Agatha Webb, Anna Katharine Green [readnow TXT] 📗

white moon, which filled every corner of the bare room, seem a mockery well-nigh unendurable to those who contemplated it. John, dead in his chair! James, dead on the floor!

Knapp, who of all present was least likely to feel the awesome nature of the tragedy, was naturally the first to speak.

“Both wear long beards,” said he, “but the one lying on the floor was doubtless Loton’s customer. Ah!” he cried, pointing at the table, as he carefully crossed the floor. “Here is the bread, and- -” Even he had his moments of feeling. The appearance of that loaf had stunned him; one corner of it had been gnawed off.

“A light! let us have a light!” cried Mr. Fenton, speaking for the first time since his entrance. “These moonbeams are horrible; see how they cling to the bodies as if they delighted in lighting up these wasted and shrunken forms.”

“Could it have been hunger?” began Abel, tremblingly following Knapp’s every movement as he struck a match and lit a lantern which he had brought in his pocket.

“God help us all if it was!” said Fenton, in a secret remorse no one but Dr. Talbot understood. “But who could have believed it of men who were once so prosperous? Are you sure that one of them has gnawed this bread? Could it not have been—”

“These are the marks of human teeth,” observed Knapp, who was examining the loaf carefully. “I declare, it makes me very uncomfortable, notwithstanding it’s in the line of regular experiences.” And he laid the bread down hurriedly.

Meantime, Mr. Fenton, who had been bending over another portion of the table, turned and walked away to the window.

“I am glad they are dead,” he muttered. “They have at least shared the fate of their victims. Take a look under that old handkerchief lying beside the newspaper, Knapp.”

The detective did so. A three-edged dagger, with a curiously wrought handle, met his eye. It had blood dried on its point, and was, as all could see, the weapon with which Agatha Webb had been killed.

XYI LOCAL TALENT AT WORK

“Gentlemen, we have reached the conclusion of this business sooner than I expected,” announced Knapp. “If you will give me just ten minutes I will endeavour to find that large remainder of money we have every reason to think is hidden away in this house.”

“Stop a minute,” said the coroner. “Let me see what book John is holding so tightly. Why,” he exclaimed, drawing it out and giving it one glance, “it is a Bible.”

Laying it reverently down he met the detective’s astonished glance and seriously remarked:

“There is some incongruity between the presence of this book and the deed we believe to have been performed down yonder.”

“None at all,” quoth the detective. “It was not the man in the chair, but the one on the floor, who made use of that dagger. But I wish you had left it to me to remove that book, sir.”

“You? and why? What difference would it have made?”

“I would have noticed between what pages his finger was inserted. Nothing like making yourself acquainted with every detail in a case like this.”

Dr. Talbot gazed wistfully at the book. He would have liked to know himself on what especial passage his friend’s eyes had last rested.

“I will stand aside,” said he, “and hear your report when you are done.”

The detective had already begun his investigations.

“Here is a spot of blood,” said he. “See! on the right trouser leg of the one you call James. This connects him indisputably with the crime in which this dagger was used. No signs of violence on his body. She was the only one to receive a blow. His death is the result of God’s providence.”

“Or man’s neglect,” muttered the constable.

“There is no money in any of their pockets, or on either wasted figure,” the detective continued, after a few minutes of silent search. “It must be hidden in the room, or—look through that Bible, sirs.”

The coroner, glad of an opportunity to do something, took up the book, and ran hurriedly through its leaves, then turned it and shook it out over the table. Nothing fell out; the bills must be looked for elsewhere.

“The furniture is scanty,” Abel observed, with an inquiring look about him.

“Very, very scanty,” assented the constable, still with that biting remorse at his heart.

“There is nothing in this cupboard,” pursued the detective, swinging open a door in the wall, “but a set of old china more or less nicked.”

Abel started. An old recollection had come up. Some weeks before, he had been present when James had made an effort to sell this set. They were all in Warner’s store, and James Zabel (he could see his easy attitude yet, and hear the off-hand tones with which he tried to carry the affair off) had said, quite as if he had never thought of it before: “By the by, I have a set of china at the house which came over in the Mayflower. John likes it, but it has grown to be an eyesore to me, and if you hear of anybody who has a fancy for such things, send him up to the cottage. I will let it go for a song.” Nobody answered, and James disappeared. It was the last time, Abel remembered, that he had been seen about town.

“I can’t stand it,” cried the lad. “I can’t stand it. If they died of hunger I must know it. I am going to take a look at their larder.” And before anyone could stop him he dashed to the rear of the house.

The constable would have liked to follow him, but he looked about the walls of the room instead. John and James had been fond of pictures and had once indulged their fancy to the verge of extravagance, but there were no pictures on the walls now, nor was there so much as a candlestick on the empty and dust-covered mantel. Only on a bracket in one corner there was a worthless trinket made out of cloves and beads which had doubtless been given them by some country damsel in their young bachelor days. But nothing of any value anywhere, and Mr. Fenton felt that he now knew why they had made so many visits to Boston at one time, and why they always returned with a thinner valise than they took away. He was still dwelling on the thought of the depths of misery to which highly respectable folks can sink without the knowledge of the nearest neighbours, when Abel came back looking greatly troubled.

“It is the saddest thing I ever heard of,” said he. “These men must have been driven wild by misery. This room is sumptuous in comparison to the ones at the back; and as for the pantry, there is not even a scrap there a mouse could eat. I struck a match and glanced into the flour barrel. It looked as if it had been licked. I declare, it makes a fellow feel sick.”

The constable, with a shudder, withdrew towards the door.

“The atmosphere here is stifling,” said he. “I must have a breath of out-door air.”

But he was not destined to any such immediate relief. As he moved down the hall the form of a man darkened the doorway and he heard an anxious voice exclaim:

“Ah, Mr. Fenton, is that you? I have been looking for you everywhere.”

It was Sweetwater, the young man who had previously shown so much anxiety to be of service to the coroner.

Mr. Fenton looked displeased.

“And how came you to find me here?” he asked.

“Oh, some men saw you take this road, and I guessed the rest.”

“Oh, ah, very good. And what do you want, Sweetwater?”

The young man, who was glowing with pride and all alive with an enthusiasm which he had kept suppressed for hours, slipped up to the constable and whispered in his ear: “I have made a discovery, sir. I know you will excuse the presumption, but I couldn’t bring myself to keep quiet and follow in that other fellow’s wake. I had to make investigations on my own account, and—and”—stammering in his eagerness “they have been successful, sir. I have found out who was the murderer of Agatha Webb.”

The constable, compassionating the disappointment in store for him, shook his head, with a solemn look toward the room from which he had just emerged. “You are late, Sweetwater,” said he. “We have found him out ourselves, and he lies there, dead.”

It was dark where they stood and Sweetwater’s back was to the moonlight, so that the blank look which must have crossed his face at this announcement was lost upon the constable. But his consternation was evident from the way he thrust out either hand to steady himself against the walls of the narrow passageway, and Mr. Fenton was not at all surprised to hear him stammer out:

“Dead! He! Whom do you mean by he, Mr. Fenton?”

“The man in whose house we now are,” returned the other. “Is there anyone else who can be suspected of this crime?”

Sweetwater gave a gulp that seemed to restore him to himself.

“There are two men living here, both very good men, I have heard. Which of them do you mean, and why do you think that either John or James Zabel killed Agatha Webb?”

For reply Mr. Fenton drew him toward the room in which such a great heart-tragedy had taken place.

“Look,” said he, “and see what can happen in a Christian land, in the midst of Christian people living not fifty rods away. These men are dead, Sweetwater, dead from hunger. The loaf of bread you see there came too late. It was bought with a twenty-dollar bill, taken from Agatha Webb’s cupboard drawer.”

Sweetwater, to whom the whole scene seemed like some horrible nightmare, stared at the figure of James lying on the floor, and then at the figure of John seated at the table, as if his mind had failed to take in the constable’s words.

“Dead!” he murmured. “Dead! John and James Zabel. What will happen next? Is the town under a curse?” And he fell on his knees before the prostrate form of James, only to start up again as he saw the eyes of Knapp resting on him.

“Ah,” he muttered, “the detective!” And after giving the man from Boston a close look he turned toward Mr. Fenton.

“You said something about this good old man having killed Agatha Webb. What was it? I was too dazed to take it in.”

Mr. Fenton, not understanding the young man’s eagerness, but willing enough to enlighten him as to the situation, told him what reasons there were for ascribing the crime in the Webb cottage to the mad need of these starving men. Sweetwater listened with open eyes and confused bearing, only controlling himself when his eyes by chance fell upon the quiet figure of the detective, now moving softly to and fro through the room.

“But why murder when he could have had his loaf for the asking?” remonstrated Sweetwater. “Agatha Webb would have gone without a meal any time to feed a wandering tramp; how much more to supply the necessities of two of her oldest and dearest friends!”

“Yes,” remarked Fenton, “but you forget or perhaps never knew that the master passion of these men was pride. James Zabel ask for bread! I can much sooner imagine him stealing it; yes, or striking a blow for it, so that the blow shut forever the eyes that saw him do it.”

“You don’t believe your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?” Sweetwater’s hand was on the breast of the accused man as he spoke,