Under a Ban.

Patea Mail, 10 February 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

Under a Ban.

IN TWO CHAPTERS, Chapter 11.

Whatever success I have had in my practice has been due to my habit of boldly basing my theories upon the known character of the parties implicated, and not upon more palpable accidental circumstances. Left to myself now, I speedily resolved this case into a few suppositions, positive to me as facts. The girl had been present at the murder. She was not naturally reticent; was instead an exceptionally confiding, credulous woman. Her motive for silence, therefore, must have been a force brought to bear on her at the time of the murder stronger than her love for Merrick, and which was still existing and active. Her refusal to meet her lover I readily interpreted to be a fear of her own weakness—dread lest she should betray this secret to him. Might not her refusal to marry him be caused by the same fear—some crushing disgrace or misery which threatened her through the murder, and which she feared to bring upon her husband P The motive I had guessed to be strong as her love ; what if it were her love ? Having stepped from surmise to surmise so far, I paused to strengthen my position by the facts. There were but two ways in which this murder could have prevented her marriage—through Merrick’s guilt or her own. His innocence was proven; hers I did not doubt after I had again carefully studied her face. Concealed guilt leaves its .'secret signature upon the mouth and eye in lines never to be mistaken by a man who has once learned to read them. Were there but these two ways ? There was a third, more probable than either — fear . At the first presentation of this key to the riddle the whole case mapped itself out before me. The murderer had sealed her lips by some threat. He was still living and she was in daily expectation of meeting him. She had never seen his face, but had reason to believe him of her own class. (This supposition I based on her quick, terrified inspection of every man’s face who approached her.) Now what threat could have been strong enough to keep a weak girl silent for years, and to separate her from her lover on their wedding day ? I knew women well enough to say, none against herself ; the threat I believed hung over Merrick’s head, and would be fulfilled if she betrayed the secret or married him, which, with weak, loving woman, was equivalent, as any man would know, to betrayal. I cannot attempt to make the breaks in the reasoning solid ground for my readers; it was solid ground for me. The next morning Beardsley met me on leaving the breakfast table. He held a letter open in his hand, and looked annoyed and anxious. “ Here’s a note from Merrick. He sailed a week sooner than he expected—has left New York, and will be here to-night. If 1 had only put the case in your hands earlier! I bad a hope that you would clear the little girl. But it’s too late. She’ll take flight as soon as she hears he is coming. Scheffer says it’s a miserable, bloody muddle, and that I was wrong to stir it up,” " I do not agree with Dr. Scheffer,” I said, quietly. “I am going now to the library. In half an hour send Miss Waring to me. “ You have not yet been presented to her ?” «So much the better. I wish her to regard me as a lawyer simply. State to her as formally as you choose who I am, and that I desire to see her on business.” I seated myself in the library ; placed pen and ink, and some legal looking documents, selected at random, before me. Red tape and the formal pomp of law constitute half its force with women and men of Louisa’s calibre. I had hardly arranged myself and my materials, when the door slowly opened, and she entered. She was alarmed, yet wary. To see a naturally hearty, merry little body subjected for years to this nervous strain, wiih a tragic idea forced into a brain meant to be busied only with dress, cookery, or babies, appeared to me a pitiful thing. “ Miss Waring?” reducing the ordinary courtesies to a curt, grave nod. “Be seated, if you please.” I turned over my papers slowly, and then looked up at her. I had—l saw—none of the common feminine shrewdness to deal with ; need expect no subtle devices of concealment; no clever doublings; nothing but the sheer obstinacy which is an unintellectual woman s one resource. I would ignore it and her—boldly assume full possession of the ground at the first word. " My errand to this house. Miss Waring, is in part the investigation of a murder in 1856, of which you were the sole witness—that of Houston Simms —” I stopped. The change in her face appalled me. She had evidently not expected so direct an attack. In fact, Beardsley told me afterward that it was the first time the subject had been broached to her in plain words. However, she made no reply, and I proceeded in the same formal tone :

“ I shall place before you the facts which are in my possession, and require your assent to such as are within your knowledge. On the afternoon of Tuesday, sth October, 1854, Houston Simms left the Pine Yalley station, carrying a valise, containing a large sum of money. You —” She had been sitting on the other side of the table, looking steadily at me. She rose now. She wore a blue morning dress, with lace ruffles and other little fooleries in which women delight, and I remember being shocked with the strange contrast between this frippery and the speechless dread and misery of her face. She gained control of her voice with difficulty. “ Who has said that I was a witness of the murder?” she gasped. "I always explained that I was in another part of the wood. I went to Aunty Huldah—” " Pray do not interrupt me. Miss Waring. I am aware that you were the witness —the sole witness—in this matter. (She did not contradict mo. I was right in my first guess—she had been alone with the murderer.) On returning from your nurse’s cabin you left the direct path and followed the sound of angry voices to the gorge by Mill’s spring—” “ I did not go to play the spy. He lied when ho said that,” she cried, feebly. “ I horrd the steps, and thought that Colonel Merrick had come to search for me.” “That matters nothing. You saw the deed done. The old man was killed, and then robbed, in your sight.”—l came toward her, and lowered my voice to a stern, judicial whisper, while the poor girl shrank back as though I were Law iiself uttering judgment upon her. If she had known what stagy guesswork it all was ! " When you were discovered, the murderer would have shot you to ensure your silence.” “ I wish he had ! 11 was Thad who would have done that. The white man’s way was more cruel—oh, Cod knows it was more cruel!”

(There were two then.) I was very sorry for the girl, but I had a keen pleasure in the slow unfolding of the secret, just as I

suppose the physician takes delight in the study of a new disease, even if it kills the patient.

“ Yes,” I said, with emphasis. “ I believe that it would have been less suffering for you, Miss Waring, to have died then than to have lived, forced as you were to renounce your lover, and to carry about with you the dread of the threat made by those men.” “ I have not said there was a threat made. I have betrayed nothing.” She had seated herself some time before by the table. There was a large bronze inkstand before her, and as she listened she arranged some half dozen pens evenly on the rest. The words she heard and spoke mattered more to her than life or death ; her features were livid as those of a corpse, yet her hands went on with their mechanical work—one pen did not project a hair’s breadth beyond the other. We lawyers know how common such puerile, commonplace actions are in the supreme moments of life, and how seldom men wring their hands, or use tragic gesture, or indeed words. “ No, you have betrayed nothing,” I said, firmly. “Your self-control has been remarkable, even when we remember that you believed your confession would be followed by speedy vengeance, not on your head, but on Celonel Merrick’s.” She looked up, not able to speak for a minute. “ You—you know all ?” “ Not all, but enough to assure you that your time of suffering is over. You can speak freely unharmed.” Her head dropped on the table. She was crying, and, I think, praying. “ You saw Houston Simms killed by two men, one of whom, the negro Thad, you know. The white man’s face was covered. You did not recognise him. But he knew you, and the surest way to compel you to silence. I wish you now to state to me all the details of this man’s appearance, voice, and manner, to show me any letters which you have received from him since ” (a random guess, which I saw hit the mark) “ in short, every circumstance which you can recall about him.” She did not reply. “ My dear Miss Waring, you need have no fear on Colonel Merrick’s account. The law has taken this matter out of your hands. Colonel Merrick is protected by the law.” “ Oh ! I did not understand," meekly. To be brief, she told me the whole story, When she reached the spring, she had found the old man bleeding and still breathing. He died in her arms. The men who had gone back into the laurel to open the valise, came back upon her. The negro was a desperate character, well known in the country. He had died two years later. The other man was masked and thoroughly disguised. He had stopped the negro when he would have killed her, and after a few minutes consultation had whispered to him the terms upon which she was allowed to escape. “You did not hear the white man’s

voice P” “Not once.” “ Bring me the letters you have received from him.” She brought two miserably spelled and written scrawls on soiled bits of paper. It was the writing of an educated man, poorly disguised. He threatened to meet her speedily. Warning her that he had spies constantly about her. “ That is all the evidence you can give me ?” “ All.” She arose to go. I held the door open for her, when she hesitated. “ There was something more —a mere trifle.” “ Yes. But most likely the one thing that I want.” “ I returned to the spring again and again for months after. People thought I was mad. I may have been; but I found there one day a bit of reddish glass with a curious mark on it.” “ You have it here ?” She brought it to me. It was a fragment of engraved sardonyx, apparently part of a seal; the upper part of a head was cut upon it, the short hairs curving forward on the low forehead showed that the head was that of Hercules Some old recollection rose in my brain, beginning, as I may say, to gnaw uncertainly. I went to my room for a few minutes to collect myself, and then sought Beardsley. He was pacing up and down the walk to the stables, agitated as though he had been the murderer. “Well, Floyd, well! What chance is there ? What have you discovered ?” “ Everything, One moment. I have a question or two to ask you. About ten years ago you commissioned me to buy for you in New York a seal—an intaglio of great value—a head of Hercules, as I remember. What did you do with it ?’’ “ Gave it to Job Scheffer, William’s father. Will has it now, though I think it is broken.” “ Very well. What have Dr. Scheffer’s habits been, by the way ? Was he as fond of turning the cards as the other young fellows P” “ Oh, yes, poor boy ! There was a rumour some years ago that he was frightfully involved in Baltimore—that it would ruin the old man, in fact, to clear off his debts of honour.. But it died out. I suppose William found some way of straightening them out.” “ Probably. Where is Dr, Scheffer now ? I have a message for him.” "In his room. But this matter of Louisa Waring ” ” Presently. Have patience.” I went up to the young man’s room. After all, the poor wretch was dying, and to compel him to blast his own honourable name seemed to be brutal cruelty. I had to remember the poor girl’s wasted face and hopeless eyes before I could summon courage to open the door after I had knocked. I think he expected me, and knew all that I had to say. A man in health would soon have known that I was acting on surmise, and defied me to the proof. Scheffer, I fancied, had been creeping through life for years with death in two shapes pursuing him, step by step. He yielded, cowed, submissive at the first touch, and only pleaded feebly for mercy. The negro had been his body servant, knew his desperate straits, and dragged him into the crime. Then, he had loved Louisa; he was maddened by her approaching marriage. The scheme of ensuring her silence and driving Merrick away was the inspiration of a moment, and had succeeded. He only asked for mercy. His time was short. Ho could not live beyond a few weeks. I would not bring him to the gallows. I was merciful, and I think was right to be so. His deposition was taken before his uncle, Mr. Beardsley, who was a magistrate, and two other men of position and weight in the community. It was to be kept secret until after his death, and then made public. He was removed at once to his father’s house. On Colonel Merrick’s arrival that evening, this deposition was formally read to him. I do not think it impressed him very much. He was resolved to marry Miss Waring in spite of every obstacle.

“But I never would have married you unless the truth had been discovered—never,” she said to him that evening, as they stood near me in the drawing room. Her cheeks were warm, and her dark eyes full of tender light. I thought her a very lovely woman. “ Then I owe you to Mr. Floyd after all ?” he said, looking down at her fondly. “ Oh, I suppose so,” with a shrug. “ But he is a very disagreeable person! Cast-iron, you know. lam so thankful you are not a lawyer, Paul. — Exchange.