Ellery H. Clark

“Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.”

Shakespeare.

Henry Carleton and his daughter sat in the library at The Birches, Carleton writing at the long table, Rose, with easy chair drawn up in front of the fire, busied with her embroidery. Presently Henry Carleton laid aside his pen, and rising, walked over to the bookcase; where he found the volume and verified the quotation which he sought; then, with a smile of satisfaction, he walked back to the table again, and for an instant stood there, glancing down contentedly at the orderly arrangement of papers and documents now completed and laid aside, awaiting the morrow.

The expression of his face was serene and benevolent. His very attitude—even, indeed, something about the atmosphere of the room itself—breathed of the man at peace with himself and with the world. And such a man, at the moment, in very truth Henry Carleton was, and with every reason therefor besides. The routine of his well-ordered day was drawing to a close. From the dinner table he had gone direct to his evening paper—from the paper to his desk. The little white heap of envelopes that stood ready for the morrow’s mailing bore witness to his labors there. The big check book at their side was closed—modestly and becomingly closed—but if the observer’s eye had been able to penetrate the cover, and for a moment to look at the stubs within, his admiration for Henry Carleton could but have been increased by what he would there have seen. One check, made payable to the Cripples’ Home, was for five hundred dollars; there were a half dozen more, payable to other charities, for a hundred each; there was one for twenty-five drawn to the order of a poor veteran in Eversley village. Surely witnesses better than these no man could well desire. What wonder that Henry Carleton was content.And now, with business out of the way, with his household and his private affairs all in order, this man of so many talents and virtues had turned to his pet avocation—literature—and was forging busily ahead on his scholarly essay, Character Drawing in the Early English Novel. Glancing over what he had written, at once he spoke aloud, half to his daughter, half—the most important half—to himself. This thinking aloud over his literary work was a favorite method with him. He liked to get Rose’s ideas and criticisms—sometimes, to his surprise, they appeared upon reflection to contain much of good sense—and apart from this, he believed that it was in this way he could pass the fairest and the most searching judgment upon his labors. And after all, the question of benefit apart, the sound of his own voice was in nowise distasteful to him. Nor could he well be blamed. It was a pleasant voice and well-modulated, and through its medium he liked to think around his subject, to get the swing and cadence of each varying phrase, before at length he came to make his last “fair copy,” and thus to transmit his ideas to paper in final form.

“‘Sir Charles Grandison,’ Rose,” he read, “‘is beyond question most skilfully drawn, with all the author’s great command of those quiet little strokes and touches, one superimposed on the other, which at last give us the portrait of the man, standing forth from the canvas in all the seeming reality of flesh and blood.’ How does that strike you, Rose?”

The girl wrinkled her pretty forehead “Well, father,” she answered, a little dubiously, “for one thing, I don’t know that I think it’s quite true. I always thought Sir Charles was a terrible prig; horribly self-satisfied and altogether too much taken up with marveling at his own virtues. I don’t believe, you know, that a man like Sir Charles ever could assume for any one ‘the seeming reality of flesh and blood.’ ‘The seeming reality of a lay figure,’ I think, would be about the nearest phrase one could properly use.”

Henry Carleton hastened to dissent. “No, no, my dear,” he returned, “you’re quite wrong. Sir Charles wasn’t perfect. Richardson was far too clever to fall into that error. Sir Charles had his faults, and the author in his concluding note takes special pains to draw attention to them. He had his faults, but then his virtues so far outweighed them that they sank into insignificance. Then there was Lovelace, whose faults were so pronounced, and who had such a lack of any redeeming virtues, that he is at once to be condemned as a character thoroughly immoral, serviceable ethically only to point the awful example of talents misspent and energies abused. And midway between the two is Mr. B., who also had his failings, but who finally atoned for them by his condescension in marrying Pamela. The trio, I think, point the way to the author’s whole philosophy of life. We have our faults, even the best of us. We can’t help them. But on the other hand, by constant endeavor, we can do so much good that in the end we counterbalance the evil we do, and so to speak obliterate it altogether. Very good, I think, and very sound. An interesting title for a little essay, The Balance, don’t you think so, Rose?”

The girl looked doubtful. “Why, no,” she answered, “to tell the truth, I don’t. I should think that was a pretty dangerous doctrine. Good and evil—debit and credit. I should think it was a very grave question whether any amount of good could ever really balance one conscious evil act. Take Mr. B., whom you’ve just quoted, for example. I could never, in reading that book, think of him as anything but a great, hulking, overbearing, arrogant animal, and the shameful way in which he treated poor Sally Goodwin is a case right in point—that was something no man could ever atone for, even by a series of the finest deeds in the world. No, father, I think, if I were you, I shouldn’t try to justify a theory like that. I’m afraid it isn’t sound.”

Henry Carleton frowned. “Nonsense,” he cried, for him a little irritably, “it’s perfectly sound. I could give you a hundred examples. ‘Take him for all in all,’ as Shakespeare phrases it; that’s what I mean. Some evil has to be done with the good, unless we’re going back to pillories and hermitages, to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And in these days common sense forbids that. Your view is entirely unreasonable, Rose.”

The girl seemed somewhat surprised at his unusual heat. With a little laugh she rolled up her embroidery, quitted the easy chair, and coming over to him, kissed him obediently on the cheek. “Well, don’t mind me, father,” she said affectionately, “if you don’t want my foolish ideas, you shouldn’t ask for them. One thing’s sure; if your theory is right, you can do about anything you want to now. Rob a bank—or commit any dreadful crime you choose. Your balance must be so large you couldn’t overdraw it if you tried.”

Carleton laughed. “Well, perhaps that is rather a reductio ad absurdum,” he answered. “In any event, I don’t think I’ll experiment in the way you mention. You’re not going up-stairs already, are you, Rose?”

She nodded. “Yes, if you don’t mind,” she replied, “I’m a little tired this evening. Good night. Don’t work too hard over your writing now. You never rest. I never saw such a man.”

Left alone, Carleton returned to his essay, but not with the concentration he had before displayed. A sudden restlessness seemed to have come over him. Once or twice he ceased his work to consult his watch, and finally stopped, rose hastily, and walked over to the window, where he stood gazing aimlessly put into the night; then, with a sigh, turned slowly, almost, one would have said, reluctantly, again to his task.

For perhaps five minutes he kept manfully at work. Then once again his attention seemed to wander; slowly and still more slowly moved the unwilling pen, and finally, with a sudden impatient gesture, he laid it down, flung himself back in his chair, and sat there motionless, yet not with the air of one who has comfortably finished the task he has in hand, but rather as if debating within himself, between two possible courses of action, which one at last to choose.

If such, indeed, was the case, the decision was not to lie with him. There came a knock at the door. “Come in,” he said quickly, and the butler, Helmar’s friend of old, a little thinner, a little grayer, a little more imperturbable than ever, entered softly, approaching close to his master’s elbow before he delivered himself of his message. “Mr. Vaughan, sir,” he announced with slow deliberation, “in the reception-room. He wishes to know, sir, if without inconvenience to yourself you could give him a few moments.”

Henry Carleton looked a little surprised, perhaps also a little annoyed. “To see me,” he said, “you’re sure, Burton, that it wasn’t Miss Rose he asked for?”

The butler’s manner was one verging on gentle reproof. Within his domain he did not allow himself the luxury of making mistakes. “Quite sure, sir,” he answered. His tone, though respectful, did not admit of further questioning upon the point. Henry Carleton sighed, and appeared to rouse himself. “Why, of course,” he said, “tell him I’ll be down at once; or no,” he added, “please, Burton, tell him to come up here instead.”

The butler, inclining his head, withdrew. Then, a moment or two later, the sound of ascending footsteps, and Vaughan entered the room. At once something in his appearance struck Henry Carleton as far out of the ordinary. “Why, my dear boy,” he cried, “you look worried to death. What’s gone wrong? No more bad news from the book?”

Vaughan silently shook his head. He was indeed looking miserably, and when he took a chair, he sat bolt upright on its edge, leaning forward nervously when he spoke. “No,” he said, “it’s worse than that, Mr. Carleton; a whole lot worse. It’s something that’s been troubling me for a long time now, until finally I’ve made up my mind that the only thing for me to do is to come straight to you with it, and tell you the whole story. And that’s why I’m here.”

At once Carleton shoved books and papers aside, as if the better to prepare himself for proper attention to Vaughan’s words. He looked at his visitor with an air of friendly concern. “Anything that I can do—” he murmured. “You know, of course, that you may count on me. Anything in my power—”Vaughan nodded abruptly. “Thank you,” he said hastily and a little grimly, “it’s not a favor that I’ve come for. I’m going to do you a bad turn, I’m afraid. Going to do everybody a bad turn, as far as that goes. But it can’t be helped. I’ve got to go ahead, and that’s all there is to it.”

Henry Carleton eyed him narrowly, but without speaking, and Vaughan, looking up, as if eager to have his task over, with sudden resolve, began. “It’s about Satterlee,” he said, “you remember how things happened out here that night, of course. I guess we all do. Jack went up-stairs to bed, you remember, and you and Cummings went off to play billiards. I was on the piazza with Rose, and stayed there until you came down to tell her that it was getting late. Then, after she went up-stairs, you told me that you were going for a short walk, and I said I believed I’d go to my room. Well, I didn’t. I don’t know why. I started to go in, and then—the night was so fine; I had so much that was pleasant to think about—somehow I couldn’t stand the idea of going into the house, and instead I took a stroll around the grounds.”He stopped for a moment. Henry Carleton, gazing intently at him, gave no sign from his expression that he was experiencing any emotion beyond that of the keenest interest and attention. Only his eyes, in the shadow, had lost their customary benevolent expression, narrowing until their look was keen, alert; the look of a man put quickly on his guard. And as Vaughan still kept silence, it chanced that Carleton was the first again to speak. “Well,” he queried impatiently, “and what then?”

Vaughan drew a quick breath. “This,” he cried hastily, almost recklessly, “this. I walked down toward Satterlee’s cottage, and I saw what happened there. Satterlee didn’t fall from any rock. He was murdered. And I saw it all.”

Henry Carleton did not start. There was no cry of surprise, no single word, even. Only, as Vaughan had finished, on a sudden his eyes dilated strangely; his lips parted a trifle; for a moment, without breathing, without animation, it seemed as if the man’s whole being hung poised motionless, suspended. So great the surprise, so great the shock, that one, not knowing, might almost have believed himself to be looking upon the man who had done the deed. “Murdered?” he at last repeated dully, “You saw it? Murdered?”—there was a moment’s silence, and then, all at once seeming to recover himself, he leaned forward in his chair. “By whom?” he cried sharply, with just a note of menace in his tone, “By whom?”

On Vaughan’s part there was no further hesitation. He had gone too far for that. Yet his face was drawn and distorted with pain as in a tone so low that Carleton could scarcely hear, he uttered the single word, “Jack.”

And this time the added shock was too great. Henry Carleton started visibly, the most intense emotion showing in every line of his face. “Jack?” he gasped, “Jack?”

In silence Vaughan bowed his head, hardly able to look on the anguish which his words had caused. “Jack,” he muttered again, under his breath.

There was a silence, tense, pregnant. Once Vaughan, slowly raising his head, had started to speak, and Henry Carleton had instantly lifted a hand to enjoin silence. “Wait a minute!” he commanded. Evidently he was striving to recollect. Then presently he spoke again. “Nonsense,” he cried, “I remember perfectly now. That was the night that Jack said he felt tired; he went to his room early to smoke a pipe, and then turn in. Jack murder Satterlee! Why, nonsense, man! You’re dreaming. You’re not in your right mind. Jack and Satterlee were always good friends, and Mrs. Satterlee, too. No, no. Jack to murder any one is nonsensical enough; but Jack to murder Satterlee—impossible—simply impossible!”

Stubbornly Vaughan shook his head. “I wish to God it were,” he answered, with deep feeling. “It sounds wild enough, I know, but it’s true, for all that. Every word. And one thing you’ve just said—” he hesitated, and stopped, then unwillingly enough continued, “one thing, I’m afraid, goes a long ways toward explaining, and that is that Jack was such good friends with Mrs. Satterlee. I’m afraid that was the beginning of everything.”

Carleton’s face was pale, and his voice, when he spoke, was hoarse with emotion. “God, Vaughan,” he said, “this is terrible,” and then, with a quick return to his former manner, “no, no, I can’t believe it yet. Tell me what you saw. Not what you imagined or conjectured. Just what you saw—actually saw with your own eyes.”

“There isn’t very much to tell,” Vaughan answered. “I just happened to walk that way, for no reason whatsoever. Just by chance; I might have gone any other way as well. And finally I came out on the top of a little hill—no, not a hill exactly; more like a cliff—and from there I could see across to Satterlee’s house. And while I stood there, I saw a man—Satterlee—come across the drive, and up the back way, and go in. Then, in a minute, I heard a noise up-stairs, and some one cry out; and then, a minute after that, Jack rushed out of the house, with Satterlee after him—and suddenly Satterlee took to running queer and wide and in a circle, with his head all held pitched to one side—ah, it was ghastly to see him—and then he came straight for the rock where I was standing, and all at once his legs seemed to go out from under him, and he sprawled right out on the gravel on his face, and lay there. I turned faint for a minute, I think, and the next thing I recall was looking down again, and there was Jack trying to lift Satterlee up, and when he scratched a match his hands were all over blood, and Satterlee’s face—oh, I’ve dreamed it all fifty times since—he was dead then, I suppose. His head hung limp, I remember, and then—it was cowardly, of course, and all that, but the whole thing was so unexpected—so like a damnable kind of a nightmare, somehow—and Jack, you know—why, it was too much for me. I just turned, and made off, and never stopped till I’d got back safe into my room again. And that’s all.”

Henry Carleton sat silent, engrossed in thought. Almost he seemed to be oblivious of Vaughan’s presence. “It couldn’t be,” he muttered, at last, as though incredulous still, “it couldn’t be. Jack!” he paused, only to repeat the name again. Then he shook his head. “Never,” he said with decision, “he would have told everything. You saw wrong, Arthur. You didn’t see Jack.”

Something in the older man’s attitude of continued disbelief seemed to have the effect of nettling Vaughan. “How many times,” he said, with a note of irritation in his tone, “must I repeat it? I tell you I know. Can’t a man trust his own eyes? It was Jack. There’s no room for doubt at all. Don’t you suppose—” his voice rose with the strain of all that he had been through—“don’t you suppose that I’d have jumped at any chance to clear him? Don’t you suppose that if there’d been the faintest shadow of a doubt in his favor, I’d have stretched it to the breaking point to see him go free. No, there’s no question. It was Jack. Why he did it, or how he did it, you can conjecture, if you wish, but one thing is plain. Murder Tom Satterlee he did.”

His tone rang true. At last, in spite of himself, Carleton appeared unwillingly to be convinced. Again he pondered. “Then he perjured himself at the inquest?” he said quickly at last.

Vaughan nodded. “He perjured himself at the inquest,” he assented.

“And you?” asked Carleton, again, “you perjured yourself too?”“I perjured myself too,” Vaughan answered. “There were plenty of other reasons, of course; reasons that you can imagine. It wasn’t just a case of Jack alone. There was a lot else to think of besides. We talked it over as well as we could—Jack and I. We thought of you. We thought of Rose—and of me. We thought of the Carleton name. The disgrace of it all. We only had a quarter of an hour, at the most—and we lied, deliberately and consciously lied.”

He looked up, instantly amazed at the look on Carleton’s face, for Carleton was gazing at him as if he could scarcely believe his ears—as if this piece of news, for some reason, came as something more unexpected than all the rest. “You talked it over with Jack?” he said, “talked it over with Jack, and Jack thought of me—and the family name. Upon my word, Arthur, I believe one of us is mad.”

Vaughan stared at him, uncomprehending. “I don’t see why you say that,” he returned. “What was there more natural? Or do you mean Jack wasn’t sincere when he put that forward as a reason? I’ve thought of that, but I don’t believe it now. Just think how we should feel if instead of sitting here and theorizing about it, we knew that the facts were really public property. Do you wonder that we stopped to consider everything? Do you wonder that we decided as we did? But we were wrong—all wrong—I knew it, really, all the time. To tell what I saw—that was the only honest thing to do. I lied, and now I’m going to try to make amends. I’m going to tell the truth, no matter what comes. It’s the only way.”

Impatiently Henry Carleton shook his head. “I don’t agree with you, in the least,” he said quickly. “I think you decided rightly. I should have done the same. And right or wrong, you’ve made your choice. Why alter it now? It would make the scandal of the day.”

“I know it,” Vaughan desperately assented, “I know it will. But anything’s better than having things go on as they are now. I can’t look people in the face. I’ve been miserable. I thought I knew what it was to be badly off before, but poverty, and bad luck, and failure—what are they, anyway? What do they amount to? Nothing. But a thing like this on your conscience. Why, a man’s better dead. He can’t live with it, day and night. He can’t; that’s all. I know. He’s got to tell, or go crazy; it isn’t to be endured.”

Without making answer, Henry Carleton rose, and walked over to the window, standing precisely as he had stood before Vaughan’s coming, gazing out into the blackness of the night. Then he turned. “Wait here,” he said peremptorily. “I’ve got to get to the bottom of this, or you won’t be the one to lose your senses. Wait here. I’ll be back in half an hour, at the very latest.”

Sudden conjecture dawned in Vaughan’s eyes. “You’re going—” he began, and then paused.

Henry Carleton completed the sentence for him. “I’m going to see Mrs. Satterlee,” he answered. “I refuse to credit your story, Arthur, or what you say Jack admits, unless she corroborates your tale of what happened that night. It all depends on her.”

He turned to leave the room, then paused a moment, and again turned to Vaughan. “Have you told Jack,” he asked, “just what you propose to do?”

Vaughan shook his head. “I haven’t seen Jack,” he answered, “since the morning after it happened. To tell the truth, I’ve taken pains not to see him. I couldn’t bear to. The whole thing got on my nerves. It seemed to change him so. And about this part of it, I haven’t seen him, either. I couldn’t. To go to a man, and read him his death-warrant. I couldn’t. I thought I’d come to you.”

Carleton nodded. “I think you’ve done wisely,” he said, “if this can all be true, I must see Jack myself first. It becomes a family matter then. Well, I must go. Wait here for me, please. I won’t be long.”

For perhaps twenty minutes Vaughan sat alone in the library, his mind, after the long strain of all he had undergone, singularly torpid. Mechanically he found himself counting the squares on a rug near the table; three rows of six—three rows of five—eighteen, fifteen, thirty-three. Over and over again he did this until at last he pulled himself up short with a start. And then he heard footsteps ascending; and Henry Carleton hastily reËntered the room, his face stern and set. For an instant, as Vaughan rose, the two men stood confronting each other. “Well?” Vaughan asked, though reading the answer to his question in the other’s eyes.

Carleton nodded. In the lamplight his face looked ten years older. He spoke but two words. “It’s true,” he said.