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

"Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished."

Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the landlord that Mr. Cumberland's coat was as thickly plastered with snow on the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they did, for he went on at once to say:

"You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?"

"Yes, I play golf there all summer."

"I'm not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?"

"Yes, I had."

"In a storm?"

"No, not in a storm."

"How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
Whispering Pines?"

Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he could speak.

"Just fifteen minutes."

"How came you to know the time so exactly?"

"Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in the lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I was on time."

Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He did not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from the prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at half-past eleven.

"Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?" asked the district attorney.

As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit as to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the prisoner had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He must say no, and he did.

"I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I wandered all over those links."

"In the blinding snow?"

"Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand my sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at times to go back."

"And why didn't you?"

"Because I was more of a brute than a brother—because Cuthbert Road drew me in spite of myself—because—" He stopped with the first hint of emotion we had seen in him since the morning. "I did not know what was going on there or I should have gone back," he flashed out, with a defiant look at his counsel.

Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point more vulnerable.

"When you heard your sister's voice in the club-house, how did you think she had got into the building?"

"By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house."

"When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you wanted from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to make use of the rest?"

"No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all."

"You took your one key, and let the rest lie?"

"You've said it."

"Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?"

"I'm not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers' pocket."

"You dropped this key into your trousers' pocket?"

"I did."

"Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key, or afterwards?"

"My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn't on my hat. I don't know when I put it on."

"You absolutely do not remember?"

"No."

"Nor where you took it from?"

"No."

"Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having pocketed the key, waited—"

"I did not wait."

"Did not stand by the table thinking?"

"No, I was in too much of a hurry."

"So that you went straight out?"

"Yes, as quickly as I could."

The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury. When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on him, he proceeded to ask: "Does that mean immediately, or as soon as you could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk with some one you called, or who called to you?"

"I called to nobody. I—I went out immediately."

It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful, untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall—I guessed it then, I knew it afterward—and he thought to deceive this court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this point by his own counsel.

District Attorney Fox smiled. "How then did you get into the stable?"

"The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable."

"Was it unlocked?"

A slow flush broke over the prisoner's whole face. He saw where he had been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he replied: "I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen."

"You have not spoken of going into the kitchen."

"I have not spoken of coming downstairs."

"You went into the kitchen?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When I first came down."

"That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary, you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for your overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic."

A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence of the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:

"Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?"

"I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled on the first things that offered."

The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on his brow until the last word fell. Then he said: "I forgot. I went for the key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick horse looked."

"Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?"

"No, I carried it into the hall."

"What did you do with it there?"

"I don't know. Put it on the table, I suppose."

"Don't you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don't you remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh's bunch?"

"I laid it on the table. I must have—there was no other place to put it."

"Laid it down by itself?"

"Yes."

"And took it up when you went out?"

"Of course."

"Carrying it straight to the stable?"

"Naturally."

"What did you do with it when you came out?"

"I left it in the stable-door."

"You did? What excuse have you to give for that?"

"None. I was reckless, and didn't care for anything—that's all."

"Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your indifference, to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn't sick enough to keep your coachman home from a dance."

The prisoner was silent.

"You have no further explanation to give on this subject?"

"No. All fellows who love horses will understand."

The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to say: "You have listened to Zadok Brown's testimony. When he returned at three, he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its usual nail in the kitchen. How do you account for this?"

"There are two ways."

"Mention them, if you please."

"Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to what he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself for the fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie."

"Have you ever caught him in a lie?"

"No; but there's always a first time."

"You would impeach his testimony then?"

"No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have tried to show you."

"Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been amply proved."

"If you believe Zadok, yes."

"You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was seen on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to identify her."

"So I've been told."

"The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one of yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote peg in a seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you explain the use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of the stable-door—which you declare yourself to have left open—and the hanging up of the key on its own nail?"

It was a crucial question—how crucial no one knew but our two selves. If he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his doing this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying his presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland home. The quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction by both father and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive demonstration visible to them, if not to others and fearful of the consequences if I did not make some effort to hold her in check, I kept my eyes in her direction, and so lost Arthur's look and the look of his counsel as he answered, with just the word I had expected—a short and dogged:

"I cannot explain."

It was my death warrant. I realised this even while I held Ella's eye with mine and smoothed my countenance to meet the anguish in hers, in the effort to hold her back for a few minutes longer till I could quite satisfy myself that Arthur's case was really lost and that I must speak or feel myself his murderer.

The gloom which followed this recognition of his inability, real or fancied, to explain away the most damning feature of the case against him, taken with his own contradictions and growing despondency, could not escape my eye, accustomed as I was to the habitual expression of most every person there. But it was not yet the impenetrable gloom presaging conviction; and directing Ella's gaze towards Mr. Moffat, who seemed but little disturbed either by Mr. Fox's satisfaction or the prisoner's open despair, I took heart of grace and waited for the district attorney's next move. It was a fatal one. I began to recognise this very soon, simple as was the subject he now introduced.

"When you went into the kitchen, Mr. Cumberland, to get the stable-door key, was the gas lit, or did you have to light it?"

"It—it was lit, I think."

"Don't you know?"

"It was lit, but turned low. I could see well enough."

"Why, then, didn't you take both keys?"

"Both keys?"

"You have said you went down town by the short cut through your neighbour's yard. That cut is guarded by a door, which was locked that night. You needed the key to that door more than the one to the stable. Why didn't you take it?"

"I—I did."

"You haven't said so."

"I—I took it when I took the other."

"Are you