The Mark of Cain

“Mrs. Black?”

“Yes.”

“Preposterous! Incredible!”

“Not at all. Mrs. Black was engaged to your uncle, but she did not love him. She was marrying for a fortune. Then she heard that Landon, whom she has known for years, was coming East, and she connived with Stryker to put the old gentleman out of the way.”

“Uncle Rowly was only in the fifties, that is not old.”

“Old compared with Kane Landon. And as I told you, Miss Trowbridge, this is largely theory. But many facts support it, and it ought to be looked into.”

“Then the thing to do, is to lay it before Judge Hoyt. He will know what is the best way to sift the theory to a conclusion.”

But when the three were together in Hoyt’s office, and Duane told the whole story of his interview with Jim Lindsay, the detective laid aside his pretence of still suspecting Stryker and enumerated his reasons for looking in the direction of Landon.

“That must be a true bill about his meeting that adventuress in the library,” he argued; “it couldn’t have been anybody else but Mrs. Black.”

“Why couldn’t it?” Avice spoke fiercely, and her brown eyes were full of indignant amazement at the tale Duane had told.

“Lindsay saw her picture in the papers, and anyway, it all fits in. You see, those two were pals in Denver, and they kept it quiet. That’s enough to rouse suspicion in itself. The old butler is no sort of a suspect. To be sure he wanted the money to get his insurance before the time was up, but he wouldn’t commit murder for that – ”

“Why wouldn’t he?” demanded Avice, “as likely as that a man’s own nephew would do it?”

“He isn’t an own nephew,” said Judge Hoyt, slowly. “I don’t want to subscribe to your theory, Duane, but I’m startled at this library story. Of course, Landon had a right to meet anybody he chose and wherever he chose, but why keep secret his previous acquaintance with the widow?”

“He might have lots of good reasons for that,” and Avice looked pleadingly at the judge. “Don’t you turn against him, Leslie; you know him too well to think him capable of crime.”

“Of the two I would rather it had been Stryker,” said the judge, “but we can’t ignore definite evidence like this. Did Mrs. Black go out that afternoon, Avice?”

“Yes,” replied the girl, unwillingly. “She went out soon after luncheon and stayed about an hour.”

“Time to go to the library and back. Duane, you’re drawing a long bow, to jump at the conclusion that the housekeeper took a handkerchief of Stryker’s, to be used as a false clue that would incriminate the butler! It’s almost too much of a prearranged performance.”

“Of course it is!” cried Avice. “Kane is a firebrand and impulsive and hotheaded, but he’s not a deliberate criminal! If he killed Uncle Rowly, – which he never did, never! – he did it in the heat of a quarrel, or under some desperate provocation. I wish you had never come to us, Mr. Duane! I don’t want Stryker found guilty, but I’d a thousand times rather he did it than Kane. I dismiss you, Mr. Duane. You may give up the case, and tell no one of these wrong and misleading circumstances you’ve discovered.”

“Wait, wait, Avice,” and Judge Hoyt spoke very gently; “we can’t lay aside evidence in that way. These things must be looked into. They must be told to the district attorney, and investigated, then if Landon is innocent, as he doubtless is, he can explain all that now looks dark against him.”

“Don’t accuse him!” flared Avice, “go to Eleanor Black, and ask her what was in the parcel she took to Kane. She is the wrongdoer, if either of them is. She telephoned him that night of Uncle’s death, and she said – ”

“What did she say?” asked Hoyt, as Avice stopped short.

Compelled by the insistent glances of the two men, Avice went on: “She said she’d meet him the next day at the same time and place. That proves there was nothing wrong about it.”

It didn’t prove this conclusively to her two listeners, and they quizzed her further until she admitted that she had reason to think that Landon and Mrs. Black had known each other before Avice had introduced them.

“How do you explain that,” asked Duane, “unless they were concealing something, – some plan or a secret of some sort?”

“And suppose they were! It needn’t have been anything connected with Uncle Rowly’s death. If they knew each other in Denver, all the more likely they had business of some sort that they didn’t care to have known.”

The girl was arguing against her own suspicions as much as against theirs. A terrible fear clutched at her heart, and surging emotions choked her speech. For, as she pictured Kane as a suspected criminal, came the even more heartrending thought that he was in love with Eleanor Black! Quickly to Avice’s sensitive intuitions came the conviction that Landon would not be holding secret conferences and having secrets with Eleanor unless they were or had been lovers. And yet, he had told Avice he loved her. But, granting all this she was hearing today, what faith could she put in his speech or actions?

“I can only repeat what I said, Mr. Duane,” she asserted, with dignity, “I hereby release you from your engagement on this case, and I will willingly pay you for the time you have wasted, – worse than wasted! And I hope never to see you again!” Here Avice was unable longer to control her tears.

Greatly distressed, Judge Hoyt attempted to soothe her, but met only with rebuff.

“You’re just as bad,” she sobbed. “You, too, want to prove Kane mixed up in this, when you know he isn’t – he couldn’t be! – ”

“There, Avice, there, dear, dry your eyes and go home now. I will talk this over with Mr. Duane, and if there is any way of disproving or discrediting this evidence, rest assured – ”

“Oh, can you do that, Leslie?” and the girl looked up hopefully; “isn’t there a thing called ‘striking out’ anything you don’t want to use against a person?”

“That’s a broad view of it,” and Judge Hoyt smiled a little, “but you run along, dear, and after a confab with Mr. Duane, I’ll come up and tell you all about it.”

The confab wound up by a trip to the office of the district attorney. The situation was too grave to allow of what Avice called “striking out”! If Landon and Mrs. Black were implicated in suspicious collusion, the matter must be sifted to the bottom.

District Attorney Whiting eagerly absorbed the new facts recounted to him, and fitted them into some he had of his own knowledge.

Landon had sent fifty thousand dollars to the mining company of Denver in which he was interested. He had not yet realized on his inheritance, for the estate had not been settled, but he had doubtless borrowed on his prospective legacy. This proved nothing, except that he had been most anxious for the large sum of money, and had utilized his acquisition of it as soon as possible.

“We must get at this thing adroitly,” counseled Judge Hoyt. “Landon is a peculiar chap, and difficult to bait. If he thinks we suspect him, he’s quite capable of bolting, I think. Better try to trip up the housekeeper. She’s a vain woman, amenable to flattery. Perhaps if Mr. Groot went to her, ostensibly suspecting, – say, Stryker, – he could learn something about her relations with Landon. And by the way, how are you going to find Stryker?”

“Through his daughter,” Whiting replied. “That butler is no more the murderer than I am; and he is hiding, because he’s afraid of that handkerchief clue.”

“It is certainly an incriminating piece of evidence,” observed Hoyt.

“It is. But not against the butler. That handkerchief is a plant. On the face of it, it is certainly too plain an indication to be the real thing. No, sir, the murderer, whoever he was, stole the butler’s handkerchief to throw suspicion on the butler. And who could do this so easily as the housekeeper, or some member of the household, who had access to Stryker’s room? Landon wasn’t at the house, that we know of, before the murder, therefore, the theory of the housekeeper bringing the handkerchief to him at their library interview, just fits in and makes it all plausible.”

“It may be,” said Judge Hoyt, looking doubtful; “it may possibly be, Whiting; but go slowly. Don’t jump at this, to me, rather fantastic solution. Track it down pretty closely, before you spring it on the public.”

“All of that, Judge Hoyt! I’ve no idea of spiking my own guns by telling all this too soon. But there’s work to be done, and first of all we must find that butler. If he can be made to think we don’t accuse him, he’ll come round, and we may learn a lot from him. We missed our chances in not questioning him more closely at first.”

Meantime Avice had gone home, and on the way, her mood had changed from sorrow to anger. She was angry at herself for having insisted on the employing of Alvin Duane. She remembered how Kane had opposed it, but she was so zealous in her hunt for justice that she ignored all objections. She was angry at Kane for hobnobbing with Eleanor Black, and also for deceiving her about their previous acquaintance. She was angry at Eleanor for knowing Kane and pretending that they were strangers. She was angry at Judge Hoyt for not dismissing Duane and obliterating even from his own memory all that stuff the detective had discovered. She was furiously angry at Duane, but that was a helpless, blind sort of rage that reacted upon herself for engaging him.

And so, her tears had dried and her quivering nerves had tautened themselves when she reached the house, and she went in, determined to attack Eleanor Black herself, and learn the truth of her acquaintance with Kane.

But as soon as she entered, she came upon Landon and Mrs. Black in the little reception room, in close confab.

“Come in,” said the widow, “come in and talk to us.”

“We won’t have time for much conversation,” said Landon, looking at his watch, “I want Mrs. Black to go out with me on an errand. May I order the car?”

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Black, smiling. “I want all my guests to feel at liberty to give any orders they choose.” Her smile included Avice and gave the girl that uncomfortable feeling that always manifested itself when the ex-housekeeper asserted herself as mistress of the place.

“Please, Avice, don’t look like that,” said Eleanor, with an injured air. “I want you to look on this house as home just as long as you choose to do so. And, indeed, you may continue in charge of it, if that is what you want.”

“Car’s here,” sang out Landon. “Come on, Eleanor.”

“Eleanor!” thought Avice, as the two went away. She had never heard him call her that before, and it struck her like a chill. And yet she felt sure there was a strong friendship, if not something deeper between them, and she must be prepared for even endearing terms.