CHAPTER LIX.

“WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF FATE.”

“You are a detective,” murmurs Derrick Ames, as he drops back into his chair.

“I am,” answers Barker. “For nearly a year I have been on the track of the murderer of Roger Hathaway, being ably seconded in my quest by my friend Jack Ashley. The trail has been a tangled one, and has wound under the flags of three countries, but for the past fortnight the end has been clearly in view. By a remarkable combination of circumstances affairs have been so precipitated that to-day nearly all the living characters in the Raymond drama are upon this vessel, the United States cruiser America. My work is done. I have only my story to tell. I shall begin, Mr. Ames, by asking you a few questions,” resumes Barker.

“Well?” queries the object of his remarks.

“At what hour did you enter the Raymond National Bank on the evening of Memorial Day of last year?”

“I cannot say exactly. I judge that it was in the vicinity of 7:45.”

“Will you be good enough to state what took place there between you and Roger Hathaway?”

Ames scans the detective’s face keenly for a moment, then replies to Barker in deliberate tones:

“I went to the bank to ask Mr. Hathaway’s consent that his daughter Helen might become my wife. I was confident that my errand was useless, as he had twice before scorned my suit. Helen and I had been idling all the afternoon on the hillside below the town. As evening drew on I left her at the bars and went to the bank, as she stated that she had understood her father to say that he should spend the evening at work upon his books. It being Memorial Day the streets were deserted, and, barring one acquaintance, a chap named Sam Brockway, I did not meet a person on my walk up the main thoroughfare. As I crossed the bridge I saw Mr. Hathaway standing on the steps of the bank, delivering a note to a boy, and when he re-entered the building I followed him.

“‘What do you want?’ he demanded, almost fiercely. I told him, and he broke into a torrent of abuse. Naturally hot-tempered, I answered his railings in kind, and I know not what might have happened had not Mr. Hathaway suddenly ended the dispute by seizing me by the shoulder and pushing me through the bank door to the street, threatening, as he did so, to have the law on me if I continued my attentions to his daughter. Through the glass panel in the door I watched him walk rapidly away in the darkness of the interior; saw him as for an instant his form passed into the lighted office in the rear of the bank. Then the door to that room closed. I never saw Roger Hathaway again.”

“That is sufficient,” says Barker, as Ames pauses. “Your further progress up to to-day is known to me.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. And I may say that from the outset neither Mr. Ashley nor myself believed you guilty of the murder of Roger Hathaway. At the most, we considered that you might have been a witness to the tragedy. But your testimony is the last link in the chain. I am now prepared, gentlemen, to relate what in all human probability happened in Raymond on the evening of Memorial Day last year.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Barker,” Van Zandt breaks in, abruptly. “I regret to tell you that the trail which you have so patiently followed has led you to what I should judge, from your preliminary remarks, to be a false conclusion.”

“What!” cries the detective, starting from his chair.

“You think Cyrus Felton killed Roger Hathaway. So did I once. We were wrong. If Cyrus Felton was responsible for Hathaway’s death it was only indirectly, and the Raymond tragedy was the cause of more misery to him than any human being should be compelled to bear.”

Barker is too astounded to reply for an instant, and Ames and Ashley stare questioningly at Van Zandt.

“Let me relate briefly that much of my story which bears directly upon the tragic events in Raymond,” says Van Zandt, quietly.

“On the afternoon of Memorial day of last year I was released from the State prison at Windsor, Vermont, after serving two of a three years’ sentence for forgery, which, in reality, was committed by Ralph Felton. I took the afternoon train for Raymond, arriving there at 7:45. I went directly to Cyrus Felton’s residence, and reached it at 7:55. As I was about to ascend the porch I heard footsteps behind me, and, thinking they might be those of the man I sought, I stepped into the shadow of the porch. The new arrival had apparently called to see Felton on business. I heard the housemaid tell the visitor that Felton was not at home; that he might be at his office in the bank building. As the man walked away I followed leisurely.

“When I reached the entrance of the bank building a man, presumably the caller at Felton’s, came down the stairs and walked down the street. Then I went up the stairs and proceeded down the corridor until I reached a door with Felton’s name upon it. But the door was locked and the office was dark. As I retraced my steps and stood again at the entrance of the block a man passed by hurriedly, ascended the steps to the bank, opened the door and went in.

“I remained where I was for five minutes, and then walked to the bank door and glanced through the glass panel. The interior was dark, save for a ray of light that issued through the partly opened door to the cashier’s private office. Perhaps Felton is within, I thought, and pushing open the front door, which was ajar, I walked softly toward the shaft of light that slanted across the bank floor.

“What my errand to Felton was, gentlemen, it is not necessary for me to now state. Enough to say that when I threw open the door to the cashier’s office I looked upon a sight that froze the blood in my veins.

“Lying upon the polished floor, which was stained with his life-blood, was the body of Roger Hathaway, and standing over him was Cyrus Felton, a revolver clenched in his right hand.

“When I made my appearance upon the threshold of the office Felton turned his head and our eyes met for an instant that must to each have seemed an age. Then I closed the door, and a moment later stood at the entrance of the bank, gasping for air. Can you not imagine the horror in my soul? My one impulse was to flee from the fearful scene. I had looked, as I thought, into the face of Roger Hathaway’s slayer, and that was the man to whom, incidentally at least, I owed the two past years of misery. Falsely imprisoned for one crime, might I not be accused of another and greater one? All this and more flashed through my brain, and I hurried to the railway station. There I learned that no train was due for hours. I staggered away from the station and plunged down the track into the night.

“How I made my way over mountain and through forest to southeastern Vermont and rode to New York on the trucks of a freight car; how I read in a New York paper of the crime that startled Vermont and of my supposed connection with the affair; how in that same paper I saw a personal advertising that if Phillip Van Zandt, who left Montana over two years ago, would communicate with Ezra Smith, lawyer of Butte, Montana, he would learn of something to his advantage; how I, being the much wanted Van Zandt, proceeded to Montana and discovered that I was sole heir to the immense fortune of my uncle, a silver king in that State, from whom I had foolishly parted in anger two years before—all this and more I will relate at another time, gentlemen, if you care to listen.

“Not until late last night,” continues Van Zandt, “did I have the opportunity of examining the papers given in my possession by Cyrus Felton just before he died in the consul’s residence at Santiago.”

As he speaks Van Zandt takes from his pocket a packet of papers, selects one of them and tosses it across the table to Barker. “Read that,” he says. “Read it aloud.”

The detective unfolds the document and reads:

“Santiago de Cuba, April 15.—This is written by the hand of fate. I shall not live to see to-morrow’s sun rise. I know it. The presentiment of my end is so irresistible that no effort of will can shake it off. And I am glad that it is so. I could not endure another day such as this has been. I should go mad.

“To-day I saw the detective. I have felt that for months he has been pursuing me. And I have looked again into the eyes, the glittering, pitiless eyes, that stared at me nearly a year ago across the corpse of Roger Hathaway—the eyes of the man whom, to shield my son, I cruelly wronged. From the hour, a month or more ago, that I met Phillip Van Zandt I feared him. A nameless dread took possession of me. To-day I recognized him and I read hatred, contempt and menace in his eyes. He thinks I killed Roger Hathaway, and what manner of vengeance he has in store I know not.

“But Roger Hathaway killed himself. Together we wrecked the Raymond National Bank. It was the old story of unfortunate investments, and the blame was chiefly mine. But when the crash was imminent Hathaway proved the hero and I the coward. He killed himself and saved both his name and mine. And yet with that bullet he put an end to all his troubles, while I—I have suffered for months the tortures of the damned.

“With this I inclose his letter, which he left on his desk for me the evening of Memorial Day. It has been on my person since that fatal night, and it has seared my very soul. I have not dared to destroy it or to leave it where it might be found, for it is at once the proof of my guilt and of my innocence. If it becomes necessary to clear—

“Ah, he is coming.

Cyrus Felton.”

Barker mechanically unfolds the inclosure, three sheets of letter paper crumpled and worn. The stillness within the cabin is deathlike as the detective reads:

“Before your eyes rest upon these lines the hand that pens them will be cold in death. I have taken the only alternative. For myself I care not, but that the finger of scorn should be pointed at my defenseless children; that their young lives should be blighted and they shunned and avoided as lepers because their father betrayed his trust and cruelly wronged his friends and neighbors, I cannot bear it. The banks, both of them, are irretrievably involved. The funds deposited by the county to pay the bonds have been used to meet pressing obligations. The crash would come to-morrow. It cannot be staved off another day. I have thought it all out. For the sake of my children and the name they bear I am about to take my own life. But they nor any other living person save you must ever know that I did not die by the hand of the assassin. I have arranged that it will appear as if the bank has been robbed and the cashier murdered. As I write this room bears evidence of a fearful struggle. The vault is open and the securities in confusion. Thus will our crime be hidden from the eyes of all save God. Your personal account overdrawn I have fixed by the removal of pages from the ledger, so that when the examination of the bank’s affairs is made there may be no suspicion of irregularity on your part or mine. You will be the first to find my lifeless body. The weapon by which I die you must secure and secrete.

“And now, farewell. That the sacrifice I am about to make may not be in vain I adjure you guard well the secret of my death. Care for my children. Watch over them, cherish them. By our hope of heaven and forgiveness, by our life-long friendship, by the bitter sacrifice to which duty points the way, by all these things I charge you, Cyrus Felton, fail not at the peril of your good name.

Roger Hathaway.”

As Barker concludes the reading of the remarkable epistle each of the four men is busy with his thoughts. No one offers any comment on the message from the dead. Finally Ames breaks the silence.

“And Ralph Felton?” he queries, turning to Barker.

“He had nothing whatever to do with the death of Roger Hathaway,” returns the detective. “He refused to answer the coroner’s question at the inquest as to where he had spent his time between 7:45 o’clock and 8:30 on the evening of Memorial Day because he did not wish his association with Isabel Winthrop, or Harding, to become known when he had been a suitor for the hand of Helen Hathaway. But that was not his principal reason for leaving Raymond as suddenly as he did. As bookkeeper of the savings bank he had embezzled a portion of the funds—not a sensational peculation, only sufficient to keep pace with his expenditures, which were in excess of his income. Fearing that his offense would be made public when the bank’s affairs were overhauled, he fled. It was with difficulty that I extracted from him yesterday afternoon a confession of his reason for leaving Raymond.

“As to the locket supposed to have been removed from Hathaway’s watch chain the night of the tragedy, and which Mr. Ashley picked up a few nights ago, I supposed until yesterday that it had been dropped by Ralph Felton. But it seems that it was torn from Mr. Ames’ neck when Felton hurled himself upon him on that memorable evening at Jibana. Mr. Hathaway had detached it from his chain the morning of Memorial Day, as the spring was broken, and had given it to Helen to convey to the jeweler’s to be repaired. It left Raymond with her, and when she and her husband took up their Cuban life the miniature of the younger sister was removed, for obvious reasons, and Mr. Ames wore the locket about his neck, attached to a long gold chain.”

Another silence, which this time Van Zandt breaks.

“Now that the facts in the case are in your possession, Mr. Barker, I presume you will feel it your duty to report them to the proper authorities.”

The detective does not reply. He glances curiously at Ashley, and the latter passes over a cigar, which the detective bites in meditative fashion.

“And you?” Van Zandt queries, turning to Ashley.

“It would make a capital story,” drawls Jack, who has already told himself that the big bunch of “copy” in the pigeonhole of his desk in the Hemisphere office will never greet a compositor’s eye.

“No doubt,” says Van Zandt, gravely. “But, like many capital stories, it would be a source of endless pain to two estimable young ladies. It would render nil the sacrifice which Roger Hathaway made to preserve his family name from disgrace, and would make a hollow mockery of the simple epitaph which you tell me marks the marble shaft above his grave—‘Faithful Unto Death.’”

The detective lights his cigar.

“Is there any likelihood, Mr. Barker, of the state of Vermont paying the $1,000 reward which was offered?” continues Van Zandt.

“None,” replies Barker. “The reward was for the arrest and conviction of Roger Hathaway’s murderer.”

“And the additional $4,000 offered by the bank?”

Barker smiles sardonically.

Van Zandt takes from his pocket a folded slip of paper and passes it across the table to the detective.

“There is a check for $5,000,” he says. “It is not a bribe. It is only your just dues for the labors that you have expended on the case. Personally, I am under deep obligations to you. As to whether the Raymond mystery shall remain a mystery, I leave it to your own sense of duty.”

Barker folds the check slowly, and, as he slips it into his vest pocket, he remarks, with a glance toward Ashley:

“If my partner consents, the Hathaway case may as well remain as now fixed in the coroner’s records in Raymond, Vermont.”

“Your partner came to that decision some time ago,” is Ashley’s quiet response.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” says Van Zandt, as he rises. “And now, my friends, suppose we rejoin the ladies. They will begin to think that we have deserted them.”

THE END.

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ The spelling of some words were corrected if they appeared likely to be typographic errors; otherwise they were left as written. ○ At the end of Chapter X there was an image of the note Cyrus received. The the image was almost illegible so only the text was included. ○ The word “clue” is consistently spelled “clew” throughout the book. It appears in older dictionaries. ○ Accent marks were omitted in all but one Spanish word (café) that would normally require them. ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). Text that was marked bold is enclosed by equal signs (=Now!=).