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Other documents randomly have
different content
 CHAPTER III

Alive at Midnight

A N hour after the close of the day’s session, Mrs. Parlin was in her
sitting room, with the door closed and the shades lowered. On
the opposite side of the small light-stand sat a rather undersized
man, plainly dressed, and of somewhat insignificant aspect.
Distinctly, the woman in her was disappointed.
“I have sent for you, Mr. Trafford,” she said, slowly and apparently
reluctantly, “because both my husband and Theodore—Mr. Wing—
had the utmost confidence in your ability. I want you to find Mr.
Wing’s murderer. It’s not a matter of cost—I simply want him found.”
As she spoke, she gathered confidence, and the tone of her final
words almost evidenced a belief that he could do what she asked.
She stopped speaking, and the insignificance of the man’s
appearance was again more real to her and sent a chill over her
earnestness.
“If you entrust the case to me,” he said, in a tone singularly
winning for a man in his station and of his personal appearance, “I
shall do my best to sustain the confidence Judge Parlin and Mr. Wing
gave me; but let me warn you, in my profession there is no royal
road. I have no instinct that enables me to scent a murderer or other
criminal. I reach results by hard work, close attention to details, and
perseverance. I make it a condition of undertaking any case that
nothing shall be concealed from me. I must start with at least the
knowledge that my principal possesses.”
“I’ve told everything to the coroner. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve
heard the testimony.” She spoke with dignity, almost with hostility, in
her voice.
“I heard the testimony,” he said, “but are you sure you’ve told
everything? There’s sometimes things that we know which aren’t
facts—that is, not facts as the term is understood when one is giving
testimony.”
“For instance?”
“You have impressions of what led up to this tragedy.” There was
nothing of question in his tone. It was as if he stated what was
indisputable.
The statement seemed to strike her and to arouse a new train of
thought. She was silent for some time, and he sat watching
anxiously, but without a sign of impatience. At last she looked up
and answered:
“You are mistaken; I’m absolutely in the dark. There’s nothing to
point in any direction.”
He accepted the disappointment, but accepted it as absolute. He
evidently had striven by the assertion so positively made to surprise
her into new thought, with the hope that it might hit on something
that in his skilled hands would have meaning. He saw not only that
he had not succeeded, but that there was no ground for success.
“That, in itself,” he said, “is significant. It shows that we must dig
deeper in his life than we have yet done. The motive; we want the
motive!”
“There was no motive,” she said. “It was motiveless. There are
men who do murder for murder’s sake.” Under sting of her life
experience, she spoke with keen bitterness.
He leaned across the table, and for the instant she saw something
in the man she had not seen before; something that flashed like a
gleam of new intelligence and was gone with its very birth.
“There are no motiveless crimes,” he said. “In this case, of all
others, you may be sure a motive existed, and that when we put our
hands on it, we shall find it a tremendous one—that is, tremendous
in its imperative force.”
“But what could be the motive—against a man like him?”
“Because he was such a man, we may be the more certain of
motive,” he said. “Under other conditions it might have been Judge
Parlin.” He spoke at hazard—perhaps; but the effect was something
startling. She grew pale as at the inquest before she answered as to
the first knowledge of Wing’s death, and her companion expected for
the moment that she would faint. But she was a woman equal to
noteworthy sudden efforts, and even as he watched she overcame
the momentary weakness. Yet it was with pale lips she stammered:
“I understand. It might have been the judge.”
Trafford waited, seemingly expecting something more, but when
the pause grew awkward, he continued, “He told you he had a letter
to write before he went to bed. Had he written it?”
“I don’t know. It’s a thing we never shall know.”
“It’s a thing that we will know, and that in a very short time. Who
entered the room first that morning?” and there was a sense of
action in his tone that caused her to look up with sudden interest.
“I did. Mary told me expressly that she hadn’t dared open the door
until I came, and Jonathan was by the body, outside.”
“Was the door closed?”
“Yes.”
“Who closed it?”
“I have never asked. I supposed it hadn’t been open.”
“It was open,” he said. “He came to the door without a light when
the bell rang. Naturally, he left the door open so that the light from
the room would shine through. He would leave it wide open, to get
the full light. Somebody shut that door!”
Mary and Jonathan were called and questioned. The latter set the
matter at rest. When he discovered the body he stooped over it to
make certain that Mr. Wing was dead. Then, remembering to have
heard that you must not touch a murdered man until the coroner
comes, he arose without touching him and as he did so saw through
the outer door that the door to the library was closed.
“The outer door was wide open?” Trafford said.
“No, sir, ’twant neither. ’Twas against Mr. Wing’s head and arm. If
it hadn’t been fur them, it would ’a’ shut too.”
After the two had gone, Trafford declared he would see the room,
but proposed first to do so alone. He entered from the main hall, set
his light on the lamp-mat on the writing-desk, and took his station in
front of the door from the side hall. Here he stood for at least ten
minutes studying the room. Then he walked to a medium-sized safe
that stood to the right of the fire-jamb and was partially hidden by
book-shelves near the door from the side hall.
Having studied this for some time, he made a minute examination
of every part of the room, including the blotting paper in the writing-
pad on the desk, which he finally lifted carefully and held before the
mirror to examine the few ink-marks it showed. Of these he took
note in a small memorandum book. They seemed to be the only
things that struck his attention particularly. Then he rang and told
Mary to ask Mrs. Parlin to come to the library.
“Is that the blotting-pad that was here that night?” he asked. “And
you were the first one who came to this desk in the morning?” when
she had answered him as to the identity of the pad. “And there was
no letter on the desk?”
“None.”
“Then, evidently he had not written the letter he told you of?”
“Evidently not,” she assented.
“Then he must have been killed before he had time to write?”
“It would seem so.”
“And, therefore, probably very soon after you left him?”
“I can see no other conclusion, unless he changed his mind and
didn’t write,” she assented.
“Now we come to one of the impressions which you could not
testify to as a fact, but which may be of far more value. Did he say
he had a letter to write in a way that makes you think he may have
changed his mind?”
“No,” she said. “I understood, from the way in which he said it,
that it was the important thing he had to do before going to bed. I
went away satisfied that he would write the letter early and then get
to bed. He certainly meant that the next day was to be a busy one.”
“Then he probably was killed, very soon, since he had not written
the letter.”
“I think so.”
 “Now, if you please, let me send for Jonathan again.”
When the hired man came, he glanced over his shoulder in an
uneasy way, as if he did not more than half like the room. Trafford
motioned him to a chair and without any preliminaries suddenly
demanded:
“At what hour are you going to testify that you went to bed that
night?”
Thus far Oldbeg had simply been called upon to testify to the
finding of the body. The remainder of his testimony was to be given
later.
“About nine o’clock; not more’n five minutes one way or ’tother.”
“What were you doing on Canaan Street at five minutes after
midnight?”
Oldbeg looked frightened, and Mrs. Parlin showed considerable
anxiety in the look she cast on the two men.
“Come,” said Trafford sharply. “If I can find out you were there, I
can find out why you were there. I’d rather hear it from you.”
“I was comin’ from the twelve-o’clock train. My cousin, Jim
Shepard, went to Portland to work an’ I saw him off.”
“Be careful,” Trafford warned him. “If you were coming from the
station, you’d have come up Somerset Street, not Canaan.”
“Why, ye see,” the man explained, placed at once at his ease in
having something to tell of which he had knowledge; “Jim, he was
spendin’ the evenin’ with his gal, Miss Flanders, in Canaan Street, an’
I was to call fur him thar; an’ he was so late we couldn’t get round
to the station, an’ so we made a short cut through Gray’s Court an’
jest catched the train, an’ that was all. We had to run, or he’d ’a’
missed it any way. So I come back that way, instead o’ through
Somerset Street.”
“Then you came through Canaan Street to River Road——”
“No, I didn’t,” the other interrupted. “I cut across lots back o’
Burgess, ’cause ’twas shorter, an’ struck River Road down in front of
Miller’s.”
“Yes; and then came up to the driveway and so into the house?”
 “Yep!”
“You must have got in about ten minutes after twelve.”
“Jest to a dot!” he exclaimed in evident admiration of the other’s
shrewdness. “Jest to a dot. I looked to my watch an’ ’twas jest ten
minutes arter midnight.”
“Then you must have passed close to the side-door step?”
“Yess’r; fact, ye might say, I hit agin it, for I did knock my toe agin
it as I passed.”
“Was Mr. Wing’s body there then?” The demand was quick and
imperative.
“No, siree! Do you s’pose I’d ’a’ waited till mornin’ to rout ’em out
ef it had ben? Mr. Wing was in this ere room.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw his shadder on the curtain. He was walkin’ up an’ down. I
seed him turn as I come up the drive.”
“But why didn’t you see him? The shade was up to that window,
when he was found in the morning.”
“Yep; but they was all down when I come up the drive, an’ I saw
his shadder agin ’em.”
Further questioning elicited no added information from the man,
excepting the statement that as his cousin Jim swung on to the rear
end of the car, another man had swung on to the front end,
suddenly rushing out of the darkness. Jonathan did not know who it
was; indeed, had hardly given the matter a thought, so anxious had
he been lest Jim should be left. When he had gone, Trafford turned
to Mrs. Parlin and asked:
“When do you think Mr. Wing intended writing that letter, if he
hadn’t written it at ten minutes after midnight?”
“He must have changed his mind, after all,” she answered.
“Evidently, he did,” he said.
Then he took up the matter of Judge Parlin’s confession.
“I do not wish to pain you,” he said, “but I would not be justified
in letting that drop without going into it further. Have you any
suspicion who Theodore’s mother was—or is, since she is still living,
or was between five and six years ago?”
“I haven’t the faintest suspicion,” she said. “But surely this has
been raked open enough. You can let that wound heal.”
“I can let nothing heal,” he said. “I don’t for the life of me see how
that can have anything to do with this murder, but that’s no reason I
may not find that it has lots to do with it. At any rate, I must find her
out.”
“Can you do it on the feeble clue we have?” she asked.
He smiled.
“On such a clue, I’ll trace her in a week and not half try. Your
husband intended to shield her from discovery, and but for these
untoward circumstances, we would be bound to respect his wishes.
As it is, I must know the identity of the woman. I hope I’ll find
nothing to compel me to go farther. In the meantime, I’m going to
take with me this blotting-pad, and I want you to examine it so that
you can identify it beyond question, blotter and all. It’s too important
for any mistake.”
Just then Mary Mullin brought word that Mr. McManus had come in
response to a message sent earlier in the evening by Mr. Trafford.
Mr. McManus had been with Mr. Wing for a number of years, and
held the most confidential relation to his principal of any in the
office. Since the murder he had naturally taken charge of his
personal affairs. He was a man of thirty, tall and lithe, with a nervous
force about him that was held well in control by strong will-power.
“Do you know what special engagements Mr. Wing had for the
eleventh, that caused him to expect a particularly busy day?” the
detective asked.
“None connected with office matters. It must have been a
personal engagement.”
“Did you open this safe the day after the murder?”
“Yes.”
“Was it properly closed and locked?”
“So far as I could see.”
 “I’d have given a hundred dollars if I’d been here,” Trafford said
earnestly.
McManus looked at him in surprise.
“Certainly,” he said, “you don’t suspect robbery?”
“I don’t suspect anything,” Trafford replied, somewhat brusquely.
“Of all things, I avoid suspicion and guesses. I’d like you to open the
safe again.”
McManus knelt, drew from his pocket a paper with a series of
figures written on it, and following these with the turnings of the
knob, threw open the door. Within was revealed a small iron door
surrounded by pigeon-holes, the divisions of wood. Trafford dropped
on his knees and gave peculiar scrutiny to the door, and especially
the lock. Then he turned towards McManus:
“These two empty pigeon-holes on the left; they were empty
when you first opened the safe?”
“Every paper is in the exact place I found it,” McManus answered
sharply. “My profession has taught me some things!”
“And this door?”
“It was closed and locked. Here is the key.”
Trafford opened the door, revealing packages of letters, filling
about half the space above the small drawer which was at the lowest
portion.
“You have examined these letters?”
“Only sufficiently to be able to identify them. They relate to certain
logging interests of firms employing Mr. Wing.”
“And the drawer?”
“You have the key: there’s nothing there but trinkets and a little
personal jewelry.” There was a personal tone of resentment over the
failure to recognise the distance between a detective and an
attorney.
Trafford opened the drawer mechanically, then closed it and took
out indifferently one of the packages of letters. These he returned
and closed and locked the door, which he examined again with care.
Then he pushed to the heavy outer door, turning the knob slowly
and as if he was studying the fall of the wards.
“If it had been planned to leave no trace,” he said, as if to himself,
“it would be a success. Have you a suspicion of the motive for this
murder, Mr. McManus?”
“So far as I can see, it was motiveless,” McManus answered. “I can
only conclude that it was the work of a lunatic, or a mere murder
fiend. It was, in my opinion, merely an accident that it was Mr. Wing
and not some one else.”
“I hadn’t thought of that aspect of the case,” Trafford said. “Is
there any unfortunate creature of that kind about here?”
“No, not that I know of; but might it not be a stranger that has
wandered here?”
“Did you ever hear of one of that class that was content with mere
killing? It’s mutilation that characterises all such crimes. Its absence
in this case is one of the most prominent features. By the bye: was
the night of the tenth windy?”
“On the contrary, it was a very still night.”
“Not wind enough to blow that door shut?” pointing to the door
into the side hall.
“Certainly not.”
Trafford walked around to the different windows and finally pulled
down the shades and placed the lamp on the writing-desk. Then he
went outside and studied the reflection on the shades. When he
returned, he said:
“I shall be absent a few days. Will you see to it, Mr. McManus, that
the coroner doesn’t reconvene the inquest until I can be here? Until
we find a motive for this crime, we’re going to make slow headway
in finding the criminal.”
“So long as you have charge of the case,” McManus answered, “I
shall follow your wishes; but you may as well understand that I’m
not going to be content with failure on any one’s part. You’re after
the pay; I’m after punishment for the murderer. As long as our
wishes run in the same line——”
Trafford interrupted him:
 “When a case is placed in your hands, you expect to manage it, I
assume. This case has been placed in my hands, and as long as it
remains there, I shall conduct it in my own way. That doesn’t mean I
won’t take advice; it simply means, I’ll be the one to decide what I’ll
do with it.”
The two men faced each other for the moment almost with
hostility. Then McManus’s face lightened and he held out his hand
without a word of apology:
“You’ll do, I guess. If the fellow escapes you, he’d deserve to—if
he’d killed anybody but Theodore Wing. Whatever I can do to aid,
call on me day or night. At the least, keep me posted.”
 CHAPTER IV

Trafford Gets an Assurance

T RAFFORD sat in his room in the hotel at Bangor the next evening
and studied the copy of Judge Parlin’s statement.
“Her brilliancy of mind has carried her far,” he said; “has aided her
husband politically; and it was this influence that defeated him for
the chief justiceship. It’s so easy that I can’t believe the solution. By
George! I wonder if the old judge ever wrote that paper? I wish I’d
examined the original more critically. If I’d been one of your inspired
detectives, such as you find in novels, I’d probably have caught a
forgery the first thing!”
None the less, he put himself to the task of untangling the threads
of the statement, with a result that set him to deep thinking. Bangor
was not the direction from which had come opposition to the judge’s
nomination. On the contrary, Judge Parlin had been rather a
favourite than otherwise in Bangor, and his cause had received
substantial aid. But the statement did not assert that Wing’s mother
had remained in Bangor, or that it was there that she aided her
husband politically. The most hostile influence that Judge Parlin had
encountered was popularly credited to an ex-Governor, Matthewson,
an Eastern Maine man, who at present held no office, but without
whose countenance few men ventured even to aspire to office.
“If it should prove that Matthewson’s wife is a Bangor woman,
’twould be so easy as to be absurd,” Trafford mused. “The old judge
wasn’t silly enough to believe that what he wrote could conceal her
identity. Either he meant it should be known to Wing or Mrs. Parlin,
or—but what possible object could there be in forging such a
paper?”
Suddenly he sat bolt upright and stared at the document in blank
amazement. Then, with a low whistle, he folded it into his
pocketbook.
“I’ll find Mrs. Matthewson Bangor-born, I’ll bet ten cents to a
leather button!” he declared.
Whatever had brought Trafford to this sudden conclusion, it
proved absolutely correct, and the details given of her brilliance and
her aid to her husband fitted exactly to the character of the woman.
This fact naturally raised the question, was it safe to go farther and,
if so, how much farther? Mrs. Matthewson at least had been put on
her guard by the published statement, and she was not a woman to
remain in ignorance of any steps taken in consequence of that
statement, or of the man who took them. The family was powerful
and not credited with scrupulosity as to means employed to ends.
On the other hand, it was manifest that if there was such an episode
in her past, her husband was ignorant of it and she would stop at
nothing to keep him so. The secret might be dangerous, but it might
be valuable as well.
Beyond this, however, was the joy of the chase, which is absent
from no man and least of all from the trained detective. There was a
problem to solve, and, danger or no danger, it was as impossible for
Trafford to refuse to solve it as to refuse to breathe. Whatever use
he was or was not to make of it, he would know the truth.
He was not, however, so intent upon this one feature of the case
as to neglect Jim Shepard. The second day, he slipped over to
Portland and found that young countryman at work and exceedingly
homesick in what was, to his narrow experience, a great city. Finding
that Trafford knew Millbank, he threw his heart open to him and
talked as freely as he would to Oldbeg himself. Trafford let him talk.
There was a flood of irrelevant matter, but the detective’s experience
was too broad for him to decide in advance what might and what
might not be valuable. On the whole, however, it was a dreary
waste, until he touched on the night he left Millbank.
“I wasn’t the only feller,” he said; “that nigh missed that train. Jest
as ’twas startin’, a feller rushed out from behind Pettingill’s ’tater
storehouse and caught the front end of the car. I thought he was
goin’ to miss an’ I swung back to see him drop off; but he clung like
a good one an’ finally got his foot on the step. I tell you, he was nigh
clean tuckered out when he came into the car, fur he was a swell an’
warn’t used to using his arms that-a-way.”
“Queer place for him to come from,” said the other.
“Wall, ye see, if he’d come from Somerset Street way an’ out
through ’tween Neil’s store and the post-office, he’d ’a’ come out jest
thar; but he’d ’a’ had to know the lay o’ the land to done it. Ef he’d
ben a stranger, he couldn’t help missing it an’ not half try.”
“But you say he was a stranger and a swell,” Trafford suggested.
“He was a swell, fast enough. City rig; kid gloves—one on ’em
bust, hangin’ on to the rail, and got up in go-to-meetin’ style; but he
must ’a’ knowed the way. He’d ben thar before, you bet!”
“You seem to have got a pretty good look at him.”
“Wall, ye see he took the seat two in front o’ me, and every time I
woke up—say, them air seats hain’t made to sleep comfortable in, be
they—thar he was, till all of a sudden I woke up an’ he warn’t thar.”
“Then you don’t know where he got off,” Trafford said, keeping the
disappointment out of his voice.
“No. Ye see, when we pulled out of ’Gusta, he was thar, an’ I
didn’t wake up ag’in till we got to Brunswick, an’ he warn’t thar. I
meant to see whar he went to, but arter ’Gusta, I guessed he must
be from Portland and that’s whar I got left.”
“I suppose you hear from Millbank—from Oldbeg, for instance.”
“Wall,” he said, blushing a fiery red, “Jonathan hain’t no great
hand to write: but I du hear sometimes. Say, du you s’pose a body
could ’a’ heerd that thar shot from Parlin’s house down onto Canaan
Street?”
“I don’t know,” said the detective carelessly, hiding his eagerness.
“A still night, it might be; why?”
“’Cause, a letter I got says that thar night she’d jest got to sleep
when she woke up sudden, as if she’d heerd so’thing like a shot. She
got up, but didn’t hear nothin’ more an’ so went back to bed. But the
next mornin’ she guessed ’twas the shot she heerd from Parlin’s.”
“Did she say what time it was?”
 “Nope: only she’d ben asleep about half a hour, an’ thet night she
didn’t get to bed ’fore twelve o’clock. Fact, I guess she didn’t go till
she heerd the train leave.”
“But about this swell,” Trafford interposed. “Would you know him
again if you saw him?”
“I guess I would; leastwise ef I could see the top of his head. He
took his hat off, an’ thar was the funniest little bald spot, jest the
shape of a heart. ’Twas funny, an’ he warn’t more’n thirty years old.
Say, when he gets to be fifty, he won’t hev no more hair’n I’ve got
on the back o’ my hand.”
The next afternoon, a card was brought to Charles Matthewson,
Esq., in his inner office in Augusta, and on the card he read, printed
in small square letters:
“ISAAC TRAFFORD.”
“What in thunder does Trafford want of me?” he asked himself.
“He can’t possibly know!”
He sat and looked at the card, while the boy waited and finally
coughed to remind him he was still there. Matthewson looked up
with a puzzled air. Evidently he did not care to see the man whose
name was on the card, and as evidently he did not dare refuse him.
Finally he said:
“Show him in in five minutes.”
When Trafford entered, in the very act of bowing, he cast a quick
glance at the top of Matthewson’s head. There was the odd bald
spot, shaped, as Jim Shepard had said, “Jest like a heart.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Trafford?” Matthewson asked, with the
air of a busy man.
“I want about ten minutes’ talk with you,” the detective answered,
drawing a chair close to the desk.
“Professional?”
“Yes;—my profession.”
The lawyer started. He was provoked with himself for doing so,
but it was beyond his control. Trafford was not a man with whom it
was comfortable to talk professionally—that is, from the standpoint
of his profession.
“Well, be quick about it, then. I’m busy, and it’ll be a favour to cut
it as short as you can.”
“You were in Millbank the evening of the tenth.”
“Well, you are short and to the point. Suppose I was?”
“What were you there for?”
“None of your business.”
Trafford chuckled. He was getting on. It was just the answer he
expected.
“Now let’s stick right to the point, as you wanted me to. If I have
to whip round to get to it again, you mustn’t blame me.”
“Come, Mr. Trafford; you can’t deal with every one the same way.
If you want to find out anything from me, you mustn’t go at it as if I
was a country bumpkin whom your very name would scare.”
“Bless you, I don’t,” said Trafford. “Now if you were a country
bumpkin, as you are pleased to put it, I’d lead up to the matter
gently and so have it all out of you before you knew what I was at.
Not being a country bumpkin, I come at you fair and square to save
your time and mine too. What were you doing in Millbank on the
evening of the tenth? You weren’t at any of the hotels. You weren’t
seen by any of the men who were likely to see you.”
“So you’ve peddled it all over Millbank that I was there that night,
have you?” demanded the other, angrily.
Trafford looked at him with a mixture of amusement and spleen.
At last he answered:
“That isn’t the way I do my work. I don’t need to give away what I
know to find out what other folks know. There’s nobody in Millbank
any the wiser for the enquiries I’ve made.”
“Well, if you know so much and are so cunning, you know that I
got there at eight o’clock and left at midnight——”
“Dropping off at the Bridge stop before the train crossed the river,
and swinging on to the front end of the second car as the train was
pulling out of the station, coming out of the shadow of Pettingill’s
potato warehouse to do so, so as not to be seen and recognized,”
Trafford continued.
The first part was a shrewd guess, but evidently it hit the mark,
for the lawyer wheeled about and faced him before saying:
“The devil! To what am I indebted for such close surveillance?”
“Well,” drawled Trafford, with an irritating air of indifference, that
he could at times assume, “perhaps you don’t know that a matter of
some importance happened in Millbank that night and has led to our
looking up all the strangers that were in town, especially those who
did not seem to want to be seen.”
“You refer, of course, to the Wing murder.”
“I refer, of course, to the Wing murder.”
“I regret Mr. Wing’s tragic death,” said the lawyer coldly; “and
especially deplore the commission of such a crime. At the same time,
I don’t think it as important as Millbank naturally thinks it, and I
imagine the State will manage to wag along in spite of the great loss
it has sustained.”
It was not so much the words, ill-timed and out-of-taste as they
were, as the air with which they were uttered, that constituted their
significance. It was as if in the mind that originated them there was
a lurking bitterness, that the speaker would willingly conceal, which
yet was so intense that it must find vent. There was a cruel hardness
in the tone that made the words themselves all but meaningless.
Was it possible, Trafford asked himself, that the man was able to
read the meaning of Judge Parlin’s story and knew that Wing was his
half-brother? He dismissed the question with the asking, satisfied
that something of which he was still ignorant was at the foundation
of this outbreak. It was to be a question of the comparative
shrewdness of the two men, whether he still remained ignorant
when the interview closed.
“You certainly don’t suppose that I shot Millbank’s leading citizen,
do you?” the lawyer demanded, after a moment’s pause. It was,
perhaps, an effort to recover what the lawyer could not fail to see
that he had lost.
 “On the contrary, I’ve every reason to believe that he was still
alive when you left town, and I still further believe that your visit had
nothing to do, remotely or directly, with his death.”
What was that odd flash that passed over the other’s face as
Trafford said these last words? Seemingly, Trafford was not looking
at the other’s face at the moment and it might have escaped him.
Still, he would have been interested if he had seen it.
“Thanks: but, in that event, what are you here for?”
“I can’t let my beliefs or disbeliefs interfere with my investigation
of facts. Here is something most unusual occurring, almost at the
moment of the murder. It don’t make any difference whether I
believe it has anything to do with it or not. It’s my business to know,
and that’s what I’m here to do.”
“And if I say I’ve nothing to tell you?”
“The coroner’s enquiry will be public, while mine may remain
private.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I simply want your assurance that your visit to Millbank had
nothing to do, directly or remotely, with Theodore Wing.”
“I can’t see what value such an assurance can have. If I went
there to hire somebody to shoot him, I should, of course, not
hesitate to give you the assurance—and probably you wouldn’t fail to
find out the truth of the matter inside a week.”
“That’s my business,” said Trafford. “If I’m content with your
assurance, I don’t see why you should object to my being.”
“Because there’s no certainty you’ll remain content with it. It’s one
of those things where you could come back to-morrow with ‘newly
discovered testimony’ that would upset the whole agreement.”
“Oh, as for that,” said Trafford, “I propose to agree to nothing. As
matters stand, the inquest ’ll go on within a day or two. I know you
were in Millbank the night of the murder, and with no assurance
from any one that your visit had nothing to do with the murder, I’m
compelled, absolutely compelled, to ask the coroner to summons
you. On the other hand, if I’m satisfied, there’s no reason for me to
tell any one that I know you were there, and nothing to induce the
coroner to summons you. At the same time, I don’t agree to
anything as to the future. That must depend upon facts, and you
know better than I do now whether there are any that would call for
you.”
“Humph!” grunted Matthewson; “then it’s this: I assure you what
you ask and I’m not to be summoned until you see fit to summon
me, and if I don’t, you see fit to summon me at once.”
“That’s about it,” assented Trafford.
Matthewson sat for a few minutes thinking, and Trafford sat
watching him. He was tall and slim, with a rather prepossessing face
—well-dressed, in fact, a “swell,” as Jim Shepard had said. His face
was far from a dull one. His mother had evidently given him
something of her personality. Yet, a man less on his guard against
impressions than the detective might find something in his face that
he did not like,—a look of cunning lurking in the half-closed eyes, a
want of feeling in the lines of the mouth. He was a man who would
go far to accomplish his ends, but would not be willingly cruel,
perhaps because he could not understand that to be cruel which was
for his own interest. Yet, what of a fight that involved life and
honour? Trafford at least knew that it is only then that the hidden
forces come to the surface and the man himself stands complete.
Suddenly Matthewson turned, and with a side glance at the waiting
detective said:
“I assure you that my visit to Millbank had nothing to do directly
or indirectly with Mr. Wing’s death.”
“That’s all I want,” the detective said.
“I gave him credit for being sharper than that,” Matthewson said
to himself, as the door closed behind his visitor.
“Now I’ve got to find out,” Trafford noted, “how that visit did
concern Wing. I’ll test Matthewson’s conclusion before I accept it.”
 CHAPTER V

The Weapon is Produced

T HE inquest reconvened with an increase rather than a decrease

of interest on the part of the public. This was due in part to the
renewed attention aroused by the funeral, which had been one of
the most imposing ever had in Millbank; and in part to the rewards
for the detection of the murderer offered by Mrs. Parlin and the
selectmen of the town.
In addition, the County Court had instructed the county attorney
to be present at further sittings, to assist the coroner, and the town
had employed its own counsel for the same purpose.
Mary Mullin was the first witness.
“You are the help at Mrs. Parlin’s?” the coroner asked.
“I be.”
“How long have you been so employed?”
“Twenty-five year this coming July.”
“You were at the house the evening and night of the tenth of
May?”
“Yep!”
“Did you wait on the table at supper that evening?”
“I passed the victuals, ef that’s what ye mean by wait;” with an air
of defiance.
“Who were at supper?”
“Mis Parlin an’ Mr. Wing.”
“Did either of them seem to you depressed or preoccupied?”
“Nope.”
“The meal was pleasant as usual, and both seemed in good
spirits?”
“Yep.”
 “Were you in the dining room when they left it?”
“Nope; I left ’em thar an’ went back arter they were through an’
cleaned up the table.”
“When did you next see Mr. Wing?”
“As he and Mis Parlin come back from the orchard.”
“Did everything seem pleasant between them then?”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“I asked you if it did?”
“I’d scorn to answer sech a question, ef I warn’t under oath to
answer what you axed. Yep!”
“When did you see him next?”
“Lyin’ a dead corpse on the doorstep at ten minutes arter six the
next mornin’!”
“You are certain you did not see him from the time he returned
from the orchard, until you saw him dead?”
“Didn’t I swear it?”
“I asked you if you are certain?”
“Yep!” indignantly.
“Did you eat your supper before or after your mistress ate hers?”
“What may ye mean by mistress?”
“I mean, did you eat your supper before or after Mrs. Parlin ate
hers?”
“Arter.”
She testified that she and Jonathan ate together; that she went to
her room at nine o’clock, after shutting up the house “all but the
front part,” and that she went at once to bed.
“Did you at any time during the night hear a pistol or gun shot or
any sound resembling one?”
“I did not.”
“Are you a sound sleeper?”
“After I git to sleep, ye might carry me off an’ I’d never know it till
mornin’.”
“Then you think a pistol might have been fired at the south door
of the house in the middle of the night without your hearing it,
although that door was open?”
“I think that one was.”
“But do you believe, aside from what you think regarding what
happened that night, that a pistol so fired would wake you?”
“No, nor a cannon, ef ’twan’t too big.”
Jonathan Oldbeg testified practically to what he had told Trafford,
the detective, though with some amplification of details. On the
question of the absolute recognition of the shadow on the window
shades as that of Mr. Wing, he grew very positive, affirming that he
knew the stoop of the shoulders and the movement of his head. The
county attorney and the town counsel were quite strong at this point
and suggested questions which finally confused the witness, though
in the end he clung to his positive identification.
The coroner seemed disposed to pass to the next witness, when
Trafford handed up a paper, after reading which the coroner turned
again to the witness and asked:
“On the shades of which windows did you see the shadow?”
“On all three of ’em.”
“On which was it the highest and largest?”
The witness paused as he began his answer and seemed in deep
thought. Once he raised his head with a blank expression and then
dropped it again. Finally he looked up and said:
“On the curtain nighest the door.”
“And the smallest?”
“On the curtain nighest the road.”
“The witness will step down a moment and Mr. Isaac Trafford will
take the stand.”
All necks were craned to see the detective, and every ear intent
for his testimony. It was most disappointing.
“Have you made any experiments,” the coroner asked; “as to the
shadow thrown on the shades of Mr. Wing’s library, with relation to
the position of the light?”
“I have.”
“With what results?”
 “If the light is on the writing-desk, the highest and largest shadow
is thrown on the shade nearest the street and none is thrown on the
shade nearest the door. If the light is on the reading-table in front of
the fireplace, or in the centre of the mantel over the fireplace, the
highest and largest shadow is on the shade of the centre window. If
the light is on the mantel near the safe, the largest and highest
shadow is on the shade nearest the door, and the smallest and
lowest on the shade nearest the road. If the light is on the safe
itself, or on the stand near the safe, no shadow is thrown on the
shade nearest the street.”
“You have heard the testimony of the last witness as to the
shadows he saw?”
“I have.”
“What is your conclusion from that testimony as to the position of
the light at the time the witness passed up the drive?”
“That it was on the mantel nearly above the safe.”
“Have you made any experiments to determine in what position
any one would place the light, if he had the safe open and desired
the best light on its contents?”
“I have.”
“With what result?”
“That he would place it on the mantel about a foot or a foot and a
half west of the safe.”
“Then the testimony of the witness and the result of your
experiments would lead you to conclude that at the time the witness
passed up the drive, the occupant of the room had the safe open
and the light so placed that he could best see into it?”
“It is entirely compatible with that assumption.”
Mr. Trafford was dismissed and Oldbeg recalled. There was a buzz
in the room.
“What do you s’pose that was fur?” one man asked another.
“For impression. It shows how mighty cute Trafford is, an’ lets
folks know that there’s somebody arter ’em as knows what’s what.”
 “Onless Trafford got it up hisself fur advertisin’,” suggested the
other, a hard-headed Yankee to whom shrewdness was a natural
instinct.
“Do you own a pistol?” demanded the coroner, as Oldbeg settled
himself to his examination.
Every eye turned towards the witness, who fidgeted before
answering, as if he was in doubt what to say. At last, when attention
was at its keenest, he found his tongue and said:
“Nope.”
“Yet you bought a thirty-two calibre one on May eighth.”
It had already been testified that the fatal shot was fired from a
thirty-two calibre revolver. Every person present was alive with the
thought that a critical moment in the inquest had come.
“Yep; but I gave it away.”
“When?”
“The night o’ May tenth.”
“To whom?”
“To Jim Shepard. Jest as he was jumpin’ on the train, I took it out
o’ my pocket an’ put it in his’n.”
“Do you call that giving it away?”
“Yep! That’s what I bought it fur. I don’t need one here; leastwise,
I didn’t think so then; but he’s goin’ to a tarnel big place, an’ I
thought he ought to had one, so I bought it an’ took it to the train
with me that night an’ put it in his pocket.”
“Did you say anything to him about it?”
“I didn’t hev no time. I was goin’ to give it to him, but we hed to
run for the train, an’ I clean forgot it till, jest as he struck the bottom
step, I thought on it. All I could do was to chuck it into his pocket,
whar his coat swung back.”
“Did you see it go in?”
“Nope: ’twas too dark.”
“Was it loaded?”
“All but one bar’l. I fired that off up in the woods that day an’
furgot to load it again.”
 “Call James Shepard.”
Oldbeg started, and when his cousin came from a door back of the
coroner, stood as one struck dumb. It was difficult to say what
emotion was expressed in his face. Trafford watched him and
acknowledged his own uncertainty.
“Do you desire to change your testimony last given?” asked the
coroner.
“I’ve told the truth; I hain’t got nothin’ to change,” he said sulkily.
James Shepard gave his testimony regarding his leaving Millbank
and answered the questions put to him with reference to the
stranger who took the same train, which, of course, simply led up to
his disappearance somewhere between Augusta and Brunswick.
Then came the question which all were awaiting:
“Did your cousin give you a pistol the night you left Millbank?”
“Not that I knows on. It’s the fust time I ever heerd about it.”
“Do you own a pistol?”
“Nope. I hain’t got no use fur a pistol an’ never had.”
“Call William Buckworth.”
A stout, elderly man, head of the firm of Buckworth & Tompson,
notion dealers, came to the stand. After the preliminary questions,
the coroner took from a drawer a pistol and handed it to the
witness.
“What is that?”
“A thirty-two calibre Woodruff revolver.”
“Did you ever see it before?”
“Yes. I sold it on the eighth of May to Jonathan Oldbeg.”
“Are you certain of the identity?”
The witness then proceeded to the identification, which was
absolute.
“Are the chambers charged?”
“Four are. One is empty and has recently been fired.”
“Isaac Trafford will take the stand.
“Do you recognize this pistol, Mr. Trafford, as one you have before
seen?”
 “I do.”
“State the circumstances.”
“I found it on the morning of the twelfth of May hidden in the box
hedge in the front yard of the Parlin house. It was in the box nearest
the fence that separates the front yard from the driveway, and about
twelve feet from the house.”
“Was it in the same condition then as now?”
“It was wet with dew and the rust is deeper now than then;
otherwise it is in the same condition.”
“Call Margaret Flanders.”
At the name, Jim Shepard, who had taken a seat in the main room
upon concluding his testimony, turned the colour of a peony and a
giggle was started among a group of boys near him.
Margaret Flanders, a buxom, healthy lass of about twenty, tripped
into the room as if in enjoyment of the sensation she was creating.
In answer to questions, her testimony ran:
She lived at home, with her parents, on Canaan Street; the left-
hand side as you went from River Road. Jim Shepard came
sometimes to see her and was with her the evening of May tenth.
He was going to Portland to work and he was to take the midnight
train. He stayed till his cousin Jonathan Oldbeg called for him. It was
then so late that she was afraid he would miss his train. Indeed,
there was only five minutes to spare when he left the house. She
waited on the front stoop till she heard the train go and then went to
her room, which was on the second floor in the northwest corner,
the nearest River Road and the Parlin house. She went right to bed,
was in bed by quarter-past twelve, probably, and went right to sleep.
Had slept a few minutes when she was wakened by a sound like a
pistol shot. She jumped out of bed and went to the window, which
was open, for she always liked plenty of fresh air; but saw nothing
and heard nothing. There was a light in the Parlin house and she
thought it was in the library, but could not tell certainly. She was at
the window only a few minutes, when the clock struck one, but
whether it was half-past twelve or one o’clock she could not tell.
Then she went back to bed and fell asleep, and heard nothing more
to disturb her that night.
The coroner announced that this closed his witnesses, but at the
request of the county attorney he recalled Mrs. Parlin. The county
attorney put his questions through the coroner.
“Have you ever had any question as to the genuineness of the
statement which purports to be in the handwriting of your
husband?”
“None whatever.”
“Was your husband accustomed to leave important papers without
date or signature?”
“This paper is in Judge Parlin’s handwriting.”
“I hand you a letter here with the signature turned down. Can you
identify the handwriting?”
“I think it is the handwriting of Theodore Wing.”
“Can you state positively?”
“I cannot: but I have little doubt.”
“I hand you another. Whose handwriting is that?”
“Judge Parlin’s.”
“Are you positive?”
“Positive.”
“Are you certain that the first letter is not in the handwriting of
your late husband?”
“It may possibly be; but I think it is in Mr. Wing’s handwriting.”
“There was then a very strong resemblance between the
handwriting of your late husband and that of Mr. Wing?”
“A very strong resemblance. Theodore always admitted that he
had tried to write like the judge, and of late years the resemblance
was very close.”
“Still you are confident as to the handwriting of the statement that
has been produced here?”
“Absolutely confident.”
“When you hold this statement up to the light, do you discover
any water-mark?”
 “Yes, a sheaf of something that looks like wheat with a circle
around it.”
“I hand you a blank sheet of paper. Has that any water-mark?”
“It has the same water-mark.”
“That will do. Mr. Trafford will take the stand.
“I hand you this blank sheet of paper, which Mrs. Parlin has just
stated contains the same water-mark as that on which the purported
statement of Judge Parlin is written. Have you ever seen this sheet
before?”
“Yes. I took it from Mr. Theodore Wing’s writing-desk on the
morning of May twelfth. It was one of a number of similar sheets I
found there.”
“Call Mr. Marmaduke.
“You are the head of the stationery firm of Marmaduke & Co.?”
“I am.”
“Did you supply the late Theodore Wing with writing paper?”
“I did.”
“Is this a sheet of the paper you furnished him?”
“It is a sheet of the paper I furnished him for his home use. I
never furnished it to him for office use.”
“How long have you sold paper with this water-mark?”
“About four years.”
“Never before that?”
“Never. I do not think it was made with that water-mark until
about four years ago. At least, I never heard of it.”
“Did you furnish paper to the late Judge Parlin, for home or
office?”
“For both.”
“Did you ever furnish him, either for home or office, with paper
bearing this water-mark?”
“Never. I didn’t have paper with that water-mark for sale until
nearly a year after Judge Parlin’s death. I got it at the special
request of Mr. Wing, and that was after Judge Parlin’s death.”
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