OUT OF THE PAST

When Tom entered the newspaper office after attending to the freight matter as well as several errands, he saw Brent sitting on a stool before a high table with a great bound volume of newspapers before him. His lanky legs were drawn up, his feet resting on a high rung of the stool, a pencil was over his ear, and his prosaic spectacles and studious air were so at odds with the adventurous role he had given himself that even sober Tom was fain to smile.

“Shhh,” said Brent, never looking up. “I have it; it was hiding in a Sunday edition. I crept stealthily through the Saturday issue and—”

“No fooling,” said Tom expectantly; “have you really found it?”

He stood at Brent’s side gazing at a heading which seemed to visualize to him the event which old Dyker had recalled in his rambling talk. The hazy reminiscence seemed brutally clear and definite now with this cold announcement before him. And as he read, not only the event was confirmed but the guilt fixed as well.

CRAZED YOUTH KILLS BENEFACTOR, the glaring heading read.

Tom glanced at the top of the yellowed sheet and saw that the issue was of a date fourteen years back. The thing had occurred before Temple Camp was dreamed of and when he was a hoodlum in Barrel Alley.

“Satisfactory?” said Brent in his funny way. Tom did not answer; he was too engrossed in reading.

“Henry Merrick,” the article ran, “was found murdered in his home yesterday. He had been struck with some blunt instrument while in his library and was lying partly under his writing table quite dead when the body was discovered by his aged housekeeper, Miss Martha Wildick, on returning at seven o’clock from a church meeting.

“All indications point to the guilt of one Anson Dyker, a youth of seventeen years who is known to have called at the house between five and five-thirty and who shortly before six o’clock was seen to emerge from a kitchen window and hurry through the thick shrubbery in back of the Merrick home.

“It is known that between five and seven o’clock Mr. Merrick was alone in the house save for the presence of this youth. It is probable that the crime was committed with one or other of several ornate fireplace instruments, for these, a shovel and pair of tongs and poker, were found strewn upon the floor. An overturned chair was the only other indication of a struggle.

“The motive which incited the maddened boy to murder was undoubtedly revenge though he also availed himself of the opportunity for robbery, for a metal strong-box believed by Miss Wildick to have contained several bonds and various notes and securities, and not improbably more than a thousand dollars in cash, was missing. No trace has been found of the boy.”

Tom could hardly read fast enough, “Young Dyker,” the report continued, “was with his grandparents an occupant of a small cottage in West Hurley owned by Mr. Merrick. Investigation reveals that the Dykers have cherished an unreasoning hatred of their landlord from the time he was compelled to notify them that the cottage, an old and humble abode, was to be torn down because of the flooding of the area to make the Ashokan Reservoir.

“When seen this morning, Caleb Dyker, the grandfather, while protesting his grandson’s innocence, declared that Merrick was a scoundrel and had received his just deserts at the hands of his murderer. Caleb admits sending Anson to Kingston yesterday with over two hundred dollars back rental to pay Merrick. This he drew out of the bank resolved to be under no further obligation to the man who was to ‘turn him out’ as he phrased it, from his home of thirty years.”

There was considerably more to this sensational report concerning mainly the suspected whereabouts of the fugitive boy, of whom there was no trace. Articles in issues of the paper immediately following rounded out the story in the original report and Tom read these with breathless interest to a point where the crime was relegated to an inside page and the reports of progress in the matter (or lack of progress) were brief and perfunctory.

From all these diminishing accounts he learned that the Dykers, notwithstanding that they had been in many ways the subjects of their wealthy landlord’s forbearance and benevolence for years, had been seized with a blind wrath against him when he was forced by the government to dispose of his property in the little doomed village. Evidently the Dykers had not perceived his innocence and helplessness in this matter. Simple and ignorant, they had seen him only as they had seen the whole great engineering project; he and it were ruthless destroyers.

There was much in the old newspapers to this purpose. The blind hatred of the Dykers was like the senseless wrath underlying a southern feud. They could see only one fact, and that fact, tragic indeed, obscured every other consideration. They were to be driven from their home.

The boy, susceptible and loyal, imbibed this hatred. Neighbors heard him say that he would like to kill the scoundrel Merrick. It was but a week or two prior to their necessary eviction that old Caleb in a burst of hatred and scornful independence drew out of his small savings the money with which to square his account with his detested landlord.

With this money young Anson had been sent to Kingston. Before starting he had been heard to say, “If he starts talking to me and stringing me with a lot of lies, I’ll kill him.”

That was the sum and substance of the known facts about the horrid crime, tragic sequel of misplaced hatred and vengeance; an instance of that blind, irrational malice so often persisting in the country.

It was easy for Tom to piece out the sad story of ignorant rebellion against the inevitable by these lowly people, of rash and fiery youth, of the grandmother’s broken heart and death, of the grandfather, homeless and lonely, wandering forth into a strange world. Tom pictured him very vividly with his stick and his old crooked spectacles.

And the vast Ashokan Reservoir, subject of his valiant loathing, had crept over its allotted area and finally filled the green valley and covered up the scene of the deserted village and the forsaken, devastated home.

Tom was recalled from his momentary reverie by Brent’s drawling, matter-of-fact tone. “I’m a better Sherlock Nobody Holmes than you thought I was. Look here. I’ve discovered everything but the married-and-lived-happily-thereafter part. Here’s a copy of the paper published only last week. Read that—down there—second column.”

In a paper which Brent pulled from his pocket and laid open on the big, dusty volume with its ancient news, Tom read with fresh interest the following item. It was prefixed by an inconspicuous heading which read, MERRICK OFFER IS PERPETUATED. The brief article ran:

“The death in Albany on Friday last of Horace E. Merrick, well known merchant of the capital city, recalls the tragic murder of his brother, Henry Merrick, in this city more than a decade ago. Henry Merrick, a kind-hearted and generous man, was brutally murdered in his home and all signs pointed to the guilt of a youth whose aged grandparents occupied a cottage owned by Merrick in the old village of West Hurley. The cottage was one of the many buildings necessarily demolished in clearing the area now covered by the reservoir.

“The youth, Dyker by name, was never seen or heard of after the killing. His indictment by the Grand Jury was followed by the offer of two thousand dollars reward for his apprehension by the murdered man’s brother Horace.

“Horace Merrick’s will, leaving the bulk of his property to his son Borden Merrick, provides that the offer of two thousand dollars reward be continued throughout the lifetime of his son and heir. This stipulation seems to have been incorporated in the instrument as a matter of general principle and out of regard for his brother’s memory, as there seems little likelihood of the culprit being brought to justice at this late date.”

“Anything more I can do for you?” asked Brent in his usual manner of quiet ridicule.

“Yes, there is,” said Tom. “Don’t say anything to Pop Dyker about our hunting these things up. Don’t say anything to him at all.”

“I’ll be as silent as the grave,” said Brent. “What do you say we get some lunch?”