sprang back and thrust both men violently from him. The red of anger mounted to his hair and throbbed in his temples, then swept back to his heart, and left him with a deathlike pallor.
“Keep back. I’m not Richard Kildene. You have the wrong man. Peter Craigmile was never murdered.”
The big Swede leaped the piazza railing and stood close to him, while the sheriff held him pinioned, and Sam Carter drew out his notebook.
“You know me, Mr. Kellar,–stand off, I say. I am Peter Craigmile. Look at me. Put away those handcuffs. It is I, alive, Peter Craigmile, Jr.”
“That’s a very clever plea, but it’s no go,” said G. B. Stiles, and proceeded to fasten the irons on his wrists.
“Yas, I know you dot man keel heem, all right. I hear you tol’ some von you keel heem,” said the Swede, slowly, in suppressed excitement.
“You’re a very good actor, young man,–mighty clever,–but it’s no go. Now you’ll walk along with us if you please,” said Mr. Kellar.
“But I tell you I don’t please. It’s a mistake. I am Peter Craigmile, Jr., himself, alive.”
“Well, if you are, you’ll have a chance to prove it, but evidence is against you. If you are he, why do you come back under an assumed name during your father’s absence? A little hitch there you did not take into consideration.”
“I had my reasons–good ones–I–came back to confess to the–un–un–witting–killing of my cousin, Richard.” He turned from one to the other, panting as if he had been running a race, and threw out his words impetuously. “I tell you I came here for the very purpose of giving myself up–but you have the wrong man.”
By this time a crowd had collected, and the servants were running from their work all over the hotel, while the proprietor stood aloof with staring eyes.
“Here, Mr. Decker, you remember me–Elder Craigmile’s son? Some of you must remember me.”
But the proprietor only wagged his head. He would not be drawn into the thing. “I have no means of knowing who you are–no more than Adam. The name you wrote in my book was Harry King.”
“I tell you I had my reasons. I meant to wait here until the Elder’s–my father’s return and–”
“And in the meantime we’ll put you in a quiet little apartment, very private, where you can wait, while we look into things a bit.”
“You needn’t take me through the streets with these things on; I’ve no intention of running away. Let me go to my room a minute.”
“Yes, and put a bullet through your head. I’ve no intention of running any risks now we have you,” said the detective.
“Now you have who? You have no idea whom you have. Take off these shackles until I pay my bill. You have no objection to that, have you?”
They turned into the hotel, and the handcuffs were removed while the young man took out his pocketbook and paid his reckoning. Then he turned to them.
“I must ask you to accompany me to my room while I gather my toilet necessities together.” This they did, G. B. Stiles and the sheriff walking one on either side, while the Swede followed at their heels. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, turning suddenly upon the stable man.
“Oh, I yust lookin’ a leetle out.”
“Mr. Stiles, what does this mean, that you have that man dogging me?”
“It’s his affair, not mine. He thinks he has a certain interest in you.”
Then he turned in exasperation to the sheriff. “Can you give me a little information, Mr. Kellar? What has that Swede to do with me? Why am I arrested for the murder of my own self–preposterous! I, a man as alive as you are? You can see for yourself that I am Elder Craigmile’s son. You know me?”
“I know the Elder fairly well–every one in Leauvite knows him, but I can’t say as I’ve ever taken particular notice of his boy, and, anyway, the boy was murdered three years ago–a little over–for it was in the fall of the year–well, that’s most four years–and I must say it’s a mighty clever dodge, as Mr. Stiles says, for you to play off this on us. It’s a matter that will bear looking into. Now you sit down here and hold on to yourself, while I go through your things. You’ll get them all, never fear.”
Then Harry King sat down and looked off through the open window, and paid no heed to what the men were doing. They might turn his large valise inside out and read every scrap of written paper. There was nothing to give the slightest clew to his identity. He had left the envelope addressed to the Elder, containing the letters he had written, at the bank, to be placed in the safety vault, and not to be delivered until ordered to do so by himself.
As they finished their search and restored the articles to his valise, he asked again that the handcuffs be left off as he walked through the streets.
“I have no desire to escape. It is my wish to go with you. I only wish I might have seen the–my father first. He could not have helped me–but he would have understood–it would have seemed less–”
He could not go on, and the sheriff slipped the handcuffs in his pocket, and they proceeded in silence to the courthouse, where he listened to the reading of the warrant and his indictment in dazed stupefaction, and then walked again in silence between his captors to the jail in the rear.
“No one has ever been in this cell,” said Mr. Kellar. “I’m doing the best I can for you.”
“How long must I stay here? Who brings accusation?”
“I don’t know how long: as this is a murder charge you can’t be bailed out, and the trial will take time. The Elder brings accusation–naturally.”
“When is he expected home?”
“Can’t say. You’ll have some one to defend you, and then you can ask all the questions you wish.” The sheriff closed the heavy door and the key was turned.
Then began weary days of waiting. If it had been possible to get the trial over with, Harry would have been glad, but it made little difference to him now, since the step had been taken, and a trial in his case would only be a verdict, anyway–and confession was a simple thing, and the hearing also.
The days passed, and he wondered that no one came to him–no friend of the old time. Where were Bertrand Ballard and Mary? Where was little Betty? Did they not know he was in jail? He did not know that others had been arrested on the same charge and released, more than once. True, no one had made the claim of being the Elder’s own son and the murdered man himself. As such incidents were always disturbing to Betty, when Bertrand read the notice of the arrest in the Mercury, the paper was laid away in his desk and his little daughter was spared the sight of it this time.
But he spoke of the matter to his wife. “Here is another case of arrest for poor Peter Junior’s murder, Mary. The man claims to be Peter Junior himself, but as he registered at the hotel under an assumed name it is likely to be only another attempt to get the reward money by some detective. It was very unwise for the Elder to make it so large a sum.”
“It can’t be. Peter Junior would never be so cruel as to stay away all this time, if he were alive, no matter how deeply he may have quarreled with his father. I believe they both went over the bluff and are both dead.”
“It stands to reason that one or the other body would have been found in that case. One might be lost, but hardly both. The search was very thorough, even down to the mill race ten miles below.”
“The current is so swift there, they might have been carried over the race, and on, before the search began. I think so, although no one else seems to.”
“I wish the Elder would remove that temptation of the reward. It is only an inducement to crime. Time alone will solve the mystery, and as long as he continues to brood over it, he will go on failing in health. It’s coming to an obsession with him to live to see Richard Kildene hung, and some one will have to swing for it if he has his way. Now he will return and find this man in jail, and will bend every effort, and give all his thought toward getting him convicted.”
“But I thought you said they do not hang in this state.”