PART VII

You can readily understand that the daily papers, both morning and evening, were going strong on this murder, giving the public all the sensational stuff they could rake out of the gory mess. Even wild rumor was sufficiently tamed to occupy a place of honor on first pages, no least item of the appalling affair being too inconsequent to be written up until it fairly bristled with significance.

Even at that, very little attention was given to a press dispatch from Montreal which appeared in the Boston papers on the second morning after the shooting. Only a few lines it amounted to, and tacked on at the end of one of the columns devoted to the murder.

This dispatch stated as rather a striking coincidence, that one of the Montreal papers of the day before—that is, of the morning following the West Roxbury shooting—had printed in a local news column a short paragraph to the effect that at a spirit séance in a private house on Sackville Street the night before—which was the evening of the murder, a call had come from the spirit of some one (a man it seemed to be) whose name, owing to his extreme agitation, couldn’t be obtained, but who was so insistent on speaking that the control brought him in.

The medium, who was in trance, suddenly taken by this spirit, began crying out: “Stop them! Stop them! Can’t somebody stop them? Oh, it’s terrible—terrible! They’re going right on—there’s no help for it! Oh—can’t somebody telegraph?”

Then there was a pause, and some of the sitters began asking this spirit what the trouble was, and where he wanted them to telegraph, and what his name was, and things like that. But there was no answer, and for several minutes nothing more came through. Then suddenly there was something like a shout for help repeated several times and followed by wild exclamations about killing some one. “Down in the States—down in the States! Roxbury—down in the States! They’re killing a man in Roxbury—killing a man. No one can stop it now! There’s a gun aimed at him—don’t you understand—aiming a gun—aiming a——Oh, They’ve shot him!... Now they’ve shot him again!... He’s sinking—sinking down—down.... Now he’s on the floor—all in a heap!... Now he’s dead!... Dead!... Dead...!” The words seemed to trail off in the distance toward the end, and nothing more was heard from the perturbed visitor.

The Montreal paper carrying the account of this went on to say that its information was obtained from a well-known person who had attended the sitting. And one of the Boston papers, commenting on it briefly, as one of those odd coincidences which come along and surprise us every now and then, added: “This will be less astounding, however, when we reflect that a medium in Canada or anywhere else can confidently assert, at any hour of the day or night, that a murder is being committed in one of the large cities of the United States, and not be far out of the way in time or place.”

The evidence tending to establish the guilt of Augustus Findlay in the case of the shooting to death of Charles Michael Haworth was so overwhelming from the point of view of newspaper readers, that it threatened to make the case uninteresting—a threat, however, which was soon swept into the discard. For a few days, though, it looked unpromising in the extreme to those who revel in newspaper sewerage. The facts were so plain and Findlay’s guilt so evident that no room was left for enthralling suspicions as to others—for gossip and scandal, for the laying bare of nauseous details concerning the habits and lives of loathsome people, and all those choice morsels of offal that newspaper addicts go after so ravenously.

It was simply that this Findlay man, the murderer, had always been threatening to put a bullet into the Haworth man, the murdered, and had finally done so, being worked up to a sufficient frenzy in his half-drunken condition, by finding the said Haworth calling upon his—Findlay’s—wife. He had thereupon followed him home, flourishing a revolver in his face most of the way and shouting the most murderous threats and maledictions, and finally had shot him from outside the Cripps mansion on Torrington Road (where Haworth lived) getting it there through one of the front windows. Then he had run home and tried to make his wife uphold him in his statement that he hadn’t left the house all the evening. If that wasn’t enough to land him in the chair, what was?

To the authorities, however, it wasn’t quite so easy navigation. No one had seen Findlay do the deed; no revolver had been found; no bullet marks in the room had yet been discovered. It was true that everything pointed to him as the murderer, but pointing wasn’t enough. It answers very nicely for the general public, but doesn’t go with a Grand Jury.

And there was that obstinate old woman who undoubtedly had intimate knowledge of the entire episode from A to Z—knowing the persons involved, the motives behind the murderous deed, and every circumstance leading up to it;—for hadn’t she run out and warned a patrolman in Jamaica Plain nearly a week before the event? Fully aware of this and more, yet keeping her mouth as securely closed as if officially padlocked. More important still if it was a fact—and a word or two she’d dropped just after the shooting made it look that way—she’d been an eyewitness of the murder. Yet so far nothing could be got out of her on the subject.

But no mistake was made about Amelia Temple. It was seen from the first that the only chance was in giving it to her easy and waiting patiently for results. No pressure. On a sign of that she’d have cheerfully gone to prison for life or permitted herself to be hung by the neck until dead, before she’d have let out a word. So they kept careful watch on her without interfering in any way with her freedom or giving her the least idea they were doing it.

And the Inspector and she enjoyed a couple of pleasant conversations during this time, in which, “as a matter of form” he gave her the opportunity to enlighten them as to one or two little things, but said himself she was perfectly justified in declining to do so if she still felt that she must—indeed, he wasn’t sure but he’d do the same in her place. And the patrolman who’d failed to respond to her request for help had (under instructions, of course) made her a most abject apology, to which her only response was, “That does a lot o’ good _now_, don’t it?”

* * * * *

While proceedings in this quarter were at a standstill (for they wanted to give the old woman time), those in other and unexpected directions were not. Some rather unusual phenomena relating to the case were beginning to attract attention. Although the first of these—the communication that came through a Montreal medium—had hardly caused a ripple, a manifestation on similar lines now broke out in Boston itself, and people began to sit up and take notice.

The séance in which this occurred was taking place in a small hall or conference room, where a committee appointed by some sort of psychical research society was investigating the spirit manifestations claimed to be produced by a certain medium. It was a lady in this case—using the term merely as indicative of sex (though for all I know it could be applied in a broader sense as well)—and she was trying to cope with the various tests to which this committee was subjecting her at a series of meetings held for that purpose, hoping to win a prize that had been offered; but sure, in any event, of valuable publicity.

As you see, I am fairly well uninformed as to the interior workings of this particular brand of religious endeavor—if it may be referred to as such. Nevertheless, I am fully aware of the phenomena that touched on the Haworth case, and can report them to you with a close approach to accuracy, leaving you to draw your own conclusions as to their origin.

It was certainly a great surprise to everyone interested in the affair—with the possible exception of the firm of Harker & Pentecost, neither member of which was ever surprised at anything—that an attempt at interference should come from such a quarter. For a time it was treated as an absurdity not worth serious attention. But that was only for a time.

It seems that mediums, being forbidden, in these enlightened days, to give public séances for which admission fees are charged, are obliged to employ other methods of attracting and doing business. The most common is to appear before the congregations in the great Spiritist temples—or whatever name they may go by—where meetings are held at stated intervals in all the large cities and many of the smaller ones. At these gatherings a limited number of “inspirational speakers” and “test mediums” are allowed a certain time each in which to bring the spirits of the departed into communication with friends or relatives present, and sometimes with people who cannot be found in the assembly.

The more striking and convincing the feats these inspirational individuals perform, the greater will be their renown and ultimate pecuniary reward. For upon the impression made at these meetings (where no admission fee is charged) largely depends the amount and the value of the private business they can do thereafter. It has been known that one extraordinary “demonstration” in the way of spirit communication or materialization, has come near to making the fortune of the artist (using the term with entire respect) who brought it about. The field is of vast extent. The highest aim is the convincing and consequent conversion of persons of wealth who are undergoing the pangs of recent bereavement; for the successful medium deals in that for which almost anything will be paid—if the believing client has the price.

While these appearances at the great Spiritist assemblies are the most used of the publicity methods for commercial mediums, a greatly superior one has recently been developed for the few who are fortunate enough to be able to associate themselves with it. It is one of the innumerable outcomes—all more or less revolting—of what a few nations egotistically refer to as “the World War.”

Owing to this absurd and ghastly occurrence, hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of families were suddenly plunged into the most heartrending grief known to man. Those who were beyond words dear to them had been snatched away and violently put to death, and the ones so taken were in the very part of life where death seems most impossible, most unbelievable, and consequently most terrible.

Resulting from this, the interest in that creed which assures people that their lost ones are yet here with them in spirit form, trying to speak to them and often succeeding (through the mediumship of others), even on occasion appearing before them in person (again through the interposition of others), was suddenly and tremendously increased. One result was an enormous enlargement in the number of believers, among which were included some with a high order of mental equipment—something in which this “faith” had been painfully deficient before. A result of the unprecedented interest which this accession to the ranks of Spiritists inspired, was a stimulation of the efforts made by the less credulous to learn whether or not there existed grounds for confidence in the amazing claims set forth. Societies and associations and investigating committees were organized for this purpose in various parts of the country, rewards were offered and the claims and accomplishments of various mediums were subjected to investigation. As a by-product of these activities, and one, it must be admitted, wholly unlooked for by those undertaking this enthusiastic search for truth, the most effective machinery yet devised for the manufacture of publicity for mediums was put in operation.

The prize of a few thousand dollars offered by the organizations behind the investigating committees, was as nothing to the enormously increased business for the medium which was sure to follow the newspaper accounts of the proceedings, no matter which way they went or what decision was arrived at. Free newspaper publicity, and in the news columns—that was the real prize.

* * * * *

It happened that an investigation of this kind was going on in Boston at the time of the tragic occurrence on Torrington Road. The medium who was undergoing tests was a Mrs. Belden—Henrietta E. Belden was the entire name I believe—and she had heretofore revealed her unusual gifts only in private—that is to say, in her own home out in Quincy. But accounts of the extraordinary things that took place when she went into trance, came to the notice of members of a research society, and after a bit of wirepulling that was kept in the dark (as it certainly should have been) the lady was invited to submit to a series of test sittings, and, I need hardly say, accepted.

The first test séance had already been held and with some success—enough to get half-column reports of it on inside pages of most of the next day’s papers. But this was only a beginning.

On the evening of the day after the murder in Torrington Road, the second sitting was scheduled to take place—which it did. Most of the newspaper reports of this meeting spoke of it as being unsatisfactory in the extreme, though one or two contended that it would be only fair to the medium to suspend judgment until the next one, as there appeared to be some unexplained obstacle in her way, and she should be given a chance to overcome it.

It seems that after Mrs. Belden had gone into trance, instead of being, as on the first occasion, immediately controlled by energetic spirits who spoke volubly (through her) and caused sounds of knockings and chilly draughts and inexplicable moving of furniture, she was suddenly plunged by some mysterious influence, into the most overpowering grief, begging piteously that some one would help her. On questioning by members of the committee, it developed that they were speaking to the spirit of a woman named Cynthia. That is to say, the medium herself had disappeared into trance, and the spirit of this Cynthia woman was speaking through Mrs. Belden’s terrestrial machinery.

“Cynthia—I’m Cynthia!” the medium kept calling out in a voice entirely different from her own, and with tears running down her cheeks. “Yes—Cynthia! Oh, won’t somebody help me! Though you don’t know me, for God’s sake help me! Isn’t there somebody here who can do _something_?” And the medium sobbed and moaned and rocked back and forth, and her very face was changed. All the questions that were put to her by the members of the committee seemed to get them no further. The Cynthia spirit was apparently crazed with grief or anxiety, and held her place for nearly an hour, begging for help, yet leaving those present without information as to what the trouble was, further than the little that could be gathered from her incoherent cries of: “Oh—they’ve made a terrible mistake! Don’t you see—a terrible, frightful mistake!”

“Mistake about what, madam?” would come in a sharp incisive voice from an investigator.

“About him—about him. He’s my son—my son—my son! Don’t you understand?—and he’s in such trouble—oh, _such_ trouble! It’s all wrong—all wrong! Can’t somebody go and tell them it’s all a mistake! Oh, please somebody tell them!” And thus it went on, the grief-stricken spirit of Cynthia hysterically begging for assistance and imploring them to tell somebody that something wasn’t so, yet seemingly unable to furnish information as to what persons she wished to have told, or to let them know who she was herself. And although, after some little time of this, the members of the committee urgently requested Cynthia’s spirit to leave the medium so that the spirits of others who were better able to communicate might take her place, she couldn’t be persuaded to do so.

Even Mrs. Belden’s assistant or director—or whatever it is those people are called—joined in the efforts to persuade Cynthia to release the medium, calling out several times to the usual spirit control: “Doctor Coulter, can’t you relieve this situation? Tell us what this Cynthia woman wants or take her away.”

But nothing availed and the investigation was finally adjourned until the evening after the next.

When Mrs. Belden came out of the trance and began to take notice of things, she discovered, from the behavior of those members of the committee who had waited, that all was not well. Her director whispered a few hurried words to her, and she could be heard exclaiming, “Cynthia? Why—why, what does it mean? I don’t know anybody named Cynthia—I never heard of such a person!” She appeared greatly disturbed, evidently fearing her chances of winning the prize which had been offered for a successful test were gone, or at least greatly reduced in size.

The condition in which she was left after being under the control of this sorrowful spirit for more than an hour, was surely bad enough without the added anxiety as to the failure of the test. One or two of the gentlemen shook hands with her and said she mustn’t take it so much to heart, as the next meeting would undoubtedly be a fine one and more than make up for any shortcomings in this. But it was evident that Mrs. Belden was disappointed and chagrined.

* * * * *

The next sitting was approached with feelings bordering on trepidation of one sort or another by nearly everyone concerned. And when Mrs. Belden had finally succeeded—with more difficulty than usual—in getting herself into trance condition, and almost immediately thereafter the tearful voice of Cynthia was heard, the depression among the investigators became acute.

But there was a surprise awaiting them, for not only was this spirit calmer and more reasonable than she had been two nights before, but she spoke in a way that aroused a sudden and peculiar interest.

The Haworth case—barely three days old and still on the front pages—was the subject of conversation everywhere. So that when the members of the committee became aware—as they did from the first few words spoken—that it was the spirit of Cynthia Findlay addressing them,—the mother of the man arrested for the Haworth murder, and as to whose guilt there wasn’t a remnant of doubt in the public mind—the deepest interest was aroused. Her voice was still sad and occasionally tremulous with emotion, but there was no more sobbing and hysteria. She begged most piteously that somebody there would tell the Judge or the Jury or the police or some one, that her son was innocent. It was all a dreadful mistake. He——Oh no! Oh, believe her, no!—he wasn’t the one who did it! All the things that looked so terribly incriminating could be accounted for some other way. Every one of them could be explained!—Every one!—Every one!

She went on like that for quite a time, becoming more and more affected until she could hardly speak. But on this occasion her repetitions—even her paroxysms of emotion—were no longer wearisome to those present.

As soon as it became necessary for her to pause for breath—for while it’s more than unlikely that a spirit needs any, the same could hardly be said of a medium—a flood of incisive questioning poured in, which ran something like this:

PROFESSOR ELBERTSON (_a psychologist_): “Mrs. Findlay, if you know your son did not commit the crime he’s charged with, you must also know who did.”

MR. BLATCHFORD (_an attorney_): “Certainly. Your knowledge implies that you are in a position where you have an insight of the case. This insight should enable you to give us the name of the guilty one.”

THE SPIRIT: “Oh, don’t ask me! I can’t—I can’t!”

DOCTOR WINGATE (_a physician_): “Who prevents you? Who stops you when so much depends on it? Let us know who this person—this spirit—is.”

THE SPIRIT: “There’s no ‘who.’ Nothing can be said—no words—no—no—no words!”

MR. HALSTED (_a prestidigitator_): “Do you mean, Mrs. Findlay, that there is no person or being or entity of any description who forbids you or stands in the way of your telling us this?”

THE SPIRIT: “No such thing as that! I am held by an influence from all that is, of which I myself am an infinitesimal part.”

MR. BLATCHFORD: “Then why does not this prohibitive influence prevent you from informing us as to your son? You experience no difficulty in declaring his innocence. Is it a law that operates either way according to its fancy?”

THE SPIRIT: “My own influence, though infinitesimal as a rule, becomes of more consequence than all others when it concerns my son, and the balance is turned. For him I can speak across to you and beg you to save him.”

MR. BLATCHFORD: “Then surely for him you can reveal the facts that will accomplish that result.”

THE SPIRIT: “Perhaps I can—oh, perhaps—perhaps! But it can’t be now! If it can be—I’ll come again!” The voice trailed away in a despairing moan and the spirit of Cynthia was gone.

Mrs. Belden came out of the trance rather suddenly, rubbing her eyes and glancing questioningly at her director and the members of the committee. As before, she seemed greatly exhausted by the use to which the spirit of Cynthia had put her, and found herself in a cold perspiration.

While no real test had yet been furnished by Mrs. Belden, a majority of the committee had a feeling that the next visit of the spirit of Cynthia would supply one, while a pessimistic minority openly stated that there wouldn’t be any next visit,—that the questioning they had given her would keep her occupied in other spheres, and that it was an exceedingly good way to be rid of her.

Mediumistic episodes such as this wouldn’t get a thing from the papers under ordinary circumstances. But these investigations the psychical research people put over, excited enough public interest to be taken up by the Associated Press and run all over the country. And this alleged appearance of the grief-stricken spirit of the mother of Augustus Findlay, the man who was under arrest for the murder of Charles Haworth, was featured in all the morning editions from Maine to California and Montreal to New Orleans.

* * * * *

On the day following the publication of these reports, quite a pack of editors got after it as a specimen of the gullibility of the human race in general and the people who took part in such “goings-on” in particular. You can see how the free advertising piles up for them in cases like this. Even the high and mighty editors push it along!

Of course there was nothing in it for the police—not even enough to laugh at—and no attention was paid to the matter. It wasn’t even recognized as having occurred.

Mr. Forbes, the Defense Attorney, read the accounts of the séance with a grimace. While entirely willing to catch at a straw in this case, he failed to see anything in the alleged appearance of the spirit of his client’s mother that could be dignified by such an appellation.

But in the evening of the day following there happened something that every one of these persons did pay attention to, not to speak of millions of newspaper readers besides.

It seems that a well-known medium named Dillingworth was having his chance at one of the meetings of a Spiritist convention that was in progress at Lilly Dale, a village not far from Chautauqua, in the westernmost county of New York State, where gatherings of this nature occur at intervals (no admission charged). Mr. Dillingworth was calling out names and descriptions of spirit forms that appeared to him, and asking if anyone in the audience recognized them as departed relatives or friends. Some one, of course, nearly always did, and thereupon would follow affectionate messages and disjointed conversations between the living and the dead, carried on from the dead side through the mediumship of Mr. Dillingworth.

This sort of thing went on for something like half the medium’s allotted time, when suddenly he seemed to be strangely affected, and unable for a moment to proceed. He soon recovered, however, and half apologizing, told the assembly that some one had come who had a peculiar sort of influence—an oldish man, it was, who kept saying that he didn’t know anyone there but couldn’t get control in other places, and very much wanted a message sent to some one.

“Yes, a—a—damnably important message,” went on the medium abstractedly, as though trying to listen to something in the distance. “But I can’t seem to get his name.... Oh—says he doesn’t care to give it.... But we can hardly send a message unless we know who it’s from!” (Trying to hear.) “How do you spell it? C—r—i—p—p—Crippen? ... Oh, Cripps. His name is Cripps—quite an old gentleman—rather portly—medium height—gray-blue eyes—smooth face—grizzled gray hair—bushy dark eyebrows. Anyone here know such a person? Wait a minute!... Yes yes, Mr. Cripps, I know you told me no one knew you, but I’m so used to asking the question——What?... He’s using the most frightful language!... All right—all right—there’s no need of getting huffy about it! Give us the message.... He says it’s to the police somewhere—I can’t get the place. Yes, go on, Mr. Cripps.... R-o-x-b-u-r—Oh, Roxbury!... Man shot there, he says—murdered. ... _Boston_ police? Why not the police where the man was shot?... Oh I see—a part of Boston. I didn’t know that.... Yes, I guess you’re right, Mr. Cripps!... He says my geography isn’t worth a God-forsaken damn!... Very well, the Boston police. Now what’s the message?... Let me get that straight! We’re to send word that both times—is that right?—both times their detectives examined the inside of the rain-water conductor on the south side of the front portico they didn’t reach high enough up. Is that all, Mr. Cripps?... But you haven’t mentioned what it is they’re reaching for.... What?... Oh, I see!... He says they’ll know damned well—and don’t you forget it!... All right, Mr. Cripps. That’s pretty strong language, but we’ll try not to forget it.... What’s that? Yes, we’ll tell them.... He says they’d better be careful how they handle it if the finger marks on the butt are any use to them.... But can’t you tell us, Mr. Cripps, whether the—What?... Who’s this speaking?... Oh, some one else! Just a minute.” Then, glancing toward the audience and in a lower voice: “Will somebody remember that message? I don’t know what it’s all about, but if it’s going to help the Boston police any, God knows they ought to have it!”

A roar of laughter, together with some vigorous hissing, followed this last remark, which could hardly excite surprise when one reflected on the derision and contempt which had been aroused by the peculiar behavior of the organization referred to not a great while before.

Though the medium, Mr. Dillingworth, didn’t know what it was all about, the bunch of reporters sitting at a table down in front of him, did. In forty-five minutes the Associated Press had the whole thing, and before midnight newspaper men were dashing madly out to Jamaica Plain, having obtained permission to look over the ground.

The outcome of all this was that along about 1:30 in the morning half a dozen chaps from the papers were gathered round the rain-water conductor on the front of the Cripps mansion, pushing wires and small rods up from the lower end. But nothing was found—which wasn’t so very surprising when you take into consideration that headquarters had received a rush dispatch fully an hour before the papers got it, giving the spirit message from old Mr. Cripps in full. No one in the Department had any confidence in it—unadulterated rot, all these spirit stunts. Still, when it was wired over on a “rush” from Lilly Dale and signed “H. Thompson, Sergeant State Police,” what was the good of taking chances? So the Inspector hustled a couple of plain-clothes men out to the mansion with orders to take another look up the water pipe.

It was ten minutes after the detectives arrived at the mansion that they pulled Augustus Findlay’s revolver down out of the large zinc water conductor up which it had been shoved to a height of several feet, and wedged in with a branch from a shrub to hold it there. They got a grip on it with hooks and wires so that nobody’s hands came in contact with it. Two chambers of the gun were empty.

As the Boston papers had no knowledge of this, the dispatch from Lilly Dale was used inconspicuously in most of them, followed by the brief statement that reporters had been out and searched, but that nothing was found in the locality mentioned. Papers elsewhere gave it more prominence, as it was too late to hit them with the news that the search made by the reporters had been in vain.

* * * * *

This new evidence—Findlay’s revolver found hidden near the place where the crime was committed, with two of the chambers empty and his fingerprints showing up nicely on the handle—was of the utmost value, though they’d most likely have got an indictment without it. But while it made the action of the Grand Jury a certainty, and would be damning evidence when it came to trial, it must be confessed that the views of the Chief Inspector and of the Assistant District Attorney who was to prosecute, were a trifle unsettled by the source of the information which had led to its discovery. It was certainly not an agreeable position to be placed in, and every effort must be made to keep the matter quiet. Luckily the presentation of the evidence before the Grand Jury would be behind closed doors, and by the time it had come up at the trial people would probably have forgotten what it was all about.

On the following day Assistant District Attorney McVeigh went before the Grand Jury and the indictment of Augustus Cripps Findlay for the murder of Charles Michael Haworth was handed down without delay.

* * * * *

The date which had been set for Mrs. Henrietta E. Belden’s final séance before the researching committee, fell on the third day after the indictment of Findlay. Many persons not connected in any way with this committee made strenuous efforts to gain admission, but without success. Representatives of the press were present, but the public had been excluded from the beginning.

So when, upon the assembling of the committee on that evening, it was discovered that a meek-looking person who was not a member, nor a reporter from any of the papers, was seated near the door, inquiries were at once made, and the whispered reply of the chairman was that the stranger was from the office of the Chief of Police. For what purpose he had been sent, he (the chairman) had not been informed. So far as he was aware, they hadn’t been violating any police regulations.

As on the two preceding occasions, the spirit of Cynthia took immediate possession of the medium, but she appeared to be laboring under an excitement so intense that it was with difficulty she could articulate, and more than half an hour went by before anything came through that could be understood.

This incoherency and delay did not, however, have the discouraging effect which it had on a former occasion, for everyone there was intent to hear, held so by the feeling that she had something important to tell if only she could get it across. She would start on something—it seemed to be some number she was trying to give them—and then break off with: “I will—I will—I WILL!” repeated again and again.

The committee members were doing what they could to help her along, and when one of them asked, “Is some one preventing you from telling us?” the vehement answer came back: “Yes—yes! Such forces against me!—I can hardly speak! Don’t go away—don’t go away!” And then all was confusion again, in the midst of which she tried repeatedly to tell the number. Finally, after many interruptions, she got it out—four hundred ninety-one, four hundred ninety-one, and went on repeating it, but still apparently unable to explain its present significance. But after a long struggle to overcome the obstacle, whatever it was, something seemed suddenly to release the spirit of Cynthia from what had the effect of a strangle hold, and she almost screamed out: “West side of the street! West! West! Four hundred ninety-one!”

As soon as she stopped repeating this long enough for anyone to speak, every effort was made to get from her the name of the street she was talking about. She was asked what part of the town—what buildings were on it—the first letter of its name—everything the committee members could think of that might be a clue.

The forces holding her back began to weaken from the time she managed to shriek out about the west side of the street, and the whole thing came through rather suddenly a few minutes later.

“Don’t forget—don’t forget—four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street—four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street—west side—west side—man smoking a pipe—west side of Collamore Street—he saw them take it away from him. Oh, get him—somebody go and get him—he saw it all!”

Even while this was being repeated (as it was a number of times) there was the beginning of a quiet and unobtrusive movement by some of the newspaper men toward the door. But they found the meek and inoffensive person from the office of the chief of police standing before it and pulling his coat back the merest trifle so that the edge of his badge could be seen.

“Sorry but you’ll have to wait a minute, gentlemen,” he said in an undertone, and before the reporters recovered from their astonishment he slipped through the door. The indignant journalists started to follow him, but they found a bulky patrolman just outside who declined to let them pass. The only reply to their furious questions was, “Orders.”

* * * * *

It was a great surprise to James Rathbun, who lived with his family on the second floor of 491 Collamore Street, Roxbury district, and was employed in a ladies’ boot and shoe factory near the railroad, to be roused from bed when he’d scarcely more than gone to it, and questioned by a couple of men who appeared to be ordinary citizens, but were accompanied by the patrolman on that beat.

No, he didn’t know anything at all about the murder over to Torrington Road, excepting what he’d seen in the papers.... Sure he’d read about it.... No, he didn’t know anyone concerned in it and hadn’t seen any of them so far as he was aware of. They must have got the wrong place, hadn’t they?... He couldn’t say as he remembered of anything special happening around there on the night of the murder.... No, he hadn’t noticed anyone taking anything away from anybody that night—unless they—unless——Why hold on now! There _was_ a kind of a fight down in the street, now he came to think of it, and he’d gone down and tried to stop it, but it was about as good as over when he got there. But now they were speaking about taking away something from somebody, maybe that was what they meant.... No, not money or a watch, it wasn’t, but the other feller’s gun.... No, he hadn’t any idea at all who they was.... Sure, he’d go to the Inspector’s office if they wanted him to, but there wasn’t much of anything to it so far as he could see.

The Inspector, it seems, was at the Charles Street jail, and Mr. Rathbun was taken there and questioned in one of the rooms. His testimony, as brought out, was straight and simple. He had come home rather late that night—about half-past ten or so he should say—and was smoking a pipe at his window facing the street. All of a sudden he heard a lot of scuffling and cursing outside, and looking out saw two men down there near one of the street lamps wrestling around and jabbing each other. There was something shining that they both had hold of, and once when it got out into the light he could see one man was holding on to it by the nozzle and trying to get it away from the other. That one had gloves on.... No, the other chap didn’t have none. He (Rathbun) yelled out to ’em from the window, but they was at it like two dogs holding to a stick, so he went downstairs to the street door and opened it, and just at that minute the man that had the gloves on give the other fellow a paste in the face that made him loosen his grip for a second so he could snatch the gun away from him and run up the street with it.... Yes, he was sure it was the one with the gloves on that got the gun.... How did he _know_? Well, for one thing he went out and spoke to the other chap and he didn’t have none on.... No, there wasn’t any talk between them, for the chap didn’t say anything, but in a minute or so turned suddenly and beat it down the street toward the railroad tracks.... _Know_ him? Did the Inspector mean the one he went out and spoke to? Sure he’d know him if he ever saw him again!

“Why, there he is now!” Rathbun exclaimed with genuine surprise, as he pointed at a man among about a dozen prisoners who were filing into the room. It was Augustus Findlay. The Inspector had given a signal a moment before.

* * * * *

The digging up of James Rathbun of 491 Collamore Street on a tip from the disembodied spirit of Cynthia Cripps Findlay shook things up a bit in the Police Department. Of course everyone connected with said Department was entirely aware that the spirit game was simply cheap poppycock and that the two rather surprising messages bearing on the Haworth case were merely instances of odd coincidence. Great God! There were eleven thousand mediums in the United States, and these giving out ten communications a day (a conservative estimate) made the output from the spirits forty million one hundred and fifty thousand messages a year; it would be a damned pity if one or two of them couldn’t strike it right once in a while! As for the alleged Cripps message from Lilly Dale, they had it pretty well covered up—at least for the present. The papers, to be sure, had printed it, but they had also mentioned the fact that nothing could be found in the place indicated.

But holding back this Collamore Street message with its extraordinary results was another matter. It must be done though, if possible. The precaution of ordering the detention of everybody in the hall where the séance was held, in case some “spirit” got a message through that might cause trouble, was certainly well taken, and neither the reporters nor any others who’d been present during Mrs. Belden’s trance were permitted to leave the building until Mr. Rathbun had been returned to his dwelling place and, with his wife (who’d come to the window the night of the fight on hearing the shouting) sworn to keep the matter entirely to themselves, and the fact strongly impressed upon them that it would be a highly dangerous thing _for them_, to let out a word of it.

A search was quickly made for others in the tenements near who might have been witnesses to the revolver fight, but none were found. All this had transpired in not much above an hour, and the Rathbuns, as requested, locked their door and went to bed.

Some twenty minutes thereafter No. 491 Collamore Street was seething with baffled newspaper men. They pounded on the door and rang the bell of the tenement on the second floor, until Mr. Rathbun, apparently roused from deep slumber, opened it to find out what all the racket was about.

The reporters surged about him, calling out questions, demanding statements, jotting down descriptions of him, and making such a riotous clamor, notwithstanding his assurances that he didn’t know anything about it, that he finally (to all appearances) lost his temper, and shoving those nearest to him back on to the landing, slammed the door in their faces and turned the key in the lock.

By this time there was quite a gathering in the street below, and when the newspaper boys began to surge down the stairs with the idea of trying to get in through a rear entrance, there was considerable excitement; for the crowd hadn’t the least idea what it was all about and looked for the capture of a desperate burglar or something equally diverting. In the midst of all this, word was suddenly passed from somewhere that some one had found a man up the street a ways, who’d seen the whole thing, and in ten seconds No. 491 was left as quiet as a church.

The rumor of the man who knew it all turned out to be based on fact. A solid, reliable-looking chap he was, and the reporters had him penned. He seemed reluctant to say anything at first, but finally admitted that he was walking through Collamore Street that night and came right on it. Must have been half-past ten or eleven, he thought. Two men fighting for a revolver—that’s all it was. He backed into a doorway on the other side, about opposite 491, and took it all in. The reporters got everything down to the minutest details, and you can imagine what the papers looked like next morning. Not Boston alone, but everywhere. Headlines you could read a block away. Here was the real thing, and the newspaper chaps know one of those when they see it.

The authorities laid the leakage to the Rathbuns, but of course couldn’t hold them for anything. When they came to figure up the effect of the revolver episode on the case, it didn’t alter matters to any extent. While it had the look of some kind of framing of Findlay, it was at the same time shown by this very episode that he had his revolver in his hands after the shooting and was chasing himself home with it at the time it was taken from him. The only real loss sustained by the prosecution was the necessary abandonment of the contention that Findlay’s revolver had been concealed by himself after the shooting, for, as it now appeared, somebody else had shoved it up in the water conductor. But without this, the evidence against the man was amply sufficient. His violent threats—his frenzy at being shoved back out of the house by Haworth with the door slammed in his face—his position at the front window with his gun in his hand at the instant of the shooting—his mad flight from the grounds of the Cripps mansion, carrying (as it now appeared) his weapon with him—his incriminating behavior at the time of his arrest next morning in attempting to escape and then, when caught, endeavoring to get his wife to support him in his statement that he hadn’t left the house the evening before—all this, taken together with other evidence which had since been collected, meant nothing but swift conviction.

But while the Chief Inspector and the District Attorney entertained no doubts as to the case against Findlay so far as the actual firing of the shots that killed his victim was concerned, this extraordinary seizure of the revolver in the public street and its concealment near the place where the murder had been committed, were a plain indication that others were involved in the crime, and now that it was accomplished, were using every effort to frame it on him alone. It was a strong hand that was working in the dark against Findlay, and Mrs. Belden, the spirit medium, had shown that she knew a great deal about it. She’d been held, after the release of the others, at the room where the séance took place, notwithstanding the indignant protests of the committee; and orders were later given to bring her to headquarters. They’d soon make her tell where she got her information—a key, most likely, to the whole thing.

They’d have liked very well to get Mr. Dillingworth, too—the Lilly Dale medium whose control, alleged to be old Mr. Cripps, told where the gun was concealed. But that would be difficult. And then again a man wasn’t so easy to handle in a case like this. They could frighten a woman. She’d lose her head and tell them everything.

* * * * *

Mrs. Belden was brought in by a couple of detectives. It was somewhere about three in the morning. Notwithstanding what she’d been through and her virtual arrest coming on top of it—for that’s what it was made to appear—she showed no signs of disturbance; indeed one would have thought she hardly noticed what was going on. She had, or assumed, a detached air, giving the impression that her mind was occupied with other and more important things than those in the immediate vicinity. A pleasant but vacant smile had been arranged on her countenance before her thoughts wandered abroad, as a friendly signal to those who might notice it fluttering there.

She was brought before the Inspector. Several plain-clothes men stood about, watching her like hungry wolves. Uniformed police were stationed at each door and a very large-sized one sat near the Inspector. She was to be impressed with the importance of what was about to occur.

A detective brought her a chair.

All went smoothly enough as to preliminary questions—name, address, occupation, etc.—although she replied absently, and several times had to be recalled to herself and the question repeated before they could get a response. After this was over and an effective pause had followed, a police stenographer (plain-clothes) rose, and read in a loud and impressive voice a report of what Mrs. Belden had said and done during the séance of the evening just passed, while under the alleged control of some one deceased.

The moment this man announced what the report was about, that he intended to read, Mrs. Belden’s manner underwent a drastic change. Her detachment disappeared, and evidences of the most eager interest took its place. She listened with rapt attention to every word that had come through from Cynthia, and when the reading was finished breathed a sigh of the deepest satisfaction.

“Mrs. Belden, you have heard the report of what was given out and said and uttered by you at the meeting held in the Board Room at Charnley’s this evening?”

“What sir?” she asked with a startled turn, aroused from her thoughts of the séance.

“I say” (in a louder voice) “you have _heard_ what has just been read—the report of what you gave out at a Spiritualistic meeting this past evening?”

“Oh yes——yes indeed! How nice of you to put it all down!”

“And do you acknowledge it to be a true and correct statement of your words on that occasion?”

“Mercy! I’m sure I don’t know!”

“You don’t _know_?”

“Why no,” (shaking her head). “How could I when I was in trance?”

“In what?”

“Trance.”

“What in God’s name is that?”

“I—I really couldn’t tell. Why don’t you ask some of the committee? That’s what they’re trying to find out. I’m sure they’d be glad to——”

“One moment! Just one moment, madam!” spoke up a large man in uniform who was standing near the inspector. He wore a face and jowl something like Von Hindenburg and his voice was as the bellowing of a bull. “We’re here to ask _you_, Mrs. Belden! _You_ are the person who uttered those words and we propose to hold you responsible!”

“What the hell’s the committee got to do with it, anyway?” growled one of the detectives, whose natural gifts for vicious snarling had made him of value in a business like this. “It was you who said it—now you answer for it—see?”

Mrs. Belden blinked from one to another of them in cheerful bewilderment. Her pleasant and comfortable smile still occupied her face, though for a moment a trifle insecurely.

“Now then,” went on the Inspector, “we’d like very much to hear from you, Mrs. Belden!”

When he spoke she turned to him as though to a pleasing conversation with some new-found friend.

“Be so good as to answer the question.”

“The question?”

“Yes, the question!”

“Oh, I’m _so_ sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t remember what it was!”

“Don’t remember! Don’t remember! Well, I’ll be damned!” (From the snarling one.)

“Perfectly plain and simple, madam,” continued the Inspector. “Is this report which has just been read to you a true and correct statement of the words spoken by you at the séance or meeting this evening just passed?”

“Oh dear me—but you see, I—I don’t know.”

“You know what you _said_, don’t you?”

“No sir.”

“What’s the reason you don’t?” (Von Hindenburg speaking.) “Give us the reason! Don’t try to put over any of that trance cackle on us! Don’t you know what you say to people?”

“Oh, no!” (shaking her head). “Not when I’m in—in——not when it’s like that.”

“Mrs. Belden, aren’t you perfectly well aware that you told those present in the room to go to a certain street and number and get a man who was living there, for a witness?”

“Yes sir.”

“A——h!” (A snarling roar.) “At last you’re beginning to remember, are you?”

“No sir, I don’t remember.”

“You don’t!”

“No sir.”

“Then how do you know it?”

“I heard that man over there read it.”

“And did you remember then—when you heard him read it—that you’d said it?”

“Why, I’m sorry, but I didn’t really remember having done so. I hope you—I hope you won’t mind.”

“Whether you remember or not, Mrs. Belden, the fact that you did actually tell them this, remains!”

“Oh yes indeed, that remains of course!” She wanted to oblige these shouting and excited men in any way she could.

“Now then! You fully believe this to be the case—that you told them to go to the address on Collamore Street, and find a man who was smoking a pipe there, and bring him in for a witness?”

“Oh yes, I _do_ believe it, really!”

“Ah—you do! Well _that’s_ something!”

“Why, I don’t see why that man” (looking at him) “should want to tell a lie about it, do you? I’m sure he _looks_ honest!”

“Never mind how he looks. You acknowledge in our presence that you said those words, or words to that effect—you admit that you _did_ give that street and number. Now what we want to know is, where you got that information?”

“Yes!” (From the snarling hyena man.) “Who told you? Where did you find it out? _I say, where did you find it out?_”

“Find what out?”

“That a man living at four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street saw something that made him a valuable witness. Where did you find that out?”

“Oh, but you don’t understand at all—I didn’t find it out!”

“You _knew_ it, didn’t you?”

“Oh no, I really had no idea of it at all!”

“Here! Here!” from the Hindenburg man.

“My God woman” (from the hyena man) “you _said_ it—you acknowledged it—we’ve got half a dozen witnesses who’ll swear to that!”

“Oh yes! Well, doesn’t that satisfy you?”

“It does not! You’re going to tell us where you got that tip! It came from somewhere—that somewhere is what we’ll get out of you—and don’t you make any mistake about that!”

Mrs. Belden, unable to comprehend, smiled vaguely at them as if hoping to soothe and quiet them thereby.

“Answer me this: How could you tell them all that about Collamore Street if you didn’t know it yourself?”

“I don’t know, but if you’ll ask one of the committee men——”

“Be quiet!” “That’s enough of that!” “Committee be damned!” And general protests from the men in the room.

Mrs. Belden subsided pleasantly. Her smile flickered a little but refused to go out.

“I’m not here to ask committee men,” the Inspector went on. “I’m here to ask YOU!”

“That’s very nice of you, I’m sure!” (A little doubtfully.)

“And what’s more, you’re going to tell me! You’re going to tell me where you got your information about that witness in Collamore Street before you leave this place!”

“Oh, I hope I can—if you feel so about it!”

“Go on with it then! How came you to know anything about that witness at four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street? How was that? Explain yourself!”

“Why I thought I told you that I _didn’t_ know anything about him! What funny questions you ask me!”

“But you acknowledge that you _told_ them about him—you acknowledge that! Don’t you acknowledge that?”

“Oh yes indeed—I acknowledge that!”

“Well if you _told_ them about him you must _know_ about him! You can’t tell a thing unless you _know_ it, can you?”

“Well, you see, when I’m in trance——”

(A burst of yells and imprecations from the men in the room.) “Don’t give us any more of that!” the Inspector went on as soon as it was quiet. “Just the idea out of your head that you can put that kind of birdseed over on us! From now on no more trances and rappings and slates and the whole bag of tricks! We know these games—every one of ’em, an’ they don’t go here! _They don’t go here, Mrs. Belden!_ Now you tell me straight, where did you get that information about the witness on Collamore Street?”

“I didn’t get it at all.”

“You mean you told them all that—told them just where to find a man—the very street—the very number—the very apartment—the very pipe he smoked—and didn’t know any of those things yourself?”

“Oh yes—it’s so strange, isn’t it! When I’m in a——”

“None o’ that now!” (From the Inspector, speaking above a general murmur of protest from the police and detectives.)

Mrs. Belden smilingly held her peace.

The Inspector, McCurran, paused a moment in order to increase the impressiveness of his next question.

“Mrs. Belden,” he began, in a lower voice and with overpowering solemnity, “do you realize the position in which you are placing yourself by your refusal to answer this question?”

“Why, I’m afraid you don’t like it at all!”

“Not _like_ it, madam! I can assure you that it’s a great deal worse for you than NOT LIKING IT! We are compelled to conclude that for some reason known only to yourself you are SHIELDING the person or persons WHO ARE GUILTY OF THIS FIENDISH CRIME!”

“Dear me! Why, who do you think it is?”

“You apparently have no idea what such a thing may mean to you!”

“No sir.” (She was so interested that she was leaving her smile alone to get along the best it could without her.) “I’m almost sure I haven’t!”

“A person who shields one guilty of murder is an ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT!”

“Mercy! Am I—am I one of those?”

“It certainly begins to look like it, madam!”

“Why how _perfectly_ dreadful!”

“Now before you’re arrested and tried on that charge we’ll give you one more chance to clear yourself! You understand—one more chance and that’s the last!”

“Well that’s—I’m sure you’re very kind! Is it something you want me to do?”

“That’s what it is, madam, and your only chance is to DO IT NOW! Tell us where you got your information about the witness on Collamore Street!”

“But how can I when I didn’t get it anywhere? It was whoever was in control that had it. That man there who read it said Cynthia was the name.”

“Well then, where did Cynthia get it?”

“Oh, well,” (the smile spreading) “I’d like to know that myself!”

And so it went on hour after hour, Mrs. Belden cheerful and unmoved, her questioners more and more wearied; bored beyond words by her dense and unshakable simplicity and maddened by her invulnerable smile; until finally they had to give it up and tell her to go home. Smiling pleasantly, she thanked them and said she’d enjoyed it very much.

Though it seemed that some mysterious person or persons—dead or alive—were framing Augustus Findlay, the Grand Jury had indicted him for murder, and the evidence against him was seemingly overwhelming.

As for Findlay himself, his state of mind was pitiable. He had no doubt whatever that he had fired the shots that killed Charles Haworth, and Mr. Forbes (of Houston, Forbes & McAllister), the Defense Attorney, had all he could do to keep the frightened wretch from confessing in the hope of having mercy shown him. A prospect of life imprisonment gave him no uneasiness; what appalled him was the thought of death. And it certainly looked black for him as the day set for his trial drew near.

Then late one night the Associated Press took a hand—or rather let us say extended a hand—from the wind-swept reaches of Chicago. Mr. Harcourt Sidney was a well-established materializing medium doing business in that city. Through his efforts and ministrations some remarkable spirit phenomena had taken place, and he had a choice and well-to-do clientele—the well-to-do feature being by far the more important one to him. This man Sidney was not only clever in the line of materialization, but he was a trumpet medium as well, and many of his other-world communicants appeared to find this an assistance in getting through.

In the practice of his profession, as Mr. Sidney conducted it, there would be specially arranged private meetings at the houses of those belonging to the circle; and Mr. Sidney, securely tied into a plain kitchen chair with stout ropes, and his thumbs and fingers wound with easily breakable thread, would bring—or let us say persuade to come—from the spirit world, many friends or relatives of those present, so that they seemed to be actually there in the darkened room, able to converse freely in their own voices, and often with other characteristics of their earthly existence easily distinguishable.

These sittings or séances were entirely private, and I don’t have to tell you that no admission fee was charged. But if any of those who attended felt that their enjoyment had been of quite unusual dimensions either in the way of witnessing absorbingly interesting phenomena or in having departed friends or relatives actually speak to them, sometimes even allowing shadowy glimpses of themselves like faint half-luminous clouds to be seen shimmering about in the darkness, they were at liberty to send to Mr. Sidney any little token of esteem that they felt like offering.

Quiet and select little spiritistic gatherings like this were started all over the country, when the extraordinary revival of interest in such things came along carrying some very big names at the top of it. And I want to tell you that there’s millions of dollars coming to the people owning these names if a commission on the business they brought in for the mediums could be collected.

At these private sittings, with Mr. Sidney in the chair, so to speak, not only the friends and relatives of those present, but also quite a number of distant acquaintances, or even just fellow townspeople, would occasionally drop in; a few came at nearly every meeting for a bit of a chat. It was almost as if they enjoyed talking things over with their mundane fellow citizens—and for all I know they did.

One of these few who made an occasional spirit call, was a man well known not only to everyone in that circle, but to nearly everybody in the United States as well; he had been a renowned—you might almost say world-famous—detective, a great part of whose life had been spent in Chicago. A most entertaining talker he was, and seemed to enjoy the opportunity of conversing with those he had left on earth when he passed over, as the saying is.

At one of these private séances on an evening along about the time I’ve just been speaking of, they’d been having visits from various dead ones (dead in an earthly sense I mean) for upwards of an hour, when the medium announced the approach of this well-known man, and in a moment the trumpet was seized in a strong grasp and a visit with him of more than usual interest followed. Some one in the circle alluded to the Haworth case in Boston, which had become, by this time, owing to the unusual occurrences connected with it, quite the talk wherever you went.

Then a man on the other side of the circle asked Mr. P. (which is what we’ll call this spirit) if he’d be willing to say anything about that singular affair. “Certainly singular,” he said, talking through the trumpet, which made his voice loud and clear; “an’ I notice that several people on this side have got excited about it.”

“But can’t you give us anything about the case yourself?” was the next question. And I’ll tell you beforehand that his answer was in the morning edition of every newspaper in the country, as well as Canada. It was about like this as I got it from the papers.

“Well now,” Mr. P. objected at first, “I can’t say I like talking about that. What would I do, butting in?”

But many in the circle now began begging him to give them just a hint of what his opinion was—what he said to be treated as strictly confidential.

“Well,” he finally said, “if you’ll just consider it a private matter between ourselves an’ leave my name out of it, I’ll say this: While I have every respect for those Boston boys, they’ve got it doped out wrong. I didn’t see the thing done, but as soon as I heard about it I went over there an’ took a look around. The trouble is they’ve got it set in their minds the shots were fired from outside. Everything was fixed to look that way, but, heavenly Jerusalem! that’s what’s the matter with it—_it was fixed_! They’d ought to take a look at those front window blinds no matter if the vines _are_ growing over ’em. You can do a great deal with vines if you give your mind to it. Also they’ll find a bullet struck one o’ the elms out in front. If they want it they can get it about fifteen feet up. The feller was firing high, whoever he was.”

That was all Mr. P. would say on the subject, except that you couldn’t expect any sort of good work in these days with a pack of yelping newspaper hounds worrying the life out of you and giving away anything they could get hold of so the man you were after could act accordingly. After a few anecdotes about how they kept things quiet in his day, on the principle that when your man was working in the dark against you you ought to be let alone to do the same by him, he said good night and was gone. Instantly the meeting broke up, and everybody was buzzing about. Two or three jumped into a car and made for the Loop District to talk it over with a couple of managing editors they knew, and the conclusion quickly reached was to transmit the message to the Boston police and also let the Associated Press have it—this without making use of Mr. P.’s name. The result was that it went out to the press as a Mediumistic Message from a Celebrated Detective.

It’s hardly necessary to state that the reporters at headquarters wanted to know this and that, and what you might call a press rush was made for Torrington Road. But the police were already making an investigation, and the newspaper men were kept out of the grounds until it was finished.

* * * * *

The outside blinds to the front window of the room on the left—which were flat against the wall on each side—had the appearance of having been undisturbed for years. Tangled Virginia creeper grew so densely over them that they could hardly be found. Yet when it came to the work of clearing these vines away it was discovered that hardly any effort was required. The blinds had evidently been opened as wide as possible and the vines hung over them.

When brought to view, these shutters told their gruesome tale. Two smashing bullet holes far up near the top where no one standing on the ground outside could have reached,—one splintering a slat of the left-hand shutter, the other cutting a fairly clean hole through the frame of the one on the right, and both giving unmistakable evidence of having come through from the inside (of course when the shutters were closed) submitted their silent evidence.

The murderer, whoever he was, had evidently failed to think of the blinds until it was too late, and they were shattered by the bullets that had killed Charles Haworth. Then, with no time to otherwise dispose of them, the mass of vines had been torn away from the wall on each side until the shutters could be opened back against it, and the vines then pulled over them. All this was a trick to make it appear that the shots were fired from outside the front window—or at any rate to avoid anything that conflicted with that idea. Again that mysterious framing for the conviction of Findlay.

In either event the shattered window blinds and one of the bullets found embedded in the trunk of an elm tree a few feet away, plainly indicated that Findlay could not have fired the shots, even though he may have thought he did.

Added to this was the significant fact that the detectives had been unable to find any trace of a bullet on the walls at the inner end of the room, where they should have been if fired from outside the front window. The District Attorney was obliged to enter a _nolle prosse_, and that was the end of it.

Augustus Findlay was a free man.

* * * * *

His Attorney, Mr. Archibald Forbes, was waiting for him in the corridor, and with a muttered “Come along, quick!” hurried him out to a taxi. The windows of this vehicle were covered with newspapers pasted to the inside, and a man with a heavy and obtrusive jaw was seated within.

When the door was opened and Augustus saw this man, he hesitated, but Mr. Forbes shoved him aboard and got in after him. The instant the door closed, the taxi dashed down the street. The three men were shaken and tumbled about as they rattled on at what, to Findlay, appeared to be breakneck speed. The papers pasted to the windows prevented his seeing where they were going.

It was something like half an hour before the machine stopped.

“Be careful!” warned Mr. Forbes in a hoarse whisper. “We get out here and you’ve got to keep between us! If they find out we’ve got you away, they’ll nab you!”

“What is it—what are you——”

“Sh!” warned the lawyer, impressively.

The two men ran across the walk, Augustus between them, and as they did so the door of the house before which the taxi had stopped was opened from the inside, and they dashed madly up the steps and plunged in, the door being instantly closed after them.

It was a vacant house and without furniture of any kind. Findlay was taken to a dark room in the basement where coal had been kept. It contained bins and piles of rubbish which could be sat upon in an extremity.

“You going to do something to me?” Findlay managed finally to stammer out.

“Shut your mouth!” from the man with the jaw.

“Now listen to me,” began Mr. Forbes in a low voice. “I got you off by a fluke, but they’ll be on to it in an hour or two. Mr. Sugden here’s a Department detective and he’ll get you by the police to-night and put you on a train. Also he’s got a wad of money for you—subscribed by friends. Now I’m done with you! I said I’d get you off and by God! I’ve done it! But if they ever get you again you’re finished—remember that!” Having said which Mr. Forbes went up stairs and left the house.

Augustus stood silent. After a time he roused himself and glanced about. His eyes fell on Mr. Sugden and a pathetic look came into them.

“Say,” (his voice trembling) “you look like a decent sport—that might help a feller out.”

“What the hell do ye want? Ain’t I get’n’ ye by the cops?”

“Yes—yes—but I——You see, it’s this way. I’m feeling pretty sick—an’ if you could manage to get me a drink somewheres——”

“Listen here, Topsy!” Sugden spoke unfeelingly. “You’re going to Canada—didn’t you know that? _Canada_, you fish bait, where you can swim in it!”

Shortly after this the detective left, reappearing again about nine o’clock with a few things that Findlay had left at the Charles Street jail, and in addition a heavy winter overcoat which he made the frightened wretch put on. Somewhere about a quarter to eleven o’clock they cautiously left the house, got into a taxi that was waiting, and were driven to the Trinity Place Station of the Boston and Albany. Sugden took Augustus down to the platform for the west-bound trains, and arriving there, shoved him to one side where they were in the shadow.

“Listen here,” he growled in a low voice with warning in it. “You’re goin’ to take the night train for St. Louis, due here in about one minute. But ye don’t stay on that train—get me? There’ll be a bull waitin’ fur ye at the Union Station out there if ye do. You’re goin’ to side-step at Albany—see? It’ll be five in the morning. Keep to the shadows an’ slouch on to the Montreal train at seven. Ye change at Rouses Point, an’ that helps throw ’em off. When ye hit Montreal, lay low! Get a bunk at some joint. Monkey with that mug o’ yours. Raise a crop o’ hay on it; an’ whatever ye do, don’t be seen with a paper from the States in yer han’s or they’ll cop you. After about two weeks climb on a steamer for England. You’ll find a fake passport in with the railroad ticket in that pocket” (touching Findlay’s overcoat on the right breast). “There’s another name on it. You ain’t Findlay any more. There’s a wad o’ money sewed in the linin’. Lose yerself over there. An’ if yer life is worth anything to ye don’t cross back to this side again. There’ll be a big reward out for ye an’ there’s sharp guys here that makes a hell of a livin’ keepin’ tabs on boobs like you. I’m one of ’em. An’ if ever ye _do_ take a fancy to come back I hope I’ll be the guy that puts the nippers on ye. There’s yer train!” (With an ugly jerk of his head toward it). “Now on with ye, an’ I’ll keep back any cops that’s followin’.”

Augustus hurried into the coach, and Sugden stood close to the steps until the train moved on—which was in a few seconds, as the stop at Trinity Place is brief in the extreme.

Of course you’ll realize that all this elaborate framing was for the purpose of getting Findlay permanently out of the Western Hemisphere. After the _nolle prosse_ there was nothing in the world they could hold him for. Who it was that had got Mr. Forbes and Mr. Sugden to carry out this scheme did not at the time, appear.

* * * * *

Following at once on the collapse of the case against Augustus and his discharge from custody, came the arrest of James Dreek, the butler, and the holding of him for the murder.

In his avid eagerness for every detail that can be found (or manufactured) in murder cases, the newspaper addict skips with perfect ease from one suspect to another, often seemingly glad of the change. In this instance, however, the very unusual interest had been aroused, not so much by the hunt for the person or persons guilty of the crime (though that feature was rapidly becoming absorbing) as by the extraordinary manner in which the evidence in the case was being brought to light. Everybody knew of that celebrated detective in Chicago not long deceased, and his brief and characteristic comments on the Haworth case through the mediumistic services of Mr. Harcourt Sidney, and his calling attention to the shattered window blind and the bullet in the tree, made not only a sensation, but a strange and alluring one.

From the first intimation that somebody was framing Augustus Findlay—which flashed upon them when Mr. Rathbun told of the fight for the revolver under his window in Collamore Street—the detectives had fastened their eyes on Dreek. There were already a few things that didn’t look well for the young butler. They’d found a loaded revolver under a lot of soiled linen on the floor of a cupboard in the butler’s pantry. One or two letters they got out of his trunk had an ugly look. Worst of all was the finding of his footprints on each side of the front windows of the room on the left, these imprints overlapping those of Augustus Findlay—thus showing that he’d been there after Findlay had run away. These Dreek footprints had not meant so much before, as Findlay was known to have been at the window when the shots were fired, and therefore Dreek arrived afterward. But now that it was proved that the firing was from within the house, it involved Dreek in several ways, two of them being serious. Not only was he the only one in the house with Haworth, according to all the evidence (excepting his own), and therefore apparently the only one who could have fired from the inside, but the footmarks showed unmistakably that he was the one who went round after the murder and opened the shutters back against the wall, replacing the vines over them in such a way that they would give the appearance of not having been disturbed at all. He was now, on account of this, definitely in the position of trying to throw the guilt on an innocent man. This was corroborated by a number of small items—the marks of a house stepladder outside under each shutter, the finding of a house stepladder in the back entry which fitted into these marks, and the fingerprint people reporting that Dreek had been the last one who had handled it. He had insisted most emphatically in his earlier testimony that he had gone out of the rear door several minutes before the shooting and wasn’t in the house when it occurred. But there was nothing to show that this was the case. On the contrary there was every reason to suppose that he had not left the house with the stepladder until after the shots were fired.

Of course he was in for a fearful ordeal. I’m not going to describe it to you, but only give you my word that they third-degreed Jamie Dreek good and plenty.

Precisely in the midst of these painful proceedings the Associated Press again took a hand in the game—or to put it more accurately, played a hand that had been dealt to it.

It was the day following the second night of Dreek’s torment. The police had kept him awake for twenty-nine hours with their shouted questions and punching-up process and rough handling. The job was nearly done. He was “ripe” (put that in quotes) to sign anything or confess anything. And then came the noon editions with big front page headlines on top of A. P. dispatches from San Francisco.

It seems a well-known medium out there by the name of Waverley Bentick was doing his turn—or whatever’s the right name for it—at one of the specially high-class Spiritistic assemblies, held in a large hall commonly alluded to as their “church,” and situated some considerable way out Golden Gate Avenue. Mr. Bentick was passing out messages to people in the auditorium, when, as he was in the midst of a communication for a woman sitting in the second row, he suddenly stopped and called out, “Wait a moment, please, and let this lady finish!—Just a moment, I say!—You mustn’t break in like that!”

There was a pause. Then the medium resumed in an altered tone, speaking to the assemblage: “I’m sorry, but a man has pushed in, in spite of everything my control can do!—Tall—heavily built—grizzled gray hair—pointed beard—looks as if he might be a doctor.... No—says he isn’t one. Only keep us a moment—been trying to get through in Boston—too many in the way. It’s about some murder case over there—the Howard case, is that it?... No—that isn’t it! He doesn’t speak very distinctly.... What?... All right, go on.... H-a-w-o-r-t-h. Oh, the Haworth case! Yes, we’ve heard of that! I should think so!”

Instantly there was intense interest shown—people craning forward to listen, and calls of, “Go on—go on!” For the extraordinary developments in the case had by this time made it known everywhere,—especially among those of the Spirit Sect—if that is a proper way to refer to them.

“He says he wants to speak of something now—while they’re third-degreeing a man—as it may apply to him. Something about money—yes—some money—large amount—paid to victim a few hours before he was shot. Thirty-five thousand dollars.... Is that right?... Yes—thirty-five thousand. Police haven’t been able to trace it.... If they want thirty-four thousand five hundred of it—old barn—old barn.... Yes, we understand—old barn. What about it?... He says follow butler’s footprints.... northwest corner in foundation wall under sill timber.... Take out loose stone.... That’s all.... Good-by.”

In this case the Boston police got a rush wire from San Francisco that gave them nearly a forty-five minutes’ start. Inside of twenty after it came in, a Department automobile was speeding through Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, and four minutes later was turning in at the old Cripps gate from Torrington Road.

Perhaps you’ll have noticed that the attitude of the authorities toward messages from the other world had undergone something of a change. Even if the Inspector and others still entertained the notion that these communications were founded on trickery of some kind, they were obliged to admit that it was trickery with a hell of a kick to it, and that made all the difference in the world.

It wasn’t exactly child’s play—nor even adult’s recreation—to trace out James Dreek’s footmarks between the flag paving at the rear of the house and the old barn farther back. But the old weed-grown drive up which he’d gone was fairly soft, and they finally succeeded, arriving at the northwest corner of the barn and finding the loose stone in the foundation wall just under the sill timber. The thirty-four thousand five hundred was in the cavity behind it.

This happened in the small hours. Close to four o’clock in the morning it was—on account of the three-hour difference in time. The papers got it for their afternoon editions. But the police treated it as an old story. “Oh yes, we got the money some time ago!” “Yes, pretty good guess from San Francisco, but a bit late!” “Of course it’s a bad thing for Dreek!” That was about the gist of answers to the frantic inquiries from the reporters at headquarters.

* * * * *

That same morning about eleven o’clock James Dreek was nearing the point of breakdown that the police were working him for. The gang that took him on at noon (they worked in shifts) had it in for him. Even then the pitiable wretch was trying to answer as best he could, but he found it difficult to remember anything at all or even to understand what his persecutors were talking about. Furthermore, his voice was nearly gone, and his tongue so swollen and dry that he couldn’t speak with any sort of distinctness.

“Ye say ye ran out o’ the house before the murder was committed—that’s what ye say, is it? Answer! What’s the matter with ye! Answer the question! Answer the question!”

Dreek tried to say “Yes,” but could hardly more than move his lips. It must have been the eight hundred and sixty-eighth time they’d asked him that.

“Now go on an’ tell us why ye run out? Why? Why? What was it started ye out? Was ye sick? Whad did ye run out for?... Punch ’im up Lucas!... Whad did ye run out for? Whad did ye run out for?”

“I—I thought——” His dry mouth and swollen tongue made it almost impossible to form words.

“Go on—go on—go on! Whad did ye think?”

“Something terrible—going—happen!”

“_Goin’_ to happen! How in hell’s name could _you_ know something was _goin’_ to happen unless you was goin’ to MAKE it happen! It _did_ happen, by God, an’ it was you made it happen—an’ then ye ran out o’ the house so’s you could FRAME SOMEBODY ELSE FOR IT!”

“No! No!” (With much difficulty and shaking his head.)

“What was it, then? What was it? What made ye run out?”

“Nos—noises!” His tongue seemed to get in his way.

“What kind o’ noises?... Punch ’im up Lucas!... What noises?”

“Noises—cellar—lights out—scared—ran for police.”

“Oh—police! Ye ran fur the police!”

Dreek nodded, and his bloodshot eyes rolled heavily from one to another of his burly questioners.

“Did ye have to take a ladder with ye to find ’em?”

“Laddle—laddle—ladder?”

“Don’t try any funny business with us—we know what ye did! Now what about that ladder, eh? WHAT ABOUT IT?”

“Oh—ladder—yes! Misser Ha’orth ass me open blin’s—front winnow. So I—I—I was——” He broke off as his head fell forward in sleep.

“Punch him up Lucas! Keep ’im on the job, can’t ye!... Listen here, Dreek—that ladder was to open the blinds, ye say. Now what did ye want ’em _open_ for—tell me that! TELL ME THAT!”

“Yes——” (with a great effort to keep awake). “Always Misser Ha’orth like blin’s open—always!”

“Then what the hell was they SHUT for? What was they SHUT for?... Punch ’im up Lucas—put a dig in ’im!... Now answer the question! WHAT WAS THEY SHUT FOR?”

Dreek struggled to remember, but finally shook his head.

“Now I will ask ye something. What about that money? Ye wouldn’t answer lass night, but now we got it on ye! You saw that money! What?”

“I—I——”

“You saw it, I say! You saw that big pile o’ bills they had out on the table? Why don’t ye answer? I’ll tell you why—YE’RE AFRAID TO TELL!”

“No” (shaking his head) “not afraid! I saw—yes.”

“What was ye do’n’ sneakin’ round spyin’ on ’em like that when they had money in sight? Why didn’t ye stay in the kitchen where ye belong?”

“I—I don’ know——Oh—now—yes! They rang—they ass me—sign paper—witness!”

“A fine witness you was, all right, all right!”

Every detective in the room roared with laughter. The man who’d been questioning turned suddenly on Dreek. “When did ye crib that money?” he demanded.

“When did I——”

“You got it! Don’t ye s’pose we know you got it? Now _when_? _When?_ D’ye hear? WHEN DID YE CRIB THAT MONEY?”

The muscles of Dreek’s throat went through the spasmodic motions of swallowing.

“I—promised not to——”

“Not to what? Whad did ye promise—eh?”

“Not to—say—anything——”

“Who did ye promise that to?”

“Miss’r Ha’orth.”

“How did that happen?”

“He handed—money—me.”

“Oh, _handed_ it to ye, did he? Made a little present o’ thirty-five thousand to ye, I s’pose!”

Dreek tried to speak but couldn’t manage it.

“Whad did ye do with it?”

Again Dreek couldn’t get the words out—it would take so many to explain it.

“I’ll tell ye what ye did with it—_ye put it in the barn behind a loose stone_! D’ye deny that?”

“No.”

“Oh, ye _don’t_ deny it! _Ye did it!_ Ye stole that money from Charles Haworth an’ then, by God! ye hid it in the wall o’ that barn! D’ye confess you hid it there?”

“He ass me pu’ there—safe place!”

“So! Now ye got it out! Now, by God, we got yer story an’ a pretty one it is! What ye’ve told us is jus’ the same as a confession ye shot the man yerself! Yes, by God! ye jus’ as good as said it! Now, the way it stan’s, yer one chance is to spit out the truth in plain words! The truth is ye shot Haworth yerself—ye hid the money yerself—an’ ye went out an’ opened the shutters yerself so people ’u’d think a man outside done the shootin’! Put that in plain words an’ sign it an’ ye got some chance! Ye got a chance o’ mercy from the court if ye confess ye did that! W’at about it—eh?”

The “No” Dreek tried to say couldn’t be forced through his parched mouth, so he shook his head.

“The story ye’ve told’ll put ye in the chair—give ye the grand burn—see?—shock the guts out o’ ye! YE HEAR w’at I say?”

Dreek made no attempt to answer.

“They’ll find ye guilty in ten minutes! That story ye told is the end o’ ye! THAT’S YOUR FINISH, BY GOD!”

Another persecutor started in on him—an enormous man with a rumbling, bellowing voice: “Didn’t you open those shutters, Dreek? Didn’t you open ’em back against the wall and put the vines over ’em? Didn’t you take that ladder out there and do that thing? Aren’t you the one who did it? Answer that! AREN’T YOU THE ONE?”

“Yes——” Dreek got out in a whisper and nodded his head a little.

“That convicts you! That convicts you!”

“You’re fur the chair!” another detective joined in. “You’re fur the chair! You’re done fur now, by God!”

“That’s the end o’ you!” “You’re in for the dead house!”

They’d all come up with a rush and were standing close about him. Painfully he turned his eyes from one to another as they spoke, all joining in with violent exclamations as to his finish.

“There’s only one thing that’ll save you now!” roared the man with the bellowing voice. “Only one thing to do now if you want mercy: sign a confession an’ they’re bound to treat you fair! YOUR ONLY CHANCE ON EARTH!” He snapped his fingers and a stenographer (plain-clothes man) entered from the inner office and handed him a typewritten sheet. “Here it is,” he went on. “He’s written it out—just what you told us—just what you told us.”

“Wha—wha—what I——” (A weak whisper.)

“Just that. For Christ’s sake can’t you see we’re trying to get you off the death sentence? It may be prison, but what’s that? A few years an’ then some damn Governor that wants women’s votes pardons you out! Here it is—put your name there. See that line?”

Dreek was holding a pen clutched awkwardly in his hand, having no idea where it came from. He managed to shake his head a little.

“Not—not if it says I killed—— ... no—no ... not that—not——”

“Here Lucas——” And all the detectives in the room turned as if to leave. “Put the next watch on him. One more night of it’ll change his mind!”

“No!—Oh no!” Dreek made hoarse and breathless noises, “O my God!—not another—not another! O my God!”

The big detective swung round to him suddenly.

“Sign here—right under here—see?” pushing the paper under his eyes, while another man seized the pen and dipped it in nearby ink. “Sign here—on that line! IT’S THE ONLY THING THAT’LL SAVE YOU!”

Other detectives gathered close round, shouting to him to go on and sign, and yelling threats in his ears of what would happen if he didn’t.

James Dreek, gasping and mumbling incoherently and with shaking hand, made marks with the pen which were as near his written name as he could manage.

The late editions that afternoon had a wealth of display headlines (the Department had seen to it that the Associated Press got the news at the earliest possible moment) which ran—in slightly varying forms to—this effect:

FULL CONFESSION IN THE HAWORTH CASE

JAMES DREEK THE ASSASSIN

THEFT THE MOTIVE

STOLEN MONEY RECOVERED BY POLICE

BRILLIANT WORK OF DETECTIVES

At last the Department had things coming its way—for which reason much relief was felt.

* * * * *

As James Dreek had made a confession and signed it, the tide of public interest and curiosity began to ebb. There was no longer a mystery. The young butler had done the deed. Robbery was the motive. He had got hold of that thirty-five thousand dollars and hidden it. Some spirit in California had told the police where to look for it. This in itself was of course an odd occurrence, but the riddle of guessing who the guilty man was and why he did the appalling deed no longer existed. This being so, the bulk of the inhabitants of Boston and its environs began looking eagerly in their daily papers for the next killing. As to the sensation-guzzlers in other cities, they no longer had their attention diverted from their enthralling local atrocities. The amazing behavior of the spirits remained as something to be spoken of when the subject of ghosts and haunted houses came up.

* * * * *

As the date set for the Dreek trial approached, it appeared to those who kept in touch with spiritistic affairs, that extreme restlessness regarding the Haworth case was prevalent in higher spheres—if what came through via various mediums could be taken as a truthful indication.

A wire from Providence, Rhode Island, stated that a private séance in that town had been considerably upset by the insistent demands of a disembodied soul claiming to be that of the father of young Dreek, that something be done—and done damned quick—to rescue his son, who was absolutely innocent, from the clutches of the blackguards and bullies who posed in Boston as police, but who were simply low-lived thugs and dirty bums. The press dispatch giving an account of the affair went on to say that the language proceeding from his apparition had grown so violent that two elderly ladies felt obliged to quit the room where the séance was being held, although it must be conceded that they were later seen to be listening just outside the door. It was really quite thrilling while it lasted, this flow of expert profanity, and a few knowing ones were aware that this spirit used expressions and dialect prevalent among a certain class of crooks practising in what is known as “The Gay Nineties.”

The Press paid little attention to the Providence message and the police none whatever, owing to the fact that nothing was included in it which substantiated its claims that Dreek was innocent. This communication, though, was followed by a disembodied statement—if I may put it that way—which reached the earth via a New Orleans trance medium, to the effect that the fools in Boston had third-degreed an innocent man to his death, adding that no surprise could be felt by those who remembered how the police had recently treated the entire populace of that unfortunate town.

Dubuque, Iowa, sent in something of the same kind, and others began to crop up from places quite remote. All of which went far toward creating the impression that the next world was considerably dissatisfied with the proceedings of this one in the matter of the murder on Torrington Road, and that the inhabitants thereof were not averse to letting their feelings relating thereto become generally known.

The members of the private circle in Chicago (recently alluded to, and since then greatly increased in numbers) wished beyond anything else that Mr. P., the famous detective not long deceased, would return and let them have his views upon matters as they now stood in the Roxbury case. But it was their third meeting after the one at which he had advised the examination of the window shutters and the extraction of bullets from trees, before he dropped in again; and when he did come he gave the impression of trying his utmost to avoid the subject. Finally, upon being asked point-blank if he wouldn’t please let them know just his personal opinion as to the guilt or innocence of James Dreek, the reply came back through the trumpet that he thought it would be just as well to go easy on that young man. Those were his final words. When another question was put to him it was found that he had quietly slipped away; not even those very near heard the trumpet fall when he released it.

* * * * *

In Boston there was displayed rather more of this spirit restlessness than elsewhere, for a considerable number of mediums about the city and its suburbs were getting communications from their controls protesting Dreek’s innocence and begging that something be done about it.

More than any of the others were Mrs. Belden’s sittings (she was giving “private circles” now with great success) pervaded by this sort of thing, and it was the spirit of the hysterical Cynthia which created most of the disturbance. She took possession of the medium at every opportunity and was more often than not incoherent from excitement—or whatever it may be that appears so often to afflict the souls of people who have successfully emancipated themselves from the thralldom of their bodies.

At several of Mrs. Belden’s séances (which were always held in private houses), Cynthia had occupied much of the time and without result—although owing to the great interest in the spiritistic features of this case, none of the persons present made objections to the delay. On the contrary, they all waited with eager interest, hoping that this spirit, which was the one through whom the revelation as to Mr. Rathbun and the fight for the revolver had come, would eventually disclose something else of equally startling importance.

At these appearances of Cynthia—or more correctly at these times when she got the floor, as you might say—she occupied much of the time in mourning over the plight of poor Dreek and begging people to help in his rescue. Then, toward the end, the sitters could make out that she was desperately anxious to see somebody—a woman, it appeared, but so far she’d been unable to get the name across. “Bring her here! Oh, bring her! She’s the only one—the only one who knows! The only one! The only one!” And so on.

On that, some one would ask the spirit for the name of the person she wanted so much, and always the answer came back from Cynthia: “Oh, I don’t know it! Not now—not now! It’s gone! I knew it before, but they’ve taken it away from me! Don’t you know who I mean? Oh, you must know! Can’t somebody tell?” And that sort of thing, trailing off into moans and inarticulate sounds of pity. And soon after that she would vacate the medium.

* * * * *

Dreek’s trial had been going on four days before Cynthia’s spirit was able to overcome whatever influence was holding her back—much as it had been on a former occasion—and then the whole thing poured out on them like a flood released.

Mrs. Amelia Temple was the woman she wanted. Mrs. Temple could save him. Couldn’t they bring her at once? Oh, quickly! She wanted to talk to her! When reminded by one of the circle that the old woman had, from the beginning, refused to say anything, she said: “No matter—bring her—bring her—bring her! Don’t waste time!” And went on that way till she came near to hysterical shrieks. But even while she was carrying on like that people had gone out to try and find the old woman.

It was late in the evening—something after eleven—when Mrs. Temple was brought to the house. There had been no difficulty in persuading her to come. It appeared that she had once had an experience. Quite far back in her life she had lost her mother, the only one dear to her at that time, and her loneliness and yearning had drawn her to spiritist gatherings where, she had heard, departed ones are able to come back and speak to those they have left behind. To her unspeakable joy she found that this was so, and became, forthwith, an intense devotee. But after about two ecstatically happy months of it her faith was rudely shaken, for, at a séance where materializations were being accomplished, she suddenly saw something that looked to her like evidence of fraud. At the next of these séances she became satisfied that there was fraud. It was a cruel blow to her. Many times she wished she hadn’t found out. From that time she never attended another séance or spiritist meeting of any kind.

That was long ago. And now, after reading the newspaper accounts of the developments in the tragic affair which so deeply concerned her (she read everything about it that she could find), the extraordinary spirit communications that had been received in connection with it, all but convinced her that, if there had been fraud in that long ago experience of hers, it must have been only because of an untrustworthy medium and did not in any way affect the system or belief itself. One had only to see what marvels it was responsible for in this case, to be made certain that the spirits of the dead are here with us and doing what they can for our welfare.

And so, upon being told that the spirit of Cynthia Cripps Findlay (she very well knew who was meant by that) was begging, through the mediumship of Mrs. Henrietta Belden, that she come and let her speak to her, she dressed immediately—for she’d gone to bed—and went with the two women who’d come from the séance to fetch her.

The spirit of Cynthia began to talk the moment Mrs. Temple entered the dimly lighted room, and continued while she was being silently conducted to a chair near the medium.

“Oh, you’re here! Thank you so much for coming, Mrs. Temple! Oh, I _do_ thank you! And you _will_ help us—you _will_! You couldn’t refuse—you’re so tender-hearted to anyone in distress! And some one _is_ in distress! Oh, some one _is_—terribly! It’s the poor Dreek boy, the butler who was with Mr. Haworth, and he’s being tried for murder at this very moment—and perfectly innocent as you know—as you know _so well_, Mrs. Temple. Why, the poor fellow never raised a finger to hurt anyone or steal anything—but there’s no way to save him unless you will tell them what you saw—just what you saw—that’s all we ask! It’s for his mother, his poor old mother, ill in New York! And, oh, listen to me—your mother is here—she’s here with me because she wants so much to help us, but she can’t speak to you herself—she’s one of those who can’t get through. She tried it long ago, as you may remember. So she asks me to tell you that she’s sure you’ll help us save this innocent boy—for her sake if nothing else. And oh, will you please wait a moment, Mrs. Temple?”

A short pause. Perfect stillness in the room. Then the spirit of Cynthia spoke again.

“Your mother—I was speaking to her—oh, you can’t have any _conception_ of how dear she is—she’s just waiting till you come—and she wants me to say that she loves you as always—it will never change—it couldn’t change—oh, _it couldn’t_ Mrs. Temple! And she’s been with you almost all the time—just staying near—that’s all she could do. And she’s so happy that you’re still keeping the old bonnet she used to wear—she sees it there in your trunk whenever she’s with you in the room—and she knows you’ll think of this poor young man’s mother the same as she does, and what a terrible thing it would be for her if her son—who never did it—was found guilty of such a _fearful_, _awful_ crime. It isn’t death (as you call it) that matters, but _such a death_! Oh, Mrs. Temple, think what it would mean to his poor mother, and for her sake and for your own mother’s sake, tell them what you saw—just tell them—oh—tell them!—Oh!...” The voice of Cynthia, uttered through the expert mediumship of Mrs. Belden, trailed rapidly away to nothing and the spirit was gone.

* * * * *

Mr. Forbes (for the defense) was unable to bring in Mrs. Temple’s testimony as a surprise. Though the séance was a strictly private one and held in a private residence and with no reporters admitted, the Inspector had insisted on having a representative at any “spirit circle” in which Mrs. Belden officiated; and although the representative in this case—a plain-clothes man—had seen to it that there were no listeners behind doors or otherwise concealed, and had afterward instructed the medium and all those present not to give away anything that had been said or done, and furthermore had had every one of them shadowed by detectives both in the house and after they left it, the papers next morning had full accounts of the appeal of the disembodied spirit of Cynthia to the still-embodied spirit of Mrs. Temple, and the court room was packed with an eager multitude, rabidly craving excitement.

When her name was called, the crowd, as one person, held its breath, and strained its eyes to see and its ears to hear.

The old woman was given a chair in the witness box, and the usual form of preliminary questioning gone through. After that, she was led by Mr. Forbes to describe how she’d been at one of the side windows of the room where the murder was done, a short time before it took place, and was trying to see in, but owing to its being pitch-dark inside, she was unable to make out anything, though she heard strange and alarming noises; how she then hurried to the rear of the house and tried to get in there, but every door—even the basement—was locked, and she had to give it up; and how, more alarmed than ever about Mr. Haworth, she then started, as fast as she was able to go, toward the front of the house again.

“When you were hastening in this way toward the front, Mrs. Temple, did you pass near the window where you’d been trying to look in?”

“Yes sir; the path warn’t more’n a few yards from the side winders, but it was mos’ly growed up with bushes an’ things in between.”

“Could a person among the bushes at one of the windows, see anyone passing along that path?”

“Ef there was any light, they could.”

“What was your object in hurrying toward the front of the house again?”

“I wanted to git down to the road.”

“What did you intend to do there?”

“I was goin’ to find some one to help me—ef I could.”

“You mean the police?”

“Mercy no! They ain’t no earthly use!”

“I object!” shouted the District Attorney, springing to his feet.

“Just answer the question, madam.” (From the Court.)

“And I ask Your Honor that the remark of the witness be stricken from the record.”

This request was granted, and Mr. Forbes went on.

“Where did you expect to find help, Mrs. Temple?”

“If I didn’t find nobody in the road, I was goin’ to try the house on the fur side a ways up. There was some men there.” She put a very slight accent on the word “men.”

“And _did_ you go down to the road?”

“No sir. I was stopped sudden-like by a bright light flashin’ up inside the room as I was goin’ by. It was so bright it lit up the chinks o’ the winders, an’ thinkin’ I could see then if anyone was there an’ what they was doin’, I pushed through the bushes an’ went up clost to one of ’em.”

“Which one did you go to?”

“Why, the first one I come to I seen the roller shade was pulled down, so I went on to the next.”

“That would be the one nearest the front of the house?”

“Yes sir, that was the one.”

“And did you find that you could see anything inside?”

“I found the shade was down there, too, but it warn’t pulled quite to the bottom so’s it left a narrer crack.”

“And could you see into the room through this narrow aperture below the curtain?”

“Not at first I couldn’t—the light dazzled me some—but in a minute I got used to it an’ then I could.”

“Tell the Court what you saw, Mrs. Temple.”

“Mr. Haworth—it was him I seen first. He was settin’ by the table, readin’ a book. After a minute or two he felt in his pocket an’ got his pipe out an’ filled it an’ was huntin’ around fur a match.”

“Was there anyone else in the room?”

“Not as I could see from the winder I was at. But just as he was lookin’ fur the match I commenced to think mebbe there might be somebody behind him in the back part o’ the room, so I hurried through the bushes to the other winder—the one further back. I knew the shade was down, but I thought mebbe there was a crack at the bottom same as the other, an’ I found there was—on’y not so much, but by twistin’ around I could get a look through to the back part o’ the room, an’ there was a man standin’ there, back against the door o’ the butler’s pantry, an’ he had a black thing in his hand that he was pointin’ at Mr. Haworth from behind.”

A moment of tense stillness followed on this, as Mrs. Temple stopped speaking. I don’t suppose there was one person among the spectators in that packed court room who hadn’t stopped breathing.

After letting the pause have its full effect, Mr. Forbes spoke with all the solemnity he could command.

“Mrs. Temple,” he said, “was the man you saw standing behind Mr. Haworth and aiming a black object at him, the accused you now see on trial in this court—James Dreek?”

The old woman shook her head. “No sir, it warn’t him,” she said.

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes sir.”

“What makes you certain that it was not the accused?”

“For one thing, he warn’t built no ways like him—he was heavy-set an’ solid. This man” (pointing at Dreek) “ain’t that way.”

“You say his different size and build, _for one thing_. Was there something else that made you still more positive that this was not the man?”

“Yes sir.”

“Kindly describe it.”

“I was just turnin’ away from the winder to get to the other one an’ warn Mr. Haworth, when I seen this man you’re tryin’——”

“James Dreek?” interjected Mr. Forbes, to prevent any mistake as to the person she meant.

“Yes sir, James Dreek—I seen him come hurryin’ along the walk carryin’ a ladder.”

“Which way was he going?”

“Toward the front o’ the house.”

“What did you do then?”

“I kep’ on as fast as I could to the other winder—the one near where Mr. Haworth was—so’s I could call out an’ warn him. As soon as I got there I begun screamin’ out his name an’ beatin’ on the winder glass, but I hadn’t no more’n started doin’ that when there was a terrible loud crash of a gun goin’ off, an’ right after it another, an’ Mr. Haworth turnin’ round an’ tryin’ to ketch a holt o’ the table; but he couldn’t do it, an’ there he was sinkin’ down on the floor—sinkin’ down there right before my eyes!”

It was some time before the old woman could go on, but the Court waited. Finally Mr. Forbes, seeing that she was getting control of herself, went on with the examination.

“Tell us what you did then, Mrs. Temple.”

“I—I kinder sunk down there under the winder—as if all my stren’th was took away. But in a minute I was able to git up again, an’ the first thing I see was this Dreek man on the path there where I’d seen ’im afore.”

“What was he doing?”

“He’d stopped where he was an’ let the ladder fall on the ground. But just as I looked at him he picked it up again an’ set off runnin’.”

“In which direction did he run?”

“The same as ’e was goin’ afore—toward the front o’ the house.”

“And what did you then do, Mrs. Temple?”

“I run as fast as I could toward the back—the kitchen.”

“What was your idea in going there again?”

“Why I—I wanted to get to ’im as quick as I could.”

“To Mr. Haworth?”

The old woman nodded, unable, for a moment, to speak.

“What made you think you could get in? You’d tried it a few moments before, hadn’t you?”

“Yes sir, but this Dreek man had come out sense then, an’ I didn’t think he was liable to ’uv locked the door, carryin’ the ladder like he was.”

“_Had_ he locked the door?”

“No sir, he hadn’t.”

“Which door was it?”

“The basement.”

“So you got in?”

“Yes sir.”

Mr. Forbes indicated that he was through with the witness, and the district attorney took her, his manner conveying the impression that he considered her testimony as almost too flimsy to waste time over. He soon learned, however, that it wasn’t such an easy matter to punch holes in it. As a sample, without going into it as a whole:—

“I believe you made the statement, Mrs. Temple, as other witnesses have done, that the night when all this occurred was a dark one. Did you so testify?”

“Yes sir.”

“Was there a moon?”

“I didn’t see none.”

“But you admit the night was unusually dark?”

“It was dark—I ain’t got no idea how unusual it was.”

“Very well—that’s all I want to know—it was dark. Now Mrs. Temple, on this very dark night—the blackness being almost impenetrable, as has been shown by the testimony of others, although you yourself, for some reason, don’t seem inclined to admit it—in this dense and inky blackness you claim to have recognized the accused going by on a path at some distance from you. How do you explain that?”

“I s’pose you warn’t int’rested when I was speakin’ about them roller shades to the two side winders not reachin’ down to the bottom so’st it left a crack where the light could git through.”

“You mean to say enough light could pass through a little slit like that to enable you to recognize a person on a pitch-dark night twenty feet away?”

“Yes sir.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“No sir.”

“Oh! You _don’t_ expect me to believe it!”

“I ain’t botherin’ one way or the other about what you believe. I’ve got enough to think of besides that!”

“Well then, let’s get a little light on what _you_ believe, Mrs. Temple! We have information that you attended a séance last night, a private séance given by a medium named Henrietta E. Belden, and that you are here giving evidence in this court because disembodied spirits—in other words people who have passed away—requested you to do so. Do you deny that this is the fact?”

“No sir, I don’t deny it.”

“Then am I to understand that you are a believer in the supernatural—that spirits are about us, speaking to us through mediums, and that these dead people can be relied on to give assistance and advice in a case like this? Do you believe that, madam?”

“Well I ain’t certain sure of it, but I’m tendin’ that way, seein’ how much more the dead ones seem to know about this case than you folks that’s still walkin’ around.”

A roar of laughter swept over the crowded room, broken by the court crier’s loud rapping for silence. It might have been observed that the Court itself bowed its head over as if making notes, so that its face was hidden for a moment.

And so it went on, every effort to undermine Mrs. Temple’s credibility as a witness serving the more firmly to establish it. She could not be confused nor rushed nor intimidated, though all three of these methods were attempted. Over and above this it was very soon discovered that she had no idea of going further with her testimony than giving what related to the innocence of James Dreek. As to that, however, her evidence was clear, straightforward, and unshakable.

The confession signed by Dreek when he was out of his mind from the torture of sleeplessness and constant bullying had been riddled by the Defense, and cut no figure at all, so that when the case went to the Jury a verdict of “Not guilty” was returned within fifteen minutes and Jamie Dreek caught the next train home to his old mother, whose devastating anxiety about him had brought her to within a stone’s throw of the grave.

* * * * *

You mustn’t get the idea that the Dreek trial came to an end in the brief time my way of telling about it would seem to indicate. I said just now, that _when_ the case went to the Jury there was a verdict in fifteen minutes; but that _when_ took quite some days. In fact there was a most peculiar delay directly following Mrs. Temple’s testimony.

You’d naturally think that when the entire bottom had dropped out of the thing they’d have got the Jury out on it as quick as they could. But they didn’t, for the State was holding it up in every possible way—recalling witnesses without reason—wrangling over this and that, and playing for time whenever a chance came up. The Defense was brief enough, and the Judge occupied only a few minutes in charging, but the prosecution managed to string it along for four days, and of course the wise ones began to make remarks about the District Attorney having something up his sleeve. The singular part of it is that for once “the wise ones” were right.

On the fifth morning following Mrs. Temple’s appearance on the witness stand, the not guilty verdict was brought in, and that same afternoon Hugo Pentecost was arrested for the murder.

It came to pass at headquarters. Pentecost had been sent for by Chief Inspector McCurran to give further information, and had been answering such questions as he could—which is to say, as he could with safety. There were others in the room—a couple of detectives (plain-clothes men), two or three policemen in uniform, and a stenographer (plain-clothes).

“By the way,” the Inspector asked, carelessly, after a number of commonplace questions had been answered, “did you ever happen to wear a pair of boots that were very much too large for you?”

“Why yes,” (after just enough surprise to go with so odd a question); “I suppose I have—at one time or another.”

“Ah—you have!... But your recollection doesn’t extend, I presume, to your having worn such boots recently?”

“Pardon me,” Pentecost returned, “but is this flattering curiosity as to my wearing apparel merely personal, or are you still seeking information in the case of Haworth?”

The Inspector’s eyes glittered into Pentecost’s for a second or two. When he spoke it was pointedly and with deliberation. “I’m still seeking information in the case of Haworth.”

“That being so,” Pentecost responded in a soft, pleasant voice, “you’ll excuse me for going no further in the direction indicated.”

The Inspector drew his mouth into a mechanical grin.

“I’m inclined to think, Pentecost, that you’ll find yourself going some distance further in that direction.”

“It’s inspiring to meet a real optimist, Mr. McCurran—there are so few.”

“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night Charles Haworth was shot to death?”

Mr. Pentecost appeared to be quite unaware that a question had been asked.

“We’ve got to hold you Pentecost.” The Inspector made a slight motion, and one of the patrolmen stepped forward and stood at Pentecost’s side.

“Want anything from the hotel—toilet articles—clothing—that sort of thing?”

“Many thanks—they’re outside in a grip.”

“Ah!” the Inspector said, after an instant’s pause of surprise. “You looked for it, did you?”

“Great God!—what _would_ I look for with a couple of your teasers running circles around me since the day I first came in here!”

“Noticed it, did you?”

The Inspector pulled his lips back into what you might take for a grin. “But don’t go trying to pass that across,” he added, “as the reason you brought your grip. There’s a better one than that.”

“Sure there is,” said Pentecost.

“You know damned well the game’s up and we’ve got it on you.”

“I know damned well you _think_ you have.”

“Ah! And would you care to tell the reason I think so?”

“Why certainly ... Pittsburgh.”

There was what you might call an instantaneous pause. The mention of the name of the smoke-draped city apparently struck fire somewhere inside of Mr. McCurran.

“What do _you_ know about Pittsburgh?” he demanded in a lowered voice with anger not entirely excluded from it.

“Sorry to upset you,” murmured Pentecost.

“What do _you_ know about Pittsburgh?” the Inspector repeated.

“Much the same as you,” answered Pentecost.

“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night that Charles Michael Haworth was shot?”

There was no answer, and almost at once the Inspector went on, his voice more menacing: “If you’re not the guilty man, tell me your reason for trying to put over that fake alibi on us—yes, an’ a damned foolish fake at that, when we had you cold in Roxbury the same night?... So? Nothing to say about _that_, eh?”

There was a moment of silence, during which the Inspector managed to subdue any evidences of the fury which the name of the western Pennsylvania city had aroused. Soon he resumed in a voice cold and hard: “We find it to be a rule that a man who is unjustly charged with crime is more than anxious to answer questions and explain his true position. I observe that you have no such desire.”

“Accept my congratulations, Inspector, on having at last discovered the missing exception to your rule.”

“Then you have no explanation to make of that manufactured alibi?”

“None—until the necessity arises.”

“Am I to understand that it hasn’t yet arisen?”

“Such an understanding would be according to fact.”

“In that case we may be able to assist it to do so.” And the Inspector rose and walked away to another part of the room, motioning, as he did so, to have Pentecost taken away.

The patrolman got the usual safety grip on Pentecost’s twisted coat sleeves near the wrists, and took him out at a side door, one of the plain-clothes men slipping out after him, and shortly thereafter he was safely within the portals of the Charles Street jail.

* * * * *

Inspector McCurran stood at a window revolving a few things in his mind—and their revolution failed to please him. This was not from any doubt of their case against Pentecost, for anyone could see they had the murder buckled to him in every conceivable way—including one that hadn’t been put down by the Inspector as conceivable up to this time. But back of the whole thing was some cursed mystery—every now and then they turned up evidence of it. Could there be, after all, anything in the spirit business? Seemed absurd, but, by God! they had some pretty good names to it!—Not in this country—but look at those big ducks in England who were pushing the game!

And there was the man himself—Pentecost—something about him that made one feel a shiver of apprehension. You’d put him down as slippery in some peculiar, slimy sort of way, that would make any grip you could get on him not worth a tinker’s dam.

The Inspector’s mind came round to Pentecost’s careless reference to the city of Pittsburgh. It had nearly lost him his self-control—an unusual happening with Matt McCurran. For this simple geographical allusion meant that the knowledge of certain spiritistic phenomena which had occurred in that town a few nights before, and which the authorities supposed to be successfully suppressed, was now—or soon would be—public property. If this man Pentecost had knowledge of these occurrences, others had as well, and without doubt the papers would get hold of it and there’d be the very devil to pay.

And you may as well know at once that the papers of the following day _did_ get hold of it, and there _was_ the devil to pay—and he was paid, too! Throughout the length, breadth, and thickness of the country, and including as well our friend and near relation across the St. Lawrence, the press dispatches did the Boston Police Department proud in one place, and then, without knowing it, jabbed a knife through it in another.

In every paper the first thing striking the reader’s eye was a sensational write-up of the arrest of Hugo Pentecost as the murderer, in the strange and mysterious Haworth case, and the astonishing detective work accomplished by the Police Department in tracing the (alleged) guilty man by a pair of old boots left in a cabin of a Metropolitan Line steamer, and in puncturing one of the most ingenious fake alibis on record. The dispatches went on to say that Mr. Henry Harker and his son Alfred, of the firm of Harker & Pentecost, had both waived extradition and were on their way to Boston with detectives, and upon arrival would be held as accomplices. The stenographer of the firm, Miss Dugas, who was wanted as a witness, and who might also be implicated in the crime, was voluntarily accompanying the Harkers.

The foregoing, written up fully and triumphantly, was agreeable reading for those connected with the Department; but in the same editions, and nearly always in an adjoining column, was an A. P. dispatch from Pittsburgh which simply tore the insides out of the first one.

It was headed, in every case, with these disastrous lines—or something similar—and in type that came out and smashed a reader right between the eyes:—

SPIRITS SPEAK AGAIN IN HAWORTH CASE

ADVISE MICROSCOPE IN PENTECOST ALIBI

ASTOUNDING CLUES GIVEN

OPERATOR’S LICENSE 2026

BOOTS LEFT ON “NORTH LAND”

Then it got down to plain reading matter, and described a message that had come through at a séance held in Allegheny—now a section of Pittsburgh and popularly referred to as the North Side—five days before, and instantly telephoned to the Boston chief of police, but which, for reasons stated below, had only now been given to the press. The spirit who got “control” of the medium conducting this séance declined to give his name—in fact allowed that he had too many, his life while on earth having been not precisely what it should have been. He merely saw a chance to get even with a cocky screw who’d once—before he (the spirit speaking) had crossed to the higher realms—put the low-down play on him good and plenty; and the only thing he asked was that some one present at the sitting would send word to the Boston police to go after a big pair of boots that was left in a cabin of the steamer _North Land_ on arrival in New York the next morning after the murder; also he’d suggest that they put a microscope on a few other little items of that beautiful alibi. For instance, it wouldn’t do a damn bit of harm to dig up Operator’s License 2026. “Tell the bulls,” he gave out in conclusion, “to take it from me they’ll pull something out of the fire if they go after it!” And with that he was gone.

The A. P. dispatch on this Pittsburgh occurrence closed with a paragraph in brackets explaining the five days’ delay in getting the news. It stated that the spirit message had been telephoned to the Boston police even while the séance was still in progress with the medium under other controls. The Boston Department, for diplomatic reasons, had withheld the news of this message from the Pemberton Street reporters and had also asked the Pittsburgh police to hush the matter up until the clues (if there was anything to it) could be worked out and a clean-up of the guilty parties made before they got warning. Pittsburgh headquarters found that only eleven persons had been present at the séance, and got them all, together with the medium and her assistant or director, before they left the place. These people, appreciating the importance of keeping it quiet in order to bring the criminals to justice, agreed to say nothing of the affair, and for five days no leakage occurred. Then from somewhere (it could not be traced to any of those concerned in the séance) a full account of the whole proceeding had suddenly reached the Associated Press, and of course could no longer be withheld from the public.

“The account of this amazing occurrence in Pittsburgh,” as one of the Boston papers put it in a bracketed “Ed.” note following the A. P. dispatch, “which is quite in keeping with former developments in the Haworth case, can now be published without disturbing the activities of the police, the ‘clean-up’ referred to having been successfully accomplished, as may be noted elsewhere in this issue.”

This Allegheny episode might not have been so bad served up by itself, but coming immediately under or on parallels with the triumphant write-up of the Department’s detective work, showed that the whole thing was done on a tip from the spirit world. You mustn’t understand me as saying—or even intimating—that there wasn’t any good work done by the police detectives. The trouble was that when they got anywhere they were stood on their heads and everything they’d worked up dumped into the discard by one of those ghostly manifestations or whatever they might be.

Anyway, it isn’t an account of marvelous detective work I’m trying to give you, but something which, as I look at it, is vastly more unusual. The papers will give you stuff about “sleuths”—as they call ’em—every day in the week, including Sundays; and if you want to go into the field of fiction you’ll find there’s one born there every minute. But so far as my experience goes, this was the first time people in the next world ever took a hand in the game.

* * * * *

The public interest in the Pentecost trial came near to being the record for this class of diversion. You’d have thought the feeling against him would have been so bitter that they’d have had to fight off the lynchers. But it’s just as well to go easy on predicting how the public is going to behave. Something about the man—it wasn’t beauty or youth or romance—more like hypnotism, perhaps—in conjunction with his ingenious methods of work so far as they had been made known, and also his silence under fire (My God! how the public adores a man who keeps his mouth shut!) got the people with him, notwithstanding the brutal murder that they could now so plainly see was his doing. Much of the sympathy may have resulted from the hopelessness of his case, for they certainly had it all over him. He hadn’t said a word since his arrest, excepting to state mildly—and even then, only when he was asked about it—that he wasn’t guilty. And he sat in the cage quiet and unassuming, never once dropping to the “cheerful act” nor the “bravado act” nor any act whatever, but only sitting there quietly and hearing witness after witness testify to things that were like so many nails in his coffin.

He saw his marvelously laid-out defensive system crumble and melt away before his eyes; his carefully constructed alibi split into a thousand pieces.

They had the chauffeur (Operator’s License 2026) who took him—dripping with water—at about nine o’clock on the night of the murder, from a place near the Soldier’s Monument just north of the Bourne Highway Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, and who left him, shortly before half-past ten, at the corner of Centre and Greenough Streets, Jamaica Plain. Even the fact of his having walked in a direction away from Torrington Road when he left the car told against him. Of course he did—that’s precisely what a man with criminal intent would do.

The Captain, Purser, and other officers of the _North Land_ were called and testified against him—at least negatively—although they had, up to this time, been the most important bulwarks of the alibi;—Captain Snow now recalling the fact that he hadn’t seen the face of the man on the forward deck whom he took to be Mr. Pentecost, after his ship passed out of the canal, but only his back; and the other officers realizing, when they came to think of it, that they hadn’t seen him on board after the steamer emerged into Buzzards Bay—that is, until he was disembarking at New York the following morning.

The conductor of the midnight express to New York, and the head end trainman who’d had such difficulty in arousing him from apparent sleep in the morning and getting him off at the Grand Central, were put on the stand and told of his being on their train the night of the murder; men from the New York Central’s railroad pier next south of the _North Land’s_ berth, testified to having seen the rowboat come up under the steamer’s stern as she docked in New York the morning after the shooting, and put a man aboard her by a rope ladder; a man and his wife from Buzzards Bay village, who’d been waiting on the highway bridge over the canal for the “draw” to close at the time the _North Land_ passed through, on the night of the crime, testified to seeing a man in the semidarkness come up from the low flats at the west of the bridge approach, and climb into a car near the Soldier’s Monument, though they couldn’t swear, owing to the darkness, to its being the accused; these things, and scores of others not less important, put Pentecost in the position of having faked an alibi by boarding the steamer in Boston, going overboard from her during her passage through the canal, returning thence to Roxbury by hired automobile, proceeding to the rear of the Cripps mansion a few minutes before the shots were fired, and within half an hour after the murder, staggering, disguised as a drunken laborer, into the North Station, and there taking the 11:50 express for New York, finally getting aboard the steamer again from a rowboat the moment she tied up to her dock.

Although no witness to his actually entering the house or to his being in it at the time the deed was done, could be found, there was surely sufficient evidence to convict him without it. At the same time the District Attorney would have given a great deal to be able to cover those points.

Pentecost’s senior counsel, Harvey Brookfield, had little to offer in rebuttal, but he was a crack shot when the witnesses were turned over to him, and many of them were raked raw by the cross fire. His request that the head end trainman explain his remembering, for such a long time, what kind of boots a stranger on his train had worn, brought the reply: “Because every time I went through the car I had to shove ’em off the seat in front of him—they was muddy an’ I didn’t want him fouling up the seat.”

“Very thoughtful of you, too! But you testified a few minutes ago, that this man whose boots you noticed, was seated at the extreme forward end of the car. Didn’t you say that?”

“Why, I said—I—I——”

“Certainly you did! I can have the stenographer read it to you if you’ve forgotten.—Now I ask you to explain to the Court and the Jury how this man—if he was, as you stated that he was, sitting at the extreme forward end of the car, could put his feet on the seat in front of him? How could there _be_ a seat in front of him if he was in the very first seat? Now just tell us that—in your own language.”

“Well, he—he was up there at that end—it might ’a’ been one seat more or less from the end—I didn’t notice. He was——”

“_Ah_—you didn’t notice!” broke in Brookfield, springing on him like a cat. “That explains it! You didn’t notice! You told us that he was at the extreme end, but you didn’t notice. Now you tell us about his boots—perhaps you didn’t notice in that case, either! A man’s life may depend on it—but you didn’t notice! You’ve rendered your testimony before this court ridiculous by making a man put his feet on a seat that wasn’t there!” And so on. But while this sort of thing might tear a witness to pieces, it couldn’t, to any extent, weaken the prosecution’s case.

In discussing the situation with Mr. Pentecost at the Charles Street jail after one of the worst days in court, Mr. Brookfield declared that there was nothing for it but to fall back on insanity as a plea. But Pentecost wouldn’t hear of it.

“What’s the idea, then? I don’t need to tell you they’re piling it up on us pretty thick.”

“They haven’t got me in the house yet. Keep jabbing on that till you draw blood.”

“It won’t acquit you!”

“No matter—go to it.”

And Brookfield went to it.

It may surprise you to hear of an Attorney taking orders as to the conduct of a case from his client—especially when said client was so evidently a criminal of the most desperate character. But the explanation is simple in the extreme. Pentecost owned Brookfield through having bought and paid for him, and was virtually conducting the case himself.

* * * * *

While the Pentecost trial, owing to its extraordinary developments, had held the interest of the country at large and kept the eastern section of Massachusetts in something like a ferment of astonishment and curiosity, it was toward the latter part of it that things really began to happen.

When the testimony was all in and Mr. Brookfield was about to go on with his summing up, a message was brought into the court room and handed to the District Attorney. After a glance at it he was instantly on his feet, asking to be allowed to bring in another witness whose presence in court had hitherto been impossible, and whose testimony was of the utmost importance in its bearing on the case.

Brookfield, of course, objected, but was overruled, and an old woman, bent and rheumatic, was brought into the court room and assisted between the rows of spectators, past the jurors, and into the witness box. As she turned and faced the onlookers, and it was seen that Mrs. Temple had consented to take the stand for the prosecution, a composite sound of gasps, subdued exclamations, and quick whisperings issued from the audience. Many had seen her when she testified in the trial of James Dreek, and there was hardly one who hadn’t read in the newspapers that the old woman knew everything about the murder—had, indeed, actually witnessed it—yet couldn’t be persuaded to say a word excepting to testify to as much as would clear the young butler of guilt. That was for the Defense in the case of James Dreek—now the Prosecution in the case of Pentecost, had her!

After the first surprise, all eyes shifted across to the prisoner’s cage to see what effect this fearful menace—for that’s what it was—had on Hugo Pentecost. But so far as could be seen it hadn’t any. The man was sitting precisely as before, expressionless, waiting.

While Mrs. Temple was being sworn and the formal questioning gone through, a Court Messenger entered, and threading his way between the tables, handed a written communication to Chief Inspector McCurran, who was seated at the Attorneys’ table, and who arose at once and left the court room, followed by the messenger. Few noticed this, for the attention of the spectators appeared to be divided between the old woman on the witness stand and the accused in the prisoners’ cage, whose death sentence—or what amounted to that—the former was surely about to pronounce.

When the preliminaries were finished, District Attorney McVeigh in—for him—an incredibly soft voice and gentle manner, led the old woman to describe Mr. Pentecost’s behavior while on his several visits to the Cripps mansion before the commission of the crime,—her suspicions regarding his intentions; the attempts she made to warn Mr. Haworth of the danger of dealing with such a man; and following that, her exclusion from the house—and thereafter her efforts to keep watch from the outside. From this she was tactfully brought to the events of that last evening,—the closing of the blinds to the front window; the coming home of Mr. Haworth followed by Augustus Findlay; her attempts to see in at the side windows but the darkness within preventing; her unsuccessful efforts to enter the house at the rear, and then the sudden brilliant light in the room so that she was able to look in through the narrow slits below the roller shades; her seeing Mr. Haworth reading at the table and then filling and lighting his pipe; her hurrying to the other window and seeing a man at the back of the room whose face was covered (except for the eyes) with a cloth or bandage and whose clothing was wet and draggled, pointing some dark object at Mr. Haworth from behind; her turning to run back to the window which was nearer to Mr. Haworth so that she could warn him, and as she did so seeing James Dreek going along the path with a ladder; her attempt to call out to Mr. Haworth; then the shots and his collapse to the floor, and she herself so overcome that she sank down beside the window; her recovering and trying again to get into the house at the rear, and finally succeeding in doing so.

“How did you get in, Mrs. Temple?” the District Attorney asked.

“Through the basement door.”

“But wasn’t that door locked when you tried it before?”

“Yes—but it warn’t locked this time.”

“How long do you suppose this was after you heard the shots and saw Mr. Haworth sink to the floor?”

“It must a’ been some few minutes, fur I wasn’t able to git up very quick from where I’d sunk down.”

“And when you got into the house what did you do?”

“I hurried to him as quick as I could.”

“Do you mean Mr. Haworth?”

There was a pause before she spoke. “Yes,” she said in a lower voice, with eyes seeking the floor. “You might ’a’ known that, I should think.”

“I did know it Mrs. Temple, but it’s important to have others know it too. Now tell me this—if you can: did it take you long to get to him—after you succeeded in entering the house I mean? The time is important. Very likely you were detained by the house being dark?”

“No, I was used to it.”

“It was very dark, was it?”

“There warn’t no light at all—somebody must ’a’ shut it off while I was hurryin’ back to get in. But I got to the stairs easy enough and up into the kitchen; an’ then groped along through the butler’s pantry an’ opened the door of the front room where—where he was.”

“I see. And when you opened that door, Mrs. Temple, could you see anything in the room?”

“Yes, I could.”

“But I understood you to say that the house was entirely dark?”

“It was. But when I pushed open the swingin’ door o’ that room there was a faint light shinin’ on Mr. Haworth’s face as he lay there on the floor, an’ I could see from its not stayin’ still that somebody must be holdin’ it. Then I could make out the figger of a man—the one that had the light in his hand—an’ he was bendin’ over lookin’ at the body, an’ he hadn’t taken no notice o’ my comin’ in. At first I didn’t know anything at all, but the minute I come to my senses I started to run an’ git a holt of him; but just then the light he had in his hand must ’a’ slipped some way so’st the beam of it struck right across his face, an’ he didn’t have no cloth tied around it that time, so I could see who it was.”

The quiet in the room was intense. Every person there might have been a wax figure.

“Mrs. Temple, who was that man?”

“It was him there—the one you’re tryin’.”

“Can you give the Court his name?”

“The one he went by was Pentecost.”

“Was there light enough to see him distinctly?”

“There was plenty for me.”

“Did you have any other means of identification?”

“What sir?”

“Was there anything else you’d know him by—hair, clothes, shoes, hands, teeth—anything at all?”

“Oh!—Well, you see the second after the light struck across his face it went out an’ I couldn’t see nothin’ at all. But I heered his voice plain enough if that’s any good to ye.”

“It certainly is, Mrs. Temple. What was he saying?”

“He was shoutin’ out not to touch anythin’—that everythin’ had got to be left like it was in the name o’ the law, or somethin’ like that.”

“And the voice you heard shouting those things—did you recognize it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Whose voice was it?”

“His—that man there.” (With a motion toward Pentecost.)

“Do you mean the accused—in the prisoners’ cage?”

“That’s who I mean.”

“Had you heard his voice before?”

“Yes—I had.”

“When?”

“He’d spoke to me a number o’ times, an’ then I heered him a-talkin’ to Mr. Haworth quite frequent.”

“What did you do then, Mrs. Temple?”

“I run toward where I’d seen him an’ felt all around there—but he’d gone. An’ then—I—I don’t know.... I must ’a’ sunk down there where—where he was.”

“You mean Mr. Haworth?”

She nodded her head a little, as it slowly bowed down, hiding her face from view.

Mr. McVeigh waited a moment so that the Jury might get the full effect of the old woman’s grief, and then indicated to Mr. Brookfield that he could take the witness.

But it so happened that Mr. Brookfield had caught a signal from Pentecost, as previously arranged.

“I don’t care to examine, Your Honor,” he said.

* * * * *

Shortly after this, Mr. Brookfield was seen to be addressing the Court, but in so low a tone that few were able to hear him. For this reason a sensation was created when the prison guards took Pentecost from the cage and conducted him to the witness stand.

After the preliminaries there was a pause—whether intentionally so or not, a most dramatic one. Brookfield on his feet ready to question, yet stopping silent before the accused. Pentecost standing motionless as marble in the witness box—the court officer at his side. Reporters at the press table, pencils poised, eyes fixed on Pentecost’s face, ready to catch and record his slightest change of expression. Every man on the Jury regarding him with strained attention. The Judge himself unusually interested. Stillness of death in the court room.

Brookfield began in a low voice, speaking slowly and distinctly.

“Mr. Pentecost, you have heard the testimony given before this Court by Mrs. Amelia Temple?”

“Yes.”

“Have you anything to say regarding it?”

“Yes.” (A pause.) “It’s the truth.”

“All of it?”

“All that concerns me.”

“What can you say as to the rest of the testimony submitted before this Court?”

“The same.”

“By that do you mean that all of it is true as to fact?”

“I do.”

“Now as to this testimony that has been given here, and which you have stated is the truth—can you say that the inferences which would naturally be drawn from it are the correct ones?”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

“Because they make it appear that I have committed a murder.”

“How does it happen, if they are statements of fact, that they are misleading as to such a conclusion?”

“They describe only a part of my movements and behavior, omitting what would lead to the correct conclusion.”

“Do you claim that these omissions were purposely made?”

Mr. Pentecost shook his head slightly.

“The witnesses,” he said in a low voice, “were doubtless unaware of them.”

“Will you—if it pleases the Court—make a brief statement outlining these omitted facts.”

Mr. Pentecost waited a moment, and then, as the Court made no objection thereto, began to speak in a subdued voice, faintly suggestive of hopelessness.

“I have no witnesses,” he said, “except those who have testified against me. But there are circumstances bearing on my actions which none of these witnesses could have known; and while their consideration by this Court is most vital to me, I have only my unsupported word to offer, and feel that such consideration will almost certainly be denied me. So I will refer to these things as briefly as possible and with little hope. Let me speak first of my getting off the steamer at Buzzards Bay, as that seems the most misleading thing against me. It is true I did this, but not for the purpose of committing the crime with which I am charged. Such an inference, indeed, is quite the reverse of the correct one, for I came back to Boston that night hoping to save Mr. Haworth from some calamity that I feared was about to overtake him—and which, in fact, did so before I could prevent it.

“My association with the young man during the time I was negotiating the purchase of one of his inventions, had awakened in me a most unusual interest. His quiet and almost childlike sincerity, his trustfulness and simplicity, appealed to me in a way that I cannot describe. I am alone, with no family of—of any kind, and the experience of suddenly being deeply interested in a person was something new to me.

“The last day of the negotiations—which was at the end of a fourteen-day option he’d given us—everything was concluded and we paid over to Mr. Haworth a large sum of money. It was in bills—for he’d asked to have it that way. As we were making this payment it suddenly occurred to me that this trustful and helpless young fellow might get into trouble with it, for in these days there are crackerjacks looking for money who can smell it in a house, just passing by in the street. It was a lonely place where he lived and didn’t look good to me, so I cautioned him about it. But he smiled at me—one of his rare smiles that seemed to sink right into you—and said he knew a safe place for it; and anyway he’d have it there only till the next day.

“The three of us—my partner, his son, and myself—took the steamer for New York that same afternoon, and I tried to get my anxiety about the young man off my mind. But instead of going off it increased, and by the time we were well out in the Bay it was like one of these premonitions you read about. I did everything to rid myself of this feeling—talked with the officers, ordered dinner, walked in the wind on the top deck—but it was no use, and by seven o’clock I realized that something had to be done.

“The steamer was due at the canal in about an hour, and I remembered they had to slow down to half speed or less for the passage through. So I got young Harker to make inquiries in a sort of casual way, as if it was only from curiosity on his part, as to whether they’d stop at some place along the canal if a person wanted to get off. If they said no, I told him to throw out feelers to see if money would do it. But there was no use—the thing was impossible.

“By this time I was in a—a most trying nervous condition. Suddenly I realized that, without even thinking about it, I’d made up my mind to jump off the steamer while she was in the canal and in some way get back to Roxbury. I did this as the boat was passing the village of Buzzards Bay. It was quite dark at the time, and I waited till the steamer had passed through the Bourne Highway Bridge, as I knew the passengers would be watching the great draw come down into place, and even if the lights along the canal hit me, no one would be looking.

“After I got out of the swirl a few strokes brought me to shore. It was a sort of low flat along there, and I got across it and up on to the road embankment that is the north approach to the bridge. There wasn’t any garage in sight and in a sort of desperation I stopped a car coming up toward the bridge and asked where the nearest one was. The man inside asked me what was wrong, for I was soaking wet, and I told him it was a matter of life and death for me to get to Boston. He said he’d just come down from there and was only a quarter of a mile from his destination, so I could take the car he had (it was a hired one) if the chauffeur wanted to do it, and he’d go on foot the rest of the way. I suppose my dripping clothes made an impression. I fixed the chauffeur all right with a couple of watersoaked ten-dollar bills, telling him I’d double it if he did the trip under eighty minutes. And I want to say that everything this man has testified to is the truth, for he couldn’t possibly have known who I was, how I got to Buzzards Bay, or where I was going in Boston. I’d be sorry indeed to get this innocent man into trouble.

“My reason for leaving the car at some distance from the house on Torrington Road was not because I planned to commit a murder—as the Prosecution would have it translated, but only that I wanted to approach the place with the utmost caution. Robbers or safe smashers would have their lookouts posted, and it was up to me to get at the inside operators before they had warning.

“I crawled in at the gate and worked along behind shrubbery. But I hadn’t got halfway to the house when I made out the dim forms of two men moving about. This was a tremendous relief, for I took them for the lookouts, and their being there showed I was in time: if the job was done they’d be gone. So I slid in among the bushes and crawled around to the rear of the house.

“The two doors at the back were locked, but I happened to think of the basement door, and on trying, found it was open.

“Luckily for me, my pocket flashlight still worked, and with it I was able to run through the dark basement and up the stairs, across the kitchen (which was also dark) and through the butler’s pantry. I bunted open the swing door and ran into the long room where we’d been sitting that same afternoon, but for a moment couldn’t see anything at all, there was such a strong light on. It dazzled me, and I suppose I must have stood with my electric torch pointing toward Mr. Haworth, as the last witness testified. I really have no idea which way it was pointing as I stood there blinded by the glare and trying to see. In a moment I made out Mr. Haworth standing near the table in the middle of the room lighting his pipe, and instantly started toward him, calling out his name. But just as I did so two gunshots blazed out from somewhere quite near—though I couldn’t say exactly where—and the poor fellow went down. I got to him just as the lights went out, but as my pocket light was still on I was able to see him, and I found he was dead.

“While I was there on the floor by his side I heard a sound from the butler’s pantry, and instantly got to my feet. My light was still on, but I switched it off after some little difficulty with it, and shouting out that nobody must touch anything—for I had the feeling there were people about and I knew the police would want everything left as it was—I hurried out of the house by the way I’d come in. As I got out into the air it began to dawn on me what trouble I’d be in if anyone saw me there and they couldn’t find the man who’d committed the crime. My only safety lay in getting out of Boston without being recognized, for if my presence there was known it would lead to their finding out that I’d jumped off the steamer, and that would put me in a terrible position—always supposing they couldn’t find the guilty man.

“I got around into Boston by way of Brookline, and in a poorly lighted side street I ran across a tough-looking bum wearing old and grimy clothing and carrying a considerable load of alcohol. I struck a bargain with him, and we exchanged clothes in an unlighted alley among factories closed for the night. He understood in a bleary way, that I’d fallen in the water and wanted a dry outfit, which, of course, was the truth—so far as it went.

“While I was hurriedly disguising myself in this way it suddenly came to me that my absence, when the passengers disembarked from the steamer _North Land_ in New York, could hardly fail to be noticed. They’d have to file between the two ticket takers at the gangway, and pass down the gangplank under the watchful eyes of the ship’s officers—several of whom I’d come to know quite well. Harker and his son, leaving the steamer without me, would be more than likely to cause comment.

“It was then that I happened to think of the night expresses, which hadn’t left Boston yet and were due in New York two hours or more before the arrival time of the steamer. Why couldn’t I go back on one of them and manage, without being seen, to slip aboard the _North Land_ from a rowboat the minute she docked? If I was seen doing this it would look bad, but no worse than if I wasn’t on the steamer at all. This way I had a chance—and as the testimony given here has shown, I took it.

“I appreciate the forbearance of the Court in permitting this extended recital—made, I confess, in the face of a realization that it cannot save me. But perhaps some time, long after this crowning error in the rather extended series of police blunders has been committed, the fact that it _was an error_ may come to light—and——”

No more could be heard, for Mr. McVeigh was on his feet shouting objections. “I object, Your Honor, and I ask that the reference made by the accused to the police of this city be stricken from the record and the Jury instructed to disregard it!”

The Judge spoke in a voice that seemed especially low, coming after the District Attorney’s vociferous demands.

“That may be stricken out,” he said.

“Will the Court permit me to apologize?” Pentecost asked almost in a whisper and with evident contrition.

“What’s the sense of that?” snapped McVeigh. “It’s off the record—that’s all I want!”

But a man face to face with a death sentence is usually permitted some latitude, and the Judge indicated by a slight motion of the head that he could do so.

“Permit me then, Your Honor, to say that I regret having made use of the expressions I did, and certainly would not have done so had I been aware how sensitive the District Attorney is to the mere mention of the little spiritistic frolics with the Police Department that have recently taken place.”

Pentecost had finally got in a reference to the mediumistic phenomena which had played so amazing a part in the case—something he had been playing for a chance to do since taking the stand. This man’s statement before the court that was trying him was undoubtedly one of the most adroit pieces of pure and unadulterated chicane that he’d ever attempted—at any rate in that line. To fit an innocent and sympathetic tale like that to the multitude of incriminating facts established by the testimony against him;—to bring it out with just the pathetic hopelessness, exactly the sincerity and precisely the manner and inflection which would make every point tell and thus inspire confidence and pity, was something near to marvelous.

He knew well enough that it would do him no good in court, but he knew, too, that it would do him enormous good where he wanted it. The statement made little short of a sensation, and not alone with those who heard it, but with the millions who read it in the newspapers. To most people, of course, it seemed to explain everything. What if Pentecost couldn’t prove it? Let the Prosecution _disprove_ it—that was the thing! How noble of him to say that the State’s witnesses told the truth—and then show exactly how it _was_! Etcetera,—etcetera.

In court, as I’ve indicated, it was another matter. The only thing Mr. Brookfield (for the Defense) could do, was to review the contradictions in which he’d skillfully entangled many of the witnesses for the prosecution, and end with an eloquent plea for the credibility of the Pentecost statement which agreed with the testimony given before the court at every point, and to challenge anyone, in court or out to find a flaw in it.

The District Attorney, of course, tore it all to pieces. He had declined to cross-examine the accused “after such a ridiculous and flimsy tale,” and took care of it in his summing up. The fact is—but no one was aware of it at the time—he had a decided disinclination to give the accused any further chances with the Jury.

“Here, gentlemen,” he said in his final argument, “we have an illustration—even in this extraordinary plan by a master mind in criminality—of the well-known fact that there’ll always be a weak spot somewhere—a little matter perhaps, but large enough to wreck the whole structure. This tale of the accused is based on the claim that the alibi was never planned beforehand, that it was developed on the impulse of the moment, an innocent person suddenly finding at eleven o’clock on the night of the murder that he might be brought under suspicion if it were known he left the steamer—and so he jumped on a train and managed to get back to it in time to come off with the passengers. An inspiration of the moment! Remember that, gentlemen! And now let us see if it’s the truth that he never thought of it before. Let us consider the behavior of the accused on previous trips, which, you will observe, were always made by the same steamer, although there was another on that line, and although there were three other lines of Boston boats—a choice of four steamers every day, not to speak of fifteen or twenty express trains, all bound for the same destination! But on this steamer _North Land_, which was chosen by the accused as the theatre in which to perform his alibi, we find from the testimony of eleven of its officers and crew, that he was sociable and talkative to the last degree, making acquaintance with everybody who might thereafter be able to testify that he was on board the vessel on that fatal night. Contrast this with what four witnesses have sworn to regarding the usual behavior of this same individual—that he was naturally silent, taciturn, not easily making acquaintances, not a man given to sociability, reserved, keeping his affairs to himself, never discussing them with outsiders,—and there you have it, gentlemen. He was a different being when on the steamer _North Land_ on those previous trips, when he was planting his alibi; making himself and his alleged business of buying inventions known to everybody, jollying over cigars with the Captain and the Purser—and now telling us on the stand that he never thought of the alibi until after the murder!”

From this the District Attorney went back and recapitulated every point made by the prosecution during the trial, showing that not one of them had been disproved and that there wasn’t even a tremor in the finger of Justice, now extended, and pointing to the accused, Hugo Pentecost, as the guilty man.

As McVeigh was nearing the latter part of his closing argument, the Chief Inspector, followed by a messenger, returned to the court room and resumed his place at the attorneys’ table. At once he took a sheet of paper and began writing with evident haste. In a moment he bunched some papers he had brought with him and put them in a large envelope with the sheet on which he’d been writing. This packet he handed to the Court Messenger, who delivered it to the Judge.

Before closing his argument the District Attorney took up the “impertinent reference” made by the accused before this court to a series of blunders which he attributed to the Police Department of Boston, and called the attention of the Jury, and of all who had heard this slanderous implication, to the fact that there never yet was a murder case where doubt existed as to the guilty party, which was without false clues, and mistaken arrests.

From this he proceeded to a violent denunciation of Hugo Pentecost. “And if this insolent, swaggering fiend in human form” (I got the wording from the newspaper reports) “who coolly, with careful planning and infinite calculation, takes the life of an innocent—a gentle—a defenseless man;—this cowardly assassin who sends two bullets into his victim from behind, and for no other reason than to get a few thousand dollars away from him;—if he is now looking for another of those ‘spiritistic frolics’ to stand between him and retribution, he will look in vain; for even the so-called spirits—whatever they are—can’t help him now! It’s in your hands, gentlemen, to see that the strong right arm of the Law is stretched forth and this red-handed assassin is brought to the punishment he so richly deserves.”

At this point there came to pass one of those curious coincidences—a real and _bona-fide_ one, for it couldn’t have been laid out beforehand even by a master-criminal mind, though such a mind may have figured there was an off chance on it.

For a few moments during the latter part of the District Attorney’s summing up, the faint but strident calls of an “extra” from far down Washington Street could have been heard in the court room—a babel of boyish voices coming through the open windows. This increased in volume, and as the newsboys came running into Scollay Square and up into Tremont and Court Streets, there was a sudden burst of high-pitched shouting, so that following right on Mr. McVeigh’s climactic outburst, “Even the so-called spirits—whatever they are—can’t help him now!” came the screams of the newsboys below: “E-x-t-r-e-e! Spirit message!”—“Spirit Message in the Haworth Case!”—“E-x-t-r-e-e!”—“Haworth’s Spirit Speaks!”—“Message from Haworth!”—“E-x-t-r-e-e!” and so on until the shouts grew fainter again as the boys ran down Sudbury and Hanover Streets toward the North Station, and West and South on Beacon and Tremont.

* * * * *

When the attention of the spectators was again directed to the court proceedings, they realized that everything had stopped. A consultation at the Bench was in progress. All the attorneys concerned and the Chief Inspector were there, evidently having been called up by the Judge.

A peculiar stillness had settled over the place. Charged with electricity it seemed, the tension increasing every moment. Some foolish ones wondered if the newsboys, shouting about another spirit message, could have affected the Court. Once—and not such a time ago at that—the calling of such a piece of news on the streets would have excited only derision. None of that now! Even the pooh-poohers had stopped their pooh-poohing. Too many astounding things!

A sudden straining to see and hear as the Chief Inspector and the attorneys went back to their places, the Inspector leaving the court room immediately afterward.

The Judge sat motionless a few moments, apparently in thought. After that he examined again some of the papers that had been submitted. Finally he rose and turned to the Jury and the twelve men composing it came to their feet at the same instant and stood facing him. Then the Judge, in a voice so subdued that it could scarcely be heard in the further parts of the room, thanked them for the time and labor they had contributed to the cause of justice, and proceeded to remind them that the world we live in is a place of considerable uncertainty, and that in Courts of Law the unexpected is a frequent—and sometimes a welcome—visitor.

Everyone could hear him now, which resulted not so much from the raising of his voice a trifle as from the stillness prevailing. “In the case before us, gentlemen,” he went on, “the arrival of this visitor, the unexpected, must be regarded as most opportune, for it is the means of removing all doubt as to the guilt, or freedom from guilt, of the accused. Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen: Certain facts have just now been called to the attention of myself and counsel, which indicate beyond any question or doubt that this defendant is innocent of the crime with which he is charged; and I therefore instruct you to bring in a verdict of Not Guilty.”

A moment later the Clerk of the Court was saying: “Hugo Pentecost, look upon the Jury; Jurors, look upon the defendant.—Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen: in the case of the Commonwealth against Hugo Pentecost have you agreed upon a verdict?”

“We have,” the Foreman answered.

“What say you, Mr. Foreman: is the defendant, Hugo Pentecost, guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty,” answered the Foreman. And after the swearing of the Jury in the usual form, Hugo Pentecost was informed that he was hereby discharged and could go “without day” unless held on some other process.

* * * * *

On the evening before these final proceedings, and at a time approaching the hour of midnight, a private “circle” in West Philadelphia was about to adjourn. Mr. Ernest Everett Blatchford, well known among the spiritists of that region as a talented and highly successful materializationist and trance medium, had brought about during the evening a number of visits from the other side, and in all but two the spirit had become visible to human eyes—in a shadowy way.

As the director or assistant (I’m not sure what they call those people) turned to switch on the lights, there came strange muffled cries issuing from the darkness in the further part of the room, and a cold musty current of air breathed across the circle of “sitters.” At the same instant a whitish cloud appeared, faintly wavering in the darkness. It rapidly grew in size and seemed to be trying to shape itself into something resembling the human form. Vague suggestions of a man’s face began to appear in the misty cloudiness, the features gradually forming themselves, like the fade-in of a picture; and when, as it came to be more and more distinct, somebody whispered the name of Charles Haworth, there were several involuntary gasps of astonishment and a breathless “Oh!” or two could be heard. The papers had used his picture so often (taken for that first write-up in a Boston “Magazine Section”) that there was no difficulty about the recognition after the whispered name had started it. (No one ever traced that important whisper to its source.)

In a few moments it was seen that the lips of the apparition were moving—yet no sound came. The cloudlike human form with a face resembling Haworth’s, was trying to speak.

A voice from somewhere in the circle—a man’s voice—was heard asking, “Isn’t this Mr. Haworth?” and the head resembling Haworth’s nodded slowly in affirmation. Almost at once some sort of a sound was heard—confused and broken, as though pushed through a barrier that gave way, and after that the spirit began to speak in a low voice and with what seemed like a sort of eager breathlessness. “Machine!—Machine!—Machine!” repeated over and over many times more than that, was what it said, and between two of them a loud whisper came from somewhere in or near the circle, “It’s Haworth’s voice!” and an answering whisper, forceful and penetrating, “Yes—oh yes!—_His own voice!_” So that everybody knew, though they’d never seen the man Haworth nor heard him speak, that it was he now appearing before them.

For some time the apparition or spirit—if that’s what it was—seemed unable to utter anything more than this repetition of the word “Machine,” and the director and some others, although they asked encouraging questions, proved unable to get anything further.

But again some sort of obstruction was seemingly overcome, for after many unsuccessful attempts, the voice suddenly broke out with: “In the wall!—In the wall!—In the wall!—Why don’t they look? It’s there! The Machine! Find it!—Find it!—Make the court wait!—That man—that man—nothing—nothing—nothing to do with it—nothing—nothing! Nobody can hear me in Boston—I can just reach this one—but not for long! Tell them the wall—inside the wall—that same room—further end—the machine—papers on the pendulum!—the pendulum!—Papers!—Oh——I’m going!—” (The voice becoming faint and far away) “—I can’t hold out—and I want to speak to someone else—oh, I do—I do——” and nothing more could be heard.

The voice was growing weaker and the features were dissolving back into mistiness even while he spoke; and in a moment there was only the whitish floating haze which seemed rapidly drawing itself to a point, at which it wavered for a moment and then flickered out in the blackness.

No reporters were present at this séance nor were the Philadelphia police keeping an eye on mediumistic activities; and as it was already after two in the morning, no one who’d been there took it upon himself to communicate with anybody as to what had come through. It was consequently nearly eleven o’clock the following morning before news of it reached the Boston newspaper offices; and an effort made later to find out who sent the news met with no success. Whoever it was completely ignored the police. Not a word of this astounding communication from the alleged spirit of Charles Haworth was wired or telephoned to them. Their first intimation that anything of interest had taken place in West Philadelphia came from the newspaper “extras” on the streets.

* * * * *

The Department—as it had in another and similar instance—got particulars without giving it away that this was the first they’d heard of it. And so important did the matter seem that the Inspector was called out of the court room. And so important did it seem to the Inspector that he proceeded with the utmost speed and a bunch of detectives to the Cripps mansion. Reporters were kept outside the line that had been established.

Within twenty minutes after the Inspector’s arrival with his gang, the rear end of the wall of the room on the left was what you might call a near ruin, and a most extraordinary mechanical arrangement that had been constructed within it was exposed to view.

The first, and it might be said the most striking, thing they had come upon as they were ripping the lath and plaster away and prying off the heavy paneling, was a 44 Colt revolver bolted to the studding (the upright timbers within the wall) just behind one of the panels of the wainscot, and down within eighteen inches of the floor. It was bolted so securely as to be absolutely immovable, and was aimed straight out into the room. The husky plain-clothes man who smashed away the panel in front of it was seen to spring suddenly to one side.

“Careful now!” the Inspector shouted, as he came running. “Keep away from that!” he yelled to the other men who were coming over to see. And they were ordered well to one side while the two working there reached over and ripped away the panels above and on each side of the one that had concealed the gun.

It took but a few minutes to expose the whole thing: a simple but ingenious device built in there for firing two revolvers at nearly the same instant—discharging them about twelve minutes from the time the mechanism was set in motion. The second gun, a matter of six inches below the other, was behind the same panel, but hadn’t been noticed at first as it was so close to the floor—just clearing the panel frame at the bottom.

They found that this panel—the one concealing the guns—had been made to slide up and down, the guides holding it on the inside so there was no evidence of them in sight; when pushed up, the muzzles of the revolvers were exposed; when dropped down into place, they were hidden. And so carefully had this sliding panel been handled that no scratch or abrasion could be found on its surface, nor did it differ in any way, so far as appearances went, from the other panels in the wainscoting; neither did it display the slightest evidence of being movable—which, indeed, it was not, after the discharge of the revolvers; for on dropping down into place it automatically locked itself by the swinging across the top of it, of a block of wood on a pivot—all within the wall, of course. To get it open again it was necessary to push this block away _from the inside_.

Both guns were immovably aimed to throw bullets directly across the middle of the room and out through the upper part of the window at the front; and as they were set so low down, the course of the bullets would be upward. A man of a certain height standing at a certain spot near the center of the room would get the bullet from the upper revolver through the head and from the lower one through the heart—if he could stand there long enough after the shot from the first one—hardly more, probably, than half a second.

The mechanism which—twelve minutes from its starting—fired the revolvers, and at the same time released the movable panel and allowed it to slide down into place and automatically to lock itself there, was an escapement device with a pendulum swinging to seconds. About halfway of the fifteenth revolution of the escape-wheel (a very large one carrying fifty teeth or jump-cogs) the powerful springs that connected with the two rods—one to the trigger of each revolver—were released, which discharged the guns nearly, but not quite, simultaneously, and on the next jump of the escape-wheel a lever pulled back the catch that held the sliding panel up, allowing it to drop down and close the opening. It locked itself there automatically as I’ve explained.

There were many minor arrangements to safeguard and insure the perfect operation of the device, such as the weighting (on the inside) of the sliding panel; the carrying of the rope that unwound from a drum on the main shaft, up through a pulley at the top, so the heavy weight attached to it would have room to descend in that space—for of course it couldn’t go below the floor; the setting of the two revolvers at the place where the wall of the breakfast room joined this rear wall of the room on the left, so that, as they were too long for the normal wall thickness, their butts might project back into the transverse wall.

The whole device had been built in through a large aperture from the basement below, and on completion of the job this opening was closed up with the very same old grimy boarding, and even fastened in place with the same ancient and rusted nails driven into their original holes, that had been taken out of them. Even the rust on the nail heads where the hammer would strike them was undisturbed; safeguarded probably by the use of a cushion of leather or blotting-paper.

It was evident that the machine couldn’t have been set going on its final performance, _from the basement_, for by no possibility could the opening down there have been closed with all the care required, within the twelve minutes between the starting and the automatic discharge of the guns. Undoubtedly the sliding panel was opened from below and held open (that is, up) by its catch, and the block above adjusted to swing in when it next slid down; and after that, at whatever time it was desired to start the pendulum on its last gruesome swing, it would only be necessary to reach in through the open panel in the room on the left, and give it a shove. That was all. There would be twelve minutes left for reading awhile and then lighting a pipe.

Of course all these small details weren’t figured out by the police until afterward. The Inspector was there to learn what there was, if anything, to the latest alleged spirit message, and they found it of such vital import, too, that it required instant action. No time to be wasted on conjectures as to the method of starting. There it was——The Machine! And secured to its great pendulum which, you might say, ticked Charles Haworth to his death, was the envelope of papers.

Quick investigation followed; the Inspector raced back to town; the newly discovered evidence was brought to the Judge’s attention; his conference with the attorneys and the Inspector followed, and after that came the Court’s instructions to the Jury and the Jury’s verdict in accordance therewith.

* * * * *

The large envelope which they found lashed securely to the great pendulum contained three instruments or documents—the Last Will and Testament of Charles Michael Haworth; a Statement made by Charles Michael Haworth; and an Insurance Policy on the life of Charles Michael Haworth. The Statement had been sworn to before a Notary Public (of course without his learning anything of its purport) three days before Haworth’s death, and was to the effect that he intended within a week to take his own life and to do it by means of a mechanical contrivance which he, and he alone, had devised and built for that purpose; that no one but himself was in any way connected with, or responsible for, this determination on his part, or involved in its carrying out, for he had built the device with the utmost secrecy, locking himself into a room in the basement of the house while at work on it, and allowing no one to come near. His housekeeper, Mrs. Amelia Temple, had, he stated, been aware of his labor in this room night and day for nearly two weeks, though she could have had no knowledge of the character of the work he was doing; and the butler, James Dreek, could not have been aware that anything of the kind existed, as he arrived after the completion of the machine and its sealing up inside the wall.

He then went on to speak of the property he was leaving, mentioning the eighteen-thousand-dollar Insurance Policy and the thirty-five thousand dollars which was to be paid him by the firm of Harker & Pentecost of New York, for one of his inventions which the said firm had purchased—“a combination gas and compressed-air engine.” Following that was only a brief paragraph to the effect that a little something might be realized from the sale of a few pieces of machinery that were still in his possession—but nothing worth writing down.

The statement ended with that, but he had written a few lines on the margin three days after it had been signed and sworn to. “This is to say,” he wrote in a hand without sign of tremor (and it must have been only a few hours before he reached in and set swinging that pendulum of death), “that the Messrs. Harker & Pentecost have now paid what was due me from them ($35,000) which amount (less the sum of $500 that I have taken from it for a certain present requirement), as it is in bills, and as Mr. Pentecost has cautioned me that there is danger of robbery, I have had James Dreek conceal in the stone foundation at the northeast corner of the barn in the rear of this house.” And to this marginal memorandum he signed his initials.

The will was simple and brief. After payment of debts, only two bequests. “To my faithful and beloved friend Amelia Temple” was left the sum of five thousand dollars—and the statement followed that all the money in the world could not wipe out the debt he owed her. The rest of his property went to Edith Carrington Findlay.

* * * * *

By this time you are likely to be aware that Mr. Hugo Pentecost of the firm of Harker & Pentecost, Promoters, had something to do with the unusual happenings in what might be a trifle incorrectly spoken of as the Haworth Homicide Case. I’m inclined to doubt, though, whether you quite appreciate the extent of his work. To say that he was behind every move in the whole affair comes near to putting it mildly.

When, on his first visit to the mansion, he went down into the basement with Charles Haworth and got an idea of what the desperate and half-crazed young man proposed to do, and the instrument with which he intended to accomplish it, even he, a person never known to be disturbed by danger, horror, or dilemma of any description, was near to the experience of amazement. This, though, didn’t prevent him from jumping in at once and making an earnest effort to dissuade the young inventor from carrying out his gruesome enterprise. The realization that Haworth couldn’t be persuaded out of it—indeed, that he was in a mad frenzy to carry it through if only for the insurance money—struck Pentecost at about the same time that there flashed into his mind a most extraordinary “operation” that could be carried on in connection with it. A born adventurer and intrepid explorer in the shady mazes of criminality, keen for danger in unusual forms, to be baffled by unusual and skillfully contrived defenses, with, of course, the chances of a good haul to make it financially interesting, he was hardly the man to throw down an unbelievably attractive proposition when he had it in his hand.

Mr. Harker added his own protests the first time he was at the house on Torrington Road. He watched his opportunity and got Haworth aside—for he didn’t want his partner to know what he was up to—and did his best to induce the young fellow to abandon the grisly idea that seemed to have taken possession of him.

In the ordinary run of things, the only course left to the firm was to turn a person having such unlawful designs on himself, over to the police. But this happened not to be in the ordinary run of things. It was distinctly extraordinary. Furthermore the firm alluded to wasn’t in the business of turning unlawfully behaving citizens over to the police. Quite and much otherwise. And the reason for this was because it was composed of two conscienceless crime experts, one of them—the controlling member—a consummate operator in strategic chicanery if there ever was one on the earth.

* * * * *

Neither of the methods that Haworth had in mind for profiting by the tragic act to which he was apparently driven by some desperate need, had met the approval of Mr. Pentecost. One was based on a life insurance policy which the young inventor had recently taken out, having, by inquiry, found a company which was supposed to pay in such cases; the other depended on the sale of a motion picture which should be taken of the actual occurrence—showing not only the operation of the machine, but, as well, depicting its frightful consequence. But this master crook had declared himself willing to give both these things a fair try-out and with every advantage he was able to command, if the young man would consent, in return, to have his own (Pentecost’s) extraordinary scheme go into operation. He would play Haworth’s ideas to the limit, even though it involved the taking of the picture himself—for he wasn’t going to let any of his men in for a job like that. The ghastly situation might send any one of them up in the air.

Mr. Pentecost’s scheme, which had struck him like a blow while Haworth was explaining the working of the Machine, concerned and depended upon the alleged spirits of the dead, as known through and represented by persons who called themselves mediums; and it took him into a field he’d long desired to negotiate—one where the hunting, he happened to know, was exceedingly good. Furthermore, his astounding method of handling the mediumistic output involved, was beyond anything dreamed of before.

You are doubtless acquainted with the fact that information concerning the lives and the families of more or less prominent people who have made the crossing to the other side—or who, for various undesirable reasons, are expected soon to make it—is dealt in by a number of bureaus or clearing houses for that class of goods. High prices are paid by their customers (the mediums) for information of value, and if the bureaus haven’t anything in stock as to the life and characteristics of a person called for, they have facilities for getting it without delay.

But this thing of Pentecost’s, although of a decidedly spiritistic nature, was by no means a matter of information about dead people; on the contrary, it involved the sale to mediums of information which dead people could get across—through them—about the living, and under the most unusual circumstances. That’s where the great mercantile possibilities came in, the operation of his scheme giving these spirit communications such astonishing advertising value to mediums who passed them through, that they’d pay almost any price to get them—if they had it. In addition to this price down (on delivery as you might say) he’d take—in each case and for a limited time—a slice of the increased business which was sure to follow.

It would have been entirely possible to sell out his “spirit information” in a lump to one of the bureaus, but by handling it personally he could take advantage of the immense increase in advertising value as the Haworth case attracted more and more attention.

To give these “messages” or “communications” an enormously high market value was the object of the entire operation. What such value means to professional mediums is realized by very few outside of spiritist circles. I’m referring, of course, to those who practise the methods alluded to. It has been said that there are others in the spirit game who go perfectly straight and have a great time believing every word they say; but if such is the case I don’t know where they live.

A regular—or professional—medium will sometimes make a small fortune on one skillful (and lucky) performance. To attract wealthy clients, preferably those who have been hypnotized by the loss of those who are dear to them—that’s the top of the game. And it’s the unusual—the extraordinary—manifestations that do it. Taking this into consideration, you will understand why the Pentecost messages, before he got through with them, had run up into the twenty and thirty thousands each. From asking three thousand in Montreal, and six of Mrs. Belden in Boston, the price went up by jumps of five thousand. This, together with the rake-off on increased business for two years from every medium in the game, put Harker & Pentecost nicely to the good—even though quite vast expenses, including the Haworth money, had to come out of it.

Using his gang of picked sharps (his correspondents you might call them in the big cities) Pentecost could cull out the mediums who had the money, and make his cash sales without difficulty; this same gang also made prompt payment of percentages as near a certainty as such things ever come. Extraordinary experiences in misfortune would overtake anyone in any town or in any part of the country who tried to hold back on him. And they knew it. It was made strikingly evident to them by the “agents” who, under instructions, engineered the sales and delivered the “spirit” messages at the precise time required.

As to the vital matter of secrecy, no leakage could possibly occur, for the very simple reason that there was nothing to leak. Not a medium in the lot had the faintest idea where “the goods” came from nor what was the manner of their origination. Even had one of them known, it would hardly have been cause for alarm; this owing to the fact that the basic principle in their guild is the keeping of things dark.

Now you have the key to the whole affair. With it—if you haven’t been picking the locks as we went along—you gentlemen can let yourselves in on what the man was playing for at any stage of the game; and how it came to pass that everybody concerned—public, police, witnesses for the prosecution, reporters, editors, spiritists, jurors, lawyers, even the District Attorney himself, and the Chief Inspector with his choice assortment of plain-clothes men, were dancing for Hugo Pentecost according as he pulled the strings. What was it if not that? Anyway, you have the facts—call it what you like. And don’t imagine, when I speak of this man’s scheme, that this consummate operator had a set and rigid plan to be followed whether or no. On the contrary, his arrangements were elastic to an extreme degree. If you’ll notice how it went, he played each part of the thing _as far as it would safely go_, and then pulled it back to the line with a voice from the tomb, as you might say. Where one of several things might happen he had substitute plays for each, every one carried back to the safety point in whatever direction it went. Had old Mrs. Temple persisted in her refusal to testify, notwithstanding the appealing spirit messages he’d carefully planted, he was ready to work in another witness to the murder, to Dreek’s being outside the house at the time, and to his own presence in the room aiming the terrible black object (which was, of course, the movie camera) at Haworth as the poor fellow stood lighting his pipe. If the head end trainman hadn’t remembered getting him off the day coach at the Grand Central Terminal in New York, and had failed to recognize the boots he had shoved off the seat so many times, there was a waiter at the lunch counter of the restaurant on the lower level who would answer all purposes, owing to his (Pentecost’s) unusual behavior while getting a cup of coffee at that place.

The extreme importance of wrecking the alibi at the time required, caused him to deal it two simultaneous smashes, either one of which would have done the trick—barring accident. The boots might not have been kept in the Lost Property Department of the Eastern Steamship Lines, Inc. On the bare chance of their having been thrown away, Operator’s License 2026 would bring the chauffeur into the case; up to then he could have had no idea that his fare to Boston on that fateful night was Hugo Pentecost. If Augustus Findlay had failed to take his revolver with him as he plunged madly away from the house, the fight in Collamore Street almost directly under Mr. Rathbun’s window would have gone on just the same; the only readjustment being that Pentecost’s man would have picked up the gun wherever Findlay dropped it—whether at the mansion or on the road—and brought it along, making it appear in the struggle that he got it away from the terrified boob; so there it would be, finger marks and all, ready to shove up in the water conductor. And if you imagine that it was any kind of an accident when Mr. Pentecost tipped up his pocket flashlight and gave the old woman a glimpse of his face as she came toward him in the pitch-dark room just after the Machine had done its deadly work; or that the roller shades being not quite down was a matter of chance; or a hundred and one things like that, call it off and take a new start.

I saw it troubled both you gentlemen when that carefully constructed alibi began to crumble. The first thing that occurred to you must have been an inquiry as to why all the trouble and ingenuity expended on planting it, if an old pair of boots or an operator’s license was going to throw it down. But your second thought was undoubtedly quite different, for unless I’m mistaken, you soon realized that not only was that fake alibi one of the most effective advertising nuts for the spirits to crack, but vastly more important than that, it was the veritable backbone that was to hold up the entire Pentecost operation. Without it they’d have picked him up that same night or early the next morning, and the mediums—with the possible exception of Mr. Ernest Everett Blatchford of West Philadelphia—wouldn’t have had any play at all.

If you’re financially minded, it might seem unbelievable that two such seasoned sharps as Harker and Pentecost would let a thirty-five-thousand bundle of bills go out of their hands with the chance against them that the Machine might not function or that Haworth wouldn’t stand up to the grisly game he’d set himself to play. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if the young fellow, when he got right up against it, were to go mad; indeed, both partners had a notion he was half there already. But do you notice that this money never did go out of their hands—that, as the crucial time approached, Pentecost had Dreek outside the house where he could instantly seize on it at a signal from inside—and that he himself was inside?

But neither this nor the taking of the motion picture accounted so much for Pentecost’s presence in the room at the crucial moment as the absolute necessity of his being seen there by a competent witness in order to make the case against him have the look of being incontestable. His trial for murder was the final play, and he’d begun laying lines for it at his very first interview with the Inspector, adroitly behaving, on that occasion, in a manner calculated to awaken the suspicion that he’d been connected in some way with the crime, even though the alibi—at that time unshaken and to all appearances unshakable—blocked any idea of his having committed it himself.

I won’t go any further with small details as to Pentecost’s methods of operation. But I’ll ask you to take it from me that from the time he staggered—to all appearances a semi-intoxicated coal heaver or something like that—into telephone booth 19 at the South Station in Boston, just before boarding the night train for New York, and calling up Pemberton Square (that is to say, headquarters) told the official in charge that a man named Pentecost who was supposed to have embarked for New York that afternoon on the Steamer _North Land_ had been seen near the Haworth house just before the murder that evening, and suggested that it might be a good idea to have the New York police verify this on arrival of the steamer there (thus, as you’ll see, making his alibi official in a certain sense by bringing in the New York detectives as witnesses to it), to the moment of his having himself put on the witness stand and reciting his fake statement before the court, his hand never for one instant left the throttle.

Notwithstanding all this, he found time, during that stressful period, without personally appearing in the matter or indeed ever meeting her, to have everything possible attended to for Edith Findlay. All things tending to her comfort and well-being were arranged for: a nurse brought from the hospital to take care of her and manage everything about the house; Augustus Findlay permanently eliminated by having such a fright thrown into him that the entire continent of North America was thenceforth relieved of his weight upon it, with South America standing a good chance of equal immunity; and finally (it was some weeks before the Pentecost trial came on) her departure, with little Mildred and two nurses, to one of the most highly recommended places in the Austrian Alps.

* * * * *

At once after his acquittal Mr. Pentecost did his best—as he’d promised Haworth he would—with the $18,000 life insurance and the more than gruesome “movie”—which he had himself taken. The former he succeeded in collecting after a campaign of sharp practice devoted to it; the latter—as he’d figured from the start—stood no chance with censors and the inter-state people. He got a few thousand for it from the “bootleggers” of padlocked films who smuggle them across state lines and put them in the “private show” programs. These things, with the $51,000, and odd which was Haworth’s share on his percentage of profits on the game, more than doubled the total of deposits to the credit of Edith Findlay in the bank which had been designated to take care of her property. While no mention of this percentage was made in the contract between Haworth and the firm, it was one of those things that Pentecost would have paid though it reduced him to penury.

When you say—as you’re more or less liable to if I give you the chance—that this man was a surprising combination of characteristics, you will have spoken the truth. Not quite so surprising, though, when you come to reflect that every man is that—more or less—if he has any characteristics worth considering.

And while we’re speaking of it, it’s just as well for you to know that the man was taking all this care of Edith Findlay’s interests—as well as of Edith Findlay herself, solely and entirely because of Haworth. Something about the fellow had appealed to him in a peculiar way.

As the matter stood there was no possibility of Edith’s ever knowing that the money coming to her—aside from the insurance—was other than the amounts realized from the sale of one of Haworth’s mechanical inventions. This was shown by Haworth’s contract with the firm and by the receipt he gave for the cash payment, as well as implied in his statement and will. The tragic truth of the matter, which might have affected her disastrously both mentally and physically, as well as undoubtedly preventing her from touching a penny of the inheritance, was safely locked up with the firm of Harker & Pentecost.

For several months all went well. According to the doctors there, Edith’s condition was improving. Then a cable that was rather disquieting. A slight turn for the worse. Probably only temporary. Must expect ups and downs.

This talk about temporary ups and downs was nothing to Pentecost. He found, after some drastic searching, a high-up specialist who would go over. He felt that an American patient ought to have an American doctor. Whatever you say, races are different and need different treatment.

He met the doctor at the steamer on his return and they had a talk in the latter’s cabin while the baggage was coming off. The gist of the physician’s report was that while Mrs. Findlay was in a much better condition as far as the disease itself was concerned, and ought to go right on improving, her present mental activity was holding her back. This had not been the case heretofore, as the shock of the affair had, in a certain sense, stunned her. For several months she seemed hazy about it all, but recently things were becoming clearer to her, which was unfortunate. Everything was being done to divert her mind, but it was an obstinate case—she didn’t want it diverted.

“What does she want?” Pentecost inquired.

“Well—it amounts to this: She’s made up her mind to die and so far there’s no shaking her determination.”

“I wish I had her here,” said Pentecost.

Two weeks after that a cable reached him signed by Edith Findlay herself, begging him to come over as soon as he possibly could—utmost importance that she see him before the end, which was near.

He was on the next steamer going out.

Mr. Pentecost was sitting by the side of her bed. The nurse had told her his name before he came in, but for quite a time she couldn’t remember who he was or why he was there. Perceiving this, the nurse came in from the adjoining room and explained that it was the gentleman who’d been so kind in attending to everything for her, and that he’d come all the way from New York because she’d asked to see him.

“Oh, you—you came from America!” Her voice was faint and far away.

He said “Yes” softly.

The nurse had retired again to the next room.

“Did——” Edith glanced about searching for some one—then her eyes came back to him. “Did he come with you?”

“No.”

“Isn’t that strange!” She spoke hardly above a whisper. “Oh, it _is_ so strange! But he’s coming! He’s coming just as soon as he sets up the machine and regulates it—that was in the contract you know!”

“Yes Mrs. Findlay, but it’ll take quite a while yet.”

“Oh, will it? It seems so long! I can’t understand why they keep him so long!”

“You mustn’t worry yourself about it.”

“Oh no—no, I mustn’t! But it does seem as if they’d be through by this time!” She lay quiet for a little—her eyes closed. Then suddenly turning her head on the pillow she looked at him again.

“How long did it take to get here?” she asked.

“Ten days, but I didn’t get a very fast steamer.”

“Yes, I see. Maybe he took a slow one. But I’m expecting him very soon now—very soon.”

She went on for a little, asking questions about the detention of the one she expected—the length of time it would take to regulate the machine he’d sold—whether a fast steamer would be leaving when it was finished, and other fancies like that, to all of which Pentecost replied briefly and in a low voice. He was waiting his chance.

She’d been lying back against the pillows, but rather suddenly in the midst of her questioning she stopped and sat up erect in the bed, staring at him. “Oh——” she finally breathed. “I thought you—I didn’t know——Are you Mr. Pentecost?”

“Yes, Mrs. Findlay.”

“They—they said so, but I didn’t seem to——” She glanced about, thinking; then her eyes were fixed on him again. “You were so good to come,” she whispered painfully.

He saw that the merciless memories were coming back to her.

“You—you can be such a help to me—if you will—such a help! It’s something that——” She broke off, and raising her head a little from the pillow, glanced at the door into the nurse’s room. “Would you shut it, please?”

Pentecost carefully closed the door—then returned to his chair by her side.

“I want to ask you to do something for me, Mr. Pentecost—because—you see—they think I’m going to get well—but it isn’t so—no,” (shaking her head a little on the pillow) “it isn’t so.”

Pentecost sat looking at her with a peculiar glint in his prominent eyes, but said nothing.

“I tell you,” she went on after a momentary pause, “because you—you’re the only one I can trust.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“_He_ told me. It was in a letter he left. He said you were his friend, the only friend he had except the old woman who took care of him, and that I must trust you in everything.”

“In view of this, Mrs. Findlay, tell me in what way I can be of service?”

“Mr. Pentecost, what will become of my little Mildred?”

“It strikes me” (in a suddenly sharp, penetrating voice) “you’re the one to answer that.”

She looked at him in amazement.

“I?” she finally asked in a faint voice.

“Who else?” he inquired. “Aren’t you the one who’s proposing to abandon her?”

“Abandon——!” (With a slight gasp.) “Why——How——You don’t mean——”

“Well what would you call it?”

“No—no—no! Oh, wait! Let me tell you!” (With all her earnestness she could hardly do more than whisper.) “Oh, I couldn’t stay—I don’t want to!” She shook her head a little on the pillow. “He’s gone—gone! The thought of it is killing me. I want to go. I want to be where he is!”

“How do you know where he is?” Pentecost’s voice cut in like a knife.

She stared at him in astonishment.

“My religion tells me that, Mr. Pentecost,” she whispered, reverently.

“And does this religion of yours omit to tell you where your daughter is?”

“Oh yes—yes!—that’s why I wanted to see you. That’s why I——” She broke off and glanced distressfully about the room.

“You seem to have made up your mind to leave her,” Pentecost observed.

Edith was silent.

“Aren’t the living of some consequence,” he went on, “or is it only the dead we have to consider?”

“No no—that’s wrong! I hadn’t forgotten her! Oh, how can you _think_ such a thing, when it was about her that I wanted to see you—just about her—nothing else!”

“What can _I_ do?”

“I hope—I hope you’ll consent to take her—to take care of her! I don’t know who else to ask—and he told me to trust in you—about everything. If I can only know she’ll be with you I shall die happy!”

Pentecost suddenly turned and blazed out upon her—something as he used to do in the Chicago days when he leaped, tigerlike, on a victim in the witness stand.

“What is it to me whether you die happy or not! Whatever I can do in this affair I’m doing on account of someone else—not for you Mrs. Findlay! You cut no figure with me—why in God’s name should you? I’ve never laid eyes on you before—and now I come to see you it looks to me like a cursed low-down play you’re making, that while I’m doing my best to carry out everything he wanted, you’re lying here doing _your_ best to block his game! That’s just what you’re doing, Mrs. Findlay,—pitching the fulfillment of his most vital wish into the discard!”

“Why I——Why you——” She couldn’t go on.

“Look, then—look at this! The one thing in the world he wanted money for—the reason he was mad and crazy and demented to sell his machine and get it, was so he could send you here and do everything on earth to save your life! He lived for that—nothing else—it was the one thought that possessed him! He made a will to make it certain that—if anything happened to him—the money would be used for that and nothing else. And after all this—which you know as well as I do, I come over here and find you deliberately throwing away all he worked for and hoped for and—for all I know—prayed for. Of course if you’re bound to go against it I’ll do what I can about the child—though God knows the little one needs you. It all rests with you, Mrs. Findlay. The head medical sharp that came over, tells me it isn’t the disease that’s killing you—it’s yourself. He says you’ve made up your mind to die—you’re determined to do it—and that play’s certainly going to take the trick if you sit in the game long enough. It’s up to you to quit that if you want to do the right thing by the dead——and by the living.”

Pentecost rose and took her thin little hand in his. “I’ll say good-by, Mrs. Findlay,” he said in an altered tone. “They’ll keep me informed” (motioning toward the nurse’s room) “of which way the cards fall, and I’ll act accordingly.”

As he reached the door he thought he heard her call to him faintly, and went back to see if it was so. She was looking up at him as he stood by the bed, and tried to speak—but only her lips moved. He bent nearer to catch what she said.

“I’ll try,” she whispered.

He took her hand again.

“There’s some sense to that Mrs. Findlay,” he said; and after looking down into her eyes a moment he laid her hand back on the coverlet where he’d found it, and quietly left the room.

It was still early enough to get the afternoon train out—which he did.

* * * * *

A few days short of a month after Mr. Pentecost’s brief visit to the Austrian Alps, he walked, one wintry afternoon, into the office of the firm, having come direct from a trans-Atlantic steamer—just docked. Wasting no more time on salutations than he usually did—which was precisely none at all, he quickly got Harker into the small inner office—sometimes referred to by the staff as the dissecting room—and after pushing him into a chair and drawing one for himself close to it, began talking to him in tones that were subdued to the limit.

“We’re moving the office to London,” he said, “—and inside of twenty-one days. I’ve got something I want to put on over there. I’ll need most of the office force—especially Finch Dugas—and I’m taking eleven of the boys.” (By which he meant his “trusties.”)

“What’s the matter,” Harker inquired; “can’t you play it with the natives?”

“You’re dippy! Hasn’t the Yard got their numbers?”

“Sure—the Yard’s got everything. And take it from me if you’re going up against that layout you’ve got to watch your step and then some!”

“Now, Roxy—you’ve hit on the one thing that’s doing the pull on me. As I was over on that side I thought I’d come home by way of London and take a look around. While I was doing it a little something crossed my mind that looked to me as if it might interest ’em. That being so, we play it.”

“Don’t say _we_. Maybe _you’ll_ play it, I don’t know; but if this London scheme you’re pulling off is one of your favorite flirtations with the undertaker, I declare myself out of it here and now. I can get myself nicely hung in the U. S. A. without going abroad for it—and I’d just as soon patronize home industries.”

“Not a killing to it I give you my word,” Pentecost assured him. “We play a corpse for two or three moves, but it’s handed to us—no chance of a line across—they’ll have the guy that did it. Now every one of us comes in from different places—I go round and get across from Stockholm—you and Dugas make it from Rio—plenty of time as you don’t play in till near the finish. Kennedy makes it from Holland—” and he went on laying out the “game” with Harker to the uttermost detail.

Three days later Pentecost (but not _as_ Pentecost) embarked on a Swedish-American Line steamer. Harker was at the dock getting final instructions (of course he was going in on it as Pentecost knew he would), and there was a vast lot of things to do in a limited time.

The two stood talking on the pier, hidden by piled-up crates and boxes, yet only a short distance from the gangplank so that Pentecost could go on board at the last moment. When they had about finished up matters connected with the London “operation,” Harker happened to think of something.

“Oh—by the way,” he said; “how was that lady you went over to see?”

“Not so well,” Pentecost muttered in a way that suggested aversion to talking about it.

But Harker, not affected by this, cheerfully pursued the subject.

“Going to die?” he asked.

“Had it all fixed to.” (Speaking very shortly.)

“Who? Who do you mean had it fixed?”

“She did.”

“Oh—I see—she wanted to.”

“Yes, and her wanting was _doing_ it. The doctors were hunting some way to shake her up, and left it to me. So I went in and gave her a jolt or two that might change her mind.”

“What did you say?”

“Anything I could grab off the line.”

“Then she’s going to get well, is she?”

“How the hell do I know?”

Pentecost had put an end to the subject with that, but after a silence of some little time, he went on,—and Harker took notice of a most unusual softness in his voice.

“D’you know what I’d do, Hark, if I had it to do again—that is, if I knew what it was that was eating him?”

Harker—surprised at his tone—kept his eyes on him for the answer.

“I’d ’a’ framed that Findlay soak for a twenty-year jack in a nice cool cell, and then staked those two out in the mountains—or wherever it was she had to go.”

“I thought you did know.”

“Not till too late. It was in a letter he left for me with Jamie Dreek.”

The two stood looking at one another.

“Well,” said Harker after a brief silence; “what’s the good of post mortems?”

Pentecost nodded. “What’s the good?” he muttered.

A moment later he was hurrying on board, and with that came the end of this “Pentecost Episode.”

* * * * *

_I take the liberty of adding a brief statement._

H. McC.

Dudley sat smoking heavily and abstractedly after Mr. Barnes had finished a few business details with me, and after shaking hands with both of us, had gone. I was to take a night express for New York, as my time was up. We’d just got it in on the ten-day limit.

I saw that Duds had something on his mind—puffing away at his pipe and staring down at the floor—so, as there was plenty of time before my train I let him alone. He looked up at me after a wink, in the manner of rousing himself.

“D’you know who that was that just went out?” he asked.

“What?—Oh!—Why Barnes of course!”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not Barnes of course, but some one else of course. I’ve been keeping a few tabs on the man that’s been telling us all this stuff, and there’s four things—with a possibility of five—that no one on earth could know but Hugo Pentecost.”

“Good Lord!... Why ... then you think——”

“That’s it—I think.—But I’m going to make sure. He’s in town yet. I’ll drop you a line to-morrow.”

The “line” reached me a couple of days later.

“It _was_ Pentecost,” was the statement it began with. And went on: “That is, I mean it was the man that was—he’s something else now. He’s in business abroad, and taking a steamer from here. His agent (or ‘trusty’ if you like) is going to get the manuscript from you when you write it out. Take my advice and put in all this at the end of the thing. It needs some sort of a finish, and this might do. If he doesn’t like it he can cut it out when he gets the proof—and you can bet he’ll get it.

“Couldn’t make him tell the sort of an enterprise he’s on over there—says maybe he will sometime.

“It seems the girl—Edith Findlay—is making a slow recovery. I asked him how the book would affect her if she got hold of it, and he said it wouldn’t do her any harm by then. ‘And by God!’ he went on, ‘it’s just as well for her to know—now she’s able to stand it—that such a man as Charles Michael Haworth went happily and eagerly to his death, so that she might live. You’d think she might run through her life on that, and ask for nothing more. But probably not.’”

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 358 Changed: faintly wavering in the darknenss to: faintly wavering in the darkness