CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Matthewson and Trafford

The wife of former Governor Matthewson was prominent--that is, respectably prominent--in church matters, as in all good works, and the booth over which she presided at the May Church Festival was one of the most attractive and profitable, albeit there was many another that had proved a centre for the younger men and larger boys. Mrs. Matthewson sat in the curtained space behind the main booth, for she was really tired. She was a tall woman, of commanding presence, who had just touched her sixtieth year and upon whom the consciousness of power, and ability to wield it, had left the impress of dignity and strength.

The crowd was mainly in front of the booths, but occasionally some one strayed away to the quieter nooks shut off by the booths themselves. Of these were two men, one small and rather unimpressive in appearance, the other larger and more commanding, but with a strange deference towards his companion. The two passed where by accident, apparently, the smaller man had a view of the resting woman, without being too plainly seen himself. The larger man was speaking:

“Public opinion is settling on the paper as a forgery.”

“Has it discovered a motive?” There was almost a sneer in the tone.

“No; nor for the crime; but it firmly believes that the woman never existed.”

“It would think me mad or a liar then if I should affirm that she did exist; that she does exist; that in fact I could at a moment’s notice put my hand on Theodore Wing’s mother.”

The other smiled.

“One might almost imagine you thought her in this room.”

“Stranger things have happened;” and the two moved on.

If the woman had taken note of the conversation, there was nothing in her manner to indicate it. Had there been, Trafford would have felt keen disappointment, for he had observed her somewhat carefully, and had formed a higher opinion of her capabilities. At the same time, he had not so poor a conception of his own powers of observation as to doubt the correctness of his impression of a slight lifting of the eyebrows and critical scanning of his own face by Mrs. Matthewson, as he loitered slowly back towards the throng in front. He intended, if it was her wish to be able to recognise him again, that she should have the opportunity.

After he had passed, she waited a sufficient time not to seem precipitate, then rose and sauntered slowly into the front part of the hall, whence came a constant babble of voices. She was a woman who had seen too many things to be afraid; but as well she was a woman too shrewd to neglect a warning and go on to punishment. She knew she had her warning; she knew that the man who had given it was prepared to deal with her, or he would not have given it; and she knew that boldness would secure the best terms. She had no question that blackmail was at the bottom of the affair.

The public had generally accepted the statement as a forgery and was laughing at its clumsiness; but there would come a waking time when it realised that as a forgery it had no bearing upon the solution of the murder mystery, and that would be the moment of danger. She found her son, Charles Matthewson, and taking his arm went to the refreshment room.

“You’re dead tired, mother,” he said. “A man of iron couldn’t stand these affairs.”

“No,” she said. “It requires something finer than iron. Your man of iron is a poor simile for strength. It’s got to be better than that.”

“By George; I only hope when I’m sixty, I can stand as much as you!”

“Is that your tact, Charles, to mention a woman’s age in public? I know the people know my age, but I object to their knowing that I know.”

“Much you care, mother. You can leave such stuff as that to the silly herd.”

A man passed by and took his seat at a table out of ear range. He did not look in her direction as he passed, and she did not even glance in his; but she felt his presence, and knew also that Charles had seen him and recognised him. She ran on with her light chat, seemingly taking no note of her son’s distraught manner and absent-minded replies; but after she had let things go on for a safe space, she suddenly looked up with:

“Really, Charles, I might as well save my foolishness for somebody who is less occupied than you seem to be. I should say you were more interested in that man over there than in me.”

“Was I really giving attention to him?” the son demanded.

“Most really, and I’m simply wondering where you learned your self-control, that you can do a thing so apparent to a whole roomful.” She had not asked a word regarding the man, certain as she was that he would tell her all he knew.

“Do you know who that man is?” her son asked.

“No; really,” she said, putting up her glasses, “I had simply noticed him as a man from whom you did not seem able to keep your eyes. Now I look at him, I don’t see anything particularly worth noticing.”

“It’s Trafford, the detective. He’s said to be on this Wing murder case.”

“Oh, is that so?” she said, raising her glasses again. “In that case, I suppose one’s permitted to look at him, since that’s largely his stock in trade. He doesn’t look smart.”

“That’s his stock in trade too,” said Charles, a trifle impatiently for the son of such a woman. “If he looked half as smart as he is, he’d look too smart for his work, and if he was really as dull as he looks, he’d be too stupid.”

“And they depend on him to unravel the Wing murder?” she asked.

“Oh, the Wing murder,” echoed an acquaintance who was passing. “Why didn’t that stupid coroner arrest that fellow Oldman--if that was his name? My husband says if he takes the opportunity to run away, it may be interesting for the coroner. Of course, nobody has a doubt that he’s the murderer. You think so, Mr. Matthewson, don’t you?”

“I think it will be a great wrong if such a wanton murder goes unpunished,” he answered.

“Yes,” said the mother carelessly; “but the motive? Did he murder him because he was an illegitimate son of Judge Parlin?”

“Oh, pshaw, Mrs. Matthewson, nobody believes that story. Why, they tell me Judge Parlin was a real nice man. He wouldn’t have had anything to do with such a woman as she would have been, if the story was true.”

A crowd gathered and, in spite of Charles Matthewson’s efforts to change the subject, persisted in discussing the murder, which was still a live topic wherever Judge Parlin and Lawyer Wing had been known. To Matthewson’s increased annoyance, he noted that Trafford had moved to a nearer table, where he could catch the talk.

“What kind of man would Judge Parlin have been, if the story were true?” Mrs. Matthewson asked listlessly.

“Oh, yes; but you know that’s not the same. He was a mere youngster, and a designing woman you know can do anything with a man. Oh, no: it would be bad enough in him, but the woman--why, she’d be simply abominable; simply abominable.”

“Well, if there was such a woman, she’s undoubtedly dead long ago,” Mrs. Matthewson said. “We might at least not begrudge her a grave. We came near making Judge Parlin chief justice.”

Charles was uneasy. His mother was not accustomed to losing her head, but he had his suspicions at this moment, and tried again to draw her away; but she seemed not to notice his efforts, and showed herself not loath to go on with the conversation.

“If the thing isn’t true,” broke in a woman who was fearful she might not make herself felt in the presence of the overbearing Mrs. Matthewson, “my husband says it’s a forgery; but what could that nice Mr. Wing have forged such a story as that for? Do you see, Mr. Matthewson?”

“You must excuse me from expressing any opinion one way or the other,” he said, thus distinctly appealed to. “Murders and forgeries are not in my line, and I don’t think my opinion would have the value it might if I was a criminal lawyer or a detective.”

“Oh, a detective!” some one interrupted. “What a dreadful nasty set of men detectives must be! It makes me crawl to think of their having anything to do with me.”

“Then you mustn’t be a murderer or permit any one to murder you. It’s the only way I know to steer clear of the gang.”

“Come, Charles,” interposed his mother. “Aren’t you a little hard? As long as we have criminals, we must have criminal catchers. We can’t spare them.”

“But we needn’t make them our heroes, as some people do,” he replied, wondering in secret why his mother was chiming into his mood so completely. “I object to having them dragged into my company--almost as much as I’d object to being dragged into theirs.”

It would have troubled Mrs. Matthewson to say why she felt a savage pleasure in thus baiting the detective, but she did feel it, and was too proud to deny the fact, even as she was too proud to deny that the fact was unworthy her own measure of herself.

An hour later Charles had handed her into her carriage and gone back to the hall, as she bade him, to stand for the family during the remainder of the evening. A carriage in front blocked the way and a voice almost at her elbow, but on the side opposite that at which she had entered, said:

“May I have the honour of calling in the morning?”

She did not even turn her head, as she flung back the answer:

“If it’s necessary.”

“I think it necessary.”

“At half-past ten, then.”

She did not look to see, but knew that the place was vacant. None the less she yielded no whit, but held her upright position, as if she were already on trial before the world and bade it defiance.

It was the same in the morning. She entered the small parlour as if it were she and not her visitor who was to ask explanations, and he, with his quick adaptation of himself to moods and conditions, not alone humoured her, but throughout bore himself with a courtesy and deference that went as far as anything could to salve her wounded pride.

“I assume it is not necessary for me to explain who I am and why I have asked this interview,” he said, as an approach to a knowledge of the footing on which they stood.

“It is not necessary,” she returned. “You are Isaac Trafford, detective: you are engaged in ferreting out the murder of Theodore Wing, and you think I am able to give you information that may aid you. I am sorry to say that I cannot. I am sorry for the crime: I’m always sorry for crime; but it can have no particular sting for me, because of the man who is its victim.”

“I thought it might be otherwise,” he said quite simply.

“You are mistaken.”

“None the less,” he said, “you have read the statement left by Judge Parlin.”

“I have read the statement purporting to be left by Judge Parlin,” she corrected him.

“It is absolutely true from beginning to end. There can be no doubt that Judge Parlin left it, for only he and one other person at that time knew the facts.”

“And that other person?” The question was without a tremor. Trafford felt like rising and saluting the woman, as her words came clean-cut and passionless.

“Theodore Wing’s mother.”

“She is, then, still alive?”

“She is still alive,” he said; “and unless concerned in this recent tragedy, as safe as if the knowledge of the facts had remained locked in her breast, as they were at the time of Judge Parlin’s death. If she was concerned in this tragedy, then it is that, and not the fact that another has learned the truth, that destroys her safety.”

Even at so serious a moment, she could not avoid playing with the subject:

“Do you think her concerned in the murder?”

“It is what I am not certain of,” he said frankly. “It is the murder that has revealed this--misfortune. I can find no motive that can account for her connection with the affair.”

“I am of the opinion she had nothing to do with it,” she said, quite positively. “If all this is true, she would naturally have no love for the child of her mistake; but you surely cannot think on that account that she was guilty of murder--the cruelest murder one could imagine under the circumstances! Certainly, if there was anything to tempt to murder, anything that would have advantaged her, it passed long ago.”

“I have thought of that,” he said, “but is it not possible that something may have occurred recently that alarmed her--something that made her feel it necessary to go to extremes to which, naturally, she would be unwilling to resort, excepting under the direst necessity?”

“I do not think,” she said, lifting her head with some imperiousness, “that such a woman is likely to be alarmed. She would have lived that down long since. More than that, she would have brains enough to see that a crime, more than all else, would endanger her secret. This woman could not have been brainless.”

“Far from it,” he assured her. “I am inclined to rate her as the ablest woman I have ever met.”

She bowed as recognising a personal compliment.

“You have met her, then?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have met her.”

“Would you mind telling me the impression she made on you--that is, as regards her possible connection with this crime? My curiosity is roused.”

“I think she is now incapable of it,” he said. “That she might not have been at one time, I am less certain; but if there was such a time, it has passed. Success had mollified resentment and increased the feeling of safety. Still, if she believed herself in danger, I do not think she would hesitate at any extreme. It would, however, take much to arouse a conviction of danger.”

“I am inclined to think your judgment sound,” she said. “What can you tell me of the man who now shares with her the knowledge of the facts in the case?”

“That he would not assert such knowledge unless he possessed every detail and was absolutely able to identify every person connected with the affair and verify every date and place. You may take his assertion that he knows, as absolute evidence of this. His only object in searching this matter out was the unravelling of the mystery of a crime. If he thought for one instant that the revelation of the facts would aid in unravelling that crime, he would not hesitate at the revelation. Convinced that it would not aid, the secret is as safe with him as if it did not exist. At present the secret, as far as he is concerned, does not exist.”

“Of course,” she said; “the woman would prefer, greatly prefer, that the secret should have died with the man who shared it with her. Failing that, she could not feel safer than to have it in the hands of such a man as you describe. There is, however, I should think, one further assurance that she might desire.”

“I think if it were a possible thing to promise, the man as I know him would be disposed to promise.”

“It is that if at any time in the future it should seem to him that the woman was concerned in the crime, if there arise any circumstances that call for explanation, he will come to her and first submit them to her. I think under these circumstances, he might largely rely upon her telling him the truth--at least, upon her not telling him a falsehood.”

“Of course,” he said, “I speak only of my impression, but that is that she may rely absolutely upon his adopting this course.”

“I trust this enables us to end this interview,” she said, with no relaxation of her dignity.