Part 4

Motioning me to a chair, my strange host took the sacks of gold, which I carried in a stout bag, and threw them against the safe. The clang of the falling coins sounded dismally through the silent apartment.

"What a curse love and gold can be to a man!"

He spoke bitterly. I had never met Caleb Parton before, and as he uttered these words I looked at him carefully. His face was of a dark olive tint, while his deep-set eyes were small and intensely black. They were full of magnetism and subtle cunning.

He became conscious of my scrutiny, frowned a little, then turned toward the door.

"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Hope," he said, "I'll bring you up some refreshments. You must be tired and hungry after your long ride."

In a short time he returned, bringing a tray on which was a choice repast, with a bowl of strong coffee.

"You see I'm my own servant, Mr. Hope," he said, putting the tray on the table. "My man, Joe, is off to a camp-meeting and won't be back before daylight."

As I ate the lunch which Caleb Parton had brought me, he emptied the gold from the sacks upon the floor and counted it over carefully.

"Correct!" I heard him chuckle to himself, as he flung the refilled sacks into the safe.

After I had finished my lunch, Parton exhibited two fine pipes and invited me to join him in a smoke.

"Excuse my oversight. There's not a drop of wine left in this decanter," he said, after examining it.

"No matter," I returned. "I never drink wine."

"Tut, tut, man! you miss half your life. Now, I have a very choice collection of wines. Come, I'll give you a peep at my vaults."

He arose as he spoke and took up a candle. I had no interest whatever in wines, but I accompanied him.

Descending to the lower hallway, we passed through a long, dreary room, then down narrow stone steps into a capacious cellar, walled on every side with heavy masonry.

The place was damp and musty. Dust and cobwebs covered the casks and bottles that littered the whole end of the cellar. My host did not halt till we reached a heavy iron door fastened with a large, rusty padlock. I noticed a demoniacal expression on Parton's face, as he held the light close enough to the lock to examine it.

"No, it's never been meddled with," he remarked with a chuckle. "Ten years is a very long time for a man to live on wine—but he was very fond of wine—very—ha, ha!"

I looked at Parton in amazement, much puzzled as to the import of his strange words and manner.

He turned to me with a quick gesture.

"A thousand pardons!" he said. "You think my actions strange. But—shall I?—" a wild flash in his eyes. "Yes, Mr. Hope, you shall have the story. I must tell it to some one. It's too good to keep. Ha, ha!"

"Take a seat," he continued, pushing a cask towards me, upon which I dropped, not certain that I was not in the presence of a madman.

Taking up a bottle, he brushed the cobwebs from it, then, breaking off the neck, passed it to me, saying:

"Take a pull. It's damp in this cellar, and this will take the chill out of your blood. This is an excellent wine—it was a favorite brand with Judson Pickford. Yes, sir; and Judson was a competent judge. Ha, ha!"

His laugh made me shiver. It sounded like the exultation of a fiend. But I declined the wine, and Parton himself drained the bottle.

"You've never heard of Judson Pickford?" he asked.

"No."

"Of course not. That was before you came, and it isn't likely that excellent Messrs. Dillard & Hatch would mention him to you. But they could tell you a great deal about Judson if they were so disposed."

"Judson Pickford was a strange, dark man. I met him first in society in Baltimore. And, strange to say, many declared that there was a strong resemblance between Pickford and Parton. Be that as it may, fate decreed that we should both love the same girl,—beautiful, winsome Mabel Raymond. I loved her from the hour we first met, and I've no doubt my rival's passion was as intense as my own. I was a rich wine merchant, and Pickford a wealthy, brilliant stock-broker. Both of us vowed to win Miss Raymond, but from the first I saw that she favored Pickford's suit. This made me hate my rival with deepest hatred. After they were married I went about for months like one stupefied. In losing the only woman I loved I lost all interest in life. I drank heavily, but the more I drank the more I felt myself urged on to revenge. Then I began to lay plans for Pickford's ruin.

"When he and his wife were in Europe I saw an excellent chance to mature my scheme for his destruction. I first converted all my property into cash. Then I came to this secluded place and had this house built, where I might live apart from the world I hated. Afterward I went to Dillard & Hatch, and placed five hundred thousand dollars in their bank. I knew Dillard to be a noted schemer, so I took him into my confidence, and got his promise to help me. Hatch, being a weak man, was not hard to rope into the plot. No need for me to go into details of the steps by which Dillard and I artfully spread a net for our unsuspecting victim. It is enough to say that soon after Pickford's return from abroad he was a ruined man. Penniless though he was, he didn't lose heart. He moved into plainer quarters and took up the practise of law, a profession which he had followed before he became a stock-broker. But my vengeance was not yet satisfied. Mind you, though, I took pains never to let him suspect I was even most remotely connected with the cause of his ruin.

"Just when Pickford was having his hardest struggle I went to him with an offer to start him in business. He gratefully accepted my offer. I sent him alone to New York with a large sum of money. Then, disguising myself, I followed him. In the city I removed my disguise and sought out Pickford, telling him I had changed my plans for him. I directed him to come here the next night, but to tell no one of our business. He kept the appointment. We met at the station, six miles below the hills, and walked here to this house. It was a dark night. No one saw us. He was fond of wine, so after I had urged many a glass upon him I conducted him to this vault. In his drunken condition I had no trouble to get him to enter it. Then I shut and locked that iron door upon him. He had only a cask of wine to keep him company. That was ten years ago, and that door has never been opened since."

A low laugh from the narrator ended his grewsome tale, while a gleam of fiendish triumph flitted across his swarthy face.

A cold chill crept up my spine, and I arose involuntarily.

Was there truth in his awful narration, or was it merely the ravings of a maniac?

"A wholesome tale to go to bed on, eh, Mr. Hope? Ha, ha!" he laughed, as he arose and led the way upstairs.

When I was alone in the room where I was to spend the night, I decided that the wine which Parton had drunk was responsible for the horrible story to which I had listened.

Next morning, while I was despatching an early breakfast, Negro Joe and Parton carried out a cask of wine, which they placed in my wagon.

Just before starting, my strange host handed me a sealed letter, saying:

"Give this to Dillard, and tell him I hope he'll find the wine superb. Good-by, Mr. Hope," and he waved me off.

When I reached the bank I gave the letter to Mr. Dillard. As he read it his face turned a sickly hue and his mouth twitched nervously. Recovering himself, however, he ordered Hatch and me to open the cask which Parton had sent him.

We obeyed at once. As the top of the cask was broken open, we started back in horror.

There, preserved in wine, was a _human head_,—the head and face of Caleb Parton, the recluse millionaire!

Then Dillard explained that his letter was from Judson Pickford, who, with the help of Negro Joe, who hated his harsh master, Caleb Parton, had effected his escape from the vault. But a month later, his wife having died, Pickford had returned one dark night and killed the man who had so cruelly ruined him. The head of his enemy had been put in a cask of wine to send to the banker, who had aided in accomplishing his financial ruin. With peculiar cunning, he had appropriated not only the name and looks of Parton, but his property and bank account as well. In carrying out this deception, he had a faithful ally in Negro Joe.

It was Pickford himself who had related the dark story to me. It seemed almost incredible. A visit to the lonely stone house with two officers discovered a headless body in the vault. But Pickford and his ally had disappeared.

Stateroom Six. BY WILLIAM ALBERT LEWIS.

THINGS have changed greatly on the river. There are no open bars, no card playing, no shooting; much less travel, for that matter.

We were a half dozen at supper. I sat opposite a gray-bearded man, who, when he had completed his meal, closely scrutinized a modest-appearing young woman quietly supping at another table. She finished and departed. When she was gone my neighbor leaned across and said:

"Perhaps you thought it funny I watched that lady so closely? But that's 'Sis.' I remember her twenty years back, on this very boat. My! but what a look at her brings to my mind!"

He leaned back, his eyes on the table, a grim smile broadening a kindly countenance, and pushed both hands deeply into his pockets.

The man had something he wanted to tell.

"A romance, I suppose? I'd like to hear it."

"It was twenty years ago, and on this boat, the Hester Hale. Professional gamblers were always aboard, looking for victims. None were more daring nor more lucky than 'Ready' Rankin. A handsome fellow, of good family, with a heart big and manly, if he was a cut-throat gambler and a bad man all around. Down at that landing we left before sundown,—Kellyville,—an old man was waiting, one night, with a wee tot of a girl. He brought her aboard. You know how natural it is to consign children to the care of some person? The child was the old man's granddaughter. She was to get off at Low Water Landing, which is the next stop we'll make, a few minutes from now. He happened to put the child in 'Ready' Rankin's care. He agreed to see her safely ashore and to deliver her to her ma. 'Ready' got a stateroom, put the child in one of the berths, and gave her a bag of candy to keep her from crying. Then he went below for a game. The play chanced to be tolerable heavy that night, with Rankin an eight-thousand-dollar winner. But it ended in a row; and Rankin, seeing trouble ahead, rolled his pile in a newspaper and laid it beside the sleeping child in the stateroom. The boat was then a half hour from the landing. 'Ready' got into a fight with the man he beat at the table, and was badly shot. His last words were confused. He said something about:

"'Stateroom six—little one—Low Water Landing—money.'

"The boat made the landing. They woke the child up, put all the bundles into her arms, and turned her over to her ma.

"Sis's mother soon discovered the package of money, and met the boat at the landing on her down trip next night, to make inquiries of the captain. But he knew nothing. Rankin had been buried that day up river. Nobody knew anything about any money. So Sis's mother kept it, trying all the time to get some knowledge of Rankin's family. That she could not do. They had disowned him.

"About three years ago a party of young men came up the river hunting. They stopped off at Low Water Landing and boarded with Sis's ma. One of the young fellows was teller in a bank down in Natchez. He fell head over ears in love with Sis. You can't much blame him, can you? She's awfully handsome. Naturally enough, they got to comparing notes; and the story of the money came out. Do you know, sir, it turned out that the young bank teller was Rankin's son? Fact! He and his mother and step-father lived together, and all they'd ever heard was that 'Ready' had been killed in a fight on the river. They didn't mourn overmuch, although 'Ready' wasn't the worst chap that ever lived.

"There! We're just blowing for Low Water now. Let's go on deck and see Sis land. Up to visit her ma, I reckon."

"Rankin's son is going to marry her, I suppose?"

"Married, man! Year ago, last Christmas. They live as cozy as you please down in Natchez. He's cashier of that bank now."

We stood by the rail as the boat made fast. The young lady tripped lightly ashore and greeted a white-haired old lady.

The Hester Hale resumed her way.

"Step this way. I'll show you where 'Ready' was killed."

We strolled to the gangway. He pointed to a little bullet hole in the casement.

"There were three shots fired. 'Ready' fired one and I—"

I looked up quickly into his patriarchal face. He paled, and fixed his eyes on me.

"I didn't mean to say so much, friend; but I believe you are a square man. This spot has a fascination for me. And it is twenty years ago, twenty—years—ago."

His head drooped. He seemed to be thinking of something beside what he uttered.

"I understand you," I said.

I pressed his hand, and went to bed.

Her Eyes, Your Honor. BY H. D. UMBSTAETTER.

THE witness is yours."

As the prosecuting attorney sat down, the spectators craned their necks and eagerly leaned forward. Every one expected a merciless cross-examination, as the reputation of the young lawyer, who had been brought two hundred miles to defend the prisoner, had preceded him. And though Delos McWhorter had thus far taken no part in the proceedings, he was the most conspicuous figure in the great trial. One person alone rivaled him,—the mysterious woman who stood at the bar, charged with murder. The hush that fell upon the packed courtroom as the man slowly rose to his feet resembled the awful silence with which the death sentence is awaited. As he stood silent and irresolute for a moment, the color rising to his plain, youthful face, his fingers nervously fumbling with a pencil, the spectators were conscious of a feeling of disappointment.

With almost boyish embarrassment, his eye sought that of the presiding judge; next he scanned the faces of the jury, and then, turning to the witness, in a voice at once gentle, sarcastic, and magnetic, he began:

"Mr. Slade, I will trouble you to look once more very carefully at the prisoner. Perhaps she will rise that you may see her better. You have testified that shortly before eight on the night of the murder you saw this woman enter the apartment house of which you are the janitor, and in which the body of Charlotte Ames was found. Now, I would like to have you tell the jury just what it was in the appearance of the woman you say you then saw that enables you to swear to-day that she and the prisoner are one and the same person."

The witness, fearing a trap, hesitated, and nervously eyed the lawyer.

"I would like you to tell us," calmly continued the questioner, "whether you took such particular notice of her height, her face, her complexion, her hair, her nose, and her teeth during the few moments that you say you saw her in the dimly lighted hallway, four months ago, as to enable you to swear to-day that you cannot be mistaken. Was it her size, her apparent age, perhaps, or the color of her hair, or what?"

"It was her looks," answered the witness, squirming in his seat. "It's the same woman."

"Yes, her looks; but I must trouble you to answer my question so that the jury may have the whole truth before they are asked to send any one to the gallows. Remember, Mr. Slade, you are under oath. Now tell us, what was it?"

"We object," came from the prosecuting attorney as he sprang to his feet. "We object, your honor, to this attempt to intimidate the witness."

Before the court could pass upon the objection, the witness, turning from his questioner to the court, exclaimed half defiantly:

"It was her eyes, your honor!"

"That is all," came from the lawyer for the defense, as he resumed his seat; and the spectators relaxed into a condition of restlessness that clearly showed their further disappointment.

Each of the succeeding witnesses declared without hesitation that the prisoner was the woman they had seen near the scene of the murder, either just before or shortly after the deed was discovered. As one after the other was dismissed by the defense, upon insisting under cross-examination that he could not possibly be mistaken, the faces of the government counsel beamed with satisfaction, while those of the spectators assumed the blankness of mystification. What was the strange lawyer there for? they whispered among themselves, and many turned toward the prisoner as though to ascertain whether she realized how surely her life was being sworn away. In his opening address the prosecuting attorney had said:

"On the second day of last November, a woman residing in this town, young, rich, and notorious for her gay and reckless career, was found murdered in her bed at half past eight at night. Everything about the room was in perfect order. There had been no robbery, and the instrument used was found in her breast, where it had been driven to the heart. It was a gold ornament, such as a woman wears in her hair.

"We shall not attempt to defend the character of the dead woman, but we shall ask that justice be done.

"It is true that many a woman in this town had good reason to wish the murdered woman ill. It is true that there are men in the community who might have been driven by desperate hate, desperate love, or desperate jealousy, to do the deed, but, fortunately, before cruel suspicion made any blunder of that sort the police discovered the criminal. Almost simultaneously with the rumors of the murder came the reports of a mysterious woman found leaving the city. Within twelve hours this woman, who now stands at the bar, had been identified by no less than four people, who saw her in the vicinity of the scene of the crime either before or after it was committed.

"No one knew her. She refused to give any account of herself. She appeared to be in a state of great nervous excitement. The government will show that she entered the house shortly before the murder was committed; that she left it a few minutes after the deed was done; that on the very day of the murder she had high words with the dead woman, and that the instrument with which the deed was done was such an one as the prisoner was known to possess. Gentlemen of the jury," he concluded dramatically, "Fate plays no tricks of that sort. Fate fashions no such chain of circumstantial evidence as that which establishes the guilt of this woman and upon which we ask her conviction."

These were his words, and now that the janitor had testified that he saw the prisoner enter the building, a patrolman had declared that he saw her leaving it within fifteen minutes before the crime was discovered, and the dead woman's coachman had sworn to having overheard the prisoner using threatening language to his mistress,—after this and other circumstantial evidence had gone before the jury and remained unshaken by cross-examination, the prosecution announced that the case for the government was in.

In spite of the disappointment with which the spectators regarded Lawyer McWhorter, a nervous dread of the man possessed the minds of the opposing counsel, as he rose slowly and deliberately clasped his hands behind him. He was so calm. His methods were so unfathomable that they began to feel a vague conviction that he mastered them and their methods, while to them he was a closed book.

A moment he stood silent, and when he spoke, utter consternation fell upon the court. The words were the last they had expected.

"Your honor, the defense has no evidence to offer."

Even the court could scarce control its amazement. Inch by inch the ground upon which the prisoner stood had been carried away, until now nothing but the personal appeal of her counsel could save her life. Was this possible? Did this young stranger really possess that rare eloquence, that fatal magnetism, that sometimes blind strong men to all sense of reason and right? Did even he hope to save his client? His looks betrayed nothing. As he took his seat his face was that of a sphinx.

The attorney for the government lost no time in beginning his closing speech. "We commend the judgment of the distinguished counsel for the defense," he began, "which deterred him from attacking the overwhelming proofs we have submitted of the prisoner's guilt. We commend the keen judgment which prompts him to rely upon the famed magic of his own voice rather than to seek hope for his client in the uncertain words of unreliable witnesses. The defense, too clever to attack such proof as we have presented, will now rely upon silvery tongued oratory and superb rhetorical appeals to secure from these twelve men a verdict of acquittal. But, may it please the court," he concluded, "our learned brother mistakes the intelligence of these gentlemen of the jury, if he supposes, for one moment, that fervent appeals to their sympathies can make them forget their duty to themselves, to civilized society, and to womankind." So well satisfied, however, had the spectators become of the prisoner's guilt, and so completely did all interest now center in McWhorter's anticipated speech, that the remarks of the prosecuting attorney were listened to with indifferent attention.

Now, surely, the brilliant advocate would demonstrate his ability, even though he could not save his client.

"The woman," he began, amid oppressive silence, "who was arrested on the second day of November last, stands charged with murder. As no testimony has been offered to show that she committed murder, the defense will not waste your time or insult your common sense by unnecessary argument. You have been told with great clearness by the witnesses for the prosecution that the prisoner was seen to enter and leave a certain house at certain hours; also that on a certain day she had high words with a certain woman. But, gentlemen of the jury, under the laws of your State that doesn't constitute murder. A woman may pay a visit to an apartment house at eight o'clock at night, she may have high words with another woman in the public highway, she may even wear a gold ornament in her hair,—she may do all this without becoming a murderess. The evidence adduced is purely circumstantial. No proof whatever has been offered that the accused woman killed Charlotte Ames. In the absence of such testimony, it is your duty to yourselves, to civilized society, and to womankind, to acquit the prisoner." Before the last word was spoken he sat down.

The entire courtroom was again taken by surprise. While the brief speech had the ring of cleverness, it fell far short of the general expectations.

After hearing the judge's charge to the jury not one person in that vast assembly doubted the result. Few felt any sympathy for the woman, and those few were men. The members of her own sex were as a unit arrayed against her. The pride of her pale beauty antagonized them. The very women who in their hearts had wished the dead girl ill and who would have committed the crime themselves, except that they lacked the courage, had no pity for the accused. There was something in her beauty above and beyond them, and, womanlike, they hated her for it.

Not a soul left the courtroom as the jury filed out, for all expected a prompt verdict. In this they were not disappointed. Ten minutes later the twelve men filed solemnly back. Not an eye sought the face of the prisoner, who, like her counsel, sat entirely unmoved.

As the clerk rose the silence became deathlike. "Prisoner, look upon the jury. Jury, look upon the prisoner. Have you agreed upon a verdict?"

"We have."

"Is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the crime charged against her?"

"Guilty."

With difficulty the demonstrations of approval that broke out in every part of the room were checked by the court officers.