ON a certain bleak Thursday of January, Randolph Mason sat in his office, absorbed in the study of a great map which was spread out on his table. The day was so dark and lowering that the electric light above the table had been turned on. Presently the door opened and the little clerk Parks looked in. He watched the lawyer for a few moments intently; then he withdrew his head. A few minutes later, the door again opened and a woman entered, and closed it behind her. She stopped and looked at the counsellor, bending over his map. The picture was not a pleasant one. The man's streaked, gray hair was rumpled, and his heavy-muscled face under the glare of the light was rather more brutal than otherwise. Then she crossed to the table and threw a newspaper down on the map.
“Will you kindly read that marked paragraph?” she said.
Randolph Mason looked up. For a moment he did not recall the woman, her face was so very white. Then he recognized his client, Mrs. Van Bartan.
“You will pardon me, madam,” he said. “I am deeply engaged. Kindly come here tomorrow.”
“I have to regret,” said the woman, “that I ever came here at all. Will you please read that paragraph?” And she put her finger down on the newspaper.
The counsellor looked at the paper.
“We notice by to-day's Herald,” it ran, “that Robert Dalton, Esq., has sailed for Japan, where it is said he will become a legal instructor in one of the national universities. Mr. Dalton, it will be remembered, is the attorney whose stupid blunder invalidated the Van Bartan will, and it is to be hoped that he will prove more efficient in the service of the Mikado. The bar of the Virginias cannot be said to regret Mr. Dalton's departure. He was grossly incompetent, and just such men bring the legal profession into disrepute.”
“What of all this?” said Mason. “You obtained what you desired. Why do you harass me with this nonsense?”
“I obtained it,” repeated the woman, bitterly. “Yes, thanks to your devilish ingenuity, I obtained it, but at what a cost! I have the money, but it is daubed over with the blood of a man's heart It has the price of a man's honor stamped on the face of every coin. I hate it all. Everything I see, every thread that touches me, taunts me with the shame of such a sacrifice.”
The woman's voice was firm, but her figure trembled like a tense wire.
“Madam.” said Randolph Mason, “you annoy me. I have no interest in this drivel.”
“No interest in it?” cried the woman. “You, you have no interest in it? Was it not you who did it? You and the devil himself? You concocted this plan. You said go to him, and tell him, and he would know what to do. Your fiendish ingenuity saw what would result, but you did not tell me. You did not tell me that this man would be compelled to rip his life in two like a cloth to save me, and that he would do it. If I had known this, do you suppose that I would have gone on for a moment? Do you suppose that I wanted wealth, or ease, or luxury, at the cost of a man's hope and fame and honor? I tell you, you miserable blunderer, this thing cost too much.”
“Chatter,” said Mason, rising.
“Chatter!” cried the woman, beating her hards on the table. “Do you call this chatter? I charge you,—do you hear me, I charge you with the ruin of this man's life.”
“Madam,” said Randolph Mason, “the vice of your error lies in the fact that you should have consulted a priest. I am not concerned with the nonsense of emotion.”
Then he turned abruptly and walked out of the room.
(See Amer, and Eng. Enc of Law. vol. ii., page 926, and the cases there discussed; see also State us. Richardson, S.C. 35 Lawyers' Reports Annotated, 238, and cases there cited; also Constitution of the United States, Art., and the Constitution of West Virginia Art. 3, Sec. 5.)
THE sheriff stopped on the steps of the court-house, pushed his straw hat back from his forehead, moved his eyeglasses up a little closer to his fat face, and began to contemplate the limits of his official jurisdiction, with the air of one about to deduce a law.
The little county seat on Tug River slept in a pocket. Behind it and on every side except the river were great mountains, half-hidden by a gigantic cloak of fog. On the opposite side, from the great coal plants of the Norfolk and Western Railroad a counter-canopy of smoke arose, dense and voluminous, and stretched itself like a black hand out over the town and across to the fog of the mountain. Man, it seemed, had conspired with nature to cover up and hide the town of Welch.
“Strange,” drawled the sheriff, “strange, that a white man should be willing to leave a paradise like this, and with river water in his stomach too.” Then he chuckled comfortably.
The sheriff of the county of McDowell was all right. He represented the entire machinery of the law obtaining south of Tug River, and he carried the momentous responsibility with the languid grace of a bank clerk at a charity german.
The sheriff was a Virginian. But, marvel of marvels, he was a Virginian without a title. He was plain W. M. Carter. The statement is not quite accurate. Among the boys he was “White” Carter. But he was no “colonel” and no “major,” and he gloried in the distinction and guarded it well. The sheriff was a comfortably fat man and most genial. His eyes were round, blue, and dreamy, and he never hurried. He was never abrupt or a jarring element. He slipped easily into any position and filled it up without a ripple, as water slips in and fills up the outlines of a vessel.
Still the sheriff was all right. When he looked out of his dreamy blue eyes through his rimless nose glasses at a negro miner who had used his razor as an adjunct to an argument, and mildly requested the negro to accompany him to the confines of the county jail, it was as certain as the advent of death that the negro would obey, and obey without comment. And when the sheriff mounted his “murky dun” horse and passed up into the mountains for the purpose of inducing a moonshiner to come down to civilization and submit his rights to the decision of a judicial tribunal, it was a matter of familiar history that the moonshiner always came.
To the inquiring stranger, no man seemed a native of McDowell.
This impression arose from the fact that the stranger adhered to the railroad and the coal towns which sprang up in its wake, and in these every man came from somewhere. The railroad had brought in the coal companies, and the coal companies had brought in the negroes, and thus towns sprang into existence, and the usual rough, expeditious methods of civilization began. Then came the politician and the adventurer, and mixed in merrily, and from that time forth the county of McDowell was industrial and Republican, and everything “went.” But a few years back, before the section hands on the Norfolk and Western Railroad cut through from the county of Mercer, there was a population in McDowell that was not Republican, and that did not “go.” They were long-limbed, indolent, and “handy men” in a fight. They made corn whiskey when they pleased, and voted the Democratic ticket when they saw fit, and accounted to no one. The revenue officer came, and looked up at the great mountains covered with the giant oaks of a century, concluded that the laws were not being violated, and so reported to the Government. It was vastly more comfortable than going up into these same mountains not to come down at all, or maybe to come down with a squirrel bullet under the ribs. In his day and generation the revenue officer was a wise man.
Here the citizen was born as it happened, lived as he could, and died as the necessity arose, and the outside world neither knew nor cared nor concerned itself with it. These were not bad people. Morally they were as good as the sun warmed. Their life bred no shams. If they loved each other, they lived together and were happy, and if they hated each other, they fought it out The feud has been usually overdrawn. It existed in truth, but it rarely resulted in anything more than a “fist fight” at a grist mill, but when it grew serious, it grew very serious indeed. The mountaineer always shot to kill. He was no man of half measures; it was a free, open, breezy war, and perhaps it was as healthy fighting as any. At his worst, the native moonshiner was a better man than the imported miner at his best. Up in the fog of the mountains men were killed; down in the smoke of the coke ovens they were murdered; and between the two words there is a distinction as big as the honor of a people.
The “killer” was common in McDowell, but the suicide was not, perhaps because men rarely take their own lives in the mountains. It is a trick of jaded civilization obtaining in congested cities, unknown and unpractised by the dwellers among the hills. Men died in the mountains, but by the hand of others.
So the sheriff was puzzled. That morning the body of Brown Hirst, manager of the Octagon Coal Company, had been picked up in the muddy waters of Tug River, just below the bridge. Above, on the railing of the bridge, his coat and vest had been found, folded and apparently laid carefully over a girder. The bridge was very high above the rocky stream, and the body of the man was badly crushed—almost beyond recognition. The man had evidently jumped from the bridge with the deliberate intention of taking his own life. All this the sheriff had heard as he rode into the town. But rumors are lurid, the sheriff knew, and he concluded to go at once to the prosecuting attorney. He wanted the tale straight from some one who could pry the facts free from the fiction. On the steps of the court-house the sheriff had paused for a moment and made some observations to himself. But a crowd was beginning to gather in the street below, and the sheriff, being fully aware that this portended a demand for his opinion and not being pleased to express one, he turned abruptly and passed into the court-house.
The man of order walked leisurely down the hall to the office of the prosecuting attorney and entered. A thin, red-haired girl was pounding a typewriter with the energy of a two-horse-power engine. Conventionalities were abbreviated in McDowell. The sheriff sauntered in.
“Where's Jeb?” he drawled.
The red-haired girl paused for a moment and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “In there,” she said, “busy.” Then she went on.
Miss McFadden was an economist; she wasted no words. The sheriff threw open the door, and walked into the private office. The prosecuting attorney turned around from the window.
“Hello, White!” he said, “you are the very man I want.”
“Which indicates,” drawled the sheriff, “that you are a young person of great discernment.”
“When one needs horse sense,” said the prosecuting attorney, “your acquaintance is valuable. At other times it is a luxury.”
“Together,” observed the sheriff, mildly, “we create a sort of equoasinus intellectual atmosphere, I suppose.”
The attorney took up a chair and placed it by the window.
“Sit there,” he said, “and listen.” Then he closed the door, and, crossing the room, began to open the safe by his desk.
The sheriff sat down meekly and turned his dreamy blue eyes on the young lawyer.
The prosecuting attorney of the county of McDowell was an imported article. Like the ancient wise men, he came from the East, but the manner of his coming was not quite that of the early sages. The sheriff had come up from the hills of Virginia, while the prosecuting attorney had come up from the sea. Not that this young scion of the law' was a sailor or the son of a sailor, but on a certain summer afternoon at a certain fashionable resort, Fate suddenly threw away the toys with which she had been amusing him, and he immediately realized that the world was a common treadmill instead of a breezy French drag.
It was a stiff shock, but the spine of young Mr. Huron was good, and instead of stepping off the pier, at ten o'clock of that same night he was demonstrating to a certain wealthy senator who had large coal interests in West Virginia that it would be the part of no inconsiderable wisdom to send a bright young fellow with a legal education down into this great mining region for the purpose of investigating the land titles, and for the purpose of keeping an eye on the industries generally, and, as it is said in the law, “for other purposes.”
The old senator was by no means blind to the very slight efficiency of raw material, but he had a heart hidden away under his coat, and at thirty minutes past eleven he was convinced. So J. E. B. Huron came into the county of McDowell, nailed up his shingle, and stepped down into the melée.
The opening chapters of his legal career were blue-tinted histories, but the material in the backbone of young Mr. Huron was splendid material, and he remained. The perception of this man of the law was no dwarfish growth, and he used it like the wise. McDowell was Republican by 1600, and “White” Carter was big boss; post hoc ergo propter hoc. J. E. B. Huron was a Republican of ancient affiliation, and more specifically he was right hand man to White Carter. This wisdom was not without its reward. The convention that nominated Carter for sheriff, nominated Huron for prosecuting attorney, and the big boss pulled his man through in spite of splits, and splits, and independent tickets. The prosecuting attorney was a handsome young fellow with a good level head. He knew the value of the sheriff, and he held to him.
The prosecuting attorney took some papers from the safe, drew up a chair, and sat down by the sheriff.
“You have heard of Hirst's suicide?” he said.
The sheriff nodded. “All but the antemortem note,” he drawled.
The prosecuting attorney smiled. “How did you know there was a note?”
“Jeb,” said the sheriff, “it is a part of the etiquette of suicide. No man effects his exit without a parting word. It would be bad form, Jeb, frightfully bad form.”
“So you guessed it?”
“No,” replied the sheriff, wearily, “my gray matter was allowed me for the purpose of utility. I concluded.”
The prosecuting attorney selected a letter from the package of papers and passed it over to the sheriff. That official examined the envelope carefully, then he slowly opened it and spread the enclosed letter out on the desk before him.
“Octagon Coal Company,” he read slowly, “Miners and Shippers of Coal and Coke, Welch, West Virginia. Robert Gilmore, President. Brown Hirst, Business Manager. All agreements are contingent upon strikes, accidents, and other delays unavoidable or beyond our control.”
The sheriff paused for a moment. “Written at the office,” he observed, “with a pen, on the company's stationery.”
The guardian of order removed his eyeglasses, wiped them carefully, replaced them on his nose, and continued:
“The officers of the law are informed that I, Brown Hirst, have taken my own life, deliberately and at a time when I am in the full possession of my faculties. My reasons for so doing are of no importance to the law, and are accordingly withheld. This statement is made merely for the purpose of preventing any inference of murder, and for no other purpose.—Brown Hirst.”
The sheriff replaced the letter in its envelope. “That,” he said, “Is a sensible communication. By the very highest flame on the altar of folly, it is an exceedingly sensible communication. Where did you find it?”
“The coat and vest,” replied the lawyer, “were found lying carefully folded over the railing of the bridge. This letter was in the breast pocket of the coat. Hirst evidently went about his death with great deliberation. Still, I see no motive for suicide.”
“Jeb,” drawled the sheriff, “you are long on motives. Everything must have a motive stamped in red ink on its face. Can't you allow an obscure citizen to change his permanent residence and retain his reasons? The gentleman has said in his communication that his reasons are of no moment to the law. Can't you take the gentleman's word for it? It is n't courteous, Jeb. By the way, where is the corpse of the decedent?”
“Within the sacred jurisdiction of the coroner.”
“And the medical fraternity?” inquired the sheriff.
“Doctor Hart is over in Jacktown putting the finishing touches, it is said, on old Pap Dolan, so the coroner called in a miracle doctor from Cincinnati.”
The sheriff chuckled. “Miracle doctor,” he drawled, “is good—is very good.”
The prosecuting attorney assumed the air of an instructor.
“Healers,” he began, “may be set down, for the purposes of a proper classification, under three great heads or grand divisions, namely, 'yarb doctors,' 'old-line practitioners,' and 'miracle doctors.' Under the first class may be grouped those persons who seek to effect cures by means of the virtues of shrubbery, as well as that vast army of rural healers known along the watershed of the Alleghanies as 'bleeders' and 'steamers.' Under the second great division are included those grave professional persons supposed to be learned in the mysteries of the human economy, who, for a fixed consideration, guess at the ill, and thrust in a chemical: while the third and final division is composed of those mysterious healers who affect to thwart dissolution by means of marvellous knowledge or marvellous skill peculiar to themselves.
“The species of the first grand division infest all that great tract of country bounded by a timber line. The second great class obtains in the cities and villages, and affect buggies, drugs, and sombre dress. The third class is a by-product of congested civilization, and begins usually with a patent lotion, and ends usually with a hospital.”
White Carter waved his fat hand. “But, if your honor, please,” he interrupted, “what did the miracle doctor say?”
“He said,” replied the prosecuting attorney, “that Brown Hirst was a compound fracture from the sustentaculum tali to the tripod of Haller; and from the tripod of Haller to the corpus callossum, he was a simple fracture.”
“Horrible,” drawled the sheriff.
“And he said further,” continued the man of the law, “that the suiciding decedent was probably afflicted with some species of psychical neurosis.”
“Domine miserere!” murmured the guardian of order. “So the travelling Æsculapius testified, and as the coroner was quite unable to spell the craft terms, he simply wrote down in the record that Doctor Leon Dupey of Cincinnati, after a careful examination, had pronounced Brown Hirst dead, which was far less prolix and entirely true.”
“That coroner,” observed White Carter, “should be United States Senator from Kansas.”
Huron took up the note and put it with the other papers.
“I judge this to be a plain case of suicide,” he said. “I have carefully compared the writing with these letters. It is certainly Brown Hirst's writing. Still, men do not act without a motive, and I see no justifiable motive.”
“Well,” said the sheriff, “I happen to know that financially the Octagon Coal Company is somewhat 'groggy.' How will that answer for a motive ad interim? Or, as the sensible would say, in the meantime?”
“Good,” said the prosecuting attorney. Then he took a pencil from his pocket, and wrote on the back of the decedent's letter “Suicide. Motive—business depression,” and replaced the papers in the safe.
The sheriff arose. “The legend you have subscribed is probably correct,” he drawled, “but the ways of Providence are varied and mystic, and I think I shall make some observations in my own right.” Then he went out.
IT is quite plain,” said Randolph Mason, “that you have fallen into the usual blunder of the common rogue. If you had wished to rob the insurance companies, you could easily have accomplished your end without perpetrating this crime, and thus assume the hazard of discovery and criminal prosecution.”
Robert Gilmore looked sharply at the counsellor.
“You mean that I am seeking advice late?”
“Precisely,” said Mason. “It is the characteristic error of the witless.”
“Well,” observed the coal operator, “in desperate positions one usually relies on one's-self; confederates are dangerous, and usually expert advice is difficult to obtain.” Then he laughed. “I could not advertise for sealed bids on how the thing should be done. I did the best possible under the circumstances, and I rather thought that I had made a clean job of it.”
“That delusion,” muttered Mason, “is common with the amateur. Indeed, it is the mark of him. This killing was useless. You could have gotten on as well without it.”
The keen, gray eyes of Robert Gilmore twinkled. “I should be interested to know how?” he said.
“At this late hour,” answered Randolph Mason, “my advice upon that point can be of no importance. Suggestions after the fact are of little interest and of no value. You have now to consider some method by which you may place yourself permanently beyond the reach of the law. This is no problem of slight moment, and, in order to meet it properly, I must know the details of this blundering business.”
The coal operator's face grew grave and thoughtful. “I presume,” he began, “that the priest and the attorney are accustomed to require details and accurate confessions. I am president of the Octagon Coal Company, as I have said, and reside in the city of Philadelphia, where I have been engaged in active business for several years. My life beyond that time cannot be a matter of any special importance. I may add, however, that I had been engaged with a foreign company as a fire insurance adjuster for the State of Illinois for some years before coming to the East. It was while acting as an adjuster of losses that I first met with Brown Hirst.
“An unusually large fire occurred in one of the suburban towns near Chicago, destroying almost an entire block, and I was sent out by my company to adjust the loss. Upon my arrival in the town I found what I believed to be evidence of a gigantic fraud. The block had been leased for a year by one John Hall for the purpose of doing a mammoth general business with a great number of different departments, and almost before Hall had opened his doors to the public this fire occurred. There was no explanation of how the fire originated. When first noticed by the police, about three o'clock in the morning, the building was blazing fiercely in a dozen places, and under such headway as to be impossible to control. The local fire department was unable to prevent the loss of the building, but fortunately a heavy rainstorm set in and prevented a total loss of the stock.
“In conversation with Hall, I discovered that not one domestic company had a dollar on the building or its stock, but that the entire insurance was carried in my company and a number of London companies usually associated with it, and for whom I acted as general adjuster. This was of itself a suspicious circumstance, since the insured would not be subject to the inquisition of numberless representatives of convenient local companies, and in a legal fight would have the prejudice against a remote company in his favor, and, further, he would have but one man to deal with.
“I observed immediately that Hall was a person of much shrewdness. He talked little, but what he had to say was exceedingly free from any suggestion of concealment or obscurity. When I came to examine the unburned stock, my suspicions were confirmed. It was composed entirely of bulky merchandise, evidently selected with a view to a fire.
“The manner of its arrangement in the building was exceedingly suspicious. The boxes had been piled up before the windows in such a manner as to prevent the firemen from entering the building even after the iron bars had been cut, and the arrangement was such that when the fire should gain headway and the windows be opened, the position of the boxes would act as a sort of flue and thereby greatly assist the fire. It was all exceedingly well planned, and if the building had been entirely consumed, detection would have been impossible. Nothing could have prevented this but the unforeseen storm, and had it not occurred just when it did, Hall's scheme would have proved a masterpiece of its kind.
“I gave the public no intimation of my conclusions concerning the incendiary nature of the fire, but when the investigation was concluded, I took Hall to the hotel, and told him frankly that my company would not pay the loss, as it was quite evident that it was all a shrewdly arranged scheme to defraud. I pointed out the suspicious circumstances, and the irresistible conclusion that flowed from them, and said plainly that Hall would do well to escape criminal prosecution.
“To my utter astonishment, the man expressed no surprise whatever. When I had finished, he asked me a few searching questions intended to determine the thoroughness of my investigation, and when he was satisfied upon that point, he drew his chair up near to the table at which I was seated, and quietly proposed to divide the insurance if I would join with him and make the proper sort of report to my company.
“In handling this proposition, Hall was marvellously skilful. He assumed to treat the matter purely as a business arrangement. He said that the loss, although big to us, was a very small matter to the wealthy companies which I represented, and would not be felt by them, and would cause no man any appreciable hurt; that he had gone to infinite pains and no little expense to perfect his plan, and nothing but the unfortunate storm could have prevented its complete success; that he had never intended to divide with any one, but accident against which he could not guard had placed me in a position to secure a portion of the very considerable sum which he had gone to so much trouble and expense to obtain, and, appreciating this new necessity, he was quite willing to allow me an equal division of the gain. At no time during his entire conversation was there any suggestion of danger or any allusion to any risk, criminal or otherwise.
“It is unnecessary, I judge, to weary you with further details. Under the remarkable handling of this man, the element of substantial wrong seemed to disappear from the transaction, and the result was that I finally consented to join with him. He claimed two hundred thousand dollars. I reported to the company a complete loss, but advised a settlement at not more than one half of the sum claimed. This finally led to an adjustment at about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, without the least suspicion of a community of interests between us.
“It would not be quite true to assume that I easily fell in with Hall's plan, although in point of time it would seem so. Financially, I was in a bad way; from childhood I had been poor; always poor. In money matters, things invariably went wrong. Every hazard I had taken, every speculation in which I had entered, had always lost, no matter how substantial it seemed. At this time I was rather desperate, I presume. At any rate, I joined with the scheme, and it succeeded without a jar.
“Thus I came to know Brown Hirst under his alias. We divided the money and deposited it with a trust company in Philadelphia until such time as we might safely join in some one of the numerous ventures which Brown Hirst was continually planning. But he was no dreamer, this Hirst. He knew fully the great virtue of deliberation, and insisted that I remain with the insurance company for at least a year, and then secure employment with another company on some reasonable pretext, and then by some error be discharged from this company, and if possible join with another, until finally I should drift out of the business without being subject to speculative comment.
“These suggestions of Hirst I followed to the letter, and they resulted as he anticipated. I had now great confidence in the ability of this remarkable man. The details of his plans were as accurate as the pieces of a machine, and they seemed never capable of failure.”
The coal operator paused and rested his hands on the arms of his chair.
“Even now,” he said, “I consider Brown Hirst to have been the ablest man I ever saw.”
Randolph Mason was silent. His face indicated rather more of weariness than of interest. Perhaps the story in its substance was very old to him.
“On the first day of September, 1893, I joined Brown Hirst in Philadelphia, and here he unfolded a number of gigantic plans, among others one for defrauding life insurance companies, which we finally decided to attempt. I do not now recall that I felt any real repugnance to the moral obliquity of these ventures. The mastermind of Hirst seemed to sweep out any moral consideration, by simply ignoring it utterly. When Hirst planned, it was all business, and, according to the ethics of business, quite as right as any. Indeed, the man was so phenomenally successful where I had always failed, that I never once dreamed of objecting to any plan which he deemed wise.
“As I have said, Brown Hirst was as practical as a blue print. He used to assert that of all vices haste was the most abominable, and that before seeking to effect our venture it would be the part of wisdom to engage in some legitimate business for a few years in order to establish a reputation as a substantial business firm. Then our plans would be rid of the suggestion of adventurers. Besides, it would give us financial rating and substantial standing in the community in which we should begin our fraudulent operations, and as well, in the meantime, we could prepare our motives, which, Hirst asserted, should always be furnished ready-made to the public when investigation began.
“We accordingly determined to purchase and operate a coal plant in West Virginia. This business was suited to our purpose rather better than any other, because men were continually coming and going in this business. Unknown companies were formed in remote cities and operated merely with an agent. The firm was rarely investigated to any very great degree, if it promptly met its obligations, and there being little opportunity for fraud, a good business standing could be easily secured by any manager who was reasonably expeditious in his transactions.
“We secured a charter for the Octagon Coal Company, purchased a plant on the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the county of McDowell, and began to operate with Brown Hirst as manager and myself president of the presumed Philadelphia company.
“Hirst was, as I have said, a man of fine business sense, and very shortly began to make money. We enlarged the plant, and soon came to be considered a firm of importance. When it grew apparent that we could succeed at a legitimate business, I began to urge Hirst to abandon his dangerous venture entirely, and devote his splendid abilities to the development of the coal industry; but he only laughed, and bade me remember that all this required work, and it was not his intention to spend his life at work.”
“Sir,” said Randolph Mason, interrupting, “you are overlooking the important matter in your disclosure. What was this insurance scheme?”
“Oh. yes,” said the coal operator, “I was coming to that. It was our plan to secure heavy insurance on the life of Hirst, making his wife the beneficiary, and later have him disappear under circumstances indicating suicide.”
“That plan,” said Mason, drawing down the heavy muscles of his mouth, “is ancient, and infantile, and trite; worthy of blunderers—children and blunderers.”
Gilmore looked at the lawyer for a moment critically, then he continued. “I presume the scheme is not new, but I rather think Hirst's plan for carrying it into effect was somewhat novel and unusually practical. At the time Hirst proposed this scheme he was unmarried, and, as a cold business proposition, he said that I should select some woman—any woman agreeable to me, whom I should like as a wife, then he would marry her, insure his life for her benefit, make his exit, and afterwards I should marry the woman and send half of the insurance money to him in Spain or Italy, where he had determined to take up his permanent residence.
“He urged that it would be best to keep the woman totally ignorant of our plan, so that if anything should go wrong, she could not be implicated in a conspiracy, and, therefore, could not be prevented from obtaining the insurance as, she being the sole beneficiary and no fraud on her part being possible, any suspected or even assured fraud on my part would not void the policy payable to her, provided he, Hirst, could not be found within seven years.
“Hence, two considerations were necessary in selecting the woman. First, she must be so situated as to reduce suspicion of her to the minimum. And, second, she must be one whom I could marry as Hirst's widow and thereby obtain the money. This part of the plan was allotted to me to complete. You will now see with what a remarkable man I was associated, and how little regard he entertained for the customs of human society.
“In leaguing myself with this man's fortune I blundered fatally. My nature was entirely different. I could not shut out the natural emotions. I could not crowd out the human in me. I was no calculating machine like this man Hirst, and in carrying out my portion of the venture I made a frightful mistake.
“I am not now going into the details of that mistake. It will be sufficient for the purposes of this interview to say that the woman whom Hirst finally married was a good woman, the daughter of a venerable churchman residing in one of the suburban towns of Philadelphia,—such a good woman that no sooner had the ceremony taken place than I began to regret having associated her with such a cold-blooded villain as Brown Hirst, and as the days ran by, that regret grew into a very passion of remorse.”
The man paused for a moment, raised his elbows up on the arms of his chair and locked his fingers.
“I guess it was a sort of Providential judgment,” he continued, “if such things are supposed to be in this practical time. I avoided the woman as far as possible, and strove to conceal my terrible regret, but it was quite useless. Hirst knew almost before I realized the feeling myself, and harshly bade me remember that this was business, and no matter of maudlin sentiment. He had no feeling whatever for the woman, and if I could wait for a little time the plan would very shortly give her to me. He warned me against what he was pleased to call 'nonsense,' and I must admit that the powerful personality of this man forced me into a sort of stolid subjection to his will. But the feeling for the woman remained, and I hated Hirst.”
Randolph Mason put out his hand as though to interrupt the speaker, but, appearing to reconsider, suddenly withdrew it and nodded to the coal operator to continue. The young man took no notice of the interruption.
“Hirst,” he went on, “like the master spirit that he was, proceeded to put the details of his plan into operation. From time to time he applied to the best companies in the country for insurance, and as he was considered a good risk, a man of fine physique, and in charge of a substantial business, he presently secured about two hundred thousand dollars on his life. These policies he carried for two years in order to avoid the suicide clause, and in order to render them as nearly incontestable as possible.
“Finally, every arrangement having been completed, the time drew near when Brown Hirst determined to make the final movement in his scheme. But during these two years my hate of this man had not been idle. I don't know just what possessed me. I had no good reason to hate him. It was all, as he said, a business matter,—details in a pure business matter. But I did hate him, and, unconsciously, one does not know just how. I determined to take a part in his plan. I determined to make the play real. This determination was no sudden resolve; it seemed rather to evolve slowly until it finally became a fixed purpose. The motive for the supposed suicide, Hirst had by no means overlooked. It was to be impending financial ruin, and during the past year immediately preceding his death Brown Hirst drew great sums from the business, and finally mortgaged and remortgaged the entire coal plant and applied the money to the payment of his heavy insurance, so that at the time of his disappearance the business would be in a state of financial collapse, and the motive for his rash deed would be adequate and thoroughly apparent.
“During all this time, Hirst operated in McDowell near the county seat of Welch, his wife remaining for the most part with her father, while I maintained a city office in Philadelphia. On the day set apart for the disappearance of Brown Hirst, there was a stockholders' meeting of our company at its principal office in West Virginia. It was a sham, but it was rumored that the purpose of this meeting was to discuss some measure that would relieve our business from impending ruin. This was the purpose made public. The real purpose was to account for my presence in McDowell. It was a part of Hirst's plan that I should remain behind after his disappearance in order to see that everything was properly arranged, and then take a night train for the East.
“The preliminary details of that night's work were splendidly managed. We met together at the office of the company. Here Hirst wrote a letter explaining that he was about to take his own life, and placed it in the pocket of his coat.
“Then he took a bundle of men's clothing, in which he intended to make his escape from the country. This bundle consisted of a grimy coat such as the ordinary miner wears, in the pockets of which he had placed a package of bank notes, a pocket-book containing a New York draft and a memorandum of his insurance policies.
“The trousers, shoes, and other articles of this disguise Hirst wore when he left the office, it being his intention to leave his usual coat and vest on the bridge over Tug River, as evidence of the suicide, and then, assuming the remainder of his disguise, slip out to Cincinnati on the night freight.
“From the office we went directly to the bridge over Tug River, for the reason, as Brown Hirst always maintained, that in order to leave perfect circumstantial evidence it was absolutely necessary to actually do as far as possible the things which one desired the public to believe one had done.
“It was perhaps two o'clock, and very dark and wet. It had been raining for almost a week. This was largely in our favor, since the river at flood is deep and rapid, and a body lost in it when the water was running high would not probably be recovered at all, as we had noticed was the case with lumbermen not infrequently drowned; hence we had selected the time of heaviest rains in this region in order that the loss of the body should not seem a matter of unusual moment.
“It might be as well to explain that when Tug River is swollen by rains its channel beneath the bridge is very deep and rapid nearest its east shore, while near the west shore its bed is higher and covered with immense bowlders; thus anything thrown into this river on its east side would probably be carried away and lost, while if dropped from the bridge on the west side it would probably lodge among the bowlders, and remain after the high water had subsided.
“As I have said, it was very dark, and the roar of the waters was something frightful, but we were quite familiar with the bridge, and, becoming accustomed to the darkness, presently came to see sufficiently for our purposes.
“Hirst went directly to the span of the bridge nearest the east shore, and, removing his coat and vest, placed them across one of the girders. Then he began to undo the bundle in order to put on the miner's clothing which he had brought with him.
“This was my opportunity, and I suggested that we first walk to the other side in order to make sure that the bridge was entirely clear. He immediately put down the bundle and came up to me. I do not now know whether there was in his mind any trace of suspicion, but I do know that at this suggestion the man seized my arm and tried to look into my face, and I am certain that had it been light he would have discovered the treachery which I was contemplating. But it was dark, and the man said nothing except to curse the night. He was exceedingly profane, this Hirst, and as we walked the length of the bridge, he holding my arm and damning the night in half whispers, I somehow felt that this man appreciated in a vague way the doom that was impending. But I presume that this was simply an impression arising from the intense strain under which I was laboring.
“As we were about to return, I pointed to the white surf, breaking on the bowlders below. The man, still holding my arm, stopped, leaned over the low railing, and peered down into the water. This was the position into which I had hoped to trap him, and, wrenching my arm loose suddenly, I struck him heavily between the shoulders. The man plunged forward over the railing, clutching wildly at the air, but he uttered no cry. and his body whirled downward into the blackness below.
“I clung to the railing and strove to see where the body would strike, but it was folly. The bridge was high above the rough stream, and I heard only the dull splash that told of his death.”
The eyes of the coal operator seemed to stretch at the corners, and a dull gray spread over his face.
“I should like to be rid of that scene,” he continued after a moment. “It is frightfully vivid. Every detail of it seems to have been photographed on my brain, and it runs before me like the pictures in a vitascope. Men sometimes forget such things, it is said, but, in the name of Heaven, how? Why, I can see him any moment in the dark. I can see his strained white face mad with horror, I can see his clutching hands, I can feel in my own throat just how the terror of death choked in his, and I know, I know——”
Randolph Mason struck his clenched fist heavily on the table. “Sir,” he said sharply, “you will kindly omit this drivel. Give me the facts just as they occurred. You may reserve your melodrama for the purposes of a copyright.”
Gilmore started and threw up his head as though some one had suddenly dashed ice-water in his face. He put his hand up to his forehead and pressed his fingers hard against the skin; then he straightened in his chair and seemed to gain his self-control.
“Well,” he went on, “I went back to the east side of the bridge, threw the bundle over into the river, slipped through to the Chesapeake and Ohio on one of the night freights, and by noon of the same day I was in Philadelphia.
“That afternoon the city office was advised of Brown Hirst's suicide. We immediately wired the prosecuting attorney for details, and were informed that he had jumped from the bridge, leaving a note in his pocket which explained that he had taken his own life. The body was shipped to Philadelphia, as his wife directed. Almost immediately I began to close the affairs of the Octagon Coal Company, and very shortly after the funeral I called upon Mrs. Hirst in order to take the preliminary steps looking toward the collection of her husband's insurance.
“Here my plan struck and went to pieces like a vapor. The wife of Brown Hirst was a good woman, and I had failed to foresee what she would do under circumstances of this nature. To my utter astonishment, she informed me that the representatives of the insurance companies had been to see her and had asked time in which to investigate the case, and that she had gladly concurred in their request. And then, like a woman, she declared that there was no reason why her husband should commit suicide, and that she did not believe he had done so, but that, if he had deliberately taken his own life, she would not touch one dollar of the insurance money; that she would have nothing bought with life. If it could be shown that her husband was murdered, as she believed, then she saw no reason why she should not claim the insurance; but if, on the other hand, it proved true that he had planned to defraud the life insurance company for her benefit, and, pursuant to that awful plan, had hurled himself into eternity, then she would starve in an almshouse before she would touch a penny of the money.
“This statement struck me with the crushing power of an axe stroke. The world seemed to pass out from under me. I saw every hope of the future vanish. I realized in a flash, as one is said to do at the grave's edge, in what a prodigious error I had been engaged.”
There must have been some suggestion of annoyance on the counsellor's face, for the coal operator stopped short and moved uneasily in his chair.
“I was about to forget your instructions,” he explained, with a shade of apology in his voice; “it is rather hard to crowd one's emotions out of a desperate, personal narrative like this, although, of course, it is all nonsense to rant about it.
“To be brief, I was totally unable to shake this woman's purpose, and I returned to the city knowing that a tireless investigation was about to begin. I have not waited to see the result of this investigation. I know that the insurance companies and this unusual woman will leave no stone unturned in order to discover just how Hirst came to his death, and I am not fool enough to think that they will eventually fail. I don't believe any of the bosh about murder crying from the ground, but I am entirely convinced that it is almost impossible to cover a crime so that human ingenuity cannot trail down the man who committed it.
“I judge that I was not intended for business of this sort. I cannot fight out in good order. With me a retreat is a rout. I have abandoned everything. I have thrown away every plan. I am trying now to save myself from the hangman, or at least the penitentiary. I have not waited to be caught; I have come to you at once.”
The man seemed to relax and settle back in his chair.
“Now,” he added, with the utter dependence of a patient stretched upon the table of the surgeon, “you must save me.”
The eyes of Randolph Mason flattened as though they were being pressed down from above, and the lines of his face deepened and widened into rugged furrows.
“There are two methods of evading the law,” he said. “The escape ipso jure planned before the fact; and the escape ipso jure after the fact. The first is a matter of no great difficulty, and may easily be prepared by any man reasonably conversant with the law of the place of his intended act, and if skilfully arranged need contain no element of hazard whatever. The latter is far more difficult, and must be handled with some care in order to reduce the element of peril to its minimum. In the first, one constructs the facts to suit the defects in the law, and if executed with any degree of intelligence, the criminal actor has nothing whatever to fear, and the law is as harmless as a painted devil.
“In the latter, the expert must take the facts as circumstance and the blundering criminal agent have made them, and strive to adapt these prepared facts to the law as it stands, which is a far more difficult proceeding, and not infrequently attended with disastrous results. Hence the skill of certain criminal lawyers, and the long technical legal battles with which the books are crowded.
“As for you, sir, the scheme in which you have been an actor was abominably planned, and more abominably executed. The most drivelling intelligence should have seen peril staring out from every infantile move made by you and this stupendous blunderer Hirst. You have taken an old, time-worn plan, teeming with dangers, and, not content with its frightful hazards, you and this witless Hirst have added one complicated peril after another until you have finally constructed a masterpiece of idiocy that in its complex nonsense approaches the sublime.
“I wonder, sir, that you have not gone to the authorities and requested an execution. It would be a fitting sequel to your atrocious errors.”
The face of the counsellor was ugly with a sneer.
“Your seeking counsel at once stands out as your one intelligent act. It is marvellous discretion, Judged by your narrative; marvellous and unexpected. Let us hope that your period of mental aberration is past.”
Then he arose and stood looking down at the man who, like many another, had striven to throw the machinery of human justice out of its proper gear, and had simply succeeded in tangling himself in its complicated wheels.
“In order to save you now,” said Randolph Mason, “we must move quickly. These great insurance companies have the ablest detective service of the world. With such a bungle as you have made, it is merely a question of a few weeks until they will succeed in fastening this murder upon you, not directly perhaps, but sufficiently to warrant your arrest, and then you must take your hazards with a jury. The man who to-day hopes to cover his crime well enough to baffle the keen and tireless search of a great life insurance company must be governed by something vastly nearer to an intelligence than that upon which you and the decedent Hirst depended.
“At this stage of your blunder there are but two ways by which it is possible to put you absolutely beyond the reach of the law. Death is one way, and we will pass that. The other I am now going to bring to your aid. With it the greatest care and haste are vital. At nine to-night you must be here prepared to put yourself wholly in my hands. I shall have every arrangement complete by that time.”
Mason stopped short, and put his hand down heavily upon the table.
“Now, sir,” he said, bluntly, “it will be entirely useless for me to attempt the drastic measures necessary in your case unless you are prepared to act under my fingers like a machine. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” said the man, wiping the perspiration from his face.
“Then,” said Randolph Mason, opening the door of his private office, “go down to your hotel and sleep; and if you please, sir, do not think, or, to be more accurate, do not attempt to think. Your thoughts, as has been demonstrated, are of no value to you, and I assure you, sir, they will be quite useless to me.”
Then he closed the door after the departing criminal and went back to his desk.