The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katharine Green (best novels for beginners txt) 📕

Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was not without effect on that gentleman's cheek, and at once called forth a retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place, with the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.

"Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till he sees fit to show it," was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, "And so must she."

Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the head, I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw that she understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a little while longer.

My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur Cumberland to the stand to witness in his own defence.

I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.

A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved. Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for him to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that tone of personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral conflict. But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as to the real man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.

Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or in the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel's name and Carmel's character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not to be counted on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably of all, the little woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own defence before she threw herself into the breach and made that devoted attempt to save him, in his own despite, which had been my terror from the first and was my terror now.

Perjury! but not in his own defence—rather in opposition to it—that is what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it. My attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel's fate, if not Ella's—and certainly my own—hung upon the issue. This I knew, and this I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions having been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.

The witness's name having been demanded and given and some other preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:

"Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the afternoon or evening of December the second?"

"I did." Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he blurted forth: "And it wasn't the first. I hated the discipline she imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the manner in which I chose to spend my money."

A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.

Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like feeling on the part of the expectant audience.

Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move, pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his goal and is working deliberately towards it.

"Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in your conduct or way of spending money?"

"She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn't like my late hours, or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like her expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short when I wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I made her suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a better sister to me than I could then understand."

This was uttered slowly and with a quiet emphasis which reawakened that excited hum the judge had been at such pains to quell a moment before. But he did not quell it now; he seemed to have forgotten his duty in the strong interest called up by these admissions from the tongue of the most imperturbable prisoner he had had before him in years.

Mr. Moffat, with an eye on District Attorney Fox, who had shown his surprise at the trend the examination was taking by a slight indication of uneasiness, grateful enough, no doubt, to the daring counsellor, went on with his examination:

"Mr. Cumberland, will you tell us when you first felt this change of opinion in regard to your sister?"

Mr. Fox leaped to his feet. Then he slowly reseated himself. Evidently he thought it best to let the prisoner have his full say. Possibly he may have regretted his leniency the next moment when, with a solemn lowering of his head, Arthur answered:

"When I saw my home desolated in one dreadful night. With one sister dead in the house, the victim of violence, and another delirious from fright or some other analogous cause, I had ample time to think—and I used that time. That's all."

Simple words, read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for the man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the least attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such as wished to see this man acquitted.

His counsel, as if anxious to take advantage of this very expectation to heighten the effect of what followed, proceeded immediately to inquire:

"When did you see your sister Adelaide for the last time alive?"

A searching question. What would be his reply?

A very quiet one.

"That night at the dinner-table. When I left the room, I turned to look at her. She was not looking at me; so I slammed the door and went upstairs. In an hour or so, I had left the house to get a drink. I got the drink, but I never saw Adelaide again till I saw her in her coffin."

This blunt denial of the crime for which he stood there arraigned, fell on my heart with a weight which showed me how inextinguishable is the hope we cherish deep down under all surface convictions. I had been unconscious of this hope, but it was there. It seemed to die a double death at these words. For I believed him! Courage is needed for a lie. There were no signs visible in him, as yet, of his having drawn upon this last resource of the despairing. I should know it when he did; he could not hide the subtle change from me.

To others, this declaration came with greater or less force, according as it was viewed in the light of a dramatic trick of Mr. Moffat's, or as the natural outburst of a man fighting for his life in his own way and with his own weapons. I could not catch the eye of Ella cowering low in her seat, so could not judge what tender chords had been struck in her sensitive breast by these two assertions so dramatically offset against each other—the one, his antagonism to the dead; the other, his freedom from the crime in which that antagonism was supposed to have culminated.

Mr. Moffat, satisfied so far, put his next question with equal directness:

"Mr. Cumberland, you have mentioned seeing your sister in her coffin.
When was this?"

"At the close of her funeral, just before she was carried out."

"Was that the first and only time you had seen her so placed?"

"It was."

"Had you seen the casket itself prior to this moment of which you speak?"

"I had not."

"Had you been near it? Had you handled it in any way?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Cumberland, you have heard mention made of a ring worn by your sister in life, but missing from her finger after death?"

"I have."

"You remember this ring?"

"I do."

"Is this it?"

"It is, so far as I can judge at this distance."

"Hand the ring to the witness," ordered the judge.

The ring was so handed.

He glanced at it, and said bitterly: "I recognise it. It was her engagement ring."

"Was this ring on her finger that night at the dinner-table?"

"I cannot say, positively, but I believe so. I should have noticed its absence."

"Why, may I ask?"

For the first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: "It was the token of an engagement I didn't believe in or like. I should have hailed any proof that this engagement was off."

Mr. Moffat smiled enigmatically.

"Mr. Cumberland, if you are not sure of having seen this ring then, when did you see it and where?"

A rustle from end to end of that crowded court-room. This was an audacious move. What was coming? What would be the answer of the man who was believed not only to have made himself the possessor of this ring, but to have taken a most strange and uncanny method of disposing of it afterward? In the breathless hush which followed this first involuntary expression of feeling, Arthur's voice rose, harsh but steady in this reply:

"I saw it when the police showed it to me, and asked me if I could identify it."

"Was that the only time you have seen it up to the present moment?"

Instinctively, the witness's right hand rose; it was as if he were mentally repeating his oath before he uttered coldly and with emphasis, though without any show of emotion:

"It is."

The universal silence gave way to a universal sigh of excitement and relief. District Attorney Fox's lips curled with an imperceptible smile of disdain, which might have impressed the jury if they had been looking his way; but they were all looking with eager and interested eyes at the prisoner, who had just uttered this second distinct and unequivocal denial.

Mr. Moffat noted this, and his own lip curled, but with a very different show of feeling from that which had animated his distinguished opponent. Without waiting for the present sentiment to cool, he proceeded immediately with his examination:

"You swear that you have seen this ring but once since the night of your sister's death, and that was when it was shown you in the coroner's office?"

"I do."

"Does this mean that it was not in your possession at any time during that interim?"

"It certainly does."

"Mr. Cumberland, more than one witness has testified to the fact of your having been seen to place your hand in the casket of your sister, before the eyes of the minister and of others attending her funeral. Is this true?"

"It is."

"Was not this a most unusual thing to do?"

"Perhaps. I was not thinking about that. I had a duty to perform, and I performed it."

"A duty? Will you explain to the jury what duty?"

The witness's head rose, then sank. He, as well as every one else, seemed to be impressed by the solemnity of the moment. Though the intensity of my own interest would not allow my eyes to wander from his face, I could imagine the strained look in Ella's, as she awaited his words.

They came in another instant, but with less steadiness than he had shown before. I even thought I could detect a tremor in his muscles, as well as in his voice:

"I had rebelled against my sister's wishes; I had grieved and deceived her up to the very night of her foul and unnatural death—and all through drink."

Here his eye flashed, and for that fleeting moment he looked a man.