 | CHAPTER XXII.
THE ACCUSED MAN. The Wetherel affair |  |
22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE ACCUSED MAN.
Edward Wetherel, an excellent boatman and not liable to do his navigation
keel uppermost, was no more successful than John Bowlder in discovering
the missing “sharpy,” which, as some surmised, had carried Nestoria
away.
It was after nightfall when the young man returned to Sea Lodge. He
was tired, gloomy, and dispirited, and, although he spent an hour or so with
his relatives, he said very little to them and hardly seemed to hear their conversation.
Any one who had studied him under the suspicion that he might
be the murderer, would have been puzzled to find proofs of either innocence
thing, however, seemed obvious and positive enough; and that was, that he
knew nothing of the whereabouts or fate of Nestoria. He spoke of her in a
tone of perplexity, anxiety, and distress, which could not be simulated.
“I must go back to the city,” he said at last. “I propose to engage a tugboat
to take me out on another search at daybreak. When I pass here, will
you join me, Lehming? I want some one to keep me company.”
“I will go with you,” promised Lehming, looking gently into the woful
eyes which were asking this favor of him. “Blow your steam-whistle opposite
the house, and I will put out to you in a small boat.”
So, early the next morning, amid the tender redness of a summer dawn,
the two young men set off on their expedition, steaming out into the calm,
gleaming expanse of the Sound.
“I hope you slept last night,” said Lehming, studying with surprise and
pity his companion's pallid face.
“I went through a few nightmares,” replied Wetherel. “This is a horrible,
crushing affair. I wonder if I shall come out of it sane.”
“I see that you are greatly oppressed by it,” murmured Lehming, turning
away his eyes from a desperation which pained him, it seemed so impossible
to comfort it. “One thing is certain. You must give yourself some rest as
quickly as possible, and you must obtain sleep at any cost.”
“The tragedy of my uncle's death would alone have shocked me enough,”
continued Edward. “We did not agree, and he had cut me off; but death
rubs out so many things! When I heard of him as murdered, I forgot that
we had ever been hostile; no, I remembered it!” he added with a piteous
accent of remorse. “I would have given years of life for one moment in
which to make my peace with him. That other world into which men slip
so suddenly! It takes the color out of this one.”
“You are like your family,” said Lehming meditatively. “All the Wetherels
whom I have known have been impressionable to the spectacle of death.
It is a desirable sensibility; it is fruitful of good.”
“Do you think so?” asked Edward, in the tone of a man who judges evilly
of himself, and has little hope of becoming worthier. “I don't know. I admit
the sensibility in my own case. But it only fills me with gloom.”
“But I was about to tell you something horrible,” he resumed presently,
with a great effort. “Do you know that I am accused of this murder? I believe
that I never shall smile again, and I don't know why I should live.”
The cheering smile which Lehming had struggled to wear hitherto disappeared;
it fell under this tremendous announcement, as a man falls under the
blow of an assassin. The compassion which beamed in his large gray eyes
was still angelic, but it seemed the pity of a seraph for a totally lost spirit,
rather than for one whose sorrow is not without hope. He must, however,
make some answer; and what should it be? A weaker man, overcome by the
sight of distress, might have counterfeited ignorance of the frightful suspicion
which Edward had mentioned, and denied that it could be harbored by any
one. But this dwarfish and misshapen creature was an incarnation of conscience
and intelligence; he had neither the hypocrisy nor the folly to treat
such a situation as this otherwise than with sincerity.
“Yours is a terrible position,” he said firmly. “You must call up all the
manhood, all the power to bear calamity, that has been granted you. Crime
is not always discovered, but innocence always is. In the end the world is
rather this suspicion, will die.”
“Do you believe me guilty?” gasped Edward, his face turning ashy, notwithstanding
the cheering words to which he had listened.
“I do not,” answered Lehming solemnly. “This charge had already been
made in my hearing. I had considered it, and rejected it.”
The tall, vigorous young man grasped the hand of the deformed one and
clung to it for minutes in silence.
“It is time to turn over a new leaf in my book,” he said when he had suf
ficiently recovered his self-possession to speak. “I have had a commentary
on my life which I did not expect. I am face to face with the fact that men
consider my character bad enough to justify them in suspecting me of the
greatest of crimes. It is time to turn a new leaf, if I know how to turn it.”
“The knowledge of such things springs from the desire to do them,” observed
Lehming.
“You see, I have gained so much by this tragedy!” continued Edward,
his mind reverting to the accusation against him. “I was to have nothing;
and now, if that will is not recovered, I have everything.”
“I know,” gently murmured Lehming, without a tremor of disappointment
in his voice. “You are the heir at law. Events have determined that
the inheritance shall take its natural course.”
“You shall see what course the inheritance will take,” exclaimed Wetherel
excitedly.
“Wait!” interposed Lehming promptly, and almost in a tone of command.
“You are feverish now. Make no resolutions until you have recovered your
usual health and mental vigor. Months hence, after the estate has been settled,
it will be time to discuss this question. Meantime your first and most
pressing duty is to discover this missing young lady. May I venture to tell
you what I think of her case?”
“Do you suspect her?” demanded Edward, with sudden anger. “Oh, I
beg your pardon,” he added, in response to Lehming's gesture of energetic
negation. “But that is another of the scoundrelly tales that these gossips are
spreading. They say that, because she was betrothed to me, she took the will
and struck the blow. It is the wickedest and maddest and most idiotic slander
that ever malice and stupidity invented. A crime! She couldn't conceive
the thought of a crime. There never was such innocence. Oh, I must clear
her, as well as myself. It must be my life's labor to open up this mystery and
discover the real criminal. I shall have to keep a little of the money for that
purpose, Lehming.”
“You must not talk any more now about the money,” said Walter. “Put
that matter resolutely by until you have had time for cool reflection. Let us
now speak of Miss Bernard. I must tell you frankly that I have my fears for
her. I fear that she saw the tragedy; that the horror of the spectacle drove
her half frantic; that she fled from the house and leaped into the missing
boat; and that then she was driven out to sea. The sad question is whether
accident enabled her to survive the stormy night.”
Edward made no reply further than to lean upon the bulwark and hide his
face in his hands.
Except the above conversation, important as showing Wetherel's condition
of spirit, nothing worthy of record occurred during this voyage. After
zigzagging the Sound in all directions, and making fruitless inquiries at various
their failure to the mourners at Sea Lodge.
“What do you think of Edward?” anxiously inquired Mrs. Dinneford of
Lehming, when she found herself alone with him.
“I think well of him,” he replied. “There has been a wonderful change
in his modes of judging and feeling. He seems as conscientious and unselfish
as an angel could demand of a mortal. The only question is whether the impression
will hold after the stamp is withdrawn; I mean the pressure of this
tragedy and this sorrow. Wealth and beauty are great tempations. I can
imagine their power, although I have never been exposed to it.”
“My poor, good Walter, you haven't had half a chance,” replied Mrs. Dinneford,
coloring with compassionate admiration.
“I never had but one compliment,” he smiled. “When I was a little boy
I went to visit my grandmother. The scene is before me now. I sat in one
corner of the fireplace, reading `Robinson Crusoe.' My grandmother, who was
talking with another venerable lady, surveyed me now and then over her
spectacles. At last the good old creature remarked, in her tremulous, sympathetic
voice, `I don't think Walter is quite so humpbacked as he used to be.'
That,” concluded Lehming, with a cheerful and yet most pathetic humor, “that
is the only compliment that I ever had concerning my personal appearance.”
“It was too bad!” laughed Mrs. Dinneford while the tears rushed into her
eyes. Then leaning suddenly toward the young man, she laid a motherly,
loving hand on his misshapen shoulder, and added, “Walter, you are as handsome
as an angel. You have a beauty that all the rolling years of eternity
won't fade. There is your second compliment.”
“It is enough to ruin a St. Paul,” smiled Walter, shaking his big head.
“Well, let us talk of graver matters, if anything can be graver than I am.
It is understood, is it not, that we acquit Edward of all suspicion of complicity
in this crime?”
“We do—all of us,” declared Mrs. Dinneford.
“The world does not,” said Lehming. “And we must support him against
the world. No man, oppressed by widespread suspicion and without friends
to uphold and cheer him, can easily come to good.”
“The world is an ill-natured idiot,” pronounced Mrs. Dinneford indignantly.
“As Tupper says, `Rashly nor ofttimes truly doth man pass sentence on his
brother.' And, in another place, `Then man's verdict cometh, murderer with
forethought malice; and his name is an execration, his guilt is too black for
devils; but to the righteous judge seemeth he the suffering victim. Tupper
is really wonderful; he is pat to every subject.”
“Tupper is better than the critics have been willing to admit,” conceded
the charitable Lehming.
“But do you think Edward should have all this money?” queried the
ady, who, it must be remembered, had a daughter to care for.
“The law must take its course.”
“But do you think he ought to keep it, under the circumstances, knowing
his uncle's wishes?”
“We can say nothing.”
“No,” sighed Mrs. Dinneford. “Well, Alice and I are not poor; we can
do as we have done. But you—I do wish that you could have something.”
“As long as there are schools to keep, I trust that I shall not suffer,” said
Lehming with his heavenly smile. “Let me revert to my subject. For Edward's
must be his firm friends. Is is agreed?”
“Yes,” affirmed the good lady. “We are all agreed on that point—you
and I and John Bowlder and Alice—the whole family. Of this thing Edward
is as innocent as a lamb, and we will bear him our testimony and give him
our countenance.”
But in the world outside of this unselfish and charitable circle opinion was
generally less favorable to the young man. The large rewards which he offered
for the discovery of the assassin, the uncertain verdict of the coroner's
jury, and the complete bewilderment of the officers of justice, were all insufficient
to relieve him of suspicion. Many persons believed that he personally
stole the will and struck the blow; others held that he had incited this missing
and mysterious young woman from over sea to commit the double crime;
others suspended their decision, as they phrased it, and allowed him, not the
benefit, but the injury of the doubt.
| CHAPTER XXII.
THE ACCUSED MAN. The Wetherel affair | |