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(See page 23.) Tº “ . HDOC 'T'ſ AR -- THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE A STUD1 OF THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSCIENCE IN THE DETECTION OF CRIME BY JOHN H. PRENTIS NEW YORK THE BAKER AND TAYLOR company 1997 , Copyright, 1907 ; - THE NEW YORK By The Baker & Taylor Co ^- Published, March, 1907 PUBLIC LIBRARY 3.10990A ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS R 1927 L T he: Fº pto ar º .N. oftwoo d Mas U S A. FROM THE ARGUMENT ON THE TRIAL OF JOHN F. KNAPP FOR THE MURDER OF JOSEPH WHITE. T is accomplished. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own and it is safe. Ah, gentlemen! that is a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty one can bestow it, and say that it is safe. True it is, “murder will out.” The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. The guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself. or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse to be true to itself. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him, and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him and leads him whitherso- ever it will. He thinks the whole world sees his guilt upon his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. The fatal secret must be confessed, it will be con- fessed. There is no refuge from confession but sui- cide, and suicide is confession. DANIEL WEBSTER. 7 * THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE CHAPTER I A SECRET DEED Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. — THE BIBLE, The Book of Genesis. LITTLE after nine o’clock on the night of Monday, May 14, 1906, a tall man wearing a broad felt hat drawn low on his forehead, and hav- ing a black bandage over one eye, rang the door-bell of a house on High Street, and inquired for Dr. Horace. “Yis, he’s in, sir,” said the servant girl. “”Tis past office hours, but wait an’ I’ll ax if he’ll be seeing ye.” After a moment's absence, the girl re- turned, and showing the caller to the door of the Doctor's office went away. As the man came in the Doctor was bal- ancing himself in the office chair, but at 9 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE the sight of his visitor he rose slowly to his feet, and the two stood for a moment face to face, gazing at each other in si- lence. Then the man with the black bandage spoke. “Have you got the body all right?” he said. “Is that surely you, Ed Wallace?” asked the Doctor. The man laughed. “It surely is,” he said. “What do you think of me? Don't I look all right? Your girl didn't know me either in this get-up. I shaved off my mustache to-night and had my hair and eyebrows clipped. These clothes are the real thing too, and this bandage is my wife's idea. Great, isn’t it? I told her all about it. Thought that was the best way.” The Doctor was a bachelor. “I sup- pose so,” he said doubtfully. “Anyway, part of the agreement covers that. Here's 10 A SECRET DEED the money I drew from the bank to-day as your motive for the murder. It’s been on my desk all evening.” “Never mind. Call in the girl so she can testify that I saw it.” “All right,” said the Doctor, pushing the button by his desk. “And pay her for something with some of it so that she will be sure to notice it.” The Doctor took a dollar bill from his pocket and put it with the pile on his desk. When the girl came in he was saying in his most professional tone: “All right, my man, we'll fix you up in just a minute. Hot water, please,” he said to the girl. “In just a minute, sir, we’ll have that eye all right.” When the hot water was brought to his desk, the Doctor took the dollar bill from the pile at his side and some change from his pocket. “I don’t think I paid you for my last 11 A SECRET DEED the murder of the aforesaid James A. Horace.” Wallace read this slowly and carefully with his one eye, and then took off the bandage and read it through again, weighing every phrase. Finally he signed it and passed it over to the Doctor. “This is my contract with you. I've signed it already,” said the Doctor, toss- ing him another which ran: “I, Dr. James Andrew Horace, of the city of Detroit, county of Wayne and State of Michigan, hereby agree to pay on the twenty-eighth day of May, 1906, the sum of one thousand dollars ($1000) to Edwin Wallace, of the said city of De- troit, if on that day he is not and has not been arrested or in the hands of the law for the murder of me, the aforesaid James A. Horace; and on the further condition, moreover, that in evading the 13 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE search of the law he shall receive no aid from his original standing and position as the aforesaid Edwin Wallace. . (Signed) JAMES ANDREw HoRACE.” Wallace also considered this very care- fully, then folded it up and put it away in a pocketbook. “I guess that’s all straight,” he said. “These papers won’t need to be wit- nessed. You’ll have to pay when you lose.” “You agree to the last condition in the contract?” asked the Doctor. “Sure,” replied Wallace, meditatively caressing his lip from which the mus- tache had departed, “we settled that. I must be fixed just like any other criminal. It wouldn’t be any test if I went into it as myself. By George, the start is mighty risky, Jim.” “Luck’s with us,” said the Doctor. “Lord, but it’s a lark. I wish I had 14 A SECRET DEED your part, though, instead of my own. What did your wife say?” “She said I was a fool.” The Doctor nodded sagely. “That’s a wife's privilege,” he said. “How did you bring her around?” “Oh, when I explained it to her she said I ought to win, and I promised her half of the thousand. Then she helped me plan it out.” The Doctor threw over his cigar case and the two sat for awhile smoking in uneasy silence, like men who were put- ting off some disagreeable task. The Doctor fidgeted nervously from time to time, but Wallace remained meditatively impassive. Finally the Doctor stretched himself and yawned. “Well, Ed,” he said, “shall we go on now, or shall we let it drop 2 What do you say?” “Are you going to back down now, 15 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Jim P” Wallace replied. “You know I’m right. A man's guilt always be- trays him. It’s the confession his con- science makes that discloses his crime to the law. And now everything has worked round so that we have the chance of a lifetime to prove it. Are you afraid to put it to the test? Jim, let’s go on. In the interest of psychology.” “All right,” replied the Doctor, “I’m with you; in the interest of psychology. But we’ll prove that I’m the one that’s right. A man's conscience has very little to do with whether he is punished or not. There are plenty of criminals in the jails to-day who haven’t conscience enough to trouble them any, and yet they have been caught. The law is simply wiser and better organized and more powerful than the criminal and so it catches the major- ity of them. We can't settle this thing by arguing. We always get to a dead- 16 A SECRET DEED lock. Never mind, though, we can have it out for once more to-night after we finish. And then this thing will prove it. Let's get to work now. Here goes to fool the human race.” He began to take off his coat, talking in jerky phrases and in a subdued tone as he undressed, emptied the pockets of his clothes, and laid them carefully on the lounge. “I have him — here in the closet,” he said. “I got permission to take the body — for scientific purposes. He died only yesterday; my own patient; no one claimed him; luck’s with us. I had him packed in ice at the hospital — and brought him here — last night — after dark. No one in the house knows about it — and the expressman hasn’t an idea what he brought. He's as well pre- served as if he had died an hour ago; but they won’t examine that much; the 17 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE case will be too clear. No one but the nurse noticed how much he looked like me, and I have helped this by parting his hair in the middle like mine. Made me feel kind of creepy, though, watching him dying; it seemed as if I was doing it my- Self.” The Doctor had finished disrobing by this time and stood for a moment with gleaming skin and sinewy muscles, a figure of stalwart manhood. Then he waved his hand and disappeared into the next room. In a little while he re- turned, dressed again, but in entirely different clothes. Wallace, who had been sitting alone in silent abstraction, glanced up but did not speak. The spell of the secret deed and the stillness of the night was upon both, and unconsciously they moved softly and went about with bated breath and stealthy caution. The Doctor quietly un- - 18 A SECRET DEED locked the closet door, beckoning Wal- lace to follow him inside, and in the semi-darkness of the narrow place set noiselessly to work unpacking and un- wrapping the body from its long box. Wallace tiptoed to the closet and soon the Doctor had the body all uncovered and was chafing its arms and shoulders. “It’s kept well,” he muttered softly. There was no sign of disease or decay anywhere upon the body; the chest was not sunken, the skin, though pale, had still the white hue of life and the flesh was firm and hard. When the scars of the fatal operation were hidden by proper clothes there would be nothing to tell that the man had died in a hospital. “You take his feet,” whispered the Doctor, himself grasping the shoulders, but at the touch Wallace recoiled, un- nerved and shuddering, and dropped the ghastly burden from his arms. 19 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “Careful, man, some one might hear,” growled the Doctor. “What’s the mat- ter? It won't hurt you. Take hold.” “That's all right,” gasped Wallace, repressing himself with an effort. “I’m only a respectable citizen and not used to this.” Together they carried their burden to the lounge and the Doctor slipped back for a moment to the closet, leaving Wal- lace alone with the body. As if ashamed of his former weakness he leaned over the sprawling figure, touched the set fea- tures hesitatingly with his fingers, looked thoughtfully into the staring, sightless eyes, and then laid his hand on the jet- black hair with almost a caressing touch. In grim silence the two proceeded to dress the body in the clothes the Doctor had just taken off. It was a long job because it seemed impossible to make them fit naturally, and because the Doctor 20 A SECRET DEED would leave nothing carelessly done, but examined every button as it was put into place and the position of every fold of cloth on the dangling limbs. When, at last, the coat had been pulled and smoothed over those inert, helpless shoul- ders, he stood back and surveyed the limp figure with critical approbation. “It’s as much like me as a looking- glass,” he whispered. “But I don't want to look as handsome as that when all’s over with me. Hope to look con- siderably older.” He picked up his watch and the things he had emptied from his other pockets, murmuring, “These must be missing since robbery was the mo- tive.” They paused and hesitated together in nameless embarrassment. The Doctor walked around the room, from the lounge to the desk, then to the bookcase and back again. Wallace opened the door 21 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE and listened in the hall, and peered from behind the window blind into the street. There being nothing in the least to dis- turb them, they met uneasily by the lounge again. . “Now, Ed,” whispered the Doctor excitedly, “we’ll put him in the chair by the desk and then for the crime. Get that pestle from the top of the book- case.” Wallace did as he was told. A moment later and the deed had been done. The subject had been seated at the desk, Wallace in his role of mur- derer had crept up from behind, had dealt his victim a mortal blow on the head, and in melodramatic fashion had let the pestle — the instrument of the crime — fall heavily to the floor. “Good enough,” exclaimed the Doc- tor, pulling out his watch, “that killed him instantly. Murder committed at half-past ten. Two weeks will bring it 22 A SECRET DEED to just half-past ten Monday night, May 28th.” He pushed the chair forward so that the body fell half on half off the desk, curved one arm around the head and let the other hang down. Then taking a little wide-mouthed bottle from a drawer he placed a small clot of blood in the rough wound in the man's skull. Wal- lace came forward and dipping a pen into the ink handed it to the Doctor, whispering, “You were writing.” The Doctor nodded, and taking a pre- scription blank looked frowningly round a moment before he caught sight of the black bandage hanging on a chair, and with the eagerness of an inspiration be- gan to fill out: For John DoE Rx. Borac ac. . . . . . . 4. gr. Aq Dist. 23 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Then he blotted the place, slipped the paper under the dead man's hand and laid the pen in his fingers. “Great idea,” he muttered. The two stepped back to observe the tableau they had prepared. There, prone on his desk, with a jagged hole in his head, lay the murdered man, in clothes, in hair, and in every feature the image of Doctor Horace. Beside him, on the floor, lay the instrument with which the murder had been done. Under the Doc- tor's hand lay the blotted prescription that he was writing, and beside him on his desk stood the basin of water which he had ordered for his last patient. There was the chair on which the miscreant had been sitting and the money for which the terrible deed had been committed had dissappeared from its place. Everything else was undisturbed. The scene told the story of the tragedy so plainly that a 24 A SECRET DEED glance would take in its every detail. The two studied it long and critically, but found nothing to add or alter. “Now,” murmured the Doctor, “we’ll fix the rooms up so that there will be noth- ing to give us away.” He disappeared into the closet for awhile, putting it to rights with stealthy movements. Next he went into the bedroom and put every- thing in order there. Wallace drew a chair to the other end of the room from the tragedy and sat silently waiting. When the Doctor had finished he drew a chair alongside and handed over his cigar case. Little by little the two began to talk in whispers until they were threshing over again the principles upon which they differed. It ended in the same old deadlock. “We punish crime because we have a moral right to punish it,” whispered Wal- lace, vehemently. “When the law has 25 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE no moral superiority to the criminal, as it will not have in my case, it cannot overcome and punish him. And this will prove it.” “We punish those who break our laws because we are greater than they,” whis- pered the Doctor back. “When the law loses its might to punish criminals, then they go free. You will get caught just the same for participating only in this appearance of murder as you would if you had really done it. And this will prove it.” Then having arrived at last at their usual climax of ultimatums, the Doctor clapped Wallace on the shoulder and they grinned at each other understandingly. “What time is it?” whispered Wallace. “Quarter past three, by all that’s wonderful,” whispered the Doctor. “We had better be getting out of here as fast as we can, or some one will see us.” 26 A SECRET DEED The Doctor stepped to a drawer and put on a set of shaggy whiskers. Wal- lace put the bandage over his eye again and picked up his bundle. They took one last look around, arranged the chairs back in their old places, then they put out the gas, stole together through the hall and, unlocking the front door, came out into the gray air of the morning. “Good-by, Ed,” said the Doctor. “Let me shake your gory hand. I’ll be standing just here again at ten-thirty on the night of May twenty-eighth with one thousand dollars for you to come and get if you can. But I’m not going to cut short my vacation to go your bail if you get caught before. I hope you will have as good a vacation playing hide and seek as I will camping out. Good-by and good luck to you.” “Good-by and good luck to you,” replied Wallace. “Keep yourself close 27 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE and I’ll be here on time to win my bet and prove I’m right.” With a hearty shake of the hand the murdered man and his murderer sep- arated, and Wallace went forth, in open tournament against the world, to prove his theory, that the curse of a man's guilt is the only thing that gives him up to punishment. 28 CHAPTER II A FUGITIVE WITH A CLEAR CONSCIENCE “Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this respect their currents turn away And lose the name of action.” — SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet. ALLACE stood watching the Doc- tor's shadowy figure disappear into the haze of the dim street until he realized that he himself was a solitary being lingering in front of a house in which lay the lifeless body of a murdered man. Then as he swung around and started off in the opposite direction, a sudden elation came over him that stirred his blood and roused his spirits high. A mighty desire seized him to shout for joy and give vent to his feelings with a great 29 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE hurrah. This was the very fascination of adventure. He was starting out to strange exploits whose uncertainty only added to their excitement and their charm. No one could tell what danger the next moment might bring forth. But he was forging on with strength to meet whatever came. This was the eager action of a real adventure. He had been doubtful of success at the start, but now all doubt had fled. It was worth living for, thus to be tempting fortune with victories already won and confidence for the untried future. The very stillness and strangeness of the early morning hour added to his exhilaration until his blood went coursing through his veins and his pulse beats made a marching rhythm for his swinging steps and carried him triumphantly along. He felt like a champion daring forth in might to battle with the wrong. Straight down Wood- 30 FUGITIVE WITH CLEAR CONSCIENCE ward Avenue he strode, his shoulders back, his head held high, and, as he swung along drawing in great breaths of the cool morning air, he rejoiced within himself as those with strength rejoice at prospect of the strife. The loudness of his echoing footsteps on the stillness of the breaking day gave him a diverting sense of largeness and importance. For a little way he noted their effect. It was amusing also to have the bandage across his face and to look out upon the world from but one eye. He kept turning his head from side to side, trying to make one eye do the work of two, and experimenting with the differ- ent effects produced. As a tall police- man with a glowing cigar in his mouth loomed up through the gloom, Wallace laughed and murmured to himself, “Here is a man from whom much honor might be gained.” He whistled softly through 31 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE his teeth as he swung along, and felt that he was coming to be at home in this strange, rare world, in which he was having all these new experiences. He smiled with friendliness at a mysterious- looking cab that clattered up the silent street and swung round a corner. He turned and waved his hand as a token of good-fellowship after a hurrying bicyclist who went scorching past, and he laughed as a brilliantly lighted electric car came tearing and clanging by. His spirits rejoiced anew at the promise of adven- ture and, drawing in deep breaths of the cool morning air, he laughed again. “This is what it is to be a murderer,” he murmured. “Hunted down and flee- ing before the might of the law, as Jim says. Oh, Jim, this is too easy.” As he was passing the deserted extent of Grand Circus Park, he relaxed his pace a little. “No hurry,” he said to 32 s FUGITIVE WITH CLEAR CONSCIENCE himself, “it’s three or four hours yet till my train goes and the law isn't after me yet. I guess I may as well get something to eat.” A few blocks further down he turned off the avenue to a little all-night restau- rant and proceeded to demolish beef- steak and potatoes with the appetite of a lusty man of toil. There was no one else in the place, but the sleepy waiter woke up and seemed to take much in- terest in the black bandage of his belated patron. After shouting, “Small, well done,” through a little window, he came back and tried to enter into conversation with his affable but very taciturn guest. Even after serving him he retired to his bench and continued to regard Wallace with speculative eyes. It was only a little after four when Wallace finished his breakfast and left the restaurant, but the electric lights all 33 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE over the city had been put out and the day was breaking bright and clear. The streets seemed even more deserted than before, but those who were abroad had the wholesome appearance of having just finished their sleep instead of being just on the way to get it. It was a time when all except a few good people were in bed. A market-wagon or two rumbled across the avenue and a solitary cab was still standing in front of the City Hall. Wal- lace, feeling very peaceful and satisfied with all the world, turned leisurely down toward the depot, communing with him- self as he sauntered along. “I think I’ll kill a man and go out and have an early walk and breakfast every day,” he thought. “Now, an ordinary murderer would be trying to get just as far away as he could. There's no surer way of getting caught than by running away. Distance does not mean safety 34 FUGITIVE WITH CLEAR CONSCIENCE any more. Here I am not a mile from the scene of the slaughter, as safe and happy as you please. That's why the law can’t catch me, and that’s what it is to be a murderer without a conscience.” He strolled tranquilly down Woodward Avenue, enjoying its familiar scenes in their unfamiliar quietness. No clattering horses, no clanging cars, no shouting newsboys, no lighted stores, no crowds of people. From Fort Street to Jefferson Avenue, and from Jefferson Avenue to the depot, he saw not a soul, but he loitered along so slowly that it was five o'clock when he reached the station at the foot of Third Street. The office had just been opened for the day, so Wallace went in immediately and bought a through ticket to Chicago. He felt sure that the agent would remember his first customer of the day, and it was his pur- pose to court attention. He had a ten- 35 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE dollar bill in his pocket, and paid for the ticket from that without having to draw on a fifty-dollar fund that he had in his wallet. As it was over two hours till his train left, he went out and wandered up and down the wharves by the river, and came back and loitered around the warm, sleepy station until it was nearly seven o'clock, and then, tired of waiting, he boarded his train and took a seat well up toward the front of the smok- ing-car. Everything was still going well with him and as he had planned it. But he began to grow anxious lest in the ground he had already covered some unfore- seen complication might arise. He had all along recognized that these hours of waiting constituted a danger point. The body might be discovered by some one sooner than he expected, perhaps right after he had left the house; the police 36 FUGITIVE WITH CLEAR CONSCIENCE might be notified and be on his track; at any moment an officer might come down the aisle, place a firm hand on his shoul- der, and say, “I want you.” He fidgeted uneasily in his seat and counted the slow moments, his mind full of pictures of policemen rushing down the broad, plain track he had left behind, to stop him before he had fairly started on his way. If this point were passed in safety, he felt confident as to the rest of the two weeks, but if he were caught here his theories of conscience and crime would seem to have failed disgracefully, and he would be a general laughing-stock. At last there came the welcome shout of “All aboard,” the engine gave two or three staccato puffs, like the grunts of an awakening giant, the train slowly started, and they were away. Wallace gave a great sigh of relief, and looked around to make sure that there was no officer aboard; but the 37 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE car was comparatively empty, a man or two in the middle seats, and a few work- ingmen down at the further end; no one near him. He sank back resignedly and watched the passing landscape. “Now, I’m a murderer flying from the law,” he murmured to himself. The conductor was very affable to such a desperate character. He remarked on the fine weather and passed the compli- ments of the day, while taking Wallace's ticket, and giving him a little piece of cardboard in its stead. Wallace turned his face to the window and pretended to go to sleep. The excitement of the day before began to react in an irresistible weariness, which grew greater and greater as the night's exhilaration passed away. However, there was nothing to be done for the present, so he relapsed into worn- out quietness for the hour. The train pulled out of Ypsilanti. The next stop 38 FUGITIVE WITH CLEAR CONSCIENCE - was Ann Arbor, eight miles away. After a few minutes, he roused himself and sauntered to the front platform. He leaned carelessly against the door and looked around. No one was noticing him. “Now, for the next step,” he muttered. “Luck with me.” They were rounding a curve near to Ann Arbor as he went out on the platform of the car, raised the floor of the vestibule and opened the door of the steps. He descended to the lowest step, crouched a moment to maintain his balance amid the rush and roar of the moving train, and quickly tore the bandage from his eye and the hat from his head. As the rumble of the wheels told him that they were crossing a bridge, he threw them both away with all the strength that his uncertain foothold would allow. Un- mindful of the swaying car and flying 39 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE cinders, he leaned far out and had the satisfaction of seeing them curve back and roll down the bank into a little stream. Then he took the bundle from under his coat and drew from it a light- colored fedora. With this on and the black bandage gone, no one would recog- nize him as the passenger to Chicago. Just then the brakeman passed through the train calling, “Ann Arbor, Ann Ar- bor.” Wallace waited until the train had almost stopped before he dropped off. Then he went leisurely down the walk, through the station, and, turning to the right, up the hill to the town. His flight had not carried him very far from the scene of the crime, but then, a fugi- tive with a clear conscience puts no trust in distance. An hour and a quarter later, at Jack- son, excited officers were searching through the train for a tall, poorly 40 FUGITIVE WITH CLEAR CONSCIENCE dressed man, who wore a broad, felt hat, and had a black bandage over one eye, to arrest him on the charge of murder. But they found no one to arrest, even on suspicion. 41 CHAPTER III THE HUMAN ELEMENT “To err is human.” – ALExANDER Pope. ALLACE stopped at the top of the hill to pull himself together. He was beginning to feel desperately weary. The strain of the sleepless night was numbing his brain and robbing him of will and purpose. He had a strong, unreasoning desire to free himself im- mediately from the responsibility of doing anything more; to stop then and there, and let things shift for themselves. What was the use? He was all right anyhow. His imagination pictured to him how nice it would be to stay in Ann Arbor for a couple of days or so, to wander about the campus and spend part of his vaca- 42 THE HUMAN ELEMENT tion among his old college scenes. But instinct, or conscience, or guiding provi- dence, or a previously developed sense of oughtness, that mysterious power which takes care of children and of men when they are unable to take care of themselves, came to him with the warning that he was not safe and drove him on. “No time to lose,” it said. So he put aside all temptation to depart from his prearranged plan and stumbled on. As he came up Main Street, he saw one of the big electric cars standing ready to start for Detroit, and by hurry- ing he caught it. This was the next step in the plan he and his wife had laid out, and both of them thought that it was the master-stroke. He was still a murderer, flying before the law, and from the simple standpoint of a criminal, un- driven by remorse or fear, there was no place so safe for him as that in which 43 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE his crime had been committed. But just now, as he sank upon the car seat, he had only enough initiative left to be dully glad that everything had been arranged beforehand, and that he had no more thinking to do. He gave way entirely to his weariness and lounged down in his seat, his chin on his breast and his eyes shut, only half awake and only partly conscious. Without his knowl- edge or consent his thoughts wandered here and there in dizzy unrest over the events of the night before, showing him, to the accompaniment of the jolts of the car, now this picture and now that of the things that had happened. He saw him- self in his own room, dressing in old clothes and broad felt hat for the part of murderer. He saw himself sitting on the edge of a chair, while his wife ar- ranged and rearranged the black bandage over his eye. He thought how he was 44 THE HUMAN ELEMENT checking over the necessary things before he went, and how he remembered leav- ing on his desk the long, flat pocketbook containing the fifty dollars that was to carry him through the two weeks. His wife had brought it to him laughing, and saying, “You’d better not forget that.” He touched the outside of his coat now, to make sure that it was still in his pocket. In all this retrospect, the plan seemed perfect to him still. He could see no flaw in it yet, any more than when he had originated it. Success seemed certain. His course for the next two weeks lay plain before him. He simply intended to take a room in a nice, quiet hotel and enjoy a vacation of reading, smoking, and loafing round, while the police were hunting the country over for the mys- terious murderer. Then, at half-past ten on the night of the twenty-eighth, he would go up to High Street, claim his 45 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE one thousand dollars from Doctor Jim, and his principle of conscience and crime would be proved forever. Facts would prove it. Results would prove it. And the proof would be conclusive. The fact that the law could not capture him, a fugi- tive without guilt, would show that it is the conscienceof the criminal alone that brings his punishment upon him. He charac- terized this campaign of his as one of masterly inactivity. It was not a very exciting program, but it was an em- inently safe one, and it left the burden of the proof entirely upon the law. And he could imagine no possible way by which he could be caught. His complete change of identity, his delusive doubling back, his disappearance within the gen- teel doors of a good hotel, these seemed to him certainly able to secure him from arrest for any length of time, for two weeks at least. He could see absolutely 46 THE HUMAN ELEMENT nowhere that a clue that would catch him could be discovered. At no place in his flight had he, like a conscience- stricken criminal, made the fatal error that would lead to his arrest. Luck, too, had been with him, but luck might be depended on by an innocent man, where, with a guilty one, it betrayed him and become the instrument of judgment. And even if, by some unforeseen chance, the detectives did come upon a clue, the newspapers, he knew, would give him warning of it before his trail in the city could be found again. A couple of weeks was too short a time to identify the quiet resident of a respectable hotel as a vagrant and desperate murderer. Wallace was even sleepily surprised at the ease with which his deliberate plan- ning and cool, unflurried execution seemed able to baffle all pursuit, and he almost laughed as he remembered the Doctor's 47 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE confidence in what he had called the “majesty and efficiency of the law.” The ride of forty miles took a little over two hours, but Wallace was too far gone in weariness to care. His part was just to stay on the car until it got back into the city again, and that was the easiest thing to do anyway. He hardly realized whether he had just started on this trip or whether he had been bump- ing and grinding along for unnumbered ages. It did not seem as if any finite extent of time would ever again be worth noting, compared to the vast periods that had elapsed since he rang the door-bell of the Doctor's house on High Street the night before. It was the longest time back of anything that he could remember. It must have occurred in another incar- nation, — it seemed so long ago. And after these vast lapses he, Wallace, was no longer a person; at times he was ahead, 48 THE HUMAN ELEMENT floating high up in the air; again he was an inanimate body jerked this way and that by the forever jolting car. When, after endless periods of weariness, they came down Michigan Avenue, at last, he felt as if he were returning to a strange city, like some long-lost wanderer com- ing back to his now unfamiliar native place. He found himself gazing dully out of the window at the streets as if he had not seen them for years and years. At last the car actually did arrive at the corner of Griswold Street. He roused himself, took a slow, tremendous stretch, and got off. Intense weariness numbs the brain and sometimes gives a man the same symptoms of gravity as a certain stage of drunkenness. It had this effect on Wallace. He turned round and round, slowly surveying the visible uni- verse from every point of view. Then he remarked wisely, “I am now a gentle- 49 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE man of leisure. I have nothing to do but eat and sleep. Especially eat. Espe- cially sleep.” The prospect was alluring but dubious. He stood in the middle of Michigan Avenue, gravely and im- personally debating with himself whether he should eat first or sleep first. He finally decided on the former and made his way slowly and with intense dignity to the nearest restaurant. The quiet of the place, the rest and food, roused his mind to thoughts of what he should do next. After pondering deeply, as those who ape wisdom, consider with porten- tous gravity and corrugated brow, before delivering their syllabic judgments on the weather, he concluded that the best thing he could do was to get to the hotel and to bed as fast as possible. By the time he had decided this weighty problem and finished his dinner, it was already afternoon, so he started at once 50 THE HUMAN ELEMENT for the hotel. As he was making a sedate and solemn progress over to Wood- ward Avenue, he was startled into wake- fulness by the sudden shout of a newsboy beside him: “Paper: News, Journal, or Times. All about the horrible murder. Paper.” Then others took up the cries until they seemed all around him, per- sonal, taunting, calling the attention of all men to him. Presently, the shock passed and he summoned resolution to buy a paper and read the big, black, screaming headlines, that stretched over three columns. TMURDER. MURDER. TERRIBLE CRIME LAST EVENING. DR. JAMES A. HORACE THE VICTIM. DETECTIVES ARE ON THE FIEND’s TRACK AND HIs EscAPE IS IMPOSSIBLE. THE MOTIVE APPARENTLY was Robbery. 51 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “Luck with us,” said Wallace, “we fool them. I would be having a lot of fun out of this if I wasn't so sleepy.” Anyhow it was a relief to find that everything was going all right. It made him feel that he could rest easy. He noticed with a kind of professional pride that many people were buying and reading the papers. His own he stuffed into his pocket to read at a more convenient time. He was somewhat afraid, such is the nervousness of the novice, that some friend on the street might insist upon recognizing him, in spite of his disguises, and explanations might be awkward if interesting point of personal discovery, that if you do not notice other people, they will not notice you, and that no one is looking out for the unexpected. There is a story of a well-known young man in a certain town, who, to decide a bet, not dangerous. But he had noted, as an 52 THE HUMAN ELEMENT walked the city's principal streets for a whole week as a sandwich-man. His friends and acquaintances met and passed him every day, but not one of them recognized him in all that time. It is only the observer who is observed. Every one looks in return at the person who looks at every one, and no one pays attention to the person who pays no attention to any one. So Wallace passed through the crowd oblivious of all around him, looking at no one and attracting no one’s attention. He had chosen the St. Cloud as the hotel best suited to his purpose, and it seemed like coming into a haven of rest when at last he entered its lobby. He registered under the name he had pre- viously decided upon, as Edward Ward of Port Huron, and asked for his mail and a room. The urbane clerk sorted out a couple of letters addressed to 53 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Edward Ward at the St. Cloud, and wanted to know how room 349 would do. Wallace was not particular. “All right,” I'll take it for a week,” he said, shoving the type-written envelopes carelessly into his pocket. He knew that they con- tained nothing but blank paper, for he had sent them in advance himself, in order that his appearance at the hotel would look more natural and business- like. He took out the long, flat pocketbook for the purpose of paying his bill in advance from the fund of fifty dollars, which he had for the expenses of the two weeks. He opened it, and stood for a moment staring blankly into the empty place where the money should have been. He searched through its com- partments unbelievingly, turning over papers, receipts, his contract with the Doctor, but the money was not there. 54 THE HUMAN ELEMENT Then suddenly, as plain as day, he remembered that he had left that fifty dollars lying on the desk in his room. In his imagination he could see the little pile of bills on the shelf, as he had placed them in his hurry, intending next instant to put them in his wallet. And then he had forgotten to do it. His wife had brought him an empty pocketbook to the door. He stood for a moment dumb- founded, realizing dimly that his plans for the next two weeks were all destroyed, and that he had no money, except a little change. Then he clutched the empty pocketbook tightly in his hand and turned to the waiting clerk. “I think I'll take that room for just to-night,” he said. 55 CHAPTER IV THE SEMBLANCE OF MURDER Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, yet another part always comes out of our own head. —WM. JAMEs, Psychology. OR a bachelor Doctor Horace was accustomed to keep very early and very regular hours. It was a necessity for a business man and especially for a physician of large practice. Usually he was very strict not to allow his breakfast to come later than seven o’clock, half- past seven if he had been out on a night call. It annoyed him to oversleep and start the day wrong and Nora got the blame, because it was her privilege to call him down at seven o’clock, if he had not yet appeared. It was a long time 56 THE SEMBLANCE OF MURDER since the Doctor had overslept, because, if on the stroke of seven he was still nap- ping, the fact was quickly announced to him. He would hear a hearty banging on his bedroom door and a taunting brogue remarking on the crowds of pa- tients that were waiting in the office. There was nothing that Nora liked better than to get this joke on the Doctor. Therefore, on the morning after the late visit of the man with the black bandage, her lusty whacks made the hall resound before the last stroke of seven had died away. But this time there was no an- swer. Her announcement that there were twenty cripples waiting in the office also failed to bring any response. At half-past seven and at a quarter to eight she knocked and pounded again, but all in vain. It was now after eight and the Doctor was not yet stirring. This was strange, indeed, because it was certain 57 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE that he had received no night call to keep him away from home, for his bedroom door was locked. Now Nora felt herself the one to be aggrieved. Breakfast was cold, the dishes were lying unwashed, and the work of the entire household was delayed. She went to the door again and battered ineffectually with her fists. Then she turned her back and kicked it with her heels. “Doctoor, Doctoor,” she shouted, “be getting up now.” No answer. She listened with her ear to the keyhole to catch the furtive sounds of an ashamed man stealthily climbing out of bed. Not the slightest breath. She pounded again. “Shure the Doc- toor's a heavy sleeper this morning,” she said. “I mind me wance before whin he didn’t get up till noon, but he come singing home in a cab at three o'clock thot moorning.” She hammered again, and then remarked in a loud voice that she 58 THE SEMBLANCE OF MURDER would have to come in through the office and wake the Doctor up. At another time this threat would have procured a hasty surrender, but this morning there was no response. She went to the office door and, after rattling the knob to show that she was coming, peeked in. Then she shouted “Doctoor,” and scurried back into the hall to listen. Growing bolder at the continued silence, she tip- toed into the office. The bedroom door was open, so she went cautiously to the threshold and looked in. The shades were down, darkening the room, but there was enough light to see that it was empty and that the bed had not been slept in. Frightened at, she knew not what, she stood for a moment peering here and there, then turned and saw the lifeless figure lying face downward on the desk. “Doctoor,” she cried, standing rooted 59 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE to the spot, “Doctoor, wake up. You know what to do, Doctoor. Wake up.” Her eyes, which were fixed in horror on the scene, mechanically transmitted its details to her brain, where they were seared forever. The meanings of the broken skull, the pestle on the floor, the body huddled on the desk, were slowly forced upon her consciousness, as she stood there unable to move. Suddenly a voice within seemed to cry out “Mur- der!” The spell that held her was broken and she dashed blindly from the room. The instant that she was safely outside she commenced to shriek, “Help, murder, help!” and rushed headlong screaming and sobbing to the street. A passer- by seized her by the arm and learned of the tragedy from her cries. He set off at once on a run to the nearest store to telephone to police headquarters, leaving her standing on the corner wringing her 60 THE SEMBLANCE OF MURDER hands. Two or three men rushed into the house and, finding the body, did vari- ous senseless and unavailing things. One dashed off to find a doctor, another stood in the middle of the floor and shouted loudly for some one to tell him where to find some water for the dead man. The excitement grew and swirled around the house. A crowdwassoon pressing through the hall, adding confusion to the uncer- tainty, in their craving to be near a real tragedy. But the girl's screams had set in mo- tion the social machinery that cares for such a crisis. A policeman was the first representative of the law to arrive. He pushed authoritatively through the crowd and, after a hasty survey, cleared the room of every one and posted himself at the door to keep the people back. Next came a patrol wagon with galloping horses and clanging bell, bringing more 61 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE officers. Then an ambulance dashed up. A doctor came swiftly and silently in, bent for a moment over the prone figure, but quickly shook his head and turned away. Then came the chief and a couple of detectives, a number of re- porters and a coroner. The crowd was pushed back into the street and the door was shut. Not an hour since the girl's screams had given the alarm, and yet the case, with all its exigencies and spe- cial demands, was in the hands of trained and competent authorities. A little in- quiry showed that the servant girl was the important witness, and a hasty search located her in the kitchen. Summoned to the office she refused to move. “I’ll not go.” she said. “Never a step do I take in thot room, while the thing be there.” The group hurriedly adjourned to the kitchen and found the hustling reporter 62 THE SEMBLANCE OF MURDER of one of the papers already at work with pad and pencil. He nodded pleas- antly as the rest came in. “I thought you’d get around here by and by,” he said. The girl's story of the belated patient with the black bandage set things in mo- tion at once. The Chief rushed to the telephone. In a few minutes he returned elated. “Michigan Central,” he said. “Ticket to Chicago this moring. Sadler, get a wire off to Jackson at once to catch the train there. Dillon, go down to the Michigan Central depot and get full de- scriptions. Wire any necessary partic- ulars to the depot at Jackson.” Thus, under the Chief's vigorous direc- tion, the law pounced immediately, like an eagle, upon the place where the crim- inal appeared to be. “Boys,” he continued, turning im- pressively to the reporters, “we’re on 63 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE his track. You can say from me that the murderer can’t possibly escape.” But the Chief was soon to learn that there was more in the Horace Murder Case than he realized, when he boasted of so early and so easy a capture. 64 CHAPTER V FROM THE ASSETS OF JUSTICE Genius is the exemplary originality of a man's talent. — IMMANUEL KANT. ROGRESS is the result of doing new things. A genius is one who is able to do new things. Ordinary men jog along in the beaten paths of custom, never able to leave so much as a wheel track or a footprint on the broad fields on either side. They bear the world's burdens as their fathers did, they do the world's work in the same old way, and never see the possibilities of other ways and other things. But every man who has the power of origination is a genius. He is one who is able to widen the path- way of human endeavor and add to the 65 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE breadth of human ways. His task is not to conserve what the world already has, he points the way to things that man has never seen before. He does not deepen marks of human travel over roads already worn, he leads away from beaten paths to leave his pioneering wheel-mark upon un- trodden fields. No matter if the genius is sometimes incapable of honest toil or earnest endeavor, or awkward, strange, or dreamy, yet in so far as he is agenius, what he does achieve is an added area to the breadth of life. The inventor, the scien- tist, and scholar are on the frontiers of life, widening its limits. The poet and the artist find life’s hidden values for their fellow men. Always the genius is the one who adds something new to man's possessions. In the detective corps of the Detroit Police there was one in whose soul it seemed as if there burned the fire of 66 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE test in reality. Hunter was a young man, and enthusiastic, but more than these he was ambitious, and his duty was to obey orders. His chance of promotion lay in obeying orders faithfully, for that was the first principle of the department. He was the last man on the force and he was engaged only upon the routine cases of the regular docket. The Chief was not bothering about any new-fangled notions, and docket cases did not offer any field for original methods. Hunter was skilful, resourceful, and thorough, and had won respect and recognition in his work, but he had spoken aloud of his idea, and straightway he became known throughout the office as the “boy genius.” Even the Chief had heard that Hunter had a new scheme for getting a man. Companions do not miss such opportu- nities for humor, and Hunter's theory became a standing joke. It was all good- 68 FROM THE ASSETS OF JUSTICE humored fun, but it did not make one any the less determined to show them sometime who was right, or long any the less for an opportunity. Just such a chance of success might come any day, but it seemed that the future never would contain it. So not in vain did Wallace COIſle. On the afternoon of May 16th Hunter received a summons to the office. He had just returned from an east side saloon and from the not very pleasant task of locating and locking up a drunken Pole who had exercised man's lordly prerog- ative of beating his wife somewhat too severely, and had broken her arm and otherwise disabled her. Hunter was feeling dispirited at the uninspiring rou- tine of his work. He went into the office stolid and stoical, he came out radiant with excitement and on fire with resolu- tion and purpose. When he entered the 69 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE office he found the Chief in a savage tem- per, kicking the furniture and swearing in his black mustache like a growling bear. “You go on the Horace case at once,” said the Chief profanely, but calming down to give instructions. “You’ve got some damn scheme or other; if it’s worth anything, find that man. I told the reporters yesterday that he couldn’t get away, but he has got away, and to-day the papers are full of what I said.” Hunter's eyes were suddenly blazing. “Do you mean,” he cried, “that I go on this by myself? That I can work free ?” The Chief nodded. “You’re an ex- periment,” he growled. “You may make good. I’m taking a chance on you. You’re on as an extra until the man is found. I’m in a hurry to catch 70 FROM THE ASSETS OF JUSTICE him. Report whatever you find to the office. Did you know Dr. Horace?” “Yes,” said Hunter. “I knew him well.” “That’s all, then. Your orders are to report whatever you find to the Office at once.” Hunter, the youngest detective on the corps, strode around the office a moment with hasty strides and kicked the furni- ture once or twice himself. His chance had come at last when all the rest had failed, but it did not find him unprepared. He nodded confidently, almost encour- agingly, to the Chief and went out. It seemed as if the opening office door was the door of opportunity opening to him. The chance had come. Hunter's ruddy, boyish face took on an expression of de- termination and he started immediately upon a full investigation of the Horace murder. By evening he knew all that 71 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE had been discovered about the case up to that hour. He knew the manner of the crime to its small details, and all the in- vestigations that had followed. And he stood ready and equipped to give his original theory its first great trial. Now it is time that one who defies the majesty and efficiency of the law should indeed beware. For now is gen- ius to grapple with the problems of this case. Genius, with its ability to meet a new condition, is on the track of the fugi- tive who thought to baffle the law by giving it a new problem, a crime without a conscience. Truly, such a thing the law has not been called upon before to meet. But yet forget not, you who would deny the all-embracing power of Justice, that it is a force that rests upon the whole of human power, with inspira- tion and genius at its command as well as right and might. O Wallace, sleeping 72 FROM THE ASSETS OF JUSTICE so serenely within the secure doors of your hotel, before long you may know the result that follows overconfidence. Now, indeed, the time has come for you to be fervent in your petition that it may still be, “Luck with me.” 73 CHAPTER VI ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE Conscience is thus antecedent, concurrent, and sub- sequent in relation to every act of choice. — Joseph Cook, Conscience. LITTLE after nine o’clock on the night of Wednesday, May 16, 1906, a medium-sized man, wearing a broad, felt hat and having a black band- age over one eye, rang the door-bell of a house on High Street, and, announcing himself to the startled girl as Detective Hunter, asked if the Doctor's office was open to police inspection. The girl, who had called upon the saints of heaven to preserve her at the sight of the bandage, was reassured at the statement that its wearer was a detective, for she had come to look upon them as protectors. 74 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE “Yis, it is sir,” she said. “There do be a policeman in there now. Wait an’ I’ll ax him if he'll be after letting yez in.” In a moment the girl returned, showed him to the Doctor's door, and went away. The officer in charge was balancing him- self wearily in the office chair, but at the sight of the detective he rose slowly to his feet in astonishment. Then he grinned. “Oh, it's you, Mr. Hunter,” he said, as if such vagaries might be expected from him. “I didn’t think to see an- other man with a black bandage.” “What are you doing here, Doyle?” asked Detective Hunter. “I was put on duty this morning, sir,” said Doyle. “Since then they have taken the body away and ended their inspection. I’m just finishing out my time.” “Well, you can go now,” replied 75 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Hunter. “I’ll be here myself until mid- night or after.” “All right, and thank you, sir,” replied the policeman. He put on his helmet and went out, saying good night very pleasantly. Left to himself Hunter stood for a few moments in silence, as a man will pause when he comes to the doorway of a long- cherished goal, and sees, just beyond the portal, the success for which he has been living. Sunk in a reverie he gave a last farewell in memory to the long days of waiting, one more brave promise for the time to come. Such a passing longing in the zeal of hope is sweeter, even, than the satisfaction of success, and sometimes more painful than the regret of failure. Presently, with an involuntary sigh, the dream moment passed. Hunter came back to the details of present things. He took a small roll of greenbacks from 76 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE his pocket, and placed them on the desk. Next, he undid a package that he had been carrying, and laid an iron pestle on the table. With his hands in his pockets and his head sunk forward, as if in medi- tation, he took a few turns up and down the room, each time walking more and more slowly. He was, almost uncon- sciously, trying to overcome the strange- ness of the situation, to sink himself in the character that he was to assume, and to rouse his untried faculties to play their part in the drama to come. Finally, he stood still and slowly stretched his arms out above his head as if he were casting off his own nature and taking on another's. “Now, I’m going to be a murderer,” he said with enthusiasm. “Here’s where it all begins.” This was Hunter's new principle of criminology that he was to test. In the 77 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE ordinary process, the law tracks the evil- doer as the wild beast is tracked. Men follow the criminal's trail as the woods- man follows the trail of an animal, dis- tinguishing his footsteps amid the pathless mazes of human civilization as the trap- per follows his prey through the pathless forest. In every way the analogy holds good and the pursuit and capture of men is still but the pursuit and capture of beasts adapted for human use. Some- times human hunters bag their game with baited traps. Sometimes they hunt in packs and beat the cover till the hiding game is roused. But in every case the law uses the method of the savage hunter, and the fugitive is a savage animal, hunted down. This new idea was to be a subtler method of the game. It was to add a human element to the search for human beings and make it more than a mere wild animal hunt, - 78 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE adapted to the human kind. In the pursuit of a criminal it was Hunter's plan to track him by his thought, not by his footprints; to find his trail in his conscience, not on the ground; to over- come and capture a mind and will, not merely to trap an animal. In the no less relentless task of securing a human being, the psychological skill of the detective would supplant the forest craft of the woodsman. The difference lies in this: the woodsman finds that all animals of the same kind have the same fixed habits, and that their ways are always the same ways, while the detective finds that each man is a different prob- lem and that his action is determined by his individuality. A beast's footprints in the forests are always the same, but the shape of a man's footprints comes from his conscience. The trail of a conscience, then, must first be found and afterwards 79 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE it can be followed. It can be found only in the actions of the crime. And no mere outside observation, no matter how scientific or critical, can give the needed insight to the human heart. It is neces- sary to be the actual criminal himself, to do as he has done, to feel as he has felt. The trail is found in the discovered determinations, thoughts, and passions of the man pursued. His actions are the results of these and follow from them. They make the footprints of the man. To-night, Hunter himself was to be the patient come to see the Doctor about his bandaged eye. He held his own theory as to just how it had all happened. With every one else he believed that a chance patient had been tempted to theft by the sight of a pile of money, and to obtain it he had struck a probably unintentionally fatal blow, that had caused this unpremeditated murder. But 80 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE this theory was not to be allowed to in- terfere with the night's work. According to the genius of his original method, Hunter intended to strike the Doctor to death himself, as the other man had done, and then, with the passion and remorse of murder upon him, to follow in terror upon the murderer's slinking footsteps and reach the same hiding-place in which the cringing criminal had found a refuge. From the results of the after- noon's investigations, his actions for the next few hours were determined. He knew what he was to do and almost exactly how he had to do it. He had already made a close study of some of the details of the case that other pur- suers had deemed unimportant, and had not yet started on his theory. Here was where it all began for him. He went over to the desk and rang the bell. Pres- ently the girl appeared. 81 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “I understand,” he said carelessly, “that the Doctor rang for you about this time last night.” “Yis, sir,” said the girl. “What did he want?” asked Hunter. “Some hot water, sir.” “Was that all P” “Yis, sir.” “What did he say when you came P” “Hot water, sir.” “Is that all P” The girl had answered these questions many times already. “He paid me fºr his washing, sir, whin I come back,” she said. Instinctively, she glanced at the desk and started at the pile of money there. “What’s the matter?” asked Hunter. “Nothing, sir,” said the girl, a little puzzled, “but thot's where the money lay last night.” “How do you know it was there?” 82 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “Did he seem to have more than the forty cents there?” “Shure, an” he had a whole handful o' the money, sir. The Doctoor wor a foine lad fºr thot. What with his office here full o' people at times, an’ the prices he’d charge some o' them! Oh, he was the body as could make the money.” “But it was all gone in the morning, wasn’t it?” “Yis, sir. It — it wor all gone, sir.” “Was anything but the Doctor's watch and money stolen or disturbed in the room P” “No, sir. Not till the policemen come.” “Where does that pestle usually be- long?” Following the direction of Hunter's outstretched finger the girl glanced at the instrument of murder with dilated 84 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE eyes. “On top o' the bookshelf,” she whispered. Hunter sprang from the chair in which he had been crouching, snatched the pestle from the table and slammed it down on top of the bookcase. “Here?” he cried. The girl retreated hastily to the door- way, where she stood leaning against the casing, clasping it tightly with both hands. “Over further,” she gasped. “Here?” “Yis, sir.” Hunter started away from the book- case toward her. “Where was the man sitting while you were here?” he cried. “In thot chair behind you, sir.” Hunter threw himself into the chair. “Did he have the bandage over his eye?” He struck his own bandaged face fiercely with his clenched fist. “Yis, sir,” whimpered the girl. 85 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “Did he move or speak a word while you were here?” “Niver a word, sir.” Hunter's tirade of questions was ex- hausted. He had called the girl in principally because that was what had been done the night before. She had given him the limits of the robbery and the position of the pestle. There might be other points on which he should question her, but he could think of none just then. “I guess that's all,” he said reluctantly. “Yis, sir,” said the girl, going out. “Wait a minute,” he called after her. The girl paused. “Are you sure that the gas in this room was out when you first came here in the morning?” “Yis, it wor out, sir.” “Why was it that you didn’t discover earlier in the morning that the Doctor wasn’t in his bedroom ?” 86 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Hunter pondered over this curious point for some time, but could make nothing of it. It was not possible that the murderer knew the Doctor's habits well enough to lock the bedroom door and leave the office door unlocked. And it was too important a point to be a mere coincidence, for it gave the criminal time to get away. If the door had been left as usual, the murder would have been discovered an hour or two sooner, and the murderer would have been caught before his chance of escape had come. Finally, to get rid of it, he put it down in his note-book as something important but puzzling. But now the time had come for action, not for theories. Hunter proceeded to put the finishing touches to the stage- setting of his drama, and then rang up the curtain of his soul. He drew the chair in which the girl said the murderer 88 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE, had been sitting closer to the desk. He forced himself out of a moment's irreso- lution, tightened the bandage around his head, nervously fixed his hair a little, and seated himself in the murderer's chair. Then he took a long, deep breath of preparation and started. As he removed the bandage from his eye, the room became occupied by a doctor sitting at his desk, and by himself, a patient, waiting for treatment. He leaned forward toward the office chair, in order that the doctor might examine his eye. The doctor examined it slowly, touching his cheek lightly with his hand. The doctor commented upon it and pronounced upon its seriousness, and all the time his own avaricious, hungry look was wandering to the pile of bills upon the desk. As the doctor finished his examination and turned away to write a prescription, he rose to his feet 89 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE with assumed carelessness and glanced quickly around the room. He saw the pestle upon the bookcase. With swift, stealthy steps he darted across the room, seized it, and stole softly back. The doctor was still bending over his desk. One hungry look at the money nerved him for the deed. He raised the mur- derous instrument above the unconscious man's head and brought it crashing down. The doctor fell forward on his desk, dead. The pestle dropped from his hand to the floor, and he stood for a moment horror-stricken at what he had done. Then he seized the pile of bills and started blindly to escape. “No, no,” cried Hunter, forcing him- self back from the threshold, by bracing a hand on each side of the door, “this isn’t right. I’ve got to rob the body. I’ve got to stay in the room till morning. What a cold-blooded scoundrel I am!” 90 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE He knew that a belated neighbor had testified to a light in the Doctor's office at one o'clock the night before, and it was not till after three that officer Carns had met the man with the black bandage on Woodward Avenue. Therefore, as the girl was sure that the gas was out when she discovered the tragedy in the morning, he must stay in the room until it was time for him to put out the gas and make his appearance on the avenue, or until somewhere near three o'clock. There was something queer about this murder that he could not understand. The criminal had experienced no emotion to drive him away from the place of his accidentally terrible crime. The criminal, then, was an extraordinary sort of a man. But now the murder had been com- mitted. The original scene was before Hunter: the dead man in the chair, the pestle on the floor beside him. He 91 - THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE gazed at it fascinated for awhile, and then sat down and wiped the perspira- tion from his forehead. “The man who struck that blow,” he said to himself, “meant murder. This is no case of accident. Good Lord,” he groaned, jerking out his watch, “how long have I got to stay here?” It was only half-past ten. He shuddered a little and then braced up. “Now, I’ll have to rob the body,” he muttered, “its watch and money.” He forced himself to go to the desk where the dead body was lying, and, crouching down on the floor, he reached around in front of the chair and carefully removed the watch from the vest pocket, glancing fearfully up at the corpse as he did so. “That's easy,” he gasped; “but the money's in the trouser pockets, the girl said.” 92 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE How to get at it without moving the body was a puzzle. The corpse, when found, had been sitting in the office chair with its crushed head fallen for- ward on the desk, just as it had collapsed when the fatal blow had been struck. In this position it was very difficult to reach the trouser pockets without moving the body. Yet the pockets had been rifled, and the corpse had not been dis- turbed from its original position. Hunter came out of his fine passion and sat down on the floor with wrinkled forehead to think it over. Why on earth the mur- derer should go to all this trouble to keep his victim in his original pose, Hunter could not see. Why had he not dragged the body into a more convenient position ? And yet he had not, because the pen, with which the prescription was written, was still lying between the dead Doctor's fingers. Here, Hunter felt, was some- 93 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE thing that ought to give him a clue to the true consciousness of the crime, but he could not explain its meaning. He could not understand the murderer's motives or thoughts at all. “There's something queer about this business,” he muttered. And it irritated him extremely that he could not read the story that the events chronicled. Still, he was certainly fol- lowing the real course of events, so that there was nothing else to do but to go right on as the real murderer had done. He thought of trying to work his hand into one of the pockets, attempting at the same time to maintain the body in its original position in the chair, with his other hand, but this did not seem prob- able. Finally, he compromised with the idea of working the linings of the pockets out until the money fell into his hand, then stuffing the lining carefully in again. Then he backed away from the desk 94 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE and sat down once more in his chair, puzzled and chagrined. His drama was not proceeding along expected lines. He had tried to experience the natural emo- tions of fear, remorse, guilt, and terror, but instead, he seemed called upon to undergo entirely unemotional experiences. There was very little of the ordinary actions of the conscience-stricken mur- derer in what he had been doing or in what he was still called upon to do. He jerked out his watch again; only a few minutes had passed. “Now, why, in the name of all that's human, do I stay here till three o'clock?” he growled. “I ought to be crouching in the dark somewhere. I ought to be getting away from here as fast as I can. I never heard of such a case in all my life before. There's something I don’t un- derstand here. Perhaps it will come to me as I go on.” 95 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Here is a man who crushes in another's head, and it has no more effect on him than if he had crushed a fly. Such a thing was beyond the range of Hunter's experience or imagination. He had seen the men who had committed crimes of all kinds; the drunkard criminal, the desperate man, the degenerate, the brute, the boaster, the man of terrible passion; but never a criminal, who, in the solitude of his guilt, could show an utter uncon- cern for all the laws of human sensibility. It would have been more natural for him to have beaten his victim into an un- recognizable mass, or try to wipe out the traces of his crime with fire. But in- stead, the fact that he had killed and robbed a man seemed to have left him unconcerned. Hunter had a suspicion that he had gone and slept on the lounge afterwards. A horror of the man who would stay idly four hours in the room 96 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE thought Hunter. He opened a drawer or two, but he found everything undis- turbed, and it was not the right thing to do according to the testimony, so he desisted. He prowled restlessly here and there for a few minutes, but found that there was absolutely nothing to be done. Finally, he sat sullenly and rebelliously down in his chair in the far corner of the room, and waited. As the time passed, his rebellion began slowly to give way before the necessity for submission, and his sullenness turned to stoicism. Hour after hour he sat silently in his chair or paced stealthily up and down the far side of the room, and, as the time passed, a kind of grim satisfaction grew upon him; the satisfaction of obvious progress. A little before three he roused himself to action. He found it necessary to remind himself that he was a murderer, that he had spent the night in the room 98 ON THE TRAIL OF A CONSCIENCE with the body of his victim, that even now the corpse of the murdered man lay before him. He gazed at it long and steadfastly, until the horror of the deed was once more in his brain. Then he prowled fearfully around the room, search- ing here and there to make sure that nothing had been left undone. Involun- tarily, his search ended again before the desk, and he stood looking at it. “Now, there's that prescription,” he said to himself. He knew that the prescription had been found to be a simple wash for sore eyes. Why had not the murderer taken that with him P. He had taken the bills, and the watch and the money, but the medi- cine for his eye, the very thing for which he had come, he had left behind. It was surely not because he had forgotten it, for he had not rushed off in a hurry. Suddenly, Hunter had an inspiration. 99 33 Ö 6 * ~ re. A THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “There was nothing the matter with his eye,” he cried. In a flash he saw how the bandage had been used both as a disguise and as an excuse for visiting the doctor. The murderer could have worked the trick by not showing his eye at all, but only describing his symptoms. The growing certainty that the murderer's bandage was only a pretense was a ray of light let into the incomprehensible darkness. It showed a scheme of crime, careful and complete. This murdering, robbing, waiting was not just a chance, a half accident, as every one had believed. It was a bloodthirsty plot. The criminal came, not to be treated for a sore eye, but to rob and murder. He lingered in the room, not in terror, but because it was part of his plan to escape. Hunter was on the track of a cunning criminal, who had deceived and baffled the whole police force of the city. - 100 CHAPTER VII THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART There are differences between man and man, of course; but they are differences, not of ultimate ele- mentary constitution, but only of comparative pre- ponderance of element. — HöFFDING, Outlines of Psychology. UNTER stood for a moment on the sidewalk in front of the house trying to realize how a murderer ought to act, when, in the gray of the morning, he steals away from the body of his vic- tim and starts to hide himself from the vengeance of mankind. His every in- stinct and experience told him that he ought to slip down a dark by-street and seek safety in the swiftest flight. But against all that he felt was natural, and in spite of all that he knew of men's ac- tions under similar conditions, he found 102 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART himself forced to turn about and march brazenly down the city's principal street. He possessed no words to express his perplexity and exasperation. “This is the strangest, queer thing. I ever came across,” he said as he turned his unwilling steps toward Woodward Avenue. Here was one who had just committed the most awful of all crimes, starting away from the place of blood- shed with all the careless boldness of a man who had no reason to be afraid. It seemed as if no guilty human being could act like that, as if God never made such human nature. No one with the stain of another's blood upon his soul can look a revenging world in the face without compunction of some sort. Even the savage beasts triumph or tremble when they shed human blood. No human being can escape the universal law that has pronounced its curse upon the crime 103 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE of murder. But even supposing that, in order to carry out his plan of escape, he has succeeded in conquering his ter- ror of the vengeance of God and man, and with torn soul and white set face had used the last hours of his life of liberty to walk about among men: what good would it do him P. He could reach his hiding-place much more easily without it. Such public appearance only doubled his risk of detection. Then Hunter re- called the picture of the murderer calmly sleeping on the lounge, close to the body with the shattered head, and of him coming leisurely down the street to a complacent breakfast before taking his early morning train, and he put away all idea of a soul-torn and white-faced man risking capture for the sake of a last hour of honest, human companion- ship in his guilty life. This criminal's indifference rose from a monstrous na- 104 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART ture. An intense and personal hatred of the creature in whose footsteps he was following began to come upon him. And in the next few days it grew in strength and bitterness until it was hate more than pride, and more even than ambi- tion, that made him follow with ferocity this strangest of all criminals, this new kind of human being; a murderer with- out a conscience, a man without human- ity. Still fighting in his mind between the way that seemed natural and necessary and the way in which he was really called upon to act, Hunter stole down the dim, wide street with much more guilt and fear in his appearance than Wallace had shown twenty-four hours before. After a few blocks of this inward struggle, it was a relief to pause from his rebellious progress and turn off, as Wallace had done, to the little all-night restaurant. 105 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE He knew what the murderer's breakfast of the day before had been, so he seated himself at the counter and gave the same order. The startled, sleepy waiter re- treated hastily to the telephone. “Don’t be a fool,” growled Hunter, showing his detective's star. The sound of a different voice and the sight of the star reassured the waiter, and he served breakfast to his second belated patron of the bandaged eye. Hunter found himself eating the beef- steak and potatoes with appetite and relish. After he had finished he looked thoughtfully at the empty dishes and shook his head. What kind of a hu- man being could sit eating unconcernedly with retribution so close behind. These were not the actions of a reckless man or of one with iron nerve, they were too simple and unemotional for that. The man was not a fool or crazy, either, for 106 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART he had shown himself capable of long and careful planning aad sustained exe- cution. They were simply the actions of a nature so monstrous that it remained unmoved under the most terrific passion of the greatest guilt. And yet such a thing was impossible under the natural law of the universe. This was the strange, the incomprehensible part. This was the mystery of this unprecedented case which baffled all the powers of jus- tice. There must be some explanation for it, and when he had found that ex- planation, when he had solved that puzzle, the arrest of the criminal would be but a mere detail, and follow as a matter of course. It was only a little after four when he left the restaurant, but he knew that he was not due at the station until five. Again his own impulse was to go fur- tively and swiftly, but that was not the - 107 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE way to use an hour in what was ordina- rily only a twenty-minute walk. He stood on the corner of Woodward Avenue and talked to himself savagely. “I’m a murderer,” he said. “I’m a murderer with a black bandage over my eye. I’m likely to be caught any min- ute and I’m sure of a life sentence at least. Now,” he said fiercely, “now, you, don’t let it matter to you that you are a murderer.” He threw out his chest, braced back his shoulders, and strutted arrogantly down the middle of the sidewalk, in very poor imitation of Wallace's placid and leisurely saunter of the day before. And still but a half an hour had elapsed when he reached the depot and the ticket office had not yet opened. So he deliberately chose the most conspicuous spot on the curbstone at the junction of the two streets and sat himself resolutely 108 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART down. There he sat, in imitation of the murderer's arrogant indifference, facing his black bandage up the streets like a signal mark of crime. After a while the office opened. Hunter left his post of defiance and bought a ticket to Chicago. There were still a couple of hours until his train went. A time had come when he could take stock of his night's work and see what the results of his method had been. The real test would come at the point where the criminal had disap- peared; but now having gone through the facts, there was an opportunity to see what conclusion could be drawn. He left the station and went to the edge of the wharf, to sit with his feet swinging above the river, as he thought it over. In the first place, he had discovered that the murder was not the result of chance, but was a plot, carefully pre- pared to look like chance. He was the 109 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE presence of the one-dollar bill in the Doctor's roll of money, the locked bed- room door, the strangely rifled trouser pockets, were indications of something that he did not comprehend. And then, it was not possible for any man to com- mit an unemotional murder. No human being could do it. He must experi- ence terror or triumph or excitement or feeling of some kind. And yet emotion was precisely the thing that was missing in this murder. The criminal had ex- hibited, not bravado, but indifference; and not as a mask to hide his heart from public gaze, but in the very secret guilt of the crime itself. This could not be possible, and yet it was so. Hunter had risen to his feet and was pacing ner- vously up and down the dock. As his perplexity and anger deepened he walked back and forth stamping his feet at every step, as his habit was when 112 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART roused. The mystery was just beyond his thought. It seemed as if he could almost solve it, and yet, though he strove with his whole soul, he could not quite grasp the answer to the puzzle. It was like a trick that memory plays us, in which the name that we are trying to remember is on the very tip of our tongue and yet we cannot speak it. So Hunter could not seize this mystery. He could not see that the actions of the fugitive, which seemed so monstrous in a criminal, were really the natural actions of an in- nocent man. He started off with the supposition that the man he was pursuing was guilty of murder, and, though he reached incomprehensible conclusions, it never occurred to him to doubt his prem- ise. He could not conceive that his un- natural murderer could be, not a human being without a conscience, but a man whose conscience had not been troubled. 113 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE He could not comprehend that this crime was a stolen murder, an appear- ance of crime only, but with the guilt left out. And so, as he pondered and struggled in vain with his tantalizing problem, his exasperation rose to fury, and he marched along the wharf with savage stampings, shaking his fists in baffled rage at the image of the monster who seemed impossibly to defy all law, human and divine. “I’ll get you yet,” he cried at the mur- derer. “I’ll get you yet. You may think you’re safe, but there’s a way to catch you and I’ll find it, if it takes the last drop of my blood and the last breath of my body. I’ll get you yet.” Having thus relieved his feelings Hun- ter calmed down. He found, to his sur- prise, that he had been waiting on the wharf for a long time and that his train was almost ready to go. He boarded it 114 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART hurriedly and took a seat well up toward the front of the smoking car. He could not help thinking that here at last, so near to the scene of his crime and so close to the time of discovery, the murderer must have known fear. Or had this invincible plotter been able to sit calmly, there too, when marked before all eyes as a murderer? The same affable conductor seemed a little taken aback at having another black-bandaged passenger for Chicago. Hunter showed his star and announced himself as a detective on the Horace case. The conductor was perfectly willing to give all possible information, even though he had told his story many times already. “No,” he said. Conductors did not count their passengers, at least he did not, so that he would not be certain to know it if a through passenger got off be- fore his station. Their memories were 115 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE pretty good and such things didn’t often happen. Yes, he remembered the man with the black bandage all right. Well- built man, rather tall, dark clothes, smooth shaven, slouch hat, and black bandage. Seemed pretty well played out. Yes, before they got to Jackson he no- ticed that the man was not in his seat, but passengers often leave their seats for awhile. He knew that it was an oc- cupied seat by the little ticket-check left sticking by the window. No, he had tried to remember just where the man had left the car, but couldn’t do it. He was pretty sure that he was still on after Ypsilanti. Probably at Ann Arbor or Chelsea. Wished he had known before what the fellow had been up to and he never would have gotten off at all. Hunter thanked him. The conduc- tor's information was all that was known of the place of the murderer’s disappear- 116 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART ance, but that was enough. The only possible places were Ann Arbor and Chelsea, and every probability pointed to Ann Arbor. So in the next hour he would come to the place where the mur- derer’s trail had vanished. Would his new method enable him to find what all the others had been unable to discover ? He knew that Ann Arbor had been searched for the man with the sore eye, and searched in vain, and that Chelsea had been hunted through and through, without finding a single trace of this fugitive who seemed to vanish into thin air. That every railroad passenger, every man who hired a horse on the road or a boat on the little river, every person who had taken the electric car toward Jackson, had been inquired after and accounted for. That not a wayfarer had passed along the country roads afoot or awheel who had not been identified. 117 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART doing it himself. When the train had left Ypsilanti well behind he began his campaign. He began by saying to him- self, “Now I’m a murderer flying from justice and I’ve got a mighty few minutes to do it in.” Presently he rose and went to the front of the car. He looked about him and saw that there were people who could notice anything that he might do. After a moment's deliberation he went outside and stood upon the platform. Here he was safe from observation. He took the bandage from his eye and put it in his pocket. Then he glanced help- lessly around. “If I only had a wig or something,” he said, “some false whiskers, or some other clothes, or even another hat. Lord knows how much he had.” The distinguishing marks by which he could trace his man were suddenly swept away. He had left simply a tall, well- 119 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE built man, probably wearing dark clothes, and seemingly pretty well tired out, twenty-four hours before. As he waited for the train to slow down a brakeman came through the car call- ing “Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor.” It was certainly his desire to escape observa- tion as much as possible, so he lifted the stair platform, swung back the ves- tibule door, and descended to the bottom step of the car. Then, as the train came to a stop, he swung himself to the ground, walked briskly through the sta- tion, and stood at the bottom of the hill. The street to the left led up through a quiet residence portion of the town; the street to the right to a business portion. It was a question of publicity or seclu- sion. With hardly a moment's hesita- tion he turned to the right, up the hill to the business part of the town. He did not at all know what he was going to 120 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART do, but he knew that whatever it was it must be done quickly. In his calcula- tions he gave the murderer just an hour to get away. What had a bold, clever criminal, like this one, done in so short a time? He could not run away, he could not stay. There was no outlet by which he could escape, there was not a hole left on which he could lie hid. Hun- ter, alert and eager, walked briskly along trying to work into his mind the sneer at the police power, which he felt sure was in the mind of the murderer. “This move was all planned out like the others,” he said to himself. “Now, if I’m on the right track, what do I do? If I don’t run away and can’t stay here, what do I do?” He was glancing sharply around, con- sidering everything; the possibility of each building as a hiding-place, and of every man as an accomplice. As he 121 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE came up Main Street, he saw one of the big electric cars standing on the track, ready to start for Detroit. He eyed it suspiciously for a moment. Suddenly he stopped short. “By George,” he exclaimed doubt- fully. “By George!” he shouted enthu- siastically. “Back to Detroit! Sure. It’s worth trying.” He sprang into the street and ran to catch the car. That afternoon a worn- out but grimly determined detective was looking here and there in the most prob- able places in Detroit for a tall, smooth- shaven man, wearing a dark suit of clothes, and a light fedora hat, who had arrived the day before. Hunter's orders had been to report whatever he found at the office at once, and he knew that it was his duty to do so; that he was dis- obeying his Chief and was liable to pun- ishment. But his ambition was too 122 THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE PART much for his sense of duty. He wanted to make his triumph complete by ap- pearing with the murderer as his prisoner. “He’s mine, he’s mine,” he kept saying to himself. The man was almost within his grasp and it was too much to have to give the glory of taking him to another. To- morrow would be time enough to report, to-day he had the opportunity of making the capture single-handed. He could at least examine the hotels before reporting. Before evening he stood in the empty room of the St. Cloud Hotel where Wal- lace had intended to spend the two idle weeks of his vacation. The hotel clerk had remembered his patron of the night before immediately upon hearing the description of the murderer. Hunter searched the room thoroughly but found nothing, and at last, overcome with weariness from his long night's work, he sank down on the bed, and smiled. 123 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “My method works; it works,” he said. “He thinks he’s safe, but to-mor- row I’ll get him sure. I think I’ll sleep in this room myself, for just to-night,” said Detective Hunter. 124 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE her due of rest that night, restless agita- tion fevered in the mind of the sleeping man, and he tossed upon his bed, a prey to dreams. It seemed to Wallace that he was going through his adventure again, but this time there were gruesome things added to it. The pestle was once more in his hand to strike the fatal blow, but he knew that now there was to be no sham about the crime. It was the real Doctor who sat by his desk, and it was with a fierce joy of killing that he brought the heavy iron crashing down upon his skull. One low death's groan was uttered, and the spirit of a man passed from under his hands into the great un- known. He stood above the still form, which a moment before had been a strong man full of life, and he knew that he had committed murder and that before God and man he was marked forever for 126 A DREAM OF GUILT least. He must keep the world empty of companionship. Thus only could he guard his safety. And life would be like this night, a solemn, shrouded loneliness. The thought filled him with a savage awe, half exultation and half terror. Which of the two would overcome the other and fill the spaces of the time to come, the growing triumph of success and safety or the haunting fear of ven- geance and despair As he moved along a man passed by. How unconscious he was of whom he walked beside! Such stolid ignorance should be held in fierce derision. How he would have shrunk away if he had known! Or perhaps they might have clenched, and with bare hands upon a yielding throat another life would gasp itself away. It would be a fine struggle if neither cried for help. But the man would cry, and others would come, and 129 A DREAM OF GUILT saunter in and fill the doorway and stand there laughing at him. And he would be caught for there was no other way out. The room was a trap. Better the loneliness of the night than to be closed in by walls like a prison. Once more he was out on the street in the darkness and the silence of the night. But now the triumph had gone from the darkness and it seemed to hide a thou- sand lurking forms. The stillness seemed to be strained to bursting with its menace. The deed had been discovered by now and perhaps stealthy pursuers were close upon him. All people were his enemies and any man would seize him if he could. How he would gloat if he had the power to blast them all from the face of the earth. But he was powerless against them all and they could end him in a moment if they caught him. He heard the footbeats of some one 131 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE running towards him, and he froze into a motionless figure as the steps rushed nearer. When they had passed, he found that his heart was beating wildly and that cold beads of perspiration were upon his forehead. Perhaps the man had not seen him in the dark, but in a little while the day would come and in its light all could see. The darkness was full of menace, every room was a walled trap, and in the glare of sunlight his crime would stand revealed. Discovery and destruction were all about him, danger was everywhere. Every moment he escaped them, but brought nearer the final crash and turmoil of discovery. If he only had not struck that fatal blow, this terror would not be upon him. But now nothing that he could ever do would give back the life that he had taken, and never, never could he escape the vengeance of the deed. If all his 132 CHAPTER IX THE TEST OF SINCERITY Human nature is really only ancestral habit. — W. DUNCAN McKIM, Heredity and Human Progress. BOUT the time that Hunter was running to catch the electric car in Ann Arbor, Wallace shook off the dark fantasies of the night and opened a pair of heavy eyes on a bright and sun- shiny Thursday morning. A man does not become wide awake immediately after a long, deep sleep, but sometimes he immediately feels very hungry, espe- cially if he has had no supper the night before. Wallace's first feeling, before he had even come back to remembrance, was for something to eat. He sat for a while frowsy and drowsy on the edge of 134 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE perhaps he did not have anything left. A hurried search revealed just twenty- nine cents, a quarter and four pennies. “No twelve-course meals for me,” said Wallace, ruefully, looking at the coins in his palm. “How can a man live two weeks on twenty-nine cents? Some woman's paper ought to get out the menus.” But the problem of the next two weeks did not trouble him very much. It was only food and shelter and they had always been his without question. He could work if he had to and not sigh over the loss of the luxurious living of the hotel. He gave little thought to any necessity for concealment. Of course the most natural thing to do would be to go up to his home and get the money he had left behind. The idea occurred to him but he dismissed it without question. It was a recourse that he must not use because 136 THE TEST OF SINCERITY it would break his signed contract with the Doctor, according to which the experi- ment was being carried on. In evading the search of the law he was to receive no aid from his standing and position as the aforesaid Edwin W. Wallace. Those were the words of the contract. The loss of the money was such an accident as might befall any criminal, and he must face its consequences as another would have to do. No other would be able to go up to his house and receive fifty dollars to aid him, and therefore he must receive no help from his former standing as Edwin W. Wallace. Such a thing would break his agreement, lose his bet, and make him fail in establishing his theory. And after having the whole thing so completely settled and won, he had no intention of allowing a techni- cality to rob him of his victory. The hard part of his adventure was all over 187 THE TEST OF SINCERITY in his life, he finds himself without the means to pay his way. Wallace finished dressing, and went down by the elevator and out through the lobby with a new bearing of haughtiness, that natural dig- nity of manner which is assumed by the dead beat. An appetite is a great blessing to any one of moderate means. To the rich man it is a curse because he spoils it and disease follows in the wake of his in- temperance. And to the poor man it is an extravagance, because he cannot satisfy it. Certainly it is a sad thing for a man with only twenty-nine cents, be- cause it cannot be appeased under a quarter. But Wallace left the restau- rant, serene and comfortable, still a little sleepy, and with just four cents in his pocket. “Now what shall I do for the next two weeks?” he said as he hunted out a shady 139 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE bench in the Grand Circus Park. “Here I am, Edwin Wallace, respectable mer- chant, alias Ed Ward, desperate mur- derer; of a sound body and a sane mind and old enough to vote several times. And I want board and lodging for the next twelve days. Guess I’ll have to go to work for them.” But the outlook did not disturb him very much. By and by would be time enough to worry. He had started out for a lazy vacation, and with a good meal such a recent reminiscence, what was the use in cutting that part of it any shorter than necessary. Besides he had worked hard to get things in the store in such shape that he could take his holiday, and the last two days had been exhaust- ing experiences also. Having carried through so hazardous an undertaking as a murder to so successful a conclusion, he felt that he deserved a little rest. It 140 THE TEST OF SINCERITY was very pleasant on the park bench and it was delightful to have nothing to do. “Hobo,” he said to himself, luxuriously stretching his legs out a little farther, as he dozed off into dreaming. The jets of water springing high into the air had a peculiarly soothing effect, the breeze rustled through the trees, and the cool splash of the fountain was more in evidence than the bustle of the adjacent avenue. He pulled his hat a little farther over his eyes and drowsed off into another period of grateful quiescence. So the hours passed. He pulled the paper that he had purchased the afternoon before out of his pocket, but could not sum- mon interest and energy enough to read it. The first grateful idleness of a hard-working man's vacation must not be interrupted. It was afternoon be- fore he knew it, and the pangs of hunger roused him. He folded up his 141 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE still unread paper and stuffed it back into his pocket. “It’s scandalous how often a man has to eat,” he complained, but though he had done nothing all morning, it was long past dinner time and he was hungry again. There was nothing edible in the park except, perhaps, the grass, and the signs forbade touching that. Down town there were probably more chances for food. Wallace reluctantly left his com- fortable bench and wandered toward the avenue wondering where his next meal was coming from. At first he instinctively pulled his hat low over his eyes that no one might recognize him. But he no longer felt any danger from discovery and almost wished that some one would relieve his feeling of friendliness by a greeting. But no one did. To the professional tramp the situation would have been commonplace and 142 THE TEST OF SINCERITY simple enough, but to the respectable and successful man it was desperate. What resource had he when his respect- ability and success were suddenly taken away 2 The same resource that a civi- lized man would have if suddenly trans- ported to a savage country. The savage would be perfectly at home there, but the civilized man, robbed of all his hard-won advantages, would perish in desolate star- vation. So Wallace was facing an en- tirely new and strange situation and he did not at all know how to meet it. He was as helpless as one in a new world, and he wandered down the busy avenue the most lonesome and destitute man in the whole city. His hand in his trouser pocket jingled his four remaining pennies and he won- dered if there was anything on earth more tantalizingly useless than just four pennies. Five cents is a fortune, four is 143 THE TEST OF SINCERITY who was sitting on the sidewalk near where Wallace stood. He held his bat- tered hat in one hand and a bunch of pencils in the other, and repeated at intervals to the passing crowd; “Help a poor cripple, please, ma'am. Help a poor cripple, please, sir.” Wallace also scanned the shifting stream of people in front of him with a beggar's instinct, and fixed upon a stout, benevolent-looking gentle- man coming along the edge of the crowd, as a most likely looking subject. The cripple too, seemed to recognize the opportunity, for he stretched his hat for- ward appealingly as he whined out his request. The stout gentleman stopped, deliberately extracted two pencils from the proffered bundle, dropped a coin into the hat, and hastened on. The cripple gave an inarticulate grunt, made an in- effectual grab at his patron's coat, and subsided into dazed silence. Wallace 145 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE leaned over and saw that the hat con- tained only one coin, a single penny. “I never saw that generous-hearted fellow before,” thought Wallace, “but he must be a millionaire, and perhaps he endows institutions. That is the kind of economy that makes us rich. I’m glad I didn't ask him for a penny. He’d have given it to me and taken my four cents in exchange.” He wandered on down the avenue, seeing the familiar sights with new eyes of need. It began to be ground into his mind that there is no place so bleak and inhospitable to a needy man as a big city. The streets are crowded with money values, and yet swept bare of every penny's worth that can be touched. Petty larceny did not seem much of a crime under the circumstances, but even the temptation to steal is relieved by the rigor of an over vigilant guard. All the 146 THE TEST OF SINCERITY passing people were bustling along about their own business and Wallace found himself the only idler and outcast. If he could only get a little money somewhere, if he could find even a penny, it would be enough to carry him through till the next day. It was too late to look for work now, and what he needed was, not some- thing to do, but something to eat. A few hours before he had been serene and contented, refusing to worry about the future. Now that future was upon him and held him defeated in the iron grasp of the present. He had been able to give such excellent excuses for his idle- ness, and such good reasons why he de- served a little rest, that it seemed as if the laws of hunger might have accepted them. Yet they had taken as little notice of his excuses as if they had not been such good ones, and, suddenly, from a contented lounger, he had been forced 147 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE to become a rapacious seeker of food. The change was too swift. The need came without warning and left him help- less. By and by the first pangs of hunger passed, leaving instead a feeling of faint- ness. Having wandered aimlessly up and down the avenue he found himself at the park again in the dusk of the evening, and he returned to the same bench that he had occupied in the morn- ing. The eager, fruitless activity of the first spurrings of necessity passed away when he saw its uselessness. He sank down on the now hard and uncomfortable bench and, almost unconsciously, his sense of humor came to his aid. “I guess the sky will be my ceiling for to-night,” he soliloquized. “Nice snug quarters and a man is always at home.” Then he laughed ruefully as he realized that he was just trying to cheer 148 THE TEST OF SINCERITY himself up with a little nonsense, and that he, Edwin Wallace, for the first time in his life, actually had no place to sleep, nothing to eat, and not a nickel to his name. And still the thing that perturbed him most was not the helplessness he felt in the face of these new necessities, but a persistent suggestion that he need not suffer these things at all. He tried to put it away from him. As the gather- ing evening melted into a clear-cut sum- mer night, he sat in determined and dogged inattention to himself. It seemed that he had been for hours trying to doze and struggling to keep certain thoughts out of his mind before a policeman mak- ing his rounds ordered him off the bench, but in response to a question he learned that it was only ten o’clock. With his hands deep in his trouser pockets and his head hanging low, he turned his face from the avenue and slouched * * 149 THE TEST OF SINCERITY terrible power, when in physical weak- ness and loneliness he was driven from his last refuge. A man faint with hunger has no protection against temptation. Starvation leaves the soul naked. Every covering that civilization and education and experience have given him is stripped away and his manhood stands alone to face the crisis. But Wallace, slouching off into the lonely darkness of the night, had an un- comprehended strength within him for the struggle. For, as civilization's pro- tecting armor was piece by piece stripped from him, the spirit of the young world's manhood rose to the call of battle, and the old, true courage of our long past fathers, answering to man's cry of need, came when the later things had failed. Men's courage now is tried in mimic struggles. We dare in play and chance in games. We match our strength and 151 THE TEST OF SINCERITY foe till it became a part of life itself to dare the chance of danger. So through those fighting ages the instinct of the risk became a part of human nature, deep founded in the spirit of the man. We stand now earth's conquerors. Civilization has forever ended daily struggles face to face with death. There are no chances now to take in search of food. But the instinct still lives in our blood and we love the spirit of the risk and danger as a dog loves to gnaw a bone. To us, descendants of those who matched themselves against wild animals and wild nature for world control, to us are left but games of artificial chance. We risk in play, not through necessity, and match our strength and skill to satisfy the nature we inherit from prime- val fathers. Their conquering spirit lin- gers in our sport. No matter though sometimes debased by greed or crime to 153 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE petty gain or wild excess, the underlying spirit is still the breath of that same natural daring with which they faced the ever present risk of death. Deep down in each man's nature lies the spirit of the chance. It draws him to the thrill of risk and struggle and makes him love the spell of danger and of doubt. And, not in daily life but in our sport, still flames that old, true courage that won the sovereignity of the earth for man. This was the dormant instinct in the blood of Wallace which rose to aid him in his weakness of temptation. It was not reason that made him struggle in resistance, for every judgment seemed against him, and his mind was crying out upon his resolution and calling him a fool. His reason told him that his faint body should be fed, that in the morning he would be hungrier and fainter still, and with no better prospects of relief. 154 THE TEST OF SINCERITY It was the courage of the fight that made him strong. He was in a contest, striv- ing to win the quest of his adventure. Should he be coward now and in the face of trial and hardship find defeat? The dormant strength of daring men of old forbade. But the treason of his weak- ness cried that yielding would not make him lose. It argued to him that his con- tract was not meant to cover such an accident as this; that he could return home and in a moment rectify the error of his hurry by recovering the fifty dollars, and that he could then return to his hotel with no interruption to the course of his career. He did not know that an officer of the law was at that moment sleeping in the room that he had occupied the night before, that returning to the hotel would put him immediately into Detective Hunter’s hands. He had made a credit- able fight against unexpected odds and 155 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE could yield decently now. What mat- tered it what he did so long as he still won 2 He found that already his face was turned toward home and his feet were carrying him toward brightness and good cheer and capture; away from loneliness and hunger and safety. Convulsively his hand clutched at his breast and through his coat he felt the long wallet that held his agreement with the Doctor. “In evading the search of the law I will take no aid from my posi- tion as Edwin Wallace.” In spite of all evasions, what he was about to do would be in fact a breaking of the contract. “I would — I would lose,” he cried. “And then I could not prove that it is conscience alone that brings a criminal to punishment.” And, from the stress of his strong striving, there came to him, as an illu- mining light, a vision that words can 156 THE TEST OF SINCERITY never give nor reproduce, of the great law for which he struggled. His little thought of crime and conscience broad- ened out until he seemed to see, with that rare, simple clearness which comes from long and pondering research or the wisdom of a deep life's lesson, that he was in the presence of a mighty moral power that sways and rules in life. He saw that, not alone the punishment of crime, but all of right and justice, rest upon the strength of conscience. He saw that nations’ liberty and life are based upon the standard that the people hold of right and wrong. He saw how evil and injustice rule when conscience dies, and . how right and honor triumph when it wakes again to truth; and how the bonds of all life's good and bad from man to man are bonds of conscience. And far beyond where thought could carry him, up and out into the endless spaces of the 157 CHAPTER X AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE A crowd always prefers an illusion to the truth. — GUSTAVE LE Bon, The Crowd. NE who lies in a warm, snug bed may like to sleep late and long, but the floor of a shed or the stone of a sheltered doorway are not beds that tend to laziness. On the next morning, Wal- lace rose early from his hard couch, and dizzy, chilled, and lame, left his night's quarters before the whistles blew. He had a sore spot in his shoulder where it had been cramped against the corner of a box, and at first was so stiff that he could only limp along. A little walking took away most of the lameness and the chill, but his dizziness spread through his whole body, and resolved itself into a 159 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE his old camping grounds in the park, and dropped down on the first bench he came to. He wanted to rest and think, but he was too faint to rest, and the only thing that he could think of was con- tained in the vague and uninspiring phrase, “Get some work.” Where, how, and what were uncertain. Anywhere, anyhow, anything, especially the first and easiest to find. The expanse of park showed bare and empty to his heavy eyes; toward Woodward Avenue things seemed equally unpromising. Down Bagley looked more hospitable, besides it was nearer to him than the other streets and therefore easier to reach. He sat still for quite awhile from sheer lack of will power to make himself move, but by and by the cool morning air made him feel a little better. He heaved himself slowly to his feet, and, going to the fountain, took a drink of the cold, 161 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE clear water, covertly dipping in his hands at the same time and stealthily bathing his face, ashamed to be doing it, though there was no one near to see. Somewhat freshened outwardly, but with the same immense faintness still numbing his fac- ulties, he turned down Bagley Avenue in his feeble search for work. He could not reason enough to see how crude his searching was, but, like Columbus dis- covering America, he had faith that what he desired was there somewhere, and set out to find it. So he walked stumblingly along. He turned down Cass, across Michigan, and down toward Jefferson. He found no semblance of a chance or opportunity, but he kept on because he began to have a vague idea that his knowledge of the buying markets might help to get him a place in one of the wholesale houses. He mechanically followed out this resolution by choosing 162 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Wallace had none. He explained that he had left his last place rather suddenly, and had asked for none. The man laughed, and said, “Well, what kind of a job do you want now P” Wallace replied that he was willing to do anything for a few days, any kind of work would do. “Nice kind of a high-priced wholesale buyer you are,” replied the man. “What you're looking for is a hand-out, not a job. Get out now, your graft is the kitchen door.” Wallace did not have spirit enough to answer, but went wearily out. The thing got started in his mind and kept repeating itself over and over again meaninglessly, without his being able to stop it. “What I want is a hand-out, not a job.” Saying this over and over again to himself, he went wandering up one of the side streets. Finally, this changed itself into the re- 164 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE markable discovery of, “What I want is something to eat.” He slouched along with his head bent a little lower and, his hands no longer swinging manfully at his sides, but buried deep in his trouser pockets. Hope had just about been swallowed up in the apathy of despair. Then suddenly his fingers thrilled and his arm tingled as with an electric shock, for the hand in his pocket had come in contact with some hard, round coins of money. He pulled them eagerly out and found in his hand the despised and forgotten four cents. He thrust them back in heavy disappointment. “But I ought to be able to get some- thing to eat with four cents or even less, if I only knew how,” he thought. “I bet a boy would know.” He stopped and eyed a small newsboy who was leaning against a brick wall at the corner of an alley. In the eyes of 165 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE the big, famished man the ragged little urchin represented important experience. “Holloa, son,” said Wallace, earnestly, “are you hungry P” “Yep,” said the boy, stolidly, not look- ing up. “Can you get something to eat with two cents P” asked Wallace. “Yep,” answered the boy. “Here's two cents,” said Wallace, “go and get the most you can.” The boy reached for the money quickly, and, without stopping for thanks, trotted up the alley a little way and turned into a barn. Wallace followed and found himself in a newsboys' lunch-room. The boy placed his two cents on the counter and said, “Hot dog.” He was served with a steaming sausage wrapped up in a slice of fresh bread. Wallace also put his two cents on the counter and said, “Hot dog,” and he, too, was served with 166 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE the same succulent morsel. He and the boy stood side by side in the sawdust at the pine counter munching in silence, each, perhaps, eating slowly for the same reason. The sausage and bread made just three bites. - “Experience comes high,” thought Wallace, as he walked out, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. “It’s not often that you have to pay half your capital to learn how to invest.” The two cents’ worth seemed only an aggravation, turning his faintness into ravenous hunger, but in reality it made him a man again, capable of thought and action. “There's no use of my starving,” he said, “I can pawn something.” He had no watch, no ring, no trifles of any value with him, and his clothes were too poor to be of any use, but his hat — It was a good, new, high-priced felt, from the best in the stock of his own store, 167 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE strictly high grade and worth the price in any man's money. He ought to be able to realize something on the hat. He dusted it off carefully, smoothed out the ribbon, and arranged it in the most fashionable shape. It did not take him long to find a pawn-broker's shop, and all diffidence vanished in the high hope of food. The speculative-eyed proprietor showed no surprise at the nature of the article offered, and examined the hat indifferently, as he listened to the pane- gyric that was poured forth upon it. But Wallace knew what he was talking about. He knew the standing of the makers' firm, the quality of the goods, the wholesale and retail price of the hat, the style, the finish, the trimmings, the material. Never in his palmiest day on the road, in the hope of his largest con- signment, had he gotten off such a line of talk. He had never needed the sale 168 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE as he did now. The proprietor's, “Yah, yah, but we haf no call for sudeh goots,” melted finally into, “Well, vell, what do you want for him P” and when Wallace left the shop he had an old, battered gray hat perched jauntily on the side of his head, a round, bright half dollar in his pocket, exultation in his heart, and a craving in his stomach that was simply beyond words. The question was the nearest and the cheapest restaurant. Need of economy had certainly been burned into his mind, but in all the world there is no temptation like that of food. We talk of others more because we meet them oftener, but they fade away in the presence of starva- tion. Drink and desire are but pigmy passions compared to hunger. Try and struggle as he would, the meal cost Wallace a full half of all his money. The hot, sweet soup only made him 169 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE crave the more a pitifully small-looking slice of juicy meat, and the accompany- ing crisp fried potatoes. This had to be eked out again by fragrant coffee and many slices of the beautiful, fresh bread. Nor could he resist ordering a tempting quarter of delicious apple pie, with its hunk of golden cheese. He was only a novice in the matter of starvation. The dinner cost a full quarter, but, in spite of many doubts during its course, in the end it left nothing to be desired. He wandered forth content and too fully satisfied to care, yet awhile, whether the world kept or not. “Serene, secure the epicure may say, “Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.” Wallace had dined on dinner, supper, breakfast, and almost dinner again, all rolled into one, and so the power of ad- verse fate was for the time being annulled. Luck was given its opportunity to lead 170 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE keep it secret. Because it is such a recreation, convention, out-of-doors city, Detroit always has on its streets far more than its share of the idly curious. Any- thing will draw a crowd and people stand for hours watching. So when the big suburban car came to the city hall, there was a large company of curious people gathered there to see. The wait- ing patrol wagon was at first the center of attraction, but, when the car appeared, attention was transferred to it. The rumor quickly passed that the prisoner was indeed on board, and as the excite- ment spread the curious company be- came a crowd. By the time the car had swung around the corner and stopped, and two officers had appeared upon the back platform with a man held between them, the crowd grew into a gathering multitude that blocked the street. The cry of “There he is,” drew all eyes, and 173 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE policemen from the patrol could come to their assistance. The crowd watched and murmured, swaying with a restless motion, and occasionally an indistinct shout came from it. Four blue-coats forced their authoritative way to the car steps, and took the prisoner into their custody. It is probable that even then they would have had no trouble in re- taining their charge, if they had waited quietly where they were until the arrival of the mounted police, for whom an immediate call had been sent. But in- stead, they started to break their way with their clubs back through the more and more excited mass of men. Al- though those directly in their path shrank from their threatening blows, the pres- sure of the mass closed up more tightly and menacingly about them, and each step forward that they took added to the anger of the multitude. Their murmurs 175 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE who but a few moments before had been standing by in idle curiosity, now pressed yelling forward in the fierce current of primitive revenge. If it had all been planned before, it could not have been carried out with greater certainty or speed. The mob instantly found leaders and those who sprang to do its will. It seemed as if it had been trained for just such work. Nothing stopped it, nothing was lacking to its purpose. It moved without hesita- tion or falter. The prisoner was grasped by a ring of shouting men in the very center of the company, and rushed up and across the avenue to a corner where some one had thrown a rope over a post. The noose hung ready for its victim’s neck, held open by a dozen willing hands, while a score more grasped the end of the rope, ready to pull and swing him up. A single sweeping, thundering, yelling 177 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE rush carried the mob to the spot. If they could be restrained but a few mo- ments, the mounted police would scatter them like flying leaves; if not, in that few moments the prisoner, dangling at the end of the rope, would pass beyond the reach of mortal aid. There were but two people in all the world who knew that the prisoner in the mob's hands was not the Horace mur- derer. One was a tall, well-built man, who, in the strength of recent food, had leisurely sauntered toward the crowd to see what the noise and shouting were about. But when he reached the scene and from the cries of imprecation upon the Doctor's murderer, and from the shouts and yells of, “Lynch him, lynch him,” he learned the reason of the tu- mult, and the purpose and power of the howling mass of men rushing toward him, his idle curiosity flashed into action, 178 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE track, fought their remorseful way to- gether through the mob to aid the man whom they alone knew to be inno- cent. After his first rush into the surging, crushing mass, Wallace found himself against a front of fierce, flushed faces, fighting, straining, struggling all in vain. Met by a power a thousand times their own, he, and the man pushing with him, could not gain a step. The strength of despair availed them nothing. The mob was rushing toward them, and bore them struggling back, until, coming again to the curbstone from which he had sprung, Wallace braced his feet upon it and held there an instant against the crowd. Then he was lifted sidewise from his feet and flung gasping against a trolley post. The mob pressed by, crushing him into its iron frame. In the bitter weakness of his failure, he saw his utter helpless- I80 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE ness to save the prisoner from the grasp of this terrible power. His fiery deter- mination broke into helplessness, and defeat held him submissive before the furious strength of hundreds. But the rush of the mob that had tossed him so lightly back had in reality given him his only chance of fighting to its center. He had no strength that could have forced a way through its dense ranks to reach the prisoner, but now the prisoner had been brought to him. The lynching rope was thrown over the very post against which he had been flung, its noose was dangling within a dozen feet of where the mob had crushed him, and through a sea of heads he could even catch a glimpse of the man that he must rescue. From the gasping despair with which he had been hurled and trampled back, he sprang again into the activity of hope. The pressure of the 181 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE rush relaxed a little as the center of the mob reached the swinging noose, and Wallace was able to drag his arms loose above the others’ shoulders. Through a surge of faces he caught another glimpse of a still faintly writhing man, part of whose white and blood-streaked cheek was still covered by a black, twisted rag; whose shriek as the noose touched his neck rose shrill above the roaring of the mob, and seemed like the first taste of blood to the wild beasts who howled around him. But to Wallace that shriek seemed a cry of accusation which branded him with murder. From his leverage against the post he plunged himself savagely between the close-packed bodies of those before him. He clambered to the shoulders of those next in front, forcing them apart, and was stopped outside the swaying circle of those whose very hands held the prisoner, and who 182 AN UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE were even then bending his helpless neck to the wide, gaping noose. A yelling lyncher, clutching the prisoner's arm, suddenly felt fierce hands at his throat choking the life and senses from him. Next he was dragged from his grip and twisted round. Wallace squirmed into his place; tore, with desperate grasp, the tightening rope from its victim's neck, and threw himself with both protecting arms around the man whose life he had both sacrificed and saved. And, jerked by arms expecting to lift a man's weight, the noose swung high and empty in the air. A few moments later, when the baffled crowd parted before a rush of plunging horses, the mounted police found in its storm center two buffeted men, grimly clinging to the rescued prisoner. One was shielding his head from the blows of the mob with one arm and grasping 183 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE the prisoner's coat with the other, while he hoarsely shouted again and again, “You’ve got the wrong man. You've got the wrong man.” The other, with both arms wrapped desperately around the prisoner, was shouting as he shielded him, “He’s not the man. His bandage is on the wrong eye. He's not the man.” As the foremost horseman reached them, these two released their charge to him and faced each other in the center of the crowd. Hunter saw before him a tall, well-built man, smooth-shaven, whose hot, bruised face he seemed to have known and hated always. For an instant he gazed, then stretching out his arm he cried, “This is the murderer,” and sprang upon him. But even as he sprang a surge of the mob swept him sideways, and Wallace in the rush was swirled away. As he stood panting on the curbstone 184 CHAPTER XI A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS ILLED with anger and disappoint- ment Hunter searched anxiously through the thinning crowd for the man he had lost. He pushed and shoved his way hither and thither, seeking another sight of the tall figure that had been torn from his grasp. Again and again he plunged through intervening groups to- ward some one who seemed from a dis- tant glimpse to be the man he wanted. At first, as soon as he had recovered from the rush that had swept between them, he had dashed through the crowd in a circle about the spot of separation, trying to cut off the murderer's escape. Then he had searched the immediate 186 A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS vicinity with furious haste. Now, having failed in both these methods, he was rush- ing aimlessly about among the people, searching anywhere and everywhere for his man. But, as the unsuccessful mo- ments passed, he began to feel that the search was hopeless. He ought to have seized upon the criminal immediately, for by now he was probably far away. And yet he would not give up, but con- tinued to shove his way among the shift- ing masses of the mob, hoping against hope and afraid to face the consequences of his failure. Finally his exasperation overcame his anxiety, and for a moment he lost himself in anger and went stalk- ing through the crowd in blinding rage, and as he walked, at every step he stamped his foot upon the ground with all his might. So, having indulged himself in the luxury of giving his feelings full expres- 187 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE sion, he calmed down and gave up the search. There was nothing for it now but to recognize his failure and face the consequences. His man had not only escaped from the crowd but was warned of his danger. All chance of finding and arresting him alone was gone, and, given sufficient time, he might make good his escape from the city and the law. There- fore he ought to make no delay in re- porting to headquarters. Last night, when he had yielded to the temptation of his ambition and the weak- ness of his genius, and had withheld his discoveries from the police, Hunter had seen all the triumphs that success would bring, but he had been blind to the con- sequences of failure. Now he saw that if he had reported the murderer's return to the city, the riot and the attempt to lynch an innocent man would never have occurred, and the real criminal would 188 A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS be under lock and key. He had failed to do his duty and he was overwhelmed, not only by the disastrous consequences, but by finding how unpardonable that failure now seemed. He could see now that it was his own overwhelming, self- sufficient conceit that had made him do it. The thing loomed up as a slinking de- sire to exalt himself at the expense of his brother officers. And so, the results of his offense being fully accomplished, he must face a chief who sometimes for- gave failure but who never forgave dis- obedience. And this humiliation and defeat had come to him from the unnat- ural brute whose fiendish steps he had followed until he had laid his very hands upon him; from the monster without conscience or human emotion whom he had burned to clutch and who, after all, had triumphantly escaped his grasp and left him to dismissal and disgrace. So a 189 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE personal bitterness against a man whose face he knew was added to his hatred of the murderer. But now, much as he feared and shrank from it, he must no longer delay his re- port. No matter what came of it to him- self, the murderer should not have time to escape again. He had seen the mon- ster without his disguising bandage, and his features were indelibly imprinted on his memory. He could describe the criminal so that he could be identified again by any one. He must turn his steps quickly toward headquarters. It was with a sinking heart, yet not the less steadfastly, that he passed again through the door that before had seemed to open for him as the coming of his op- portunity, and now seemed closing be- hind him as the end of his career. The Chief was too busy at his desk to wait for any report, so, as his custom was, he 190 A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS shortened matters by arriving at conclu- sions of his own. “Come to drop your assignment, eh?” he said. “All right, get back to regular work. There’s a billet waiting for you now.” “No,” replied Hunter, “I’ve come to report.” “Eh! Eh!” answered the Chief, busy with some papers. “Report, eh? Don't you know that we caught him? Report to the sergeant.” Hunter sat down in the stiff, uncom- fortable chair, which the Chief had found to be good business policy to keep as the only one beside his desk and began to talk. He spoke rapidly, in a low tone, with his eyes fixed upon the floor. The Chief paused a moment impatiently from his work, and then, with the papers still in his hand, he wheeled slowly around and faced Hunter. He dropped pres- 191 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE ently into silent attention. Not once did he show even surprise or incredulity, but his face, except for the keenness of his eyes, became entirely expressionless. In brief sentences Hunter told of his night in the Doctor's office and what he had discovered there. He told how the criminal had come prepared for robbery and murder, and that the bandage over his eye was a deception and disguise. He explained that the crime was not a chance or accident, but had been planned carefully beforehand in all its details; that the murderer had remained in the room with his victim for hours after the deed was done; and that he had made all his actions plain and public up to the moment of his disappearance, so that the disappearance might be the more com- plete. Then he paused without looking up and waited for some word of doubt or question, but the Chief maintained a 192 A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS steady silence that compelled him pres- ently to proceed. He told of the extraordinary criminal without a conscience and of the trail that he had followed; how he had removed his black bandage and disguise and dis- covered that the track of the murderer led back again to the city. He men- tioned his search in the city and the traces of the criminal that he had come across, and how, at last, in the hotel, he had found the very room in which the murderer had slept the night before. Then he stopped again and glanced at the Chief's inscru- table face, and again the silence held something that forced him to continue. He told of the riot and how he had fought to keep an innocent man from being lynched; how when, at last, he struggled to the center of the mob, he had found another man fighting there too, for the victim’s life; how, as the 193 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE mounted police came, he had recognized that man as the real murderer, and as he had tried to seize him the crowd had swept between. He added a brief de- scription of the murderer as he had seen him. He had told his story. His failure of duty and neglect of orders were plainly implied. The consequences of the riot and the criminal's escape were evident. Why not let them be implied and let it go at that? He stopped again and looked up, but the Chief's keen eyes were fixed upon him and the waiting silence told him that more was still re- quired. With set teeth he met the crisis of his humiliation. He rose to his feet, his head went up, and he made his confes- sion full and true. In a short, quick sentence he told of his ambition and his disobedience. 194 A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS “I wanted to get this man myself, sir,” he said, “and so I didn't report to the office according to your orders.” Then he continued and shouldered the whole blame of his neglect without evasion, and he ended by explaining the opportunity for the capture of the crim- inal that now lay before the police. And finally, with his head for the first time held straight and his eyes fixed upon the Chief, he stopped, and this time the com- pelling power of the silence lay with him. The Chief merely blinked his eyes and said: “How do you know that the man in the mob was your man?” “Because he was there, sir,” replied Hunter. “Because he was in the city, because of his description, and because of what he shouted to the crowd.” “What was that?” “He had his arms gripped tight around 195 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE the prisoner and kept shouting: ‘He’s not the man. He’s not the man. His bandage is on the wrong eye.” “On which eye was it?” snapped the Chief. “The right.” “And on the murderer?” “The left.” The Chief thought a moment and then suddenly swore. He had been satisfied with his capture and it had relieved his anxiety and lifted the burden from his shoulders. Now it was all to do over again. The murderer was still uncaught and he was open to ridicule for his much heralded mistake in capturing the wrong man. And with that oath his last doubt of the correctness of Hunter's discoveries had passed away. He turned to him and spoke in measured tones. “You know me,” he said, “and you know I won’t have any man who don’t I96 A WEAKNESS OF GENIUS obey orders. We won't have any grand stand players. You disobeyed and the right man got away and we had all kinds of fool doings with the wrong fel- low. Now you’re fired. You’re broke. You're not on this force any more. You understand, you’re discharged from this minute, and you’re getting just what's coming to you.” “Yes, sir,” said Hunter, seeing that there was something more to follow. “But now,” continued the Chief, “I’m going to be square with you. You’re fired for disobeying orders, but before you disobeyed you had done things on this case that no one else had done. You did most to catch this man, but it’s your fault that he is still at large, for if you had reported promptly we’d have had him by now. If he does get off it’s your fault and so you’re fired. But if we catch him in a week or so, we’ll let this 197 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE pass. Your chance of getting back on the force lies in catching this man. So you’d better put your time in on this case.” “Yes, sir,” replied Hunter, acknowl- edging the justice of the sentence, while a big throb of hope in his heart told him that he was being given the opportunity that he had longed for. The Chief lost no time in shouldering again the burden of the murder and the responsibility of the capture. With Hun- ter he soon compiled an accurate descrip- tion of the murderer as he was, and by evening this description had been given to every policeman, every officer, and every detective in the city. The whole force was looking for the criminal and every avenue of escape was closed. If Wallace remained in the city he would be arrested in an hour. But again it seemed to the police department of De- 198 CHAPTER XII A DEEPER TESTING MAN suddenly deprived of his habits will be governed by his instincts. For, when he loses all that he has acquired, there is left to him only that which he was at first. So it was with Wallace, for, with everything gone that had regulated his life as Edwin Wal- lace, respectable merchant, and with no rudders of routine to guide him as Ed Ward, outcast, he was unconsciously thrown upon the guiding motives of the elemental in his nature. And, as the animal seeks again familiar haunts, as the dog returns unerringly to his master's house, and the bird flies straight through the untracked sky to its nest, so he was 200 A DEEPER TESTING drawn again to the place which alone in the world had, for his new mode of life, a single familiar element of those associ- ations which cling for human hearts around a home. Not uplifted by the thing he had done, but hot, draggled, and uneasy in mind, he left the curb- stone, as the mob dispersed, and turned instinctively with the crowd up Wood- ward Avenue toward his old bench be- side the splashing fountain in the park. He wanted a chance to think. He was disturbed and confused and he needed to study it out. He sat and pondered till his mind was steadied from the ex- citement of the riot and his brain was cleared to reasonable thinking. “I guess I gave myself away all right enough,” he said slowly. It seemed a bitter thing that by doing his duty in going to the rescue of the mobbed man be must betray himself and have shouted 201 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE at him, “This is the murderer.” Now it was certainly known that he was in the city and he was no longer safe. He did not realize that Hunter’s words were not so much a cry of discovery as a cry of warning that told him how close pursuit was upon him and how near he really was to capture. “I guess I gave myself away,” was his conclusion. “Anyhow,” he reasoned, “my being found in that crowd was nothing against my principle of crime and conscience. In the first place a real murderer would never have been within a hundred miles of the spot, and, in the second place, a man who was conscience- stricken over the crime would have been afraid to venture into the mob at all. Why,” thought Wallace, suddenly, “they might have strung me up instead.” “But yet,” he continued, “I haven’t lost my bet. Three days are gone, and, 202 A DEEPER TESTING pler or more natural way of flight than that? What would a man do when he is friendless, without work, and his entire means for ten days’ living consists of twenty-five cents left from the sale of his hat? What can he do when he is dirty and disreputable in appearance, when his face is bruised and his clothes are torn ? In his encounter with the mob Wallace had been dragged and pounded, buttons had been ripped from his coat, and one pocket torn entirely out, and his old gray hat had been bat- tered into the fitting headgear of a tramp. The perspiration had matted his hair and his teeth felt as if the coating on them was an inch thick. His clothes seemed pasted to him and his beard showed a black three days’ growth. He looked very little like Edwin Wallace, or any other respectable man, and more 205 A DEEPER TESTING But, though the news was late, the account of the murder could have had no more interested reader than the mur- derer himself. Instead of following the story of his deed with dilated eyes of fear and breathless gasps of dismay, the crim- inal of this guiltless crime read it with smiles and grins and chuckles. He en- joyed immensely the paragraphs that employed such phrases as “cold-blooded,” “diabolical,” and “revolting” in their descriptions. It especially tickled his vanity and pleased his pride to find him- self referred to so often as a fiend. The bigger and blacker the type the more delighted he was, for it gave him assur- ance that the murder had been taken seriously by all and that the trick was not suspected. In fact, the only one who at all approached discovery was a certain doctor, who had remarked in a puzzled way that the murder must have 207 A DEEPER TESTING upon his unconcern in the face of the tragedy. Wallace suddenly became good-hu- mored again. The gloom of his hunger and uncertainty lifted. He put the paper down and his mind was decided as to what he would do. He would take a suburban car at the avenue, get off after he had ridden a short way into the coun- try, and get work there. “I must hasten the preparations for my departure,” he remarked in a large way to a very little sparrow, which had alighted on the branch of a bush close by. The little bird coquettishly cocked its head and appeared to listen, but re- fused to take a serious view of the case. It frivolously flirted its tail as it teetered on the twig and chirped inconsequential small talk. Then, with a hop and flut- ter of wings, it darted away. And Wal- lace, taking the example as a good one, 209 A DEEPER TESTING Wallace felt that this idea of going to a farm just outside the city for a hiding- place was just the thing for him. From the standpoint of a murderer, unhaunted by his guilt and unterrified by thoughts of punishment, there was no place in all the world that would be so safe. It was certainly an asylum that would shelter him for the remaining ten days. Like many another city dweller, since his boy- hood, he had never seen a real farm closer than from the window of a car. He had been too busy. His notions of agricul- ture did not extend beyond lowing kine and waving fields of grain. But with the natural thoughtlessness of ignorance and the common city man's idea that no skill is required in farming, he felt that he could easily get work in the country. He left the car and found himself at a country cross-roads with nothing what- 211 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “Three or four miles,” repeated Wal- lace, blankly. “Do you think he would be sure to take me when I got there?” “Huh!” exclaimed the farmer, com- ing to lean on the bars of the gate, “I should think he would be glad to get any one. He can't keep a man more’n a week the way he feeds and works them. I thought at first that you was a tramp, but you don’t talk like one. Ever worked on a farm P” “No, I never worked on a farm yet,” replied Wallace. “I got stranded in the city and I can’t get away for a week or so. I couldn't get work there, so I thought I might get a job on a farm for a few days. Sa—ay, you don’t want to hire a hand till a week from next Mon- day, do you?” The farmer looked him over carefully. “No-o, I guess not,” he replied slowly. “I can’t afford experimenting.” - 214 A DEEPER TESTING “I won't cost you anything,” assured Wallace, eagerly. “Just board and lodg- ing and not a cent of money.” He liked the look of the place, and just now he would much rather remain where he was than walk four miles to the farm of Boardman, of unsavory reputation. What a man wants is worth going after, even if it is only the job of a farm hand without pay. Wallace went after this. He explained that he had come to the city expecting to receive money that was owing him, and that he had been disap- pointed by those who did not know how much it meant to him just then. That he had found himself without money or credentials and had tried for two days to get work. That the money he was expecting would be along a week from next Monday. Wallace was an able and impressive talker and he spoke earnestly and in the language of a gen- 215 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE tleman. Holt, the farmer, needed help, and if this hand proved a tramp and would not work, he could easily turn him off. “Well, I’ll try you for a day or so,” he said. “Come in and help me with my evening chores. I’m going to milk the cows now. You take that pail.” Wallace had never been called upon to handle a whole cow before, but he took the pail and a box to sit on, and watched the farmer closely to find out the right way to do. He saw that Holt put his box beside a cow, sat down with his pail in front of him and said, “Sho-o, Bossy.” Then he commenced a sort of up-and-down motion with his hands, as if he were pulling on a rope, and the white streams of milk foamed out into his pail. So Wallace also set his box beside a cow, sat down with his pail in front of him, * 216 A DEEPER TESTING and said, “Sho-o, Bossy.” Then he, too, began the up-and-down motion with his hands as if he were pulling on a rope; but here the imitation ended, for no white streams of milk frothed out into his pail. For the life of him he could not see how it was done. He pulled and squeezed in every imaginable manner, until his hands ached, but there seemed to be no way to make the milk come. “I guess this cow is different from the others,” he said resentfully. “She don’t seem to work the same.” He looked up to see that the traduced bovine had turned her head and was looking at him with her big eyes in mild reproach. But, unsoftened, he gave her flank an impatient push and muttered at her: “Confound you, why don’t you squirt when I pull?” This was more than any self-respect- ing cow would stand. She calmly lifted 217 - THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE a hind foot and sent the pail clattering across the yard. “Hey,” cried Holt, running over, “have you spilt all the milk?” “No,” replied Wallace, “it’s all in the cow yet. I couldn't spill a drop.” 218 CHAPTER XIII BEATING THE COVER ROM the point of view of the police the Horace case had been very much simplified. The mystery of the murderer had been penetrated and dis- covery made as to who he was. The only thing necessary now was to find out where he was. He had been driven from one hiding-place, but his description had not been known in time to effect his capture, and he had made another cover. Now, he would be known to all and recognized far or near. The task was to make him come into the open again, for if he broke cover once more he would be caught. The law's myriad eyes were watching for him, its thousand hands eager to 219 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE seize him. And like a wolf, for which the men and hounds are searching, his only chance of safety was in lying hidden close. Measures had been taken so promptly on that Friday afternoon, that the mur- derer could not have gotten far. It was not the time of day for traveling by rail, and few trains had departed. Such as had started were inspected at the first convenient stopping-place, and their pas- sengers accounted for. Thereafter, the depots were watched. The machinery of the law was set in motion throughout the country, and the big seine of official supervision was spread out. It failed to catch the criminal. This did not mean that justice had failed, but that the fugitive must be sought in other quarters. It is now impossible that a criminal, fully described, can escape detection. The world is against him, and no matter 220 BEATING THE COVER where he goes, there are those who will recognize and arrest him. Let him ap- pear but for a moment in the vision of the law and he is at once made a prisoner. As the days went by the circles of pur- suit were drawn closer and closer about the Horace murderer. The city was searched as with a fine comb, until, neither in the open day or darkness of the night, neither in high places or in the depths of the underground, could a refuge have remained. The Chief was on his mettle, determined that for his reputation and the reputation of the force the man should not escape. All his special officers were beating the covers and the whole marshaling of Justice was alert to seize its prey, as soon as the hunted man should leave his refuge at the near approach of some pursuer, to fly in terror in the search of safety. 221 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE One of the special beaters of the cover was Detective Hunter, under orders to report his discoveries to the office, and with his position and future dependent on success. The Chief had told others of the force to cover this territory or search that locality, but Hunter had re- ceived no such directions. He was left free to work according to his theory. It had led to results before and the Chief had a curious sort of unbelieving con- fidence in it. On Saturday, just twenty-four hours after the riot, the whole scene was re- peated on the same spot as the day before; and the people who were passing never noticed. All they could have seen of it was a single man wandering heed- lessly about, making strange motions, apparently entirely unconscious of what was really passing. But his actions were so slow and deliberate that no one stopped 222 BEATING THE COVER to watch. To Hunter, though, it was real enough. According to his theory, he came to the riot this time as the murderer. In a spirit of bravado he was drawn by the excitement to thrust himself into the mob. In another, such a thing might have been regarded as a brave and gen- erous act, but not in this criminal. Hunter knew the real murderer too well to make that mistake. He knew that it was only because this inhuman monster held the law in derision that he had come to make a mock of its mistake. So with a sim- ilar feeling of derisive defiance, Hunter came to the mob of his imagination upon Saturday. He knew the exact spot upon the corner where he and the murderer had first thrown themselves against the rushing mass of men the day before. He pushed his way out into the street from it again, 223 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE an outrage upon man's heart and con- science. Hunter mopped the perspira- tion from his face, as he stood across the street, at almost the same spot on the curbstone where Wallace had stood the day before, and readjusted himself to the nature of the man he was pursuing. An ordinary criminal, upon being so startlingly discovered, would try to get away by the least frequented routes, as far and fast as possible. But this crim- inal would not act according to ordinary standards. He would do just the op- posite. He would seek the crowd where another would shrink from it. He would saunter where another would rush away in headlong flight. So, with the assur- ance that he was a murderer who had just been detected, Hunter turned de- liberately up Woodward Avenue and paced slowly along the crowded street. It was a strain upon his self-control to 226 BEATING THE COVER keep himself at the gait. That a guilty man could act so brought heavily upon him again the exasperating puzzle and hatred of the case. It confused and angered him and he realized that he wanted a chance to think. The future branched out in so many different direc- tions that he must get to a quiet place and study things out. And so, coming to the park, he turned aside and sat down on a bench beside the splashing fountain to ponder. With his chin sunk on his chest and his eyes fixed on the ground, he reasoned as a fugitive must reason, and weighed the chances of escape and safety. It was plain that the city was no longer a safe place for an identified criminal. Especially would such a cunning plotter as this realize it, for, though he derided the law, he was not the one to play into its hands. Anyway, the city was being searched by others. There had been no 227 BEATING THE COVER The first thing to do was to get out of the city. The easiest and quickest way was the best. The murderer had dis- appeared immediately. Hunter glanced out through the park and saw the electric cars passing back and forth. This was certainly an easy and simple method. As a murderer without a conscience, there was no reason why he should be- come panic-stricken, even at such a crisis. Therefore, why not get out of the city by street car? If he continued on the car until it reached one of the smaller towns near by, he would be running the same risk of capture as if he stayed in Detroit. And so he would get off the car before it reached such a town. This left a hiding-place outside Detroit, and yet not far away, as the best and most natural refuge. Hunter was not exultant over this conclusion. It was substantial enough, 229 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE but not exact. The environs of a city are many times larger than the city itself, and not so easily accounted for. And there are many car lines leading out. There was no balance of probability in favor of any of them. His method had led him to this conclusion, but it seemed unable to carry him any closer to the criminal. The only thing left was to beat all this territory, and that required an immense amount of work. But, as the difficulties of discovery showed him what an excellent hiding-place this was, the certainty that the murderer had hidden himself there grew upon him. His chin rose from his chest and his eyes began to kindle. He got upon his feet in prepara- tion for action, and following a sudden impulse turned along the northeast path- way of the park. A few minutes' quick walk up the avenue brought him to High Street and he stopped at the corner of 230 BEATING THE COVER From the park on Friday afternoon, he started out again. This time, in the mere process of elimination, he struck the right trail, and took the car out Woodward Avenue. It was because this was the next district in the order of his search that he took it, not because he thought it was the most probable one. Saturday morning found him coming out from Pontiac again along this different route, and striking backward on his course. And then, although he did not know it, he drew closer day by day upon his prey. So on Tuesday afternoon, two weeks after the Horace murder, he turned off to the west from the main street, upon the cross road that led to farmer Holt's. 237 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE Their work was to pitch from the center to the top, so as to fill the barn to its eaves again and leave space near the door where fresh loads could be easily brought in. The curing hay made the heat of the place like an oven, and Wal- lace, stripped to his undershirt, was bathed in perspiration, as he pitched great forkfulls of the hay up for Holt to spread out on top. In the afternoon, the sun having come out, they went down into the fields and weeded turnips. Wallace was given a piece of carpet to tie on each knee, and, with a leg on each side of a turnip row, he would crawl across the field. He carried a little sharp, three-cornered trowel, and as he crawled he cleared the weeds away. Across and back the whole length of the field he went again and again, trying in vain to keep pace with the farmer. After three or four hours 240 WALLACE IN HIDING and confided many things to him, al- most as if he had been one of the family. “Don’t get Joe riled up if you can help it,” she said. “He’s got an awful fiery temper. He used to be a terrible pro- fane man. He don't swear none now, though.” “That’s good,” said Wallace. “I sup- pose you are pleased he's stopped.” “Well, I dunno’s I am,” she said with a sigh. “It was my brother that broke him. He’s a missionary to India, my brother is, and he stayed with us one winter when he was visiting back here. He told Joe how the folks over there talk when they get mad, and now Joe, he swears that way too. It ain't profane a bit, I must say that, and mebby it ain't really indecent, but I just won't stay in the house with him when he gets started. Sometimes I’d most rather Joe’d swear like he used to. It sounds 243 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE well harrowed. The farmer, after gaz- ing at him strangely for a few moments, burst into a roar of laughter. “Walked and bumped yourself, did you?” he shouted. “Why didn’t you get up on the harrow and ride?” “Why, sure enough,” said Wallace, shamefacedly, “I never thought of that.” And so the days passed for Wallace in his hiding-place, each one bringing him nearer to the end of his vacation, and the winning of his bet, and the final establishment against the Doctor of his principle of crime and conscience. Into the quietness of his retreat there came no disturbing news of the efforts that were being made to capture him. He did not know that a net was being drawn closer and closer around the Hor- ace murderer. He did not know that determined duty and relentless hate were tracking him unceasingly. 250 CHAPTER XV THE PROOF ONDAY morning Wallace rose at the working hour of five, as bright as a lark and as blithe as a boy. He remembered how he had to tear him- self away from sleep his first day on the farm, and the contrast pleased him. His vacation had given him a tonic of health such as he had not enjoyed for years. He felt strong to shoulder again the burdens of his work, and make things hum. Early hours and out-door bodily labor make a heroic program for a vacation's rest, but in the end they are a recreation that recreates. He went with Holt into the fields, and the morning hours flitted by as if flying 252 THE PROOF stranger coming along the road, and stopped a moment to watch him. He had not noticed them and, as they looked, they could see that he was laboring under some strong emotion. His face was flushed, his hands clenched, and he was muttering to himself with growls of anger. As he came near them he threw back his head, turned his face up to the sky, and his eyes became blind with rage. Then his emotion broke all bounds, and he commenced to swing his arms, and as he walked he stamped along the road, as if with every step he were dashing some enemy beneath his feet. He was a man whose whole being was controlled by the rage and anger of his soul. Holt stared open-eyed, until Wallace, with a chuckle said, “I wonder if he is talking East Indian profanity.” Then he grinned sheepishly. But Wallace suddenly stopped laugh- 255 THE PROOF very man he had been seeking for so long. It was not an error that destroyed his search, for, at the next farmhouse down the road, he learned that Holt had a new hand on his place and resolved to turn back and investigate when he had ended his quest along that branch way. But it was a fault that lost him the opportunity for which he had been striving, and gave his criminal another chance. To Wallace this meant but one thing. The law was after him. He was no longer safe. This meant arrest for mur- der. The assurance of victory was his no longer. He must not lose and be a false servant of his principle, for it was true. He hurried through his supper, and was feverish in his eagerness to get away. His hosts were unfeignedly sorry that he was going and urged him to stay another night. Holt offered him any money he might need to see him through, 257 THE PROOF at his mistake, was discovering from the Holts that the man for whom he was searching had broken cover and started for the city, and that he was rushing down the country road to spread the news and make escape impossible. After awhile Wallace found himself so bubbling with expectation that he could not sit still. He remembered, too, that he had a nickel left, and that after two weeks abstention a cigar would seem good. He sauntered down a side street, and without thinking came to the little all-night restaurant where he had eaten his first meal as a murderer. It pleased his fancy to go in at the end of his career of crime and get his cigar there. As he put his last coin on the glass case in pay- ment, he murmured to the sleepy waiter: “With all my earthly goods I thee endow.” The waiter, who had cherished the 261 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE The detective slowly dropped his hold and stepped back. He stood in dazed amazement, glaring with unbelieving eyes at the living presentment of the mur- dered man. He was bewildered as though stunned by a blow, and helpless before the crowning puzzle of this distracting CaSe. The Doctor took a step toward him, saying quietly, “You see, Mr. Hunter, there has been no murder.” And then, as a vivid light, there came to Hunter the explanation of all the mystery that had been weighing so heavily upon him. There could be no such murder and no such criminal as this. There had been no murder. And there was no longer any mystery. The Doctor turned toward him to speak again. “You needn't go on with your ex- planations,” he cried. “I understand this business now.” He turned sud- 266 THE CASE OF DOCTOR HORACE “Well, and what have you proved?” “Come into the house,” said Wallace, pulling at his coat, “come into the house and I’ll tell you.” 268 - - is º ºf . - º - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -