Hand and Ring, Anna Katharine Green [reading strategies book txt] 📗

"And did Mr. Orcutt do that?" inquired Mr. Gryce, with admirable self-control.

"Yes, I remember it now distinctly. It was just as he entered the gate. A man meditating a murder of this sort would not be likely to notice a pin lying in his path, much less pause to pick it up."

"How if it were a diamond ring?"

"A diamond ring?"

"Mr. Ferris," said the detective, gravely, "you have just supplied a very important link in the chain of evidence against Mr. Orcutt. The question is, how could the diamond ring which Miss Dare is believed to have dropped into Mr. Mansell's coat-pocket have been carried into Mrs. Clemmens' house without the agency of either herself or Mr. Mansell? I think you have just shown." And the able detective, in a few brief sentences, explained the situation to Mr. Ferris, together with the circumstances of Mansell's flight, as gleaned by him in his conversation with the prisoner.

The District Attorney was sincerely dismayed. The guilt of the renowned lawyer was certainly assuming positive proportions. Yet, true to his friendship for Mr. Orcutt, he made one final effort to controvert the arguments of the detective, and quietly said:

"You profess to explain how the ring might have been carried into Mrs. Clemmens' house, but how do you account for the widow having used an exclamation which seems to signify it was on the hand which she saw lifted against her life?"

"By the fact that it was on that hand."

"Do you think that probable if the hand was Mr. Orcutt's?"

"Perfectly so. Where else would he be likely to put it in the preoccupied state of mind in which he was? In his pocket? The tramp might have done that, but not the gentleman."

Mr. Ferris looked at the detective with almost an expression of fear.

"And how came it to be on the floor if Mr. Orcutt put it on his finger?"

"By the most natural process in the world. The ring made for Miss Dare's third finger was too large for Mr. Orcutt's little finger, and so slipped off when he dropped the stick of wood from his hand."

"And he left it lying where it fell?"

"He probably did not notice its loss. If, as I suppose, he had picked it up and placed it on his finger, mechanically, its absence at such a moment would not be observed. Besides, what clue could he suppose a diamond ring he had never seen before, and which he had had on his finger but an instant, would offer in a case like this?"

"You reason close," said the District Attorney; "too close," he added, as he recalled, with painful distinctness, the look and attitude of Mr. Orcutt at the time this ring was first brought into public notice, and realized that so might a man comport himself who, conscious of this ring's association with the crime he had just secretly perpetrated, sees it claimed and put on the finger of the woman he loves.

Mr. Gryce, with his usual intuition, seemed to follow the thoughts of the District Attorney.

"If our surmises are correct," he remarked, "it was a grim moment for the lawyer when, secure in his immunity from suspicion, he saw Miss Dare come upon the scene with eager inquiries concerning this murder. To you, who had not the clue, it looked as if he feared she was not as innocent as she should be; but, if you will recall the situation now, I think you will see that his agitation can only be explained by his apprehension of her intuitions and an alarm lest her interest sprang from some mysterious doubt of himself."

Mr. Ferris shook his head with a gloomy air, but did not respond.

"Miss Dare tells me," the detective resumed, "that his first act upon their meeting again at his house was to offer himself to her in marriage. Now you, or any one else, would say this was to show he did not mistrust her, but I say it was to find out if she mistrusted him."

Still Mr. Ferris remained silent.

"The same reasoning will apply to what followed," continued Mr. Gryce. "You cannot reconcile the thought of his guilt with his taking the case of Mansell and doing all he could to secure his acquittal. But you will find it easier to do so when I tell you that, without taking into consideration any spark of sympathy which he might feel for the man falsely accused of his crime, he knew from Imogene's lips that she would not survive the condemnation of her lover, and that, besides this, his only hope of winning her for his wife lay in the gratitude he might awaken in her if he succeeded in saving his rival."

"You are making him out a great villain," murmured Mr. Ferris, bitterly.

"And was not that the language of his own countenance as he lay dying?" inquired the detective.

Mr. Ferris could not say No. He had himself been too deeply impressed by the sinister look he had observed on the face of his dying friend. He therefore confined himself to remarking, not without sarcasm:

"And now for the motive of this hideous crime—for I suppose your ingenuity has discovered one before this."

"It will be found in his love for Miss Dare," returned the detective; "but just how I am not prepared to-day to say."

"His love for Miss Dare? What had this plain and homespun Mrs. Clemmens to do with his love for Miss Dare?"

"She was an interference."

"How?"

"Ah, that, sir, is the question."

"So then you do not know?"

Mr. Gryce was obliged to shake his head.

The District Attorney drew himself up. "Mr. Gryce," said he, "the charge which has been made against this eminent man demands the very strongest proof in order to substantiate it. The motive, especially, must be shown to have been such as to offer a complete excuse for suspecting him. No trivial or imaginary reason for his wishing this woman out of the world will answer in his case. You must prove that her death was absolutely necessary to the success of his dearest hopes, or your reasoning will only awaken distrust in the minds of all who hear it. The fame of a man like Mr. Orcutt is not to be destroyed by a passing word of delirium, or a specious display of circumstantial evidence such as you evolve from the presence of the ring on the scene of murder."

"I know it," allowed Mr. Gryce, "and that is why I have asked for a week."

"Then you still believe you can find such a motive?"

The smile which Mr. Gryce bestowed upon the favored object then honored by his gaze haunted the District Attorney for the rest of the week.