Hand and Ring by Anna Katharine Green (pride and prejudice read TXT) 📕

But at this moment a slight disturbance occurring in the other room, the witness paused and looked about him with that same embarrassed look before noted. "He is at the hotel now," he added, with an attempt at ease, transparent as it was futile.

The disturbance to which I have alluded was of a peculiar kind. It was occasioned by the thick-set man making the spring which, for some minutes, he had evidently been meditating. It was not a tragic leap, however, but a decidedly comic one, and had for its end and aim the recovery of a handkerchief which he had taken from his pocket at the moment when the witness uttered the name of Smith, and, by a useless flourish in opening it, flirted from his hand to the floor. At least, so the amused throng interpreted the sudden dive which he made, and the heedless haste that caused him to trip over the gentleman's hat that stood on the floor, causing it to fall and another handkerchief to tumble out. But Mr. Byrd, who had a detective's insight into the whole matter, saw something more than appeared in the profuse apologies which the thick-set man made, and the hurried manner in which he gathered up the handkerchiefs and stood looking at them before returning one to his pocket and the other to its place in the gentleman's hat. Nor was Mr. Byrd at all astonished to observe that the stand which his fellow-detective took, upon resettling himself, was much nearer the unseen gentleman than before, or that in replacing the hat, he had taken pains to put it so far to one side that the gentleman would be obliged to rise and come around the corner in order to obtain it. The drift of the questions propounded to the witness at this moment opened his eyes too clearly for him to fail any longer to understand the situation.

"Now at the hotel?" the coroner was repeating. "And came yesterday? Why, then, did you look so embarrassed when I mentioned his name?"

"Oh—well—ah," stammered the man, "because he was there once before, though his name is not registered but once in the book."

"He was? And on what day?"

"On Tuesday," asserted the man, with the sudden decision of one who sees it is useless to attempt to keep silence.

"The day of the murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why is his name not on the book at that time if he came to your house and put up?"

"Because he did not put up; he merely called in, as it were, and did not take a meal or hire a room."

"How did you know, then, that he was there? Did you see him or talk to him?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you say?"

"He asked me for directions to a certain house, and I gave them."

"Whose house?"

"The Widow Clemmens', sir."

Ah, light at last! The long-sought-for witness had been found! Coroner and jury brightened visibly, while the assembled crowd gave vent to a deep murmur, that must have sounded like a knell of doom—in one pair of ears, at least.

"He asked you for directions to the house of Widow Clemmens. At what time was this?"

"At about half-past eleven in the morning."

The very hour!

"And did he leave then?"

"Yes, sir; after taking a glass of brandy."

"And did you not see him again?"

"Not till yesterday, sir."

"Ah, and at what time did you see him yesterday?"

"At bedtime, sir. He came with other arrivals on the five o'clock train; but I was away all the afternoon and did not see him till I went into the bar-room in the evening."

"Well, and what passed between you then?"

"Not much, sir. I asked if he was going to stay with us, and when he said 'Yes,' I inquired if he had registered his name. He replied 'No.' At which I pointed to the book, and he wrote his name down and then went up-stairs with me to his room."

"And is that all? Did you say nothing beyond what you have mentioned? ask him no questions or make no allusions to the murder?"

"Well, sir, I did make some attempt that way, for I was curious to know what took him to the Widow Clemmens' house, but he snubbed me so quickly, I concluded to hold my tongue and not trouble myself any further about the matter."

"And do you mean to say you haven't told any one that an unknown man had been at your house on the morning of the murder inquiring after the widow?"

"Yes, sir. I am a poor man, and believe in keeping out of all sort of messes. Policy demands that much of me, gentlemen."

The look he received from the coroner may have convinced him that policy can be carried too far.

"And now," said Dr. Tredwell, "what sort of a man is this Clement Smith?"

"He is a gentleman, sir, and not at all the sort of person with whom you would be likely to connect any unpleasant suspicion."

The coroner surveyed the hotel-keeper somewhat sternly.

"We are not talking about suspicions!" he cried; then, in a different tone, repeated: "This gentleman, you say, is still at your house?"

"Yes, sir, or was at breakfast-time. I have not seen him since."

"We will have to call Mr. Smith as a witness," declared the coroner, turning to the officer at his side. "Go and see if you cannot bring him as soon as you did Mr. Symonds."

But here a voice spoke up full and loud from the other room.

"It is not necessary, sir. A witness you will consider more desirable than he is in the building." And the thick-set man showed himself for an instant to the coroner, then walking back, deliberately laid his hand on the elbow which for so long a time had been the centre of Mr. Byrd's wondering conjectures.

In an instant the fine, gentlemanly figure of the stranger, whom he had seen the night before in the bar-room, appeared with a bound from beyond the jamb, and pausing excitedly before the man, now fully discovered to all around as a detective, asked him, in shaking tones of suppressed terror or rage, what it was he meant.

"I will tell you," was the ready assurance, "if you will step out here in view of the coroner and jury."

With a glance that for some reason disturbed Mr. Byrd in his newly acquired complacency, the gentleman stalked hurriedly forward and took his stand in the door-way leading into the room occupied by the persons mentioned.

"Now," he cried, "what have you to say?"

But the detective, who had advanced behind him, still refrained from replying, though he gave a quick look at the coroner, which led that functionary to glance at the hotel-keeper and instantly ask:

"You know this gentleman?"

"It is Mr. Clement Smith."

A flush so violent and profuse, that even Mr. Byrd could see it from his stand outside the window, inundated for an instant the face and neck of the gentleman, but was followed by no words, though the detective at his side waited for an instant before saying:

"I think you are mistaken; I should call him now Mr. Gouverneur Hildreth!"

With a start and a face grown as suddenly white as it had but an instant before been red, the gentleman turned and surveyed the detective from head to foot, saying, in a tone of mock politeness:

"And why, if you please? I have never been introduced to you that I remember."

"No," rejoined the detective, taking from his pocket the handkerchief which he had previously put there, and presenting it to the other with a bow, "but I have read the monogram upon your handkerchief and it happens to be——"

"Enough!" interrupted the other, in a stern if not disdainful voice. "I see I have been the victim of espionage." And stepping into the other room, he walked haughtily up to the coroner and exclaimed: "I am Gouverneur Hildreth, and I come from Toledo. Now, what is it you have to say to me?"