University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
THE LABELS.

The work at Coventry Forge was now so well organized
that Philip could easily give the most of his time to Joseph's
vindication. He had secured the services of an excellent
country lawyer, but he also relied much upon the assistance
of two persons,—his sister Madeline and Elwood Withers:
Madeline, from her rapid, clear insight, her shrewd interpretation
of circumstances; and Elwood as an active, untiring
practical agent.

The latter, according to agreement, had ridden up from
his section of the railway, and was awaiting Philip when he
returned home.

Philip gave them the history of the day,—this time
frankly, with all the signs and indications which he had so
carefully kept from Joseph's knowledge. Both looked
aghast; and Elwood bent an ivory paper-cutter so suddenly
in his hands that it snapped in twain. He colored like a
girl.

“It serves me right,” he said. “Whenever my hands are
idle, Satan finds mischief for 'em,—as the spelling-book says.
But just so the people bend and twist Joseph Asten's character,
and just so unexpectedly his life may snap in their
hands!”

“May the omen be averted!” Madeline cried. “Put
down the pieces, Mr. Withers! You frighten me.”

“No, it is reversed!” said Philip. “Just so Joseph's

friends will snap this chain of circumstances. If you begin
to be superstitious, I must look out for other aids. The
tracing of the poison is a more fortunate step than I hoped,
at the start. I cannot at all guess to what it may lead, but
there is a point beyond which even the most malignant fate
has no further power over an innocent man. Thus far we
have met nothing but hostile circumstances: there seems to
be more than Chance in the game, and I have an idea that
the finding of this paper will break the evil spell. Come
now, Madeline, and you, Withers, give me your guesses as
to what my discovery shall be to-morrow!”

After a pause, Madeline answered: “It must have
been purchased—perhaps even by Mr. Asten—for rats
or mice; and she may have swallowed the drug in a fit of
passion.”

“I think,” said Elwood, “that she bought it for the purpose
of poisoning Joseph! Then, may be, the glasses were
changed, as I've heard tell of a man whose wife changed his
coffee-cup because there was a fly in it, giving him hers, and
thereby innocently killed him when he meant to ha' killed
her.”

“Ha!” Philip cried; “the most incredible things, apparently,
are sometimes the most natural! I had not thought
of this explanation.”

“O Philip!” said Madeline, “that would be a new horror!
Pray, let us not think of it: indeed, indeed, we must
not guess any more.”

Philip strove to put the idea from his mind: he feared
lest it might warp his judgment and mislead him in investigations
which it required a cool, sharp intellect to prosecute.
But the idea would not stay away: it haunted him
precisely on account of its enormity, and he rode again to

Magnolia the next day with a foreboding sense of some tragic
secret about to be revealed.

But he never could have anticipated the actual revelation.

There was no difficulty in finding Ziba Linthicum's drug-store.
The proprietor was a lank, thin-faced man, with projecting,
near-sighted eyes, and an exceedingly prim, pursed
mouth. His words, uttered in the close, wiry twang peculiar
to Southern Pennsylvania, seemed to give him a positive
relish: one could fancy that his mouth watered slightly
as he spoke. His long, lean lips had a settled smirk at the
corner, and the skin was drawn so tightly over his broad,
concave chin-bone that it shone, as if polished around the
edges.

He was waiting upon a little girl when Philip entered;
but he looked up from his scales, bowed, smiled, and said:
“In a moment, if you please.”

Philip leaned upon the glass case, apparently absorbed in
the contemplation of the various soaps and perfumes under
his eyes, but thinking only of the paper in his pocket-book.

“Something in this line, perhaps?”

Mr. Linthicum, with a still broader smile, began to enumerate:
“These are from the Society Hygiennick—”

“No,” said Philip, “my business is especially private.
I take it for granted that you have many little confidential
matters intrusted to you.”

“Oh, undoubtedly, sir! Quite as much so as a physician.”

“You are aware also that mistakes sometimes occur in
making up prescriptions, or in using them afterwards?”

“Not by me, I should hope. I keep a record of every
dangerous ingredient which goes out of my hands.”

“Ah!” Philip exclaimed. Then he paused, uncertain

how much to confide to Mr. Linthicum's discretion. But,
on mentioning his name and residence, he found that both
himself and Mr. Hopeton were known—and favorably, it
seemed—to the apothecary. He knew the class of men to
which the latter belonged,—prim, fussy, harmlessly vain
persons, yet who take as good care of their consciences as of
their cravats and shirt-bosoms. He produced the paper
without further delay.

“That was bought here, certainly,” said Mr. Linthicum.
“The word `Arsenic' is written in my hand. The date
when, and the person by whom it was purchased, must be
in my register. Will you go over it with me?”

He took a volume from a drawer, and beginning at the
last entry, they went slowly backward over the names, the
apothecary saying: “This is confidential: I rely upon your
seeing without remembering.”

They had not gone back more than two or three weeks
before Philip came upon a name that made his heart stand
still. There was a record in a single line:—

“Miss Henderson. Arsenic.”

He waited a few seconds, until he felt sure of his voice.
Then he asked: “Do you happen to know Miss Henderson?”

“Not at all! A perfect stranger.”

“Can you, perhaps, remember her appearance?”

“Let me see,” said Mr. Linthicum, biting the end of his
forefinger; “that must have been the veiled lady. The
date corresponds. Yes, I feel sure of it, as all the other
poison customers are known to me.”

“Pray describe her then!” Philip exclaimed.

“Really, I fear that I cannot. Dressed in black, I think;
but I will not be positive. A soft, agreeable voice, I am
sure.”

“Was she alone? Or was any one else present?”

“Now I do recall one thing,” the apothecary answered.
“There was an agent of a wholesale city firm—a travelling
agent, you understand—trying to persuade me into an order
on his house. He stepped on one side as she came to the
counter, and he perhaps saw her face more distinctly, for he
laughed as she left, and said something about a handsome
girl putting her lovers out of their misery.”

But Mr. Linthicum could remember neither the name of
the agent nor that of the firm which he represented. All
Philip's questioning elicited no further particulars, and he
was obliged to be satisfied with the record of the day and
probable hour of the purchase, and with the apothecary's
promise of the strictest secrecy.

He rode immediately home, and after a hasty consultation
with Madeline, remounted his horse and set out to find
Lucy Henderson. He was fortunate enough to meet her on
the highway, on her way to call upon a neighbor. Springing
from his horse he walked beside her, and announced his
discovery at once.

Lucy remembered the day when she had accompanied Julia
to Magnolia, during Joseph's absence from home. The time
of the day, also, corresponded to that given by the apothecary.

“Did you visit the drug-store?” Philip asked.

“No,” she answered, “and I did not know that Julia
had. I paid two or three visits to acquaintances, while
she did her shopping, as she told me.”

“Then try and remember, not only the order of those
visits, but the time occupied by each,” said Philip. “Write
to your friends, and ask them to refresh their memories. It
has become an important point, for—the poison was purchased
in your name!”

“Impossible!” Lucy cried. She gazed at Philip with
such amazement that her innocence was then fixed in his
mind, if it had not been so before.

“Yes, I say `impossible!' too,” he answered. “There is
only one explanation. Julia Asten gave your name instead
of her own when she purchased it.”

“Oh!” Lucy's voice sounded like a hopeless personal
protest against the collective falsehood and wickedness of the
world.

“I have another chance to reach the truth,” said Philip.
“I shall find the stranger,—the travelling agent,—if it
obliges me to summon every such agent of every wholesale
drug-house in the city! It is at least a positive fortune
that we have made this discovery now.”

He looked at his watch. “I have just time to catch the
evening train,” he said, hurriedly, “but I should like to send
a message to Elwood Withers. If you pass through that
wood on the right, you will see the track just below you. It
is not more than half a mile from here; and you are almost
sure to find him at or near the unfinished tunnel. Tell him
to see Rachel Miller, and if anything further has been found,
to inform my sister Madeline at once. That is all. I make
no apology for imposing the service on you: good-by, and
keep up your faith, Lucy!”

He pressed her hand, sprang into the saddle, and cantered
briskly away.

Lucy, infected by his haste, crossed the field, struggled
through the under-growth of the wild belt of wood, and descended
to the railway track, without giving herself time to
think. She met a workman near the mouth of the tunnel,
and not daring to venture in, sent by him a summons to
Elwood. It was not many minutes before he appeared.

“Something has happened, Lucy?” he exclaimed.

“Philip thinks he has made a discovery,” she answered,
“and I come to you as his messenger.” She then repeated
Philip's words.

“Is that all?” Elwood asked, scanning her face anxiously.
“You do not seem quite like your real self, Lucy.”

She sat down upon the bank. “I am out of breath,” she
said; “I must have walked faster than I thought.”

“Wait a minute!” said he. He ran up the track, to
where a little side-glen crossed it, sprang down among the
bushes, and presently reappeared with a tin cup full of cold,
pure spring water.

The draught seemed to revive her at once. “It is not all,
Elwood,” she said. “Joseph is not the only one, now, who
is implicated by the same circumstances.”

“Who else?—not Philip Held!”

“No,” she answered, very quietly, “it is a woman. Her
name is Lucy Henderson.”

Before Elwood could speak, she told him all that she had
heard from Philip. He could scarcely bring his mind to
accept its truth.

“Oh, the—” he began; “but, no! I will keep the words to
myself. There is something deeper in this than any of us has
yet looked for! Depend upon it, Lucy, she had a plan in
getting you there!”

Lucy was silent. She fancied she knew Julia's plan already.

“Did she mean to poison Joseph herself, and throw the
suspicion on you? And now by her own death, after all,
she accomplishes her chief end! It is a hellish tangle, whichever
way I look; but they say that the truth will sooner or
later put down any amount of lies, and so it must be, here.

We must get at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth! Do you not say so, Lucy?”

“Yes!” she answered firmly, looking him in the face.

“Ay, though all should come to light! We can't tell
what it may be necessary to say. They may go to work
and unravel Joseph's life, and yours, and mine, and hold up
the stuff for everybody to look at. Well, let 'em! say I.
If there are dark streaks in mine, I guess they'll look tolerably
fair beside that one black heart. We're here alone,
Lucy; there may not be a chance to say it soon again, so
I'll say now, that if need comes to publish what I said to
you one night a year ago,—to publish it for Joseph's sake,
or your sake,—don't keep back a single word! The worst
would be, some men or women might think me conceited.”

“No, Elwood!” she exclaimed: “that reproach would
fall on me! You once offered me your help, and I—I fear
I spurned it; but I will take it now. Nay, I beg you to
offer it to me again, and I will accept it with gratitude!”

She rose, and stretched out her hand.

Elwood clasped it tenderly, held it a moment, and seemed
about to speak. But although his lips parted, and there
was a movement of the muscles of his throat, he did not
utter a word. In another moment he turned, walked a few
yards up the track, and then came back to her.

“No one could mistake you for Julia Asten,” he said.
“You are at least half a head taller than she was. Your
voice is not at all the same: the apothecary will surely
notice the difference! Then an alibi, as they call it, can be
proved.”

“So Philip Held thought. But if my friends should not
remember the exact time,—what should I then do?”

“Lucy, don't ask yourself the question now! It seems

to me that the case stands this way: one evil woman has
made a trap, fallen into it herself, and taken the secret of its
make away with her. There is nothing more to be invented,
and so we hold all that we gain. While we are mining,
where's the counter-mining to come from? Who is to lie
us out of our truth? There isn't much to stand on yet, I
grant; but another step—the least little thing—may give us
all the ground we want!”

He spoke so firmly and cheerily that Lucy's despondent
feeling was charmed away. Besides, nothing could have
touched her more than Elwood's heroic self-control. After
the miserable revelation which Philip had made, it was
unspeakably refreshing to be brought into contact with a
nature so sound and sweet and strong. When he had led
her by an easier path up the hill, and they had parted at the
end of the lane leading to her father's house, she felt, as
never before, the comfort of relying so wholly on a faithful
man friend.

Elwood took his horse and rode to the Asten farm.
Joseph's face brightened at his appearance, and they talked
as of old, avoiding the dark year that lay between their past
intimacy and its revival. As in Philip's case, it was difficult
to communicate secretly with Rachel Miller; but
Elwood, with great patience, succeeded in looking his wish
to speak with her, and uniting her efforts with his own. She
adroitly turned the conversation upon a geological work
which Joseph had been reading.

“I've been looking into the subject myself,” Elwood said.
“Would you let me see the book: it may be the thing I
want.”

“It is on the book-shelf in your bedroom, Joseph,” Rachel
remarked.

There was time enough for Elwood to declare his business,
and for Rachel to answer: “Mr. Held said every scrap, and
it is but a scrap, with half a name on it. I found it behind
and mostly under the lower drawer in the same box. I'll
get it before you leave, and give it to you when we shake
hands. Be careful, for he may make something out of it,
after all. Tell him there isn't a stitch in a dress but I've
examined, and a mortal work it was!”

It was late before Elwood could leave; nevertheless, he
rode to Coventry Forge. The scrap of paper had been successfully
transferred, and his pressing duty was to deliver it
into the hands of Madeline Held. He found her anxiously
waiting, in accordance with Philip's instructions.

When they looked at the paper, it seemed, truly, to be a
worthless fragment. It had the character, also, of an apothecary's
label, but the only letters remaining were those forming
the end of the name, apparently —ers, and a short distance
under them —Sts.

“`Behind and mostly under the lower drawer of her
jewel-case,” said Madeline, musingly. “I think I might
guess how it came there. She had seen the label, which had
probably been forgotten, and then, as she supposed, had
snatched it away and destroyed it, without noticing that this
piece, caught behind the drawer, had been torn off. But
there is no evidence—and perhaps none can be had—that
the paper contained poison.”

“Can you make anything out of the letters?” Elwood
asked.

“The `Sts' certainly means `Streets'—now, I see! It is a
corner house! This makes the place a little more easy to be
identified. If Philip cannot find it, I am sure a detective can.
I will write to him at once.”

“Then I'll wait and ride to the office with the letter,”
said Elwood.

Madeline rose, and commenced walking up and down the
room: she appeared to be suddenly and unusually excited.

“I have a new suspicion,” she said, at last. “Perhaps I
am in too much of a hurry to make conjectures, because
Philip thinks I have a talent for it,—and yet, this grows upon
me every minute! I hope—oh, I hope I am right!”

She spoke with so much energy that Elwood began to share
her excitement without knowing its cause. She noticed the
eager, waiting expression of his face.

“You must really pardon me, Mr. Withers. I believe I
was talking to myself rather than to you; I will not mention
my fancy until Philip decides whether it is worth acting upon.
There will be no harm if each of us finds a different clew, and
follows it. Philip will hardly leave the city to-morrow. I
shall not write, but go down with the first train in the morning!”

Elwood took his leave, feeling hopeful and yet very restless.

It was a long while before Madeline encountered Philip.
He was busily employed in carrying out his plan of tracing
the travelling agent,—not yet successful, but sanguine of
success. He examined the scrap of paper which Madeline
brought, listened to her reasons for the new suspicion which
had crossed her mind, and compared them with the little
evidence already collected.

“Do not let us depend too seriously on this,” he then said;
“there is about an even chance that you are right. We will
keep it as an additional and independent test, but we dare
not lose sight of the fact that the law will assume Joseph's
guilt, and we must establish his innocence, first of all. Nay,
if we can simply prove that Julia, and not Lucy, purchased

the poison, we shall save both! But, at the same time, I will
try to find this —ers, who lives in a corner-house, and I will
have a talk with old Blessing this very evening.”

“Why not go now?”

“Patience, you impetuous girl! I mean to take no step
without working out every possible result in advance. If
I were not here in the city, I would consult with Mr.
Pinkerton before proceeding further. Now I shall take you
to the train: you must return to Coventry, and watch and
wait there.”

When Philip called at the Blessing mansion, in the evening,
he found only Mrs. Blessing at home. She was rigid
and dreary in her mourning, and her reception of him was
almost repellant in its stiff formality.

“Mr. Blessing is absent,” she explained, inviting Philip
to a seat by a wave of her hand. “His own interests rendered
a trip to the Oil Regions imperative; it is a mental
distraction which I do not grudge him. This is a cheerless
household, sir,—one daughter gone forever, and another
about to leave us. How does Mr. Asten bear his loss?”

Philip thereupon, as briefly and forcibly as possible,
related all that had occurred. “I wish to consult Mr.
Blessing,” he concluded, “in relation to the possibility of
his being able to furnish any testimony on his son-in-law's
side. Perhaps you, also—”

“No!” she interrupted. “I know nothing whatever!
If the trial (which I think most unnecessary and shocking)
gets into the city papers, it will be a terrible scandal for us.
When will it come on, did you say?”

“In two or three weeks.”

“There will be barely time!” she cried.

“For that reason,” said he, “I wish to secure the evidence

at once. All the preparations for the defence must
be completed within that time.”

“Clementina,” Mrs. Blessing continued, without heeding
his words, “will be married about the first of October. Mr.
Spelter has been desirous of making a bridal tour in Europe.
She did not favor the plan; but it seems to me like an interposition
of Heaven!”

Philip rose, too disgusted to speak. He bowed in silence,
and left the house.