The Four-Fingered Glove
OR,
THE COST OF A LIE
BY
NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures,
which are published exclusively in the New Magnet Library,
conceded to be among the best detective tales ever written.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1904
By STREET & SMITH
——
The Four-Fingered Glove
Printed in the United States of America)
Al rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.
At a rough estimate there are 400 million civilized human beings who have heard of Bill Cody, not under his real name, but by the name everybody called him, “Buffalo Bill.”
His character made him an outstanding figure during a period of the development of America when a strong character was a matter of vital necessity.
We doubt, however, whether the man’s work is fully appreciated, or ever has been. In the rush and bustle that followed the introduction of the railroad to the West, the results of Buffalo Bill’s work were more or less overlooked, but a time is coming when this remarkable man’s achievements will be fully appreciated.
This is the character whose adventures are dealt with in Buffalo Bill’s Border Stories.
Read them. You will find them of true historical value.
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THE FOUR-FINGERED GLOVE
CHAPTER I.
“IF I AM GUILTY, CONVICT ME.”
The hands of the clock pointed at half-past five, one beautiful June morning, when Nick Carter, having just finished with his morning exercise and cold plunge, was told that there was a gentleman in the reception-room who wished to see him on matters of the utmost importance, as soon as he was at liberty to descend, and the servant who brought the message to her master passed a card through the partly opened doorway upon which was engraved in fashionable block lettering:
REGINALD MEADOWS DANTON.
Linden Fells.
“Young Danton, of Linden Fells, eh?” murmured the detective, as he proceeded with his toilet after placing the card on the dresser. “What in the world can he want at this hour? I should not hesitate to wager a considerable amount that he has never been out of bed at this hour before in all his life, unless it was because he had stayed up all night. Reggie Danton! Humph! Whether he is in trouble or not, it is safe to say that he believes he is, or he wouldn’t be here to see me so early in the morning.”
Ten minutes later Nick entered the room where his caller was awaiting him, only to find him pacing up and down between the window and the door, apparently under the greatest strain of excitement.
Nick Carter’s half-contemptuous, half-humorous remark, “Young Danton, of Linden Fells,” had been peculiarly appropriate, for Reginald Meadows Danton exactly filled one’s ideas of a young man of possibilities—and perhaps probabilities—who hailed from somewhere in the world of society and wealth.
He was neither tall nor short, fat nor lean; nor did there seem to be a distinguishing trait about his appearance or his manner, and yet there was an indefinable something which compelled a stranger to glance at him a second time, and then to wonder why he had done so. He was Reggie Danton to everybody, several times a millionaire in his own right, and the son of a man who had long since ceased to count his millions by units, having adopted multiples instead.
Linden Fells? Well, it was—and still is, although its name has since been changed—a magnificent estate situated on the bank of the Hudson River within a reasonable distance of New York. A place where once upon a time a very rich and eccentric German had brought his family and lived while he awaited the pardon of his emperor, and who had also brought with him a love for his own Unter den Linden. And as the estate was heavily wooded, he had given it the name of Linden Fells. Later, when the pardon came from his emperor, he had sold out for a song and returned to the fatherland: and so, Horace Danton, the father of Reggie, became possessed of it.
Then Linden Fells became transformed.
From the home of a recluse who used it only as a place of refuge while he awaited permission to return to his own country, it was turned into an open house of entertainment, for the Dantons liked to “sling things.”
Mrs. Danton was a beautiful woman of middle age, who still looked thirty—scarcely older, in fact, than her two children, Reginald and Mercedes, aged respectively, twenty-three and nineteen.
It had happened in the past that Nick Carter had done some little business for the head of the house of Danton, but it had been of a commercial character, and he had never met the other members of the family, although naturally they were all known to him by sight, as well as by the reputations they had earned for themselves in their own separate ways. Mrs. Danton—or the señora, as she was often called because of her Spanish ancestry—because she was a leader of society and a giver of the most lavish entertainments in New York and Newport; Reggie, because he was a self-confessed high roller who was inevitably getting into some sort of hot water and paying his way out of it with gold—whom everybody talked about, and laughed at, and wondered what he would do next, but who was nevertheless generally well liked, and among those who knew him best, respected, too; and Mercedes!
The reputation of Mercedes Danton can be comprehended in three words. She was beautiful, she was brilliant, and she was, above all, good.
Everybody loved Mercedes. Her father adored her; her mother worshiped her; her brother idolized her; her servitors almost deified her; and she merited it all.
Reference to her upon any occasion was comprehended in the utterance of her first name only. There was but one Mercedes in the world, one queen of beauty, one fountain of sympathy and goodness—Mercedes.
She was nineteen, with the poise, the repose and the presence of twenty-five. She was tall, regal, as graceful as a fawn; she had unfathomable, gipsy eyes, hair of a dead black, with a faint suggestion of waviness, and when the light struck it just right, a touch of amber somewhere in the depth of the tresses which disappeared as it came and which was inevitably changed to a reflection upon rather than from it; and with all her somber hair and eyes, her long black lashes and brunette presence, she had the complexion of an Irish beauty.
To describe Mercedes as beautiful is inadequate, for she was the standard of beauty.
And now, that we have outlined the chain of thought which flitted through the mind of Nick Carter as he descended the stairs to meet his early caller, we will return to the moment of their greeting.
“Good morning, Mr. Danton,” said Nick, as he entered the room. “You rose early this morning.”
“Yes. That is—fact is—I haven’t been to bed. Thank you. Yes; I will sit down. Are you Mr. Carter? Mr. Nick Carter? Pardon me for asking, but I wish to be sure.”
“Yes. I am Nick Carter.”
“I have heard my father speak of you several times, Mr. Carter. I suppose you are aware that my governor is abroad just now?”
“I think I noticed in one of the papers, about a month ago, a mention that he had sailed. I did not know that he had or had not returned.”
“No. He’s over there still. I say, Mr. Carter, do I look excited?”
“Well, yes, a little,” replied Nick, smiling. “Has something happened to upset you?”
“Well, rather! Do I talk as if I could tell a connected story? Eh?”
“Why, yes.”
“You’ll pardon me, I know, but you see I wish to be sure. The fact is—— by Jove, old chap, I’m all of a tremble yet. I’ve been trying for the last two hours—all the while, in fact, since I started to come here to see you, to pull myself together so that I could tell you a connected story, and ’pon my life I’m not at all sure of myself yet. It’s awful, you know, Mr. Carter! Horribly awful!”
“What is?”
“The murder.”
“The murder? Do you mean to say that you are speaking seriously and that you have come here to see me about a murder?”
“Yes. That’s the long and short of it.”
“Who is killed? Where was the crime committed? I hope, Mr. Danton, that this is not a specimen of one of the jokes you are so fond of perpetrating,” said Nick severely.
“Joke! gad! I wish it were a joke! No, Mr. Carter, it is very far from being a joke, I’m sorry to say. It’s a murder of the first water. A regular gem of the blue-stone variety. An out-and-out, dyed-in-the-wool, double-back-action, deliberate murder, carefully planned and scientifically executed, and”—he leaned forward in his chair and looked the detective straight in the eyes—“the joke will be on me, don’t you know.”
“What do you mean, Danton? You will have to be more explicit if you wish me to pretend to understand you.”
“Good Lord, I’m trying to be explicit. I mean that I will be accused of this murder—I mean that there will be developed the best chain of circumstantial evidence you ever heard of to convict me, and I mean that——”
He paused and rose from his chair, crossing the room to the window and then returning.
“Well?” said Nick. “What were you about to add to your statement?”
“I mean,” he said, slowly and impressively, “that I am not, myself, positive of my own innocence.”
There was half a moment of silence after that extraordinary statement, and it was Danton who spoke first.
“Do you wonder now that I asked you if I looked excited, and if you thought I could tell a connected story?”
“In the light of the statement you have just made, it seems doubtful if you can tell one,” said Nick slowly. “You tell me that there has been a murder committed, that you will be accused of the crime, that there will be circumstantial evidence which will tend to convict you of the crime, and that you are not sure that you are not guilty. Those statements are rather extraordinary, coming from a man who is supposed to be sane, Mr. Danton.”
“Well, all the same, they are God’s truths, every one of them.”
“Then suppose you tell me why you have come to me at five o’clock in the morning?” said Nick severely. “If you are not sure that you have not committed a crime—which is a statement to be taken with a large proportion of salt—you are more than half convinced that you have committed one. My business, Mr. Danton, is to catch criminals, not to protect them.”
“Well, that’s all right. That’s just what I want you to do. That’s why I came here at five o’clock in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to catch and convict the criminal. If I am guilty I want you to convict me of it, just as if I were not here to engage your services. I want you to prove who did commit the crime, and if I did it I want you to prove it to my own satisfaction, as well as to a jury of twelve men. I’ve been asleep ever since I was born, Mr. Carter, but I woke up this morning in earnest, and I’m awake now, to stay awake.”
CHAPTER II.
THE QUARREL IN REGINALD DANTON’S ROOM.
“You seem to be very much in earnest in what you say, Mr. Danton,” said the detective.
“I am very much in earnest, sir.”
“Well, in the first place, suppose you tell me who is dead. Since you say that a murder has been committed and it is not unlikely that you did it, it is well to know something of the corpus dilecti. Who was murdered?”
“Ramon Orizaba; my mother’s guest.”
“Your cousin, is he—or rather, was he not?”
“A kinsman of my mother’s so far removed that the ties of blood are very thin; still, he has passed as our cousin. You know of him. He has been our guest, at intervals of two or three months at a time, for half a dozen seasons.”
“Oh, yes; I know of him. Now where was he killed?”
“In my own room at the Fells.”
“In your room? Where were you?”
“There in the room when he was killed?”
“Just that.”
“Then you did it—by accident, perhaps—and that is the reason why you do not——”
“No. You’re wrong.”
“Well, what, then?”
“I was there when he was killed; at least I suppose I was, but I was either unconscious, or asleep, for I did not see it done, and I did not know that he was dead until I awoke, at three o’clock this morning, and found him.”
“Had you quarreled?”
“We always quarreled. There never was a time when we did not quarrel.”
“How was he killed? What killed him?”
Danton left his chair and crossed to the window again, but after a moment he returned and stood facing the detective.
“I was waiting for that question,” he said slowly, “and wondering when it would come, for I had not yet determined how I would reply to it. The fact is, Mr. Carter, I believe that even the coroner and the physicians will find it difficult to determine at first how Orizaba was killed; but nevertheless, although I have not examined the body, save to look at one spot where I expected to find something, I can tell you what killed him.”
“Then tell me.”
“He was killed with a glass needle, three inches in length, and of the size of a common darning needle. Orizaba’s hair grew very low on the back of his neck, and the weapon I have described was jabbed into the vertebra at that point.”
“So that death was almost instantaneous, I suppose?”
“It must have been.”
“Now, how do you know that he was killed as you describe?”
“Because I looked at that spot to find out.”
“Why did you look there?”
“Because I expected to find what I did find.”
“Why?”
“Because I had meditated killing him in just that way.”
“Good God, Mr. Danton——”
“It’s true.”
“In that case, I do not see what I can do to assist you. A man who will meditate such an infamous thing and then have the effrontery to come here and confess it to me in cold blood expecting me to sympathize with his troubles, must be beyond the pale of human sympathy.”
“Wait, Mr. Carter. I quite agree with you—in the abstract; but this is different.”
“I cannot determine the nice points of reasoning of that kind, sir.”
“Just listen to me, won’t you? I have been careful to tell you all the worst phases of this case first.”
“There certainly could not be others much worse, unless you are about to confess that you had progressed so far in your meditations that you had actually provided yourself with a needle such as you have described.”
“I had such a needle in my possession,” replied Danton, smiling pathetically; “and moreover, it has disappeared from its accustomed place, so I have no means of knowing that it is not the one now actually imbedded in the neck of my cousin.”
“Danton,” said the detective, “since you have been in this room with me, you have succeeded in giving me several very different impressions concerning you. My first glance at you when I came into the room was that you had been on a spree and that you had done something which had the effect of sobering you suddenly, so that you came to me to get you out of your trouble. The second impression was that you were in real trouble, but that it concerned another more than yourself. My third was that you were sincere in your statement that you did not know whether you had committed a crime or not, and was willing to take the consequences if you had done so, and my present one is that you are telling me a story in a slipshod fashion which I do not like, and which is not calculated to win my appreciation or my assistance. Now, sir, if you care to prolong this conversation there is only one course for you to pursue, and that is to tell me your story, commencing at the beginning and continuing on to the end—and that you do it in some sort of connected style, so that I can follow you.”
“Well, sir,” replied Danton, slowly and seriously, “I’ll try. The fact is, I am almost crazy. I scarcely know what I am saying at all. I have tried so hard to pull myself together since I started out to find you, and I have endeavored so strenuously to keep calm since I have been here that I begin to fear that I shall fail in both.”
“Tell me your story,” said Nick shortly.
“Will you permit me to make two beginnings? They seem necessary.”
“Well, in the first place, I attended a banquet at the club last night, and while there I drank of everything in sight, from cocktails through the still wines and champagnes to the cordials and cognac. In short, I became very drunk.”
“I can believe that. It was not your first experience.”
“No. Orizaba was with me at the club. We started for home together in the same cab.”
“You did not drive out to the Fells in a cab, did you?”
“Oh, no. We caught a train from the station. I suppose it was the twelve-thirty, since that is the last train out.”
“Well?”
“I remember entering the cab with Orizaba, and I remember leaving the cab with him at the station; but I do not remember riding in the cars with him.”
“That is not surprising. But go on.”
“I know that when the conductor awakened me and told me we were at the Fells, I left the train alone. Orizaba was not with me then, for I remember distinctly that I left the train alone and walked from the station to the Fells alone.”
“About half a mile.”
“Were you still under the influence of the wine you had drank?”
“Undeniably. In plain English, I was very drunk. So full, in fact, that I remember that I stopped and held several serious arguments with myself during that walk of half a mile.”
“You are sure you talked only to yourself?”
“Why, yes; at least, that is my impression. I am quite sure that Orizaba was not with me then.”
“Yet you are positive that you caught the same train?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, go on with your story.”
“It was very warm last night, if you remember. I recall that when I arrived at the Fells the combination of wine and half a mile walk had heated me considerably, and I seated myself in one of the piazza chairs to cool off. Now I cannot tell you whether I sat there one minute or half an hour, for I don’t know; I only know that it could not have been more than half an hour, because the train I rode out on is due at the Fells at one-fifteen, my walk from the station to the house must have consumed a quarter of an hour, which would bring the time up to two o’clock, and my watch is stopped at two-thirty.”
“What has the stopping of your watch got to do with it?”
“Only this: That I cannot start it. Something inside it is broken, and I argue that I must have broken it while winding the watch.”
“Well?”
“Drunk or sober, I have always been in the habit of winding my watch the last thing before removing my waistcoat, and never at any other time.”
“So you think that you stopped your watch by breaking it while winding it the last thing before going to bed?”
“Yes; only I didn’t go to bed. In fact, I didn’t make any preparation to do so, more than to remove my coat and vest. But I am getting ahead of my story.”
“Tell it in your own way.”
“We will say, then, that I went up-stairs at half-past two, after sitting on the piazza for about half an hour.”
“Very good.”
“When I entered my room, Orizaba was there before me.”
“Ah! So he did come on the same train with you, and doubtless walked from the station with you also.”
“That I do not know. The point is that he seemed greatly surprised to see me—he appeared, when I entered the room, as if I was the last person he expected to see.”
“You were evidently sober enough to take cognizance of that fact.”
“There are reasons why, as you will understand. Orizaba was standing at my desk when I entered the room. He had turned on the lights, and he had opened my desk, although I supposed the only key that would open it was in my pocket. He was looking at something—some of my private letters, I suppose, when I entered the room, and he dropped them on the desk with an exclamation of rage, and flew at me like a tiger-cat.”
“Did you fight?”
“I don’t know. T don’t think so. I was not angry; only astonished. I know that we rolled to the floor together and that presently we both rose to our feet. Then, I remember that I ordered him from the room, and that he apologized—or tried to do so. But I remember, also, that I refused to listen to any apologies from him. I was angry, and I told him that I wanted nothing more to do with him. In fact, I told him many things that I had long had in mind to tell him some day, and ended by ordering him from my room again.”
“Did he go then?”
“No. He refused to go. He dropped himself into a big chair near one of the windows and said he would stay where he was until he got ready to leave.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I told him if it wasn’t for the noise it would make I would either throw him out, or shoot the top of his head off, but as it was, and because I didn’t want to disturb Mercedes—you know her rooms are quite near to mine—he could stay where he was if he wanted to, but I warned him that as soon as I sobered up I would go to my mother and father, both, and tell them everything I knew about him, and also that I would see to it that he was kicked out of the house for good.”
“And then——”
“He only grinned, and said something about it being a more difficult job than I supposed to get him out of that family—that he would remain until he chose to go of his own free will, and——”
“Well? And——”
“Well, to be plain, I told him to go to hades. Then I threw myself on the couch. Every light in the room was going, but I must have fallen asleep at once.”
“And the time must have been as late as half-past two o’clock then, you think.”
“Yes; or even a little later.”
“What happened next?”
“I woke up.”
“Woke up to find him dead? Is that what you wish to tell me?”
“Yes; just that, but let me explain the particulars.”
CHAPTER III.
THE MYSTERY OF THE DEATH WOUND.
“I woke up with the feeling that somebody had called to me, and I started to a sitting posture on the couch before I was aware where I was. Then, of course, a glance told me my surroundings.”
“And you still had the impression that somebody had called to you?”
“Yes.”
“Called your name?”
“Yes; and by my middle name, which is never used outside my immediate family. My father, mother and sister always call me Meadow, or Med.”
“And your cousin? Did he call you so, also?”
“Rarely. Usually he addressed me simply as Danton, and at times with the familiarity of some of my club friends he called me Dan. But I discouraged such familiarities on his part, for I never liked him. In fact, I always hated him—despised him, hated him and feared him as well; but that is part of the story I shall tell you from the second beginning. You know I asked you to give me two beginnings.”
“Well; you started wide-awake with the feeling that somebody had called you, and that your middle name had been used. Go on.”
“Not wide-awake. I was dazed. There was an instant when I did not know where I was.”
“Naturally.”
“Then there were several moments when I could not remember how I got there, although I could tell that I was in my own room.”
“But it all came back to you as you thought it over?”
“Not all; and what did come back to my recollection came very slowly. Let me tell you things chronologically.”
“Certainly.”
“I rubbed my eyes and saw that I was in my own room. Then I looked around to see who had called me, and discovered Orizaba seated in the big chair by the window; but for the life of me I could not remember how he got there. I leaned back again among the pillows of the couch to think it over, and then I remembered that somebody had called to me, and I sung out to Orizaba to know if he had done it.
“He didn’t answer, and I called to him again, and then it came over me that we had attended the same banquet at my club, and that we had come home together—that is, I remembered the cab part of it—and I figured that he was asleep, and had either spoken my name in his sleep, or I had dreamed that I heard it.
“Well, I remained in that position, thinking things over and trying to get things clear in my mind for several minutes, and then I got up, stretched myself, looked at my watch, saw it was half-past two——”
“But you had removed your coat and vest. Where was your watch?”
“In my vest on a chair beside the couch.”
“All right. Go on.”
“My watch said half-past two. I felt rocky, so I turned out three or four of the lights, leaving only one of them burning, and went into my bathroom. In about three minutes I was in a cold bath, and nothing in this world ever felt so good as that did.”
“It pulled you together, too, did it not?”
“Amazingly. Things came back to me that I had totally forgotten—but still I was hazy about Orizaba’s presence in my room, and remembered nothing of the quarrel.”
“And then——”
“I finished my bath and passed back into my room, and so on through it to the sleeping-room which is just beyond. It was my intention to go to bed at once, but as I entered my bedroom there was a clock facing me, and the hands pointed to half-past three. I could not believe that I had been an hour in the bath, so I went back into the other room and took another look at my watch, only to discover that it still said half-past two, and that it had stopped. Then I thought that possibly it was run down, and I turned the stem, only to discover that the mainspring was broken. All the same, if I broke that mainspring at half-past two, I had not slept much more than half an hour in all, taking the time for the bath into consideration.”
“That is quite evident.”
“Well, I turned then to take another look at Orizaba. To tell the truth, I did not like the idea of his sleeping in my room, and I couldn’t yet understand why he did so.”
“Well?”
“I hesitated a moment or so, and then I crossed the room to his side and spoke to him. He neither replied nor moved, and so I seized him by the shoulder and shook him.”
Danton shuddered as he uttered this last sentence—shuddered and uttered a low groan.
“Why, then his head fell over on one side, and I saw that his eyes were half open, and—— Well, I seemed to know instantly that he was dead.”
“What did you do then?”
“I didn’t do anything at first. I only stood there staring at him in amazed wonder. I think my senses as well as my muscles were paralyzed.”
“Quite likely.”
“I replaced him as well as I could, in the position he had occupied before I shook him out of it, and then I felt of his flesh. It wasn’t cold and it was not warm. It was sort of clammy. There isn’t anything else that I know of that feels just as his flesh felt to my touch then.”
“I can understand that.”
“Well, the remarkable part of that moment is that everything about our conduct after we were in my room together, which I have already told you, came back to me in a flash then, as if I had not forgotten it at all, and at the same instant I seemed to know what it was that had killed Orizaba. My God! Mr. Carter, you don’t believe I did it, do you? You don’t believe I could have done such a thing in my sleep, do you?”
“No. Emphatically I do not. Go on, Mr. Danton.”
“I seemed to know what had killed him as well as if I had seen it done—as perfectly as if I had done it myself, although then it did not occur to me that I had done it, nor as a surprising fact that I should seem to know how it was done.”
“We will go into that later on, Danton. Just now I want you to be particular to tell me everything that you did from that moment on, until you entered this room here; and I want you to tell me also, as nearly as you can, the impressions that fastened themselves on your mind between that moment and now. There is a subconsciousness here which I wish to fathom. And—there is one thing which I want you to bear in mind.”
“What is that?”
“That no matter what impression you are making upon the mind of Nick Carter, you have not yet satisfied a jury that you are not detailing a cleverly concocted story—or, in plain English, that you did not actually kill Orizaba with deliberation and malice prepense. Do you understand?”
“Yes; I understand.”
“Well, continue from the point where it came over you suddenly that you knew how the murder was committed. What was it that forced that idea upon you?”
“Nothing. It came accidentally. I discovered that in raising his head to replace it against the upholstering of the chair in the position it had occupied before I shook him, I was unconsciously examining the back of his neck under his hair, which, as I have said, grows downward, quite out of sight below his collar—in fact, below his shirt band when he has no collar adjusted.”
“You were searching there unconsciously, you say?”
“Quite so, it would seem, since I realized suddenly what I was doing, and only realized it when my search revealed a speck of blood where it had oozed out and hardened into a crimson bead among the short hair on the back of his neck.”
“And then——”
“Then, still without a full realization of my acts, I wiped away the speck of blood with my handkerchief—wiped it away with great care and looked for the sign of a wound underneath the spot where it had been.”
“Did you find one?”
“Barely that; nothing more. Just a little mark like the prick of a pin, turned blue, and altogether unnoticeable unless you should search diligently for it. I shall come to that again, sir, later, but it belongs with that part of my story which has the second beginning.”
“Very good. For the present stick to the text you are on. What did you do next?”
“I think in all that I did then I acted automatically. I replaced his head in position with great care. I even walked around in front of him to see that he looked quite as naturally asleep as when I first discovered him.”
“And then——”
“In one of the inside compartments of my desk I keep a small metallic casket in which I store a few treasured keepsakes. Among the things I kept in that casket was the needle I have already described. It had been fastened into a cork handle, like the handle of a brad-awl. The casket was invariably locked—I do not remember ever in my life to have left it unlocked—but now, when I went to it, it was not only unlocked, but it was open, and—the needle was not there.”
“What about the cork handle?”
“That was there, in place, where it belonged, but the needle had been broken off short against the cork.”
“Well, what then?”
“I took the cork handle from the box and laid it on the desk. Then I crossed the room to my discarded trousers—for I had not dressed since my bath and had on only my pajamas—and felt in my pocket for my keys.”
“You found them?”
“Yes. Then I crossed back again to the desk, locked the casket and replaced it where it belonged, after which I closed my desk and locked it, but not until I had placed the cork handle to one side. Later, I put it in my pocket and brought it here with me. Here——”
“Never mind. We will come to that later. You told me in the beginning of your story that when you entered your room after leaving the piazza, you found Orizaba there, at your desk, and that the desk was open, although you believed that you possessed the only key that would fit its lock. How do you account for that?”
“I don’t account for it; I only know it is the truth. Every word that I have told you is the solemn truth, so help me God!”
CHAPTER IV.
TRYING TO FORGE HIS OWN FETTERS.
“What were your personal sensations while all this was taking place? How did you feel about it all?” asked Nick.
“That is one of the strangest features of the case, Mr. Carter,” replied Danton, “for while I seemed to know all about everything, as correctly as if I had seen the crime committed, it never once occurred to me that I was myself the guilty party. That aspect of the case was not impressed upon me till afterward.”
“When did it first occur to you?”
“Wait, and I will tell you. Through all that I did from the moment I discovered that Orizaba was dead until I began to put on my street clothes, I seem to have acted mechanically, as if I were really two beings, one of which was watching the other, passively. The finding of the wound on the back of his neck, the discovery of the open casket, the broken needle and the empty cork handle—none of those things seemed to surprise me at all, until I had begun the operation of dressing, and was in fact half-dressed, when it all came over me with a suddenness that made me stagger back against the wall like—well, as if I had received a blow in the face.”
“What came over you? What made you stagger?”
“The thought that perhaps I might have committed that horrible deed in my sleep.”
“No, sir! Disabuse your mind of any such thought as that, now and forever. You did not do murder in your sleep.”
“Well, I know that I did not do it at all, then.”
“Certainly you know that. Others do not and will not. But you may rest assured that no person on earth will ever believe that you did it in your sleep, and I least of all. And was that all that came over you and made you stagger back against the wall?”
“No; not all.”
“Well, what else?”
“The thought of Mercedes.”
“What had the thought of your sister to do with it?” asked Nick.
“It was the thought of what she would think of the matter that brought home to me the possibility that I had committed the crime in my sleep.”
“How so?”
“Simply because I have more than once told Mercedes—in jest of course, only she did not always believe that I was in jest—that some day I would kill Orizaba.”
“Indeed. You have often made that threat to her, have you?”
“A hundred times; perhaps more. Very often. I have even showed her the needle.”
“Ah! The needle again. You say you have shown it to your sister?”
“Yes; twice.”
“And she knew where you kept it?”
“Certainly.”
“Where did you obtain it?”
“It was given to me three years ago in Paris. It has a grewsome history, but whether it is true or not, I do not know. I only know that I was told that it had for years been the favorite sort of weapon for a famous—or rather an infamous—murderer, who was at last beheaded for his crimes. It was said that this needle was found in his possession when he was last captured.”
“A French criminal named Cadillac. I know of him. The story is doubtless true. But to return to your sister. Why did you show her the needle and threaten to use it on your cousin?”
“Mr. Carter, if you don’t mind, I would much prefer that you do not refer to Orizaba as my cousin. At best the relationship was so far removed that it cannot be considered, and I really doubt if there was any at all. I think he was an impostor, and whether he was or not, and notwithstanding the fact that he is dead and I am not sure that I did not kill him in my sleep, or somehow, I know he was a scoundrel of the worst sort. I hope I did not kill him, but I can truthfully say that I am glad that he is dead. Don’t call him my cousin.”
“Very well. Now let us return to your sister.”
“Well?”
“Why did you show the needle to her and threaten to use it on Orizaba?”
“The answer to that question belongs to the other story.”
“Never mind. Let me have it now.”
“Mercedes has known, ever since we have had any knowledge of Orizaba, that I hated him. In a word, my hatred of him has arisen chiefly because of his determined court paid to her. I have known all along that he was totally unworthy of her, but——”
“Then why did you not put a stop to his attentions at once?”
“Because Mercedes would not permit it.”
“Ah!”
“For some reason she chose to defend him always—that is, whenever I attacked him.”
“Do you mean by that, that she favored his suit?”
“No; I do not mean that, for that is what she did not do. I have never thought that she favored him, and yet on more than one occasion she has constituted herself a sort of quasi protectress over him whenever we have had our accustomed three-cornered fight at the home concerning him.”
“What do you mean by accustomed three-cornered fight?”
“I refer to wordy battles which often took place among my mother, my sister, and myself concerning Orizaba. These were usually begun in raillery, but always ended in bitter words.”
“And on such occasions you say that your sister championed Orizaba?”
“Championed is not the word; it is too strong. She took his part, if that expression can be said to mean anything.”
“I understand. Now let us return to the room, and to the moment when you staggered back against the wall with the thought in your mind that your sister would believe that you had carried out your threat and killed Orizaba. Was there any other reason than those you have mentioned why it should suddenly have occurred to you that she would think you guilty of the crime?”
“Yes. One other.”
“What was that?”
“Merely the fact that the very last words I uttered to Mercedes before I left the house last night to attend the banquet referred to such a possibility.”
“How? In what manner? Explain.”
“She came into my room just as I was on the point of leaving it to come here to the city for the banquet. When she entered the room I was seated at my desk engaged in addressing the envelope of a letter I had just written, and which I wished to post when I went out. The casket in which I kept the needle was open on the desk before me——”
“How did that happen?”
“I had opened it to get out a diamond stud which I was then wearing, and I had not yet closed and locked the casket and returned it to its place.”
“Well? Mercedes entered the room; what then?”
“She expressed the wish that I would enjoy myself at the banquet, and also the hope that I would drink less wine than usual. I replied that when she and my mother decided to rid the house of Orizaba I would be willing to give up wine altogether, and that the mere fact that he was to be present at the banquet was sufficient to make me get drunk, and I closed my remarks by taking Cadillac’s needle from the casket and holding it up to her view.
“‘As surely as there is a kingdom of heaven,’ I said, ‘I’ll jab this thing into his vertebra some day if he hangs around here much longer. I’ve had about all of him that I can stand.’”
“What reply did she make?”
“None whatever. She rose and left the room. Five minutes later I left the house and came to New York.”
“But you returned the needle to the casket?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you lock the casket?”
“I did.”
“You are positive of that?”