University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE MURDER OF SIDNEY.

Mr. Boggs was seated in his office on the ensuing morning,
lamenting the dearth of business, and the increase of
legal practitioners, when he received an unexpected call
from a busy, prattling little constable, who had frequently
thrown business in his way, and who received in turn the
lawyer's influence in retaining him in his official position.

“Ralph Werter is one of your men, isn't he?” said the
visiter.

“Yes, he has been my client.”

“And a pretty good one he must be—he is as rich as a
Jew.”

“Yes—and as close—but what of him? Speak, what
have you to say?”

“Perth was seen to come out of his house late last night
with one of his clerks.”

“Well?”

“Well, I have been thinking what it could all mean—I
don't know, of course, but there is something secret going
on. At any rate, I thought, if Mr. Perth was trying to
get away one of your clients, it was best for you to know
it, and be on your guard.”

The spy knew nothing of the state of affairs existing
between Ralph and his nephew, and had no remote suspicion
of the real bearings of his tidings. Not so with
Boggs, whose eyes kindled with a strange light for a moment,

as he listened to his companion's words, and then as
suddenly changed their expression.

“Nonsense, Harvey,” he said; “it has been only a
friendly visit to the poor boy, who is lying very ill—at any
rate, if Werter prefers Perth to me, let him have him. He
is a miserly old fellow at the best.”

But no sooner had the constable withdrawn, a little
dashed by the reception which his intelligence had met
with, than the lawyer closed the book of reports, which for
appearance sake had been lying open before him, and,
taking his hat, started out. He knew enough of the position
of Werter's affairs to have his suspicions fully excited
by such a piece of intelligence as he had just received, for
Mr. Boggs, although not a man of talents, usually had his
few wits about him, and was quick at tracing the connections
and bearings of incidents upon each other. That
Hugh Werter's great estate had descended to an only son,
and that Ralph Werter would be the legal heir of the boy,
if the latter died before he attained the age of manhood,
he had long known; but he did not know Sidney's age, nor
the extremity of his illness, nor had he any reason to suppose
that there was any antagonism between the uncle and
nephew. But he knew Perth to be a shrewd lawyer, whose
actions usually had some meaning, and his visit to the invalid,
accompanied by one of his students, at once naturally
suggested to Boggs the idea of a will. This of itself would
not have excited his attention, any further than to awaken
his ire that he himself had not been called upon to write
the document, for he had no reason to suppose but that
the lad would bequeath his property chiefly to his uncle;
but the fact that the legal visit was at a late hour of the
night suggested the idea of secrecy and mystery. Something
might be occurring unknown to Ralph—something
which it would be of great service for him to know. The

attorney resolved, at least, to sound his client on the subject.
He called forthwith to see him, under some pretext
of inquiry about rents, for it was easy to feign business
with so extensive a landholder, and he was shown into the
business room or office of the guardian, who was pacing
the floor with a look of uneasiness. Ralph had been accustomed
to look to the lawyer for assistance, and at the
first sight of him the idea of relief in some way from his
present difficulties suggested itself to him; but he immediately
dismissed the thought, for his trouble did not admit
even of a confidant. He, however, received the lawyer in
a friendly manner, listened, though impatiently, to his inquiries,
answered them hastily, and then waited to see him
withdraw. But Boggs manifested no such design.

“How is your nephew?” he asked, after a pause.

“Breathing his last,” said Ralph; “the poor boy is not
expected to live from one hour to the next.”

“Ah, is it possible?—in `articulo mortis'—well, we
must all come to it,” answered the lawyer, in a solemn
voice, but with a look of cold calculation in his eye, for he
was thinking how far this added confirmation to his views.
“He is not of age, I believe.”

Werter started as if he had received an electric shock,
but he partly recovered himself before he spoke.

“No—he is not.”

“Is Mr. Perth a relative or particular friend of your
nephew?”

“No—I do not think Sidney knows him. Why do
you ask?”

“Does not Mr. Perth visit him?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, I had a reason, but it is of no consequence—
particularly if your nephew is not of age.”

“Boggs,” exclaimed the old man, with much agitation,

“you know something which you have come here expressly
to tell me. Let me hear it, and instantly.”

“It is really of not the slightest importance, if, as
I said—”

“If me no ifs—tell me what you know, on pain of my
displeasure, or in hope of my reward, if you will. You
shall not be disappointed. Suppose my nephew is of age
—suppose that he becomes so to-morrow,” said Ralph,
desperately, “what then?”

“Then it was probably not for nothing that Counsellor
Perth and one of his students were with him late last
night, and were seen to leave your house long past midnight.”

“What do you say, Boggs?” exclaimed the old man,
whiter than the wall against which he leaned. “Do you
mean to tell me this is truth?”

“Yes.”

“But it cannot have been done—I cannot be mistaken
in the day—here it is,” he continued, taking down a very
old family Bible, which had belonged to the mother of
Sidney, and the leaves of which shook and rattled so under
his trembling hands, that he could with difficulty find the
place he sought—“there it is—the 16th of March!
They have made a mistake, Boggs—it won't do them any
good, hey?”

Eagerness is a faint word to express the manner in which
this was said and done—it was fierceness, almost madness
of tone and action—appalling the attorney with the magnitude
of the mine which he had accidentally sprung.

“It can't do them any good, can it?” repeated Werter,
grasping the attorney by the shoulder and looking fiercely
into his eyes.

“If you mean that a will executed by a minor can have
no efficacy,” replied the lawyer, with judicial deliberation,

“you are certainly right—nothing can be more clear.
But they may be only making preparations—the lawyer
may have been receiving his instructions how to write it.”

“That is it—that is it.”

“When did you say Sidney will be of age?”

“To-morrow. Oh, not till to-morrow, and it is almost
impossible he should live through another day.”

“Another day? But this is not necessary for their
purpose, if to-morrow is his birth-day.”

“You do not mean to say he can do any binding, legal
act until the day is finished, or at least until the hour
which completes his twenty-first year?”

“You are mistaken here, my dear sir. There is an
old legal adge, that the law does not regard the fractions
of a day. Your nephew will be of age at twelve o'clock
to-night.”

“Good Heavens! Is this so, Mr. Boggs?—in less than
twelve hours from this moment!—and everything is ready
in advance! They have been plotting secretly against
me; but I will disappoint them. My doors shall be closed
against them. Not a soul shall enter—and that young
traitor Jay shall quit my house directly.”

“Do no such thing—you will injure yourself. Besides,
Perth cannot be baffled in this way. He would have Sidney
removed at midnight, the very moment that your guardianship,
and consequently your control over him ceases.
Something else—”

A strange expression passed over Ralph's face—it was
momentary—it was like nothing the attorney had ever seen
or dreamed of before in the human countenance. Boggs
shuddered.

When Werter next spoke, it was with a change of tone,
and with something like calmness.

“We may be mistaken, after all,” he said; “I know no

reason why Sidney should seek to divert the estate from
the course which the law wisely points out for it, nor do I
believe he will. Besides, it is most probable he will not
live the day out; but if it proves otherwise—so it must be
—I must submit to fate.”

This sudden resignation of a man so recently maddened
with fear, excited the suspicions of the shrewd lawyer,
which were not lessened when the old man suddenly
broke up the interview, by pleading a business engagement.

No sooner had the visiter gone than Werter's carriage
was ordered, and before it was ready, his bell was rung
three times, to inquire why it was so long delayed. Hastily,
almost frantically, he paced his room, and those who
saw him pass to his carriage thought some sudden illness
had seized him, so blanched, were his features, so wild
the expression of his eye.

“To Grand street—drive fast,” he said, in a husky
voice, to the coachman, as the steps were put up and the
door closed, and at the next instant the vehicle was rapidly
rattling in the direction named; Grand street was gained, the
coach was dismissed, and Werter pursued his way on foot.
Far, much farther, than he had ridden, although that was
a long way, he went down Grand street to Cherry, down
Cherry to its most obscure quarter, and paused before a
door where a battered tin sign gave notice that a physician's
and surgeon's office was within. Ralph entered, passed
up a flight of stairs, and knocking at a door on the first
landing, was bid in a voice of no polite intonation to enter.
He obeyed, and in the dingy room, seated before a very
dusty table, which was dotted with half-filled vials and
gallipots, he saw the man he sought, and whom he had
sought once before, Dr. Brail. The physician, who rose

hastily and greeted his visiter with cordiality, was a man
of middle age, shabbily dressed, but with an intelligent
aspect and gentlemanly manners. He handed Ralph the
rickety chair in which he had been seated, took another
still worse for himself, closed a large book in which he had
been reading, and in which he left a spatula to mark his
place, and then waited anxiously to hear the object of his
visiter's call, for that it was no common one he knew very
well.

“This is not the style of office you used to have in
Broadway, Brail,” said Ralph, with the air of an old acquaintance.

The physician winced. “No, not quite,” he said.

“And yet it seems to me there would be no difficulty
in a man of your talents establishing yourself there again.
Those old affairs are forgotten now, or rather they were
never known by one in ten of the present community.”

The slightest perceptible blush tinged the Doctor's
cheeks, as he replied, excitedly—

“Of course, they would be no impediment, not the
least—but poverty is the trouble now—destitution, pauperism,
almost. You know it very well, Werter; but if I
could once more get a start, I should be all that I ever
was, and more, for I have the benefit of more experience
and sounder judgment.”

“Certainly, and we shall see you driving your carriage
again, I do not doubt. I should advise you to take an
office in a fashionable quarter at once.”

“You mock me, unless you mean to aid me. Try me,
Mr. Dives,” continued Brail, smiling, but speaking earnestly;
“give me a furnished office, and trust me a year for
the rent, and lend me money enough to buy a few books,
and a suit of clothes, and see if I do not more than justify

your predictions. Come, Werter, you are well able to do
this, and with very little risk.”

“I will.”

“Will you?” said Brail, grasping his hand and looking
eagerly in his eyes, to see if he was in earnest.

“I will. I will do this for you, and much more—if—”

“Oh,” groaned Brail, “I should have been a rich man
years agone, but for that short word.”

“You mistake—I will do all this for you to-morrow—
if I am able, if I have offices to rent, and money to lend.”

“Then I am safe, for everybody knows you are—or are
to be—one of the richest men in all this great city, and
certainly no one rents more stores or offices than you.”

“To-day!” said Ralph, in an emphatic whisper, and
drawing his chair closer to the physician, but to-morrow it
may be otherwise.”

“What do you mean? Surely your nephew—”

“My nephew, who you so confidently asserted could not
live a year, has lived sixteen long months—is alive now,
and this night he will be of age.”

Werter rose and examined the doors carefully, to see
that all were closed, and then returning, drew his chair
still closer to his companion's, and continued, still in a half
whisper—

“This is not the worst, Brail; I have this day learned
that he has been long secretly plotting with some vagabond
relations of his mother—a family of almost paupers—to
defraud me out of the whole property, and to will it to
them.”

“Is it possible?”

“It is too true! The will is already drawn, and ready
to be executed. I doubt not he intends to sign it this very
night, and so sly and still has the little hypocritical fellow
been about it, too, that I supposed he never dreamed of

such a thing. Only to think of such scheming and deception
by a man on his death-bed.”

“This is certainly alarming. How near does he seem
to be to his end.”

“Within a few hours; but he has lain just so exactly
two whole days. Day before yesterday, Dr. Lee said he
could live but a few hours—but he still lingers on. I believe
he is trying his best to hold out for this very purpose.”

“Does he suffer much?”

“A good deal—yes, a good deal.”

Werter again rose and examined the door, and this time
he took the precaution to lock it before he returned to his
seat.

“He suffers a great deal,” he repeated, emphatically,
looking with a strange expression into Brail's eyes, and
seeming to try to find or create a reflection of his own
thoughts in the physician's mind.

“Yes,” replied Brail.

“And I have been thinking, Brail—I have been thinking—that—that—Brail,
can I trust you implicitly?”

“Yes, Werter,” said the Doctor, laughing, “and I don't
think you have anything very dreadful to say, after all:
You are frightened at shadows. Speak out.”

Ralph's voice sunk to a low whisper as he continued.

“I said that he suffered a great deal. It would be a
mercy to—to—Brail, you understand me. Such things
have been done before now, entirely out of compassion to
dying men, when all hope was past, when nothing but suffering
remained—you understand?”

The Doctor again smiled calmly. No look of horror or
repugnance was visible on his countenance. He was one
of that class of men who can “smile, and smile, and be a
villain.”

“Yes,” he said, “I understand—I understood you some
time ago, and, as I said, you are frightened at shadows.
You wish to shorten your nephew's misery a few hours,
and save him from doing an act of injustice on his death-bed;
that is all, I believe.”

“Yes, that is it, that is it,” replied Ralph, eagerly,
“speak a little lower.”

“Well, there is nothing very dreadful in all that—you
can easily do it.”

“You, you mean.”

“No, I mean you—with my advice and direction. My
presence in his room at such a crisis might excite suspicion.”

Brail was shrewd enough not to put himself in Werter's
power. He preferred exactly the reverse of this position.

“Very true,” replied the old man, gravely. “But what
can I do?—what do you advise?”

“Nothing—I advise nothing. Mind, now, I know nothing
about your nephew; I don't know whether he is dead
or alive—I suppose he is dead, long ago, judging from the
condition in which I last saw him.” All this was said with
a broad smile. “But,” he continued, “I am going to sell
you a little medicine, and tell you its properties—that is
all I am going to do.”

Ralph shuddered.

Brail rose, went to a chest of drawers, took out a large
phial and a very small one, and filling the latter out of the
contents of the other, with a limpid, colorless liquid, returned
to his companion.

Werter drew back.

“Is it p—poi—”

“No—it is not poison, at least it is not called so. Taste
of it, it will not hurt you.”

Ralph hesitated, and the physician, still smiling, uncorked
the phial and put it to his lips. “A dozen drops

of this,” he continued, “would not hurt you or I. We
should feel invigorated by taking it, and new strength would
fill our whole system for a while, to be followed by extreme
lassitude.

“Yes.”

“But I would advise you not to give half that quantity
to any one who was very weak and low—for although it
would certainly strengthen the patient very much, the reaction
would be very sudden, and most certainly fatal.”

Brail smiled throughout this speech.

“You are certain of this?”

“I am quite certain.”

“You were mistaken once.”

“I am not mistaken now.”

“And it is not poison?”

“It is not poison.”

Werter wrapped the phial in a piece of paper, and placed
it in his vest pocket.

“There is one thing more,” he said. “You must come
to my house this evening, after dark—disguised, if you
choose—but you must come. You will be shown into my
room. You will be seen by no one but me. You will not
refuse me this?”

“I will come.”

And so they parted.

Ralph went home, still hoping to hear that his fearful
design was anticipated by natural causes, but still doomed
to be disappointed.

“He is weaker,” said Hester, who knew nothing of the
exciting information which her husband had received from
Boggs; “but he may live through the night.”

“What does he take?”

“Nothing but a mixture to allay his cough.”

“The same that stood in a tumbler at his bedside this
morning?”

“Yes.”

“He takes about a table-spoonful at a time?”

“Yes.”

“Does he take it frequently?”

“Yes—why do you ask these questions so earnestly?”
said Hester, with surprise.

“Earnestly? Did I?” said Ralph, coloring. “I did
not know it—it certainly is not important.”

His face was haggard as he turned from his wife, his
cold, gray eye wore its most stony expression, and his
white lips were closely compressed. He went into the room
of the patient, who was alone with young Jay, and was
asleep.

The room was darkened, and Addison sat near the head
of the bed reading, but with his face toward his cousin,
toward whom his eye momentarily wandered from his book,
to catch the first sign of returning wakefulness. The
watcher barely glanced at Werter as he entered the room,
made a sign for silence, and resumed his book. The old
man hesitated a moment at the door, and then advanced
softly, until he stood nearly behind Addison, and facing
his sleeping nephew. The sight of the former brought the
fire of a momentary rage in his eye, which quickly paled,
however, before the new master-emotion of his heart. At
his side, at Addison's side, within reach of both, stood a
small table, containing a tumbler about a third full of a
nearly colorless liquid, across which lay a silver table-spoon.
With his eye upon Sidney, yet watching for the
least indication of a movement in Addison, for both were
in his direct line of vision, Werter drew from his vest pocket
the small phial, from which he had already taken the precaution
to remove the wrapper, and uncorked it. Slight

as was the sound made by his movement in doing this, it
attracted Jay's attention, who partly turned round and saw
Ralph, motionless, gazing with seemingly fixed attention
at his nephew. He resumed his book with closer attention,
seeming to feel partly relieved of his watch by the presence
of Ralph, who, without a moment's further hesitation or
faltering, extended the fatal phial over the tumbler, and
mingled its contents with the medicinal draught. Quickly
and silently the direful deed was done, and, while the patient
still slept the sleep of innocence and virtue—while
his friend still pored over the page of truth—the old man
went out from the darkened room into the broad sunlight,
despite all his fortifying arguments to the contrary, a self-convicted
murderer.