PART VII
You can readily understand that the daily papers, both morning and evening, were going strong on this murder, giving the public all the sensational stuff they could rake out of the gory mess. Even wild rumor was sufficiently tamed to occupy a place of honor on first pages, no least item of the appalling affair being too inconsequent to be written up until it fairly bristled with significance.
Even at that, very little attention was given to a press dispatch from Montreal which appeared in the Boston papers on the second morning after the shooting. Only a few lines it amounted to, and tacked on at the end of one of the columns devoted to the murder.
This dispatch stated as rather a striking coincidence, that one of the Montreal papers of the day before—that is, of the morning following the West Roxbury shooting—had printed in a local news column a short paragraph to the effect that at a spirit séance in a private house on Sackville Street the night before—which was the evening of the murder, a call had come from the spirit of some one (a man it seemed to be) whose name, owing to his extreme agitation, couldn’t be obtained, but who was so insistent on speaking that the control brought him in.
The medium, who was in trance, suddenly taken by this spirit, began crying out: “Stop them! Stop them! Can’t somebody stop them? Oh, it’s terrible—terrible! They’re going right on—there’s no help for it! Oh—can’t somebody telegraph?”
Then there was a pause, and some of the sitters began asking this spirit what the trouble was, and where he wanted them to telegraph, and what his name was, and things like that. But there was no answer, and for several minutes nothing more came through. Then suddenly there was something like a shout for help repeated several times and followed by wild exclamations about killing some one. “Down in the States—down in the States! Roxbury—down in the States! They’re killing a man in Roxbury—killing a man. No one can stop it now! There’s a gun aimed at him—don’t you understand—aiming a gun—aiming a——Oh, They’ve shot him!... Now they’ve shot him again!... He’s sinking—sinking down—down.... Now he’s on the floor—all in a heap!... Now he’s dead!... Dead!... Dead...!” The words seemed to trail off in the distance toward the end, and nothing more was heard from the perturbed visitor.
The Montreal paper carrying the account of this went on to say that its information was obtained from a well-known person who had attended the sitting. And one of the Boston papers, commenting on it briefly, as one of those odd coincidences which come along and surprise us every now and then, added: “This will be less astounding, however, when we reflect that a medium in Canada or anywhere else can confidently assert, at any hour of the day or night, that a murder is being committed in one of the large cities of the United States, and not be far out of the way in time or place.”
The evidence tending to establish the guilt of Augustus Findlay in the case of the shooting to death of Charles Michael Haworth was so overwhelming from the point of view of newspaper readers, that it threatened to make the case uninteresting—a threat, however, which was soon swept into the discard. For a few days, though, it looked unpromising in the extreme to those who revel in newspaper sewerage. The facts were so plain and Findlay’s guilt so evident that no room was left for enthralling suspicions as to others—for gossip and scandal, for the laying bare of nauseous details concerning the habits and lives of loathsome people, and all those choice morsels of offal that newspaper addicts go after so ravenously.
It was simply that this Findlay man, the murderer, had always been threatening to put a bullet into the Haworth man, the murdered, and had finally done so, being worked up to a sufficient frenzy in his half-drunken condition, by finding the said Haworth calling upon his—Findlay’s—wife. He had thereupon followed him home, flourishing a revolver in his face most of the way and shouting the most murderous threats and maledictions, and finally had shot him from outside the Cripps mansion on Torrington Road (where Haworth lived) getting it there through one of the front windows. Then he had run home and tried to make his wife uphold him in his statement that he hadn’t left the house all the evening. If that wasn’t enough to land him in the chair, what was?
To the authorities, however, it wasn’t quite so easy navigation. No one had seen Findlay do the deed; no revolver had been found; no bullet marks in the room had yet been discovered. It was true that everything pointed to him as the murderer, but pointing wasn’t enough. It answers very nicely for the general public, but doesn’t go with a Grand Jury.
And there was that obstinate old woman who undoubtedly had intimate knowledge of the entire episode from A to Z—knowing the persons involved, the motives behind the murderous deed, and every circumstance leading up to it;—for hadn’t she run out and warned a patrolman in Jamaica Plain nearly a week before the event? Fully aware of this and more, yet keeping her mouth as securely closed as if officially padlocked. More important still if it was a fact—and a word or two she’d dropped just after the shooting made it look that way—she’d been an eyewitness of the murder. Yet so far nothing could be got out of her on the subject.
But no mistake was made about Amelia Temple. It was seen from the first that the only chance was in giving it to her easy and waiting patiently for results. No pressure. On a sign of that she’d have cheerfully gone to prison for life or permitted herself to be hung by the neck until dead, before she’d have let out a word. So they kept careful watch on her without interfering in any way with her freedom or giving her the least idea they were doing it.
And the Inspector and she enjoyed a couple of pleasant conversations during this time, in which, “as a matter of form” he gave her the opportunity to enlighten them as to one or two little things, but said himself she was perfectly justified in declining to do so if she still felt that she must—indeed, he wasn’t sure but he’d do the same in her place. And the patrolman who’d failed to respond to her request for help had (under instructions, of course) made her a most abject apology, to which her only response was, “That does a lot o’ good now, don’t it?”
While proceedings in this quarter were at a standstill (for they wanted to give the old woman time), those in other and unexpected directions were not. Some rather unusual phenomena relating to the case were beginning to attract attention. Although the first of these—the communication that came through a Montreal medium—had hardly caused a ripple, a manifestation on similar lines now broke out in Boston itself, and people began to sit up and take notice.
The séance in which this occurred was taking place in a small hall or conference room, where a committee appointed by some sort of psychical research society was investigating the spirit manifestations claimed to be produced by a certain medium. It was a lady in this case—using the term merely as indicative of sex (though for all I know it could be applied in a broader sense as well)—and she was trying to cope with the various tests to which this committee was subjecting her at a series of meetings held for that purpose, hoping to win a prize that had been offered; but sure, in any event, of valuable publicity.
As you see, I am fairly well uninformed as to the interior workings of this particular brand of religious endeavor—if it may be referred to as such. Nevertheless, I am fully aware of the phenomena that touched on the Haworth case, and can report them to you with a close approach to accuracy, leaving you to draw your own conclusions as to their origin.
It was certainly a great surprise to everyone interested in the affair—with the possible exception of the firm of Harker & Pentecost, neither member of which was ever surprised at anything—that an attempt at interference should come from such a quarter. For a time it was treated as an absurdity not worth serious attention. But that was only for a time.
It seems that mediums, being forbidden, in these enlightened days, to give public séances for which admission fees are charged, are obliged to employ other methods of attracting and doing business. The most common is to appear before the congregations in the great Spiritist temples—or whatever name they may go by—where meetings are held at stated intervals in all the large cities and many of the smaller ones. At these gatherings a limited number of “inspirational speakers” and “test mediums” are allowed a certain time each in which to bring the spirits of the departed into communication with friends or relatives present, and sometimes with people who cannot be found in the assembly.
The more striking and convincing the feats these inspirational individuals perform, the greater will be their renown and ultimate pecuniary reward. For upon the impression made at these meetings (where no admission fee is charged) largely depends the amount and the value of the private business they can do thereafter. It has been known that one extraordinary “demonstration” in the way of spirit communication or materialization, has come near to making the fortune of the artist (using the term with entire respect) who brought it about. The field is of vast extent. The highest aim is the convincing and consequent conversion of persons of wealth who are undergoing the pangs of recent bereavement; for the successful medium deals in that for which almost anything will be paid—if the believing client has the price.
While these appearances at the great Spiritist assemblies are the most used of the publicity methods for commercial mediums, a greatly superior one has recently been developed for the few who are fortunate enough to be able to associate themselves with it. It is one of the innumerable outcomes—all more or less revolting—of what a few nations egotistically refer to as “the World War.”
Owing to this absurd and ghastly occurrence, hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of families were suddenly plunged into the most heartrending grief known to man. Those who were beyond words dear to them had been snatched away and violently put to death, and the ones so taken were in the very part of life where death seems most impossible, most unbelievable, and consequently most terrible.
Resulting from this, the interest in that creed which assures people that their lost ones are yet here with them in spirit form, trying to speak to them and often succeeding (through the mediumship of others), even on occasion appearing before them in person (again through the interposition of others), was suddenly and tremendously increased. One result was an enormous enlargement in the number of believers, among which were included some with a high order of mental equipment—something in which this “faith” had been painfully deficient before. A result of the unprecedented interest which this accession to the ranks of Spiritists inspired, was a stimulation of the efforts made by the less credulous to learn whether or not there existed grounds for confidence in the amazing claims set forth. Societies and associations and investigating committees were organized for this purpose in various parts of the country, rewards were offered and the claims and accomplishments of various mediums were subjected to investigation. As a by-product of these activities, and one, it must be admitted, wholly unlooked for by those undertaking this enthusiastic search for truth, the most effective machinery yet devised for the manufacture of publicity for mediums was put in operation.
The prize of a few thousand dollars offered by the organizations behind the investigating committees, was as nothing to the enormously increased business for the medium which was sure to follow the newspaper accounts of the proceedings, no matter which way they went or what decision was arrived at. Free newspaper publicity, and in the news columns—that was the real prize.
It happened that an investigation of this kind was going on in Boston at the time of the tragic occurrence on Torrington Road. The medium who was undergoing tests was a Mrs. Belden—Henrietta E. Belden was the entire name I believe—and she had heretofore revealed her unusual gifts only in private—that is to say, in her own home out in Quincy. But accounts of the extraordinary things that took place when she went into trance, came to the notice of members of a research society, and after a bit of wirepulling that was kept in the dark (as it certainly should have been) the lady was invited to submit to a series of test sittings, and, I need hardly say, accepted.
The first test séance had already been held and with some success—enough to get half-column reports of it on inside pages of most of the next day’s papers. But this was only a beginning.
On the evening of the day after the murder in Torrington Road, the second sitting was scheduled to take place—which it did. Most of the newspaper reports of this meeting spoke of it as being unsatisfactory in the extreme, though one or two contended that it would be only fair to the medium to suspend judgment until the next one, as there appeared to be some unexplained obstacle in her way, and she should be given a chance to overcome it.
It seems that after Mrs. Belden had gone into trance, instead of being, as on the first occasion, immediately controlled by energetic spirits who spoke volubly (through her) and caused sounds of knockings and chilly draughts and inexplicable moving of furniture, she was suddenly plunged by some mysterious influence, into the most overpowering grief, begging piteously that some one would help her. On questioning by members of the committee, it developed that they were speaking to the spirit of a woman named Cynthia. That is to say, the medium herself had disappeared into trance, and the spirit of this Cynthia woman was speaking through Mrs. Belden’s terrestrial machinery.
“Cynthia—I’m Cynthia!” the medium kept calling out in a voice entirely different from her own, and with tears running down her cheeks. “Yes—Cynthia! Oh, won’t somebody help me! Though you don’t know me, for God’s sake help me! Isn’t there somebody here who can do something?” And the medium sobbed and moaned and rocked back and forth, and her very face was changed. All the questions that were put to her by the members of the committee seemed to get them no further. The Cynthia spirit was apparently crazed with grief or anxiety, and held her place for nearly an hour, begging for help, yet leaving those present without information as to what the trouble was, further than the little that could be gathered from her incoherent cries of: “Oh—they’ve made a terrible mistake! Don’t you see—a terrible, frightful mistake!”
“Mistake about what, madam?” would come in a sharp incisive voice from an investigator.
“About him—about him. He’s my son—my son—my son! Don’t you understand?—and he’s in such trouble—oh, such trouble! It’s all wrong—all wrong! Can’t somebody go and tell them it’s all a mistake! Oh, please somebody tell them!” And thus it went on, the grief-stricken spirit of Cynthia hysterically begging for assistance and imploring them to tell somebody that something wasn’t so, yet seemingly unable to furnish information as to what persons she wished to have told, or to let them know who she was herself. And although, after some little time of this, the members of the committee urgently requested Cynthia’s spirit to leave the medium so that the spirits of others who were better able to communicate might take her place, she couldn’t be persuaded to do so.
Even Mrs. Belden’s assistant or director—or whatever it is those people are called—joined in the efforts to persuade Cynthia to release the medium, calling out several times to the usual spirit control: “Doctor Coulter, can’t you relieve this situation? Tell us what this Cynthia woman wants or take her away.”
But nothing availed and the investigation was finally adjourned until the evening after the next.
When Mrs. Belden came out of the trance and began to take notice of things, she discovered, from the behavior of those members of the committee who had waited, that all was not well. Her director whispered a few hurried words to her, and she could be heard exclaiming, “Cynthia? Why—why, what does it mean? I don’t know anybody named Cynthia—I never heard of such a person!” She appeared greatly disturbed, evidently fearing her chances of winning the prize which had been offered for a successful test were gone, or at least greatly reduced in size.
The condition in which she was left after being under the control of this sorrowful spirit for more than an hour, was surely bad enough without the added anxiety as to the failure of the test. One or two of the gentlemen shook hands with her and said she mustn’t take it so much to heart, as the next meeting would undoubtedly be a fine one and more than make up for any shortcomings in this. But it was evident that Mrs. Belden was disappointed and chagrined.
The next sitting was approached with feelings bordering on trepidation of one sort or another by nearly everyone concerned. And when Mrs. Belden had finally succeeded—with more difficulty than usual—in getting herself into trance condition, and almost immediately thereafter the tearful voice of Cynthia was heard, the depression among the investigators became acute.
But there was a surprise awaiting them, for not only was this spirit calmer and more reasonable than she had been two nights before, but she spoke in a way that aroused a sudden and peculiar interest.
The Haworth case—barely three days old and still on the front pages—was the subject of conversation everywhere. So that when the members of the committee became aware—as they did from the first few words spoken—that it was the spirit of Cynthia Findlay addressing them,—the mother of the man arrested for the Haworth murder, and as to whose guilt there wasn’t a remnant of doubt in the public mind—the deepest interest was aroused. Her voice was still sad and occasionally tremulous with emotion, but there was no more sobbing and hysteria. She begged most piteously that somebody there would tell the Judge or the Jury or the police or some one, that her son was innocent. It was all a dreadful mistake. He——Oh no! Oh, believe her, no!—he wasn’t the one who did it! All the things that looked so terribly incriminating could be accounted for some other way. Every one of them could be explained!—Every one!—Every one!
She went on like that for quite a time, becoming more and more affected until she could hardly speak. But on this occasion her repetitions—even her paroxysms of emotion—were no longer wearisome to those present.
As soon as it became necessary for her to pause for breath—for while it’s more than unlikely that a spirit needs any, the same could hardly be said of a medium—a flood of incisive questioning poured in, which ran something like this:
Professor Elbertson (a psychologist): “Mrs. Findlay, if you know your son did not commit the crime he’s charged with, you must also know who did.”
Mr. Blatchford (an attorney): “Certainly. Your knowledge implies that you are in a position where you have an insight of the case. This insight should enable you to give us the name of the guilty one.”
The Spirit: “Oh, don’t ask me! I can’t—I can’t!”
Doctor Wingate (a physician): “Who prevents you? Who stops you when so much depends on it? Let us know who this person—this spirit—is.”
The Spirit: “There’s no ‘who.’ Nothing can be said—no words—no—no—no words!”
Mr. Halsted (a prestidigitator): “Do you mean, Mrs. Findlay, that there is no person or being or entity of any description who forbids you or stands in the way of your telling us this?”
The Spirit: “No such thing as that! I am held by an influence from all that is, of which I myself am an infinitesimal part.”
Mr. Blatchford: “Then why does not this prohibitive influence prevent you from informing us as to your son? You experience no difficulty in declaring his innocence. Is it a law that operates either way according to its fancy?”
The Spirit: “My own influence, though infinitesimal as a rule, becomes of more consequence than all others when it concerns my son, and the balance is turned. For him I can speak across to you and beg you to save him.”
Mr. Blatchford: “Then surely for him you can reveal the facts that will accomplish that result.”
The Spirit: “Perhaps I can—oh, perhaps—perhaps! But it can’t be now! If it can be—I’ll come again!” The voice trailed away in a despairing moan and the spirit of Cynthia was gone.
Mrs. Belden came out of the trance rather suddenly, rubbing her eyes and glancing questioningly at her director and the members of the committee. As before, she seemed greatly exhausted by the use to which the spirit of Cynthia had put her, and found herself in a cold perspiration.
While no real test had yet been furnished by Mrs. Belden, a majority of the committee had a feeling that the next visit of the spirit of Cynthia would supply one, while a pessimistic minority openly stated that there wouldn’t be any next visit,—that the questioning they had given her would keep her occupied in other spheres, and that it was an exceedingly good way to be rid of her.
Mediumistic episodes such as this wouldn’t get a thing from the papers under ordinary circumstances. But these investigations the psychical research people put over, excited enough public interest to be taken up by the Associated Press and run all over the country. And this alleged appearance of the grief-stricken spirit of the mother of Augustus Findlay, the man who was under arrest for the murder of Charles Haworth, was featured in all the morning editions from Maine to California and Montreal to New Orleans.
On the day following the publication of these reports, quite a pack of editors got after it as a specimen of the gullibility of the human race in general and the people who took part in such “goings-on” in particular. You can see how the free advertising piles up for them in cases like this. Even the high and mighty editors push it along!
Of course there was nothing in it for the police—not even enough to laugh at—and no attention was paid to the matter. It wasn’t even recognized as having occurred.
Mr. Forbes, the Defense Attorney, read the accounts of the séance with a grimace. While entirely willing to catch at a straw in this case, he failed to see anything in the alleged appearance of the spirit of his client’s mother that could be dignified by such an appellation.
But in the evening of the day following there happened something that every one of these persons did pay attention to, not to speak of millions of newspaper readers besides.
It seems that a well-known medium named Dillingworth was having his chance at one of the meetings of a Spiritist convention that was in progress at Lilly Dale, a village not far from Chautauqua, in the westernmost county of New York State, where gatherings of this nature occur at intervals (no admission charged). Mr. Dillingworth was calling out names and descriptions of spirit forms that appeared to him, and asking if anyone in the audience recognized them as departed relatives or friends. Some one, of course, nearly always did, and thereupon would follow affectionate messages and disjointed conversations between the living and the dead, carried on from the dead side through the mediumship of Mr. Dillingworth.
This sort of thing went on for something like half the medium’s allotted time, when suddenly he seemed to be strangely affected, and unable for a moment to proceed. He soon recovered, however, and half apologizing, told the assembly that some one had come who had a peculiar sort of influence—an oldish man, it was, who kept saying that he didn’t know anyone there but couldn’t get control in other places, and very much wanted a message sent to some one.
“Yes, a—a—damnably important message,” went on the medium abstractedly, as though trying to listen to something in the distance. “But I can’t seem to get his name.... Oh—says he doesn’t care to give it.... But we can hardly send a message unless we know who it’s from!” (Trying to hear.) “How do you spell it? C—r—i—p—p—Crippen? ... Oh, Cripps. His name is Cripps—quite an old gentleman—rather portly—medium height—gray-blue eyes—smooth face—grizzled gray hair—bushy dark eyebrows. Anyone here know such a person? Wait a minute!... Yes yes, Mr. Cripps, I know you told me no one knew you, but I’m so used to asking the question——What?... He’s using the most frightful language!... All right—all right—there’s no need of getting huffy about it! Give us the message.... He says it’s to the police somewhere—I can’t get the place. Yes, go on, Mr. Cripps.... R-o-x-b-u-r—Oh, Roxbury!... Man shot there, he says—murdered. ... Boston police? Why not the police where the man was shot?... Oh I see—a part of Boston. I didn’t know that.... Yes, I guess you’re right, Mr. Cripps!... He says my geography isn’t worth a God-forsaken damn!... Very well, the Boston police. Now what’s the message?... Let me get that straight! We’re to send word that both times—is that right?—both times their detectives examined the inside of the rain-water conductor on the south side of the front portico they didn’t reach high enough up. Is that all, Mr. Cripps?... But you haven’t mentioned what it is they’re reaching for.... What?... Oh, I see!... He says they’ll know damned well—and don’t you forget it!... All right, Mr. Cripps. That’s pretty strong language, but we’ll try not to forget it.... What’s that? Yes, we’ll tell them.... He says they’d better be careful how they handle it if the finger marks on the butt are any use to them.... But can’t you tell us, Mr. Cripps, whether the—What?... Who’s this speaking?... Oh, some one else! Just a minute.” Then, glancing toward the audience and in a lower voice: “Will somebody remember that message? I don’t know what it’s all about, but if it’s going to help the Boston police any, God knows they ought to have it!”
A roar of laughter, together with some vigorous hissing, followed this last remark, which could hardly excite surprise when one reflected on the derision and contempt which had been aroused by the peculiar behavior of the organization referred to not a great while before.
Though the medium, Mr. Dillingworth, didn’t know what it was all about, the bunch of reporters sitting at a table down in front of him, did. In forty-five minutes the Associated Press had the whole thing, and before midnight newspaper men were dashing madly out to Jamaica Plain, having obtained permission to look over the ground.
The outcome of all this was that along about 1:30 in the morning half a dozen chaps from the papers were gathered round the rain-water conductor on the front of the Cripps mansion, pushing wires and small rods up from the lower end. But nothing was found—which wasn’t so very surprising when you take into consideration that headquarters had received a rush dispatch fully an hour before the papers got it, giving the spirit message from old Mr. Cripps in full. No one in the Department had any confidence in it—unadulterated rot, all these spirit stunts. Still, when it was wired over on a “rush” from Lilly Dale and signed “H. Thompson, Sergeant State Police,” what was the good of taking chances? So the Inspector hustled a couple of plain-clothes men out to the mansion with orders to take another look up the water pipe.
It was ten minutes after the detectives arrived at the mansion that they pulled Augustus Findlay’s revolver down out of the large zinc water conductor up which it had been shoved to a height of several feet, and wedged in with a branch from a shrub to hold it there. They got a grip on it with hooks and wires so that nobody’s hands came in contact with it. Two chambers of the gun were empty.
As the Boston papers had no knowledge of this, the dispatch from Lilly Dale was used inconspicuously in most of them, followed by the brief statement that reporters had been out and searched, but that nothing was found in the locality mentioned. Papers elsewhere gave it more prominence, as it was too late to hit them with the news that the search made by the reporters had been in vain.
This new evidence—Findlay’s revolver found hidden near the place where the crime was committed, with two of the chambers empty and his fingerprints showing up nicely on the handle—was of the utmost value, though they’d most likely have got an indictment without it. But while it made the action of the Grand Jury a certainty, and would be damning evidence when it came to trial, it must be confessed that the views of the Chief Inspector and of the Assistant District Attorney who was to prosecute, were a trifle unsettled by the source of the information which had led to its discovery. It was certainly not an agreeable position to be placed in, and every effort must be made to keep the matter quiet. Luckily the presentation of the evidence before the Grand Jury would be behind closed doors, and by the time it had come up at the trial people would probably have forgotten what it was all about.
On the following day Assistant District Attorney McVeigh went before the Grand Jury and the indictment of Augustus Cripps Findlay for the murder of Charles Michael Haworth was handed down without delay.
The date which had been set for Mrs. Henrietta E. Belden’s final séance before the researching committee, fell on the third day after the indictment of Findlay. Many persons not connected in any way with this committee made strenuous efforts to gain admission, but without success. Representatives of the press were present, but the public had been excluded from the beginning.
So when, upon the assembling of the committee on that evening, it was discovered that a meek-looking person who was not a member, nor a reporter from any of the papers, was seated near the door, inquiries were at once made, and the whispered reply of the chairman was that the stranger was from the office of the Chief of Police. For what purpose he had been sent, he (the chairman) had not been informed. So far as he was aware, they hadn’t been violating any police regulations.
As on the two preceding occasions, the spirit of Cynthia took immediate possession of the medium, but she appeared to be laboring under an excitement so intense that it was with difficulty she could articulate, and more than half an hour went by before anything came through that could be understood.
This incoherency and delay did not, however, have the discouraging effect which it had on a former occasion, for everyone there was intent to hear, held so by the feeling that she had something important to tell if only she could get it across. She would start on something—it seemed to be some number she was trying to give them—and then break off with: “I will—I will—I WILL!” repeated again and again.
The committee members were doing what they could to help her along, and when one of them asked, “Is some one preventing you from telling us?” the vehement answer came back: “Yes—yes! Such forces against me!—I can hardly speak! Don’t go away—don’t go away!” And then all was confusion again, in the midst of which she tried repeatedly to tell the number. Finally, after many interruptions, she got it out—four hundred ninety-one, four hundred ninety-one, and went on repeating it, but still apparently unable to explain its present significance. But after a long struggle to overcome the obstacle, whatever it was, something seemed suddenly to release the spirit of Cynthia from what had the effect of a strangle hold, and she almost screamed out: “West side of the street! West! West! Four hundred ninety-one!”
As soon as she stopped repeating this long enough for anyone to speak, every effort was made to get from her the name of the street she was talking about. She was asked what part of the town—what buildings were on it—the first letter of its name—everything the committee members could think of that might be a clue.
The forces holding her back began to weaken from the time she managed to shriek out about the west side of the street, and the whole thing came through rather suddenly a few minutes later.
“Don’t forget—don’t forget—four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street—four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street—west side—west side—man smoking a pipe—west side of Collamore Street—he saw them take it away from him. Oh, get him—somebody go and get him—he saw it all!”
Even while this was being repeated (as it was a number of times) there was the beginning of a quiet and unobtrusive movement by some of the newspaper men toward the door. But they found the meek and inoffensive person from the office of the chief of police standing before it and pulling his coat back the merest trifle so that the edge of his badge could be seen.
“Sorry but you’ll have to wait a minute, gentlemen,” he said in an undertone, and before the reporters recovered from their astonishment he slipped through the door. The indignant journalists started to follow him, but they found a bulky patrolman just outside who declined to let them pass. The only reply to their furious questions was, “Orders.”
It was a great surprise to James Rathbun, who lived with his family on the second floor of 491 Collamore Street, Roxbury district, and was employed in a ladies’ boot and shoe factory near the railroad, to be roused from bed when he’d scarcely more than gone to it, and questioned by a couple of men who appeared to be ordinary citizens, but were accompanied by the patrolman on that beat.
No, he didn’t know anything at all about the murder over to Torrington Road, excepting what he’d seen in the papers.... Sure he’d read about it.... No, he didn’t know anyone concerned in it and hadn’t seen any of them so far as he was aware of. They must have got the wrong place, hadn’t they?... He couldn’t say as he remembered of anything special happening around there on the night of the murder.... No, he hadn’t noticed anyone taking anything away from anybody that night—unless they—unless——Why hold on now! There was a kind of a fight down in the street, now he came to think of it, and he’d gone down and tried to stop it, but it was about as good as over when he got there. But now they were speaking about taking away something from somebody, maybe that was what they meant.... No, not money or a watch, it wasn’t, but the other feller’s gun.... No, he hadn’t any idea at all who they was.... Sure, he’d go to the Inspector’s office if they wanted him to, but there wasn’t much of anything to it so far as he could see.
The Inspector, it seems, was at the Charles Street jail, and Mr. Rathbun was taken there and questioned in one of the rooms. His testimony, as brought out, was straight and simple. He had come home rather late that night—about half-past ten or so he should say—and was smoking a pipe at his window facing the street. All of a sudden he heard a lot of scuffling and cursing outside, and looking out saw two men down there near one of the street lamps wrestling around and jabbing each other. There was something shining that they both had hold of, and once when it got out into the light he could see one man was holding on to it by the nozzle and trying to get it away from the other. That one had gloves on.... No, the other chap didn’t have none. He (Rathbun) yelled out to ’em from the window, but they was at it like two dogs holding to a stick, so he went downstairs to the street door and opened it, and just at that minute the man that had the gloves on give the other fellow a paste in the face that made him loosen his grip for a second so he could snatch the gun away from him and run up the street with it.... Yes, he was sure it was the one with the gloves on that got the gun.... How did he know? Well, for one thing he went out and spoke to the other chap and he didn’t have none on.... No, there wasn’t any talk between them, for the chap didn’t say anything, but in a minute or so turned suddenly and beat it down the street toward the railroad tracks.... Know him? Did the Inspector mean the one he went out and spoke to? Sure he’d know him if he ever saw him again!
“Why, there he is now!” Rathbun exclaimed with genuine surprise, as he pointed at a man among about a dozen prisoners who were filing into the room. It was Augustus Findlay. The Inspector had given a signal a moment before.
The digging up of James Rathbun of 491 Collamore Street on a tip from the disembodied spirit of Cynthia Cripps Findlay shook things up a bit in the Police Department. Of course everyone connected with said Department was entirely aware that the spirit game was simply cheap poppycock and that the two rather surprising messages bearing on the Haworth case were merely instances of odd coincidence. Great God! There were eleven thousand mediums in the United States, and these giving out ten communications a day (a conservative estimate) made the output from the spirits forty million one hundred and fifty thousand messages a year; it would be a damned pity if one or two of them couldn’t strike it right once in a while! As for the alleged Cripps message from Lilly Dale, they had it pretty well covered up—at least for the present. The papers, to be sure, had printed it, but they had also mentioned the fact that nothing could be found in the place indicated.
But holding back this Collamore Street message with its extraordinary results was another matter. It must be done though, if possible. The precaution of ordering the detention of everybody in the hall where the séance was held, in case some “spirit” got a message through that might cause trouble, was certainly well taken, and neither the reporters nor any others who’d been present during Mrs. Belden’s trance were permitted to leave the building until Mr. Rathbun had been returned to his dwelling place and, with his wife (who’d come to the window the night of the fight on hearing the shouting) sworn to keep the matter entirely to themselves, and the fact strongly impressed upon them that it would be a highly dangerous thing for them, to let out a word of it.
A search was quickly made for others in the tenements near who might have been witnesses to the revolver fight, but none were found. All this had transpired in not much above an hour, and the Rathbuns, as requested, locked their door and went to bed.
Some twenty minutes thereafter No. 491 Collamore Street was seething with baffled newspaper men. They pounded on the door and rang the bell of the tenement on the second floor, until Mr. Rathbun, apparently roused from deep slumber, opened it to find out what all the racket was about.
The reporters surged about him, calling out questions, demanding statements, jotting down descriptions of him, and making such a riotous clamor, notwithstanding his assurances that he didn’t know anything about it, that he finally (to all appearances) lost his temper, and shoving those nearest to him back on to the landing, slammed the door in their faces and turned the key in the lock.
By this time there was quite a gathering in the street below, and when the newspaper boys began to surge down the stairs with the idea of trying to get in through a rear entrance, there was considerable excitement; for the crowd hadn’t the least idea what it was all about and looked for the capture of a desperate burglar or something equally diverting. In the midst of all this, word was suddenly passed from somewhere that some one had found a man up the street a ways, who’d seen the whole thing, and in ten seconds No. 491 was left as quiet as a church.
The rumor of the man who knew it all turned out to be based on fact. A solid, reliable-looking chap he was, and the reporters had him penned. He seemed reluctant to say anything at first, but finally admitted that he was walking through Collamore Street that night and came right on it. Must have been half-past ten or eleven, he thought. Two men fighting for a revolver—that’s all it was. He backed into a doorway on the other side, about opposite 491, and took it all in. The reporters got everything down to the minutest details, and you can imagine what the papers looked like next morning. Not Boston alone, but everywhere. Headlines you could read a block away. Here was the real thing, and the newspaper chaps know one of those when they see it.
The authorities laid the leakage to the Rathbuns, but of course couldn’t hold them for anything. When they came to figure up the effect of the revolver episode on the case, it didn’t alter matters to any extent. While it had the look of some kind of framing of Findlay, it was at the same time shown by this very episode that he had his revolver in his hands after the shooting and was chasing himself home with it at the time it was taken from him. The only real loss sustained by the prosecution was the necessary abandonment of the contention that Findlay’s revolver had been concealed by himself after the shooting, for, as it now appeared, somebody else had shoved it up in the water conductor. But without this, the evidence against the man was amply sufficient. His violent threats—his frenzy at being shoved back out of the house by Haworth with the door slammed in his face—his position at the front window with his gun in his hand at the instant of the shooting—his mad flight from the grounds of the Cripps mansion, carrying (as it now appeared) his weapon with him—his incriminating behavior at the time of his arrest next morning in attempting to escape and then, when caught, endeavoring to get his wife to support him in his statement that he hadn’t left the house the evening before—all this, taken together with other evidence which had since been collected, meant nothing but swift conviction.
But while the Chief Inspector and the District Attorney entertained no doubts as to the case against Findlay so far as the actual firing of the shots that killed his victim was concerned, this extraordinary seizure of the revolver in the public street and its concealment near the place where the murder had been committed, were a plain indication that others were involved in the crime, and now that it was accomplished, were using every effort to frame it on him alone. It was a strong hand that was working in the dark against Findlay, and Mrs. Belden, the spirit medium, had shown that she knew a great deal about it. She’d been held, after the release of the others, at the room where the séance took place, notwithstanding the indignant protests of the committee; and orders were later given to bring her to headquarters. They’d soon make her tell where she got her information—a key, most likely, to the whole thing.
They’d have liked very well to get Mr. Dillingworth, too—the Lilly Dale medium whose control, alleged to be old Mr. Cripps, told where the gun was concealed. But that would be difficult. And then again a man wasn’t so easy to handle in a case like this. They could frighten a woman. She’d lose her head and tell them everything.
Mrs. Belden was brought in by a couple of detectives. It was somewhere about three in the morning. Notwithstanding what she’d been through and her virtual arrest coming on top of it—for that’s what it was made to appear—she showed no signs of disturbance; indeed one would have thought she hardly noticed what was going on. She had, or assumed, a detached air, giving the impression that her mind was occupied with other and more important things than those in the immediate vicinity. A pleasant but vacant smile had been arranged on her countenance before her thoughts wandered abroad, as a friendly signal to those who might notice it fluttering there.
She was brought before the Inspector. Several plain-clothes men stood about, watching her like hungry wolves. Uniformed police were stationed at each door and a very large-sized one sat near the Inspector. She was to be impressed with the importance of what was about to occur.
A detective brought her a chair.
All went smoothly enough as to preliminary questions—name, address, occupation, etc.—although she replied absently, and several times had to be recalled to herself and the question repeated before they could get a response. After this was over and an effective pause had followed, a police stenographer (plain-clothes) rose, and read in a loud and impressive voice a report of what Mrs. Belden had said and done during the séance of the evening just passed, while under the alleged control of some one deceased.
The moment this man announced what the report was about, that he intended to read, Mrs. Belden’s manner underwent a drastic change. Her detachment disappeared, and evidences of the most eager interest took its place. She listened with rapt attention to every word that had come through from Cynthia, and when the reading was finished breathed a sigh of the deepest satisfaction.
“Mrs. Belden, you have heard the report of what was given out and said and uttered by you at the meeting held in the Board Room at Charnley’s this evening?”
“What sir?” she asked with a startled turn, aroused from her thoughts of the séance.
“I say” (in a louder voice) “you have heard what has just been read—the report of what you gave out at a Spiritualistic meeting this past evening?”
“Oh yes——yes indeed! How nice of you to put it all down!”
“And do you acknowledge it to be a true and correct statement of your words on that occasion?”
“Mercy! I’m sure I don’t know!”
“You don’t know?”
“Why no,” (shaking her head). “How could I when I was in trance?”
“In what?”
“Trance.”
“What in God’s name is that?”
“I—I really couldn’t tell. Why don’t you ask some of the committee? That’s what they’re trying to find out. I’m sure they’d be glad to——”
“One moment! Just one moment, madam!” spoke up a large man in uniform who was standing near the inspector. He wore a face and jowl something like Von Hindenburg and his voice was as the bellowing of a bull. “We’re here to ask you, Mrs. Belden! You are the person who uttered those words and we propose to hold you responsible!”
“What the hell’s the committee got to do with it, anyway?” growled one of the detectives, whose natural gifts for vicious snarling had made him of value in a business like this. “It was you who said it—now you answer for it—see?”
Mrs. Belden blinked from one to another of them in cheerful bewilderment. Her pleasant and comfortable smile still occupied her face, though for a moment a trifle insecurely.
“Now then,” went on the Inspector, “we’d like very much to hear from you, Mrs. Belden!”
When he spoke she turned to him as though to a pleasing conversation with some new-found friend.
“Be so good as to answer the question.”
“The question?”
“Yes, the question!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t remember what it was!”
“Don’t remember! Don’t remember! Well, I’ll be damned!” (From the snarling one.)
“Perfectly plain and simple, madam,” continued the Inspector. “Is this report which has just been read to you a true and correct statement of the words spoken by you at the séance or meeting this evening just passed?”
“Oh dear me—but you see, I—I don’t know.”
“You know what you said, don’t you?”
“No sir.”
“What’s the reason you don’t?” (Von Hindenburg speaking.) “Give us the reason! Don’t try to put over any of that trance cackle on us! Don’t you know what you say to people?”
“Oh, no!” (shaking her head). “Not when I’m in—in——not when it’s like that.”
“Mrs. Belden, aren’t you perfectly well aware that you told those present in the room to go to a certain street and number and get a man who was living there, for a witness?”
“Yes sir.”
“A——h!” (A snarling roar.) “At last you’re beginning to remember, are you?”
“No sir, I don’t remember.”
“You don’t!”
“No sir.”
“Then how do you know it?”
“I heard that man over there read it.”
“And did you remember then—when you heard him read it—that you’d said it?”
“Why, I’m sorry, but I didn’t really remember having done so. I hope you—I hope you won’t mind.”
“Whether you remember or not, Mrs. Belden, the fact that you did actually tell them this, remains!”
“Oh yes indeed, that remains of course!” She wanted to oblige these shouting and excited men in any way she could.
“Now then! You fully believe this to be the case—that you told them to go to the address on Collamore Street, and find a man who was smoking a pipe there, and bring him in for a witness?”
“Oh yes, I do believe it, really!”
“Ah—you do! Well that’s something!”
“Why, I don’t see why that man” (looking at him) “should want to tell a lie about it, do you? I’m sure he looks honest!”
“Never mind how he looks. You acknowledge in our presence that you said those words, or words to that effect—you admit that you did give that street and number. Now what we want to know is, where you got that information?”
“Yes!” (From the snarling hyena man.) “Who told you? Where did you find it out? I say, where did you find it out?”
“Find what out?”
“That a man living at four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street saw something that made him a valuable witness. Where did you find that out?”
“Oh, but you don’t understand at all—I didn’t find it out!”
“You knew it, didn’t you?”
“Oh no, I really had no idea of it at all!”
“Here! Here!” from the Hindenburg man.
“My God woman” (from the hyena man) “you said it—you acknowledged it—we’ve got half a dozen witnesses who’ll swear to that!”
“Oh yes! Well, doesn’t that satisfy you?”
“It does not! You’re going to tell us where you got that tip! It came from somewhere—that somewhere is what we’ll get out of you—and don’t you make any mistake about that!”
Mrs. Belden, unable to comprehend, smiled vaguely at them as if hoping to soothe and quiet them thereby.
“Answer me this: How could you tell them all that about Collamore Street if you didn’t know it yourself?”
“I don’t know, but if you’ll ask one of the committee men——”
“Be quiet!” “That’s enough of that!” “Committee be damned!” And general protests from the men in the room.
Mrs. Belden subsided pleasantly. Her smile flickered a little but refused to go out.
“I’m not here to ask committee men,” the Inspector went on. “I’m here to ask YOU!”
“That’s very nice of you, I’m sure!” (A little doubtfully.)
“And what’s more, you’re going to tell me! You’re going to tell me where you got your information about that witness in Collamore Street before you leave this place!”
“Oh, I hope I can—if you feel so about it!”
“Go on with it then! How came you to know anything about that witness at four hundred ninety-one Collamore Street? How was that? Explain yourself!”
“Why I thought I told you that I didn’t know anything about him! What funny questions you ask me!”
“But you acknowledge that you told them about him—you acknowledge that! Don’t you acknowledge that?”
“Oh yes indeed—I acknowledge that!”
“Well if you told them about him you must know about him! You can’t tell a thing unless you know it, can you?”
“Well, you see, when I’m in trance——”
(A burst of yells and imprecations from the men in the room.) “Don’t give us any more of that!” the Inspector went on as soon as it was quiet. “Just the idea out of your head that you can put that kind of birdseed over on us! From now on no more trances and rappings and slates and the whole bag of tricks! We know these games—every one of ’em, an’ they don’t go here! They don’t go here, Mrs. Belden! Now you tell me straight, where did you get that information about the witness on Collamore Street?”
“I didn’t get it at all.”
“You mean you told them all that—told them just where to find a man—the very street—the very number—the very apartment—the very pipe he smoked—and didn’t know any of those things yourself?”
“Oh yes—it’s so strange, isn’t it! When I’m in a——”
“None o’ that now!” (From the Inspector, speaking above a general murmur of protest from the police and detectives.)
Mrs. Belden smilingly held her peace.
The Inspector, McCurran, paused a moment in order to increase the impressiveness of his next question.
“Mrs. Belden,” he began, in a lower voice and with overpowering solemnity, “do you realize the position in which you are placing yourself by your refusal to answer this question?”
“Why, I’m afraid you don’t like it at all!”
“Not like it, madam! I can assure you that it’s a great deal worse for you than NOT LIKING IT! We are compelled to conclude that for some reason known only to yourself you are SHIELDING the person or persons WHO ARE GUILTY OF THIS FIENDISH CRIME!”
“Dear me! Why, who do you think it is?”
“You apparently have no idea what such a thing may mean to you!”
“No sir.” (She was so interested that she was leaving her smile alone to get along the best it could without her.) “I’m almost sure I haven’t!”
“A person who shields one guilty of murder is an ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT!”
“Mercy! Am I—am I one of those?”
“It certainly begins to look like it, madam!”
“Why how perfectly dreadful!”
“Now before you’re arrested and tried on that charge we’ll give you one more chance to clear yourself! You understand—one more chance and that’s the last!”
“Well that’s—I’m sure you’re very kind! Is it something you want me to do?”
“That’s what it is, madam, and your only chance is to DO IT NOW! Tell us where you got your information about the witness on Collamore Street!”
“But how can I when I didn’t get it anywhere? It was whoever was in control that had it. That man there who read it said Cynthia was the name.”
“Well then, where did Cynthia get it?”
“Oh, well,” (the smile spreading) “I’d like to know that myself!”
And so it went on hour after hour, Mrs. Belden cheerful and unmoved, her questioners more and more wearied; bored beyond words by her dense and unshakable simplicity and maddened by her invulnerable smile; until finally they had to give it up and tell her to go home. Smiling pleasantly, she thanked them and said she’d enjoyed it very much.
Though it seemed that some mysterious person or persons—dead or alive—were framing Augustus Findlay, the Grand Jury had indicted him for murder, and the evidence against him was seemingly overwhelming.
As for Findlay himself, his state of mind was pitiable. He had no doubt whatever that he had fired the shots that killed Charles Haworth, and Mr. Forbes (of Houston, Forbes & McAllister), the Defense Attorney, had all he could do to keep the frightened wretch from confessing in the hope of having mercy shown him. A prospect of life imprisonment gave him no uneasiness; what appalled him was the thought of death. And it certainly looked black for him as the day set for his trial drew near.
Then late one night the Associated Press took a hand—or rather let us say extended a hand—from the wind-swept reaches of Chicago. Mr. Harcourt Sidney was a well-established materializing medium doing business in that city. Through his efforts and ministrations some remarkable spirit phenomena had taken place, and he had a choice and well-to-do clientele—the well-to-do feature being by far the more important one to him. This man Sidney was not only clever in the line of materialization, but he was a trumpet medium as well, and many of his other-world communicants appeared to find this an assistance in getting through.
In the practice of his profession, as Mr. Sidney conducted it, there would be specially arranged private meetings at the houses of those belonging to the circle; and Mr. Sidney, securely tied into a plain kitchen chair with stout ropes, and his thumbs and fingers wound with easily breakable thread, would bring—or let us say persuade to come—from the spirit world, many friends or relatives of those present, so that they seemed to be actually there in the darkened room, able to converse freely in their own voices, and often with other characteristics of their earthly existence easily distinguishable.
These sittings or séances were entirely private, and I don’t have to tell you that no admission fee was charged. But if any of those who attended felt that their enjoyment had been of quite unusual dimensions either in the way of witnessing absorbingly interesting phenomena or in having departed friends or relatives actually speak to them, sometimes even allowing shadowy glimpses of themselves like faint half-luminous clouds to be seen shimmering about in the darkness, they were at liberty to send to Mr. Sidney any little token of esteem that they felt like offering.
Quiet and select little spiritistic gatherings like this were started all over the country, when the extraordinary revival of interest in such things came along carrying some very big names at the top of it. And I want to tell you that there’s millions of dollars coming to the people owning these names if a commission on the business they brought in for the mediums could be collected.
At these private sittings, with Mr. Sidney in the chair, so to speak, not only the friends and relatives of those present, but also quite a number of distant acquaintances, or even just fellow townspeople, would occasionally drop in; a few came at nearly every meeting for a bit of a chat. It was almost as if they enjoyed talking things over with their mundane fellow citizens—and for all I know they did.
One of these few who made an occasional spirit call, was a man well known not only to everyone in that circle, but to nearly everybody in the United States as well; he had been a renowned—you might almost say world-famous—detective, a great part of whose life had been spent in Chicago. A most entertaining talker he was, and seemed to enjoy the opportunity of conversing with those he had left on earth when he passed over, as the saying is.
At one of these private séances on an evening along about the time I’ve just been speaking of, they’d been having visits from various dead ones (dead in an earthly sense I mean) for upwards of an hour, when the medium announced the approach of this well-known man, and in a moment the trumpet was seized in a strong grasp and a visit with him of more than usual interest followed. Some one in the circle alluded to the Haworth case in Boston, which had become, by this time, owing to the unusual occurrences connected with it, quite the talk wherever you went.
Then a man on the other side of the circle asked Mr. P. (which is what we’ll call this spirit) if he’d be willing to say anything about that singular affair. “Certainly singular,” he said, talking through the trumpet, which made his voice loud and clear; “an’ I notice that several people on this side have got excited about it.”
“But can’t you give us anything about the case yourself?” was the next question. And I’ll tell you beforehand that his answer was in the morning edition of every newspaper in the country, as well as Canada. It was about like this as I got it from the papers.
“Well now,” Mr. P. objected at first, “I can’t say I like talking about that. What would I do, butting in?”
But many in the circle now began begging him to give them just a hint of what his opinion was—what he said to be treated as strictly confidential.
“Well,” he finally said, “if you’ll just consider it a private matter between ourselves an’ leave my name out of it, I’ll say this: While I have every respect for those Boston boys, they’ve got it doped out wrong. I didn’t see the thing done, but as soon as I heard about it I went over there an’ took a look around. The trouble is they’ve got it set in their minds the shots were fired from outside. Everything was fixed to look that way, but, heavenly Jerusalem! that’s what’s the matter with it—it was fixed! They’d ought to take a look at those front window blinds no matter if the vines are growing over ’em. You can do a great deal with vines if you give your mind to it. Also they’ll find a bullet struck one o’ the elms out in front. If they want it they can get it about fifteen feet up. The feller was firing high, whoever he was.”
That was all Mr. P. would say on the subject, except that you couldn’t expect any sort of good work in these days with a pack of yelping newspaper hounds worrying the life out of you and giving away anything they could get hold of so the man you were after could act accordingly. After a few anecdotes about how they kept things quiet in his day, on the principle that when your man was working in the dark against you you ought to be let alone to do the same by him, he said good night and was gone. Instantly the meeting broke up, and everybody was buzzing about. Two or three jumped into a car and made for the Loop District to talk it over with a couple of managing editors they knew, and the conclusion quickly reached was to transmit the message to the Boston police and also let the Associated Press have it—this without making use of Mr. P.’s name. The result was that it went out to the press as a Mediumistic Message from a Celebrated Detective.
It’s hardly necessary to state that the reporters at headquarters wanted to know this and that, and what you might call a press rush was made for Torrington Road. But the police were already making an investigation, and the newspaper men were kept out of the grounds until it was finished.
The outside blinds to the front window of the room on the left—which were flat against the wall on each side—had the appearance of having been undisturbed for years. Tangled Virginia creeper grew so densely over them that they could hardly be found. Yet when it came to the work of clearing these vines away it was discovered that hardly any effort was required. The blinds had evidently been opened as wide as possible and the vines hung over them.
When brought to view, these shutters told their gruesome tale. Two smashing bullet holes far up near the top where no one standing on the ground outside could have reached,—one splintering a slat of the left-hand shutter, the other cutting a fairly clean hole through the frame of the one on the right, and both giving unmistakable evidence of having come through from the inside (of course when the shutters were closed) submitted their silent evidence.
The murderer, whoever he was, had evidently failed to think of the blinds until it was too late, and they were shattered by the bullets that had killed Charles Haworth. Then, with no time to otherwise dispose of them, the mass of vines had been torn away from the wall on each side until the shutters could be opened back against it, and the vines then pulled over them. All this was a trick to make it appear that the shots were fired from outside the front window—or at any rate to avoid anything that conflicted with that idea. Again that mysterious framing for the conviction of Findlay.
In either event the shattered window blinds and one of the bullets found embedded in the trunk of an elm tree a few feet away, plainly indicated that Findlay could not have fired the shots, even though he may have thought he did.
Added to this was the significant fact that the detectives had been unable to find any trace of a bullet on the walls at the inner end of the room, where they should have been if fired from outside the front window. The District Attorney was obliged to enter a nolle prosse, and that was the end of it.
Augustus Findlay was a free man.
His Attorney, Mr. Archibald Forbes, was waiting for him in the corridor, and with a muttered “Come along, quick!” hurried him out to a taxi. The windows of this vehicle were covered with newspapers pasted to the inside, and a man with a heavy and obtrusive jaw was seated within.
When the door was opened and Augustus saw this man, he hesitated, but Mr. Forbes shoved him aboard and got in after him. The instant the door closed, the taxi dashed down the street. The three men were shaken and tumbled about as they rattled on at what, to Findlay, appeared to be breakneck speed. The papers pasted to the windows prevented his seeing where they were going.
It was something like half an hour before the machine stopped.
“Be careful!” warned Mr. Forbes in a hoarse whisper. “We get out here and you’ve got to keep between us! If they find out we’ve got you away, they’ll nab you!”
“What is it—what are you——”
“Sh!” warned the lawyer, impressively.
The two men ran across the walk, Augustus between them, and as they did so the door of the house before which the taxi had stopped was opened from the inside, and they dashed madly up the steps and plunged in, the door being instantly closed after them.
It was a vacant house and without furniture of any kind. Findlay was taken to a dark room in the basement where coal had been kept. It contained bins and piles of rubbish which could be sat upon in an extremity.
“You going to do something to me?” Findlay managed finally to stammer out.
“Shut your mouth!” from the man with the jaw.
“Now listen to me,” began Mr. Forbes in a low voice. “I got you off by a fluke, but they’ll be on to it in an hour or two. Mr. Sugden here’s a Department detective and he’ll get you by the police to-night and put you on a train. Also he’s got a wad of money for you—subscribed by friends. Now I’m done with you! I said I’d get you off and by God! I’ve done it! But if they ever get you again you’re finished—remember that!” Having said which Mr. Forbes went up stairs and left the house.