The Mark of Cain

“What rubbish! I wrote Mr. Trowbridge the day before, that I was going. The letter was found in his pocket.”

“Where you placed it yourself after the murder!” shot back Stone.

“Ridiculous! I also telegraphed to – ”

“The telegram was faked. I have examined it myself, and it is typewritten in imitation of the usual form, but it never went through the company’s hands. That, too, you placed in Mr. Rowland’s pocket after, – after the cane killed him! You remember, Mr. District Attorney, a lead pencil was found on the ground at the scene of the crime. I am prepared to prove this pencil the property of Judge Hoyt. And this is my proof. Until the day of the crime, Judge Hoyt had been in the habit of using a patent sharpener to sharpen his lead pencils. I have learned from Judge Hoyt’s Japanese servant, that the day after the murder, Judge Hoyt discarded that sharpener, and used a knife. This was to do away with any suspicion that might rest on him as owner of the pencil. On that very date, he resharpened, with a penknife, all his pencils and thus cleverly turned the tide of suspicion.”

“Also a clever feat, the finding of this out,” murmured Whiting.

“The credit for that is due to the lad, McGuire,” said Stone. “At the time of the inquest, the boy noticed the pencil, particularly; and afterward, telling me of his surmises, I looked up the matter and found the proof. Again, the man I accuse, secured a handkerchief from Stryker’s room, and carried it away for the purpose of incriminating the butler. It seems, owing to a past secret, the butler was in the power of Judge Hoyt. However, circumstances led suspicion in other directions. The tell-tale handkerchief seemed to point first to the Swedish couple. Later it seemed to point to the butler, Stryker, and later still, was used as a point against Kane Landon. But it is really the curse that has come home to roost where it belongs, as a condemnation of Judge Leslie Hoyt. This arch criminal planned so cleverly and carried out his schemes so carefully, that he overreached himself. His marvelously complete alibi is too perfect. His diabolical skill in arranging his spurious letter, telegram, newspaper, and finally a picture postcard, which I shall tell of shortly, outdid itself, and his excessive care was his own undoing. But, in addition to these points, I ask you to hear the tale of young McGuire, who has suffered at the hands of Judge Hoyt, not only injustice and inconvenience, but attempted crime.”

Fibsy was allowed to tell his own story, and half shy, half frightened, he began.

“At first, Judge Hoyt he wanted me to go to woik in Philadelphia, an’ I thought it was queer, but I went, an’ I discovered he was payin’ me wages himself. That was funny, an’ it was what gimme the foist steer. So I came back to New York an’ I stayed here, makin’ b’lieve me aunt needed me. So then one day, Judge Hoyt, he took me to dinner at a restaurant, sayin’ he took a notion to me, an’ wanted me to learn to be a gent’man. Well, when we had coffee, he gimme a little cup foist, an’ then he put some sugar in it fer me. Well, I seen the sugar was diffrunt – ”

“Different from what?” asked Whiting.

“From the rest’rant sugar. That was smooth an’ oblong, and what the judge put into my cup, was square lumps, and rougher on the sides. So I s’picioned sumpin was wrong, an’ I didn’t drink that coffee. I left it on the table. An’ soon’s I reached the street I ran back fer me paper, what I’d left on poipose, and I told the waiter to save that cup o’ coffee fer evidence in a moider trial. An’ he did, an’ Mr. Stone he’s had it examined, an’ it’s full of – of what, Mr. Stone?”

“Of nitro-glycerine,” asserted Stone, gravely.

“Yes, sir, Judge Hoyt tried to kill me, he did.” Fibsy’s big blue eyes were dark with the thrill of his subject rather than fear now. He was absorbed in his recital, and went steadily on, his manner and tone, unlettered and unschooled though they were, carrying absolute conviction of truth.

“When I seen that queer sugar goin’ in me cup, me thinker woiked like lightnin’ an’ I knew it meant poison. So I thunk quickly how to nail the job onto him, and I did. Then soon after that, I was kidnapped. A telephone call told me Mr. Stone was waitin’ fer me in a taxi, and when I flew meself to it, it wasn’t Mr. Stone at all, but a Japanese feller, name o’ Kite. He took me to a swell house, and locked me in. If I tried any funny business he gave me a joo jitsy, till I quit tryin’. Well, I didn’t know whose house it was, but I’ve sence found out it was Judge Hoyt’s. He lived with his sister an’ she’s away, but the Jap told me it was another man’s house. Well, in that house, I found one o’ them postcard pictures o’ Judge Hoyt in the Philadelphia station. I didn’t think even then, ’bout me bein’ in his house, I just thought maybe it was a friend o’ hisen. But when I ’zamined that picture, I saw the judge had pertended it was took a diffrunt date from what it was. Now, I thought he kinda lugged it in by the ears when he showed it to me anyway, an’ I began to s’picion he meant to make me think sumpin’ what wasn’t so. ’Course that could only be that he wasn’t in Phil’delphia when he said he was. An’ he wasn’t.”

Fibsy’s quietly simple statements were more dramatic than if he had been more emphatic, and the audience listened, spellbound.

Judge Hoyt sat like a graven image. He neither denied nor admitted anything, one might almost say he looked slightly amused, but a trembling hand, and a constant gnawing of his quivering lip told the truth to a close observer.

“And you were held prisoner in Judge Hoyt’s house, how long?”

“Nearly a week.”

“And then?”

“Then I jumped down a clothes chute, and ran out on the basement door.”

“A clothes chute? You mean a laundry slide?”

“Yes, sir. I’m told it’s that. I didn’t know what it was. Only it was a way out.”

“You jumped?”

“Well, I sorter slid. I threw down pillers and mattresses first, so it was soft.”

“You are a clever boy.”

“No, sir, it ain’t that,” and Fibsy looked embarrassed. “You see, I got that detective instick, an’ I can’t help a usin’ of it. You see, it was me what got Miss Trowbridge to send for Mr. Stone, an’ then Judge Hoyt he tried to head him off.”

“How?”

“Well, I jest knew for pos’tive certain sure, that this case was too big fer anybody to sling but Mr. Stone. Well, I got Miss Trowbridge to send fer him, and Judge Hoyt he told Miss Avice, Mr. Stone was outa town. Then I said I seen him on the street the day before, an’ we called him up, an’ he was right there on the spot, but said he’d had a telegram not to come. Well, Judge Hoyt, he sent that telegram. But the way I got Miss Avice to do it in the first place, was to get me Aunt Becky to go to her an’ tell her she’d had a revelation, and fer Miss Avice to go to a clairvoyant. Well, an’ so Miss Avice did, an’ that clairvoyant she told her to get Mr. Stone. You see, the clairvoyant, Maddum Isis, she’s a friend of me Aunt Becky’s, so we three fixed it up between us, and Miss Avice went an’ got Mr. Stone. If I’d a tried any other way, Judge Hoyt he’d found a way to prevent Mr. Stone from comin’ ’cause he knew he’d do him up.”

“This is a remarkable tale, – ”

“But true in every particular,” averred Fleming Stone. “This boy has done fine work, and deserves great credit. The final proof, I think, of the guilt of Judge Hoyt, is the fact that the cane found in his room exactly fits a round mark found in the soil at the scene of the crime and cut from the earth, and carefully preserved by McGuire. Also, a shoe button found there corresponds with the buttons on shoes found in Judge Hoyt’s dressing room. And it seems to me the most logical construction is put upon the dying words of Rowland Trowbridge, when we conclude that he meant he was killed by a cane, thus describing the weapon. Judge Hoyt also is conversant with the Latin names of the specimens of natural history which Mr. Trowbridge was in the habit of collecting, and it was he, of course, who telephoned about the set trap and the Scaphinotus. And, as his motive was to win the hand of Miss Trowbridge by means of a forged clause in her uncle’s will, we can have no further doubts.”

“You have done marvelous work, Mr. Stone,” said the judge on the bench. “And you say this young lad helped you?”

“No, your Honor, I helped him. He noticed clues and points about the case at once. But he could persuade no one to take him seriously, and finally, Judge Hoyt, for reasons of his own, sent the boy to a lucrative position out of the town.”

There were many details to be attended to, much business to be transacted, and many proofs to be looked up. But first of all the name of Kane Landon was cleared and the prisoner set free.

Leslie Hoyt was arrested and held for trial.

As Avice passed him on her way out of the courtroom, he detained her to say: “You know why I did it! I’ve told you I would do anything for you! I’m not sorry, I’m only sorry I failed!” His eyes showed a hard glitter, and Avice shrank away, as if from a maniac, which indeed he looked.

“Brave up, Miss Avice,” whispered Fibsy, who saw the girl pale and tremble. “You orta be so glad Mr. Landon is out you’d forget Judge Hoyt!”

“Yes, brave up, darling,” added Landon, overhearing. “At last I can love you with a clear conscience. If I had known that clause about your marriage was not uncle’s wish, how different it would have been! But I couldn’t ask you for yourself, if by that you lost your fortune!”

“Why wouldn’t you straightforwardly tell me you were innocent, Kane?” asked Avice as they rode home together.

“I couldn’t, dear. I know I was foolish, but the fact of your doubting me even enough to ask me, made me so furious, I couldn’t breathe! Didn’t you know I couldn’t kill Uncle Rowly?”

“I did know it, truly I did, Kane; but I was crazy; I wasn’t myself all those dreadful days!”

“And you won’t be now, if you stay here! I’m going to marry you all up, and take you far away on a long trip, right now, before we hear anything more about Leslie Hoyt and his wickedness!”

“I’d love to go away, Kane; but I can’t be married in such a hurry. Let’s go on a trip, and take Mrs. Black for chaperone, and then get married when I say so!”

This plan didn’t suit Landon so well as his own, but he was coerced into submission by the love of his liege lady, and the trip was planned.

Fibsy was greatly honored and praised. But the peculiar character of the boy made him oblivious to compliments.

“I don’t care about bookays, Miss Avice,” he said, earnestly; when she praised him, “just to have saved Mr. Landon an’ you is enough. An’ to knock the spots out o’ Judge Hoyt! But it’s the game that gets me. The whole detective business! I’m goin’ to be a big one, like Mr. Stone. Gee! Miss Avice, did you catch on to how he ran Judge Hoyt down, the minute I gave him the steer? That’s the trick! Oh, he’s a hummer, F. Stone is! An’ he’s goin’ to let me work with him, sometimes!”

Fibsy spoke the last words in a hushed, rapt tone, as if scarcely daring to believe them himself.

“But I say,” he went on suddenly; “what about that guy as telephoned and called Mr. Trowbridge ‘Uncle’?”

“It wasn’t I,” said Landon; “I called up uncle that afternoon, but couldn’t get him.”

“Then I know,” said Avice. “It was Judge Hoyt. You see,” and she blushed as she looked at Landon, “he was so sure he would marry me, he frequently said ‘uncle’ to my uncle. And Uncle Rowly sometimes called him, ‘nephew’. They used to do it to tease me.”

“Your uncle really wanted you to marry him, then?” and Landon looked anxious.

“Yes, he did. But not to the extent of putting it in his will! Uncle often said to me, that as I didn’t seem to care for any one else I might as well marry Leslie.”