From Whose Bourne Page 5

  CHAPTER V.

  Brenton found himself once more in the streets of Cincinnati, in a stateof mind that can hardly be described. Rage and grief struggled for themastery, and added to the tumult of these passions was the uncertaintyas to what he should do, or what he _could_ do. He could hardly ask theadvice of Ferris again, for his whole trouble arose from his neglect ofthe counsel that gentleman had already given him. In his new sphere hedid not know where to turn. He found himself wondering whether in thespirit-land there was any firm of lawyers who could advise him, and heremembered then how singularly ignorant he was regarding the conditionsof existence in the world to which he now belonged. However, he feltthat he must consult with somebody, and Ferris was the only one to whomhe could turn. A moment later he was face to face with him.

  "Mr. Ferris," he said, "I am in the most grievous trouble, and I come toyou in the hope that, if you cannot help me, you can at least advise mewhat to do."

  "If your trouble has come," answered Ferris, with a shade of irony inhis voice, "through following the advice that I have already given you,I shall endeavour, as well as I am able, to help you out of it."

  "You know very well," cried Brenton, hotly, "that my whole troublehas occurred through neglecting your advice, or, at least, throughdeliberately not following it. I _could_ not follow it."

  "Very well, then," said Ferris, "I am not surprised that you are in adifficulty. You must remember that such a crisis is an old story with ushere."

  "But, my dear sir," said Brenton, "look at the appalling condition ofthings, the knowledge of which has just come to me. It seems I waspoisoned, but of course that doesn't matter. I feel no resentmentagainst the wretch who did it. But the terrible thing is that my wifehas been arrested for the crime, and I have just learned that her ownlawyers actually believe her guilty."

  "That fact," said Ferris, calmly, "will not interfere with theireloquent pleading when the case comes to trial."

  Brenton glared at the man who was taking things so coolly, and whoproved himself so unsympathetic; but an instant after he realized thefutility of quarrelling with the only person who could give him advice,so he continued, with what patience he could command--

  "The situation is this: My wife has been arrested for the crime ofmurdering me. She is now in the custody of the sheriff. Her trouble andanxiety of mind are fearful to contemplate."

  "My dear sir," said Ferris, "there is no reason why you or anybody elseshould contemplate it."

  "How can you talk in that cold-blooded way?" cried Brenton, indignantly."Could you see _your_ wife, or any one _you_ held dear, incarcerated fora dreadful crime, and yet remain calm and collected, as you now appearto be when you hear of another's misfortune?"

  "My dear fellow," said Ferris, "of course it is not to be expected thatone who has had so little experience with this existence should have anysense of proportion. You appear to be speaking quite seriously. You donot seem at all to comprehend the utter triviality of all this."

  "Good gracious!" cried Brenton, "do you call it a trivial thing that awoman is in danger of her life for a crime which she never committed?"

  "If she is innocent," said the other, in no way moved by the indignationof his comrade, "surely that state of things will be brought out in thecourts, and no great harm will be done, even looking at things from thestandpoint of the world you have left. But I want you to get into thehabit of looking at things from the standpoint of this world, and notof the other. Suppose that what you would call the worst shouldhappen--suppose she is hanged--what then?"

  Brenton stood simply speechless with indignation at this brutal remark.

  "If you will just look at things correctly," continued Ferris,imperturbably, "you will see that there is probably a moment of anguish,perhaps not even that moment, and then your wife is here with you in theland of spirits. I am sure that is a consummation devoutly to be wished.Even a man in your state of mind must see the reasonableness of this.Now, looking at the question in what you would call its most seriousaspect, see how little it amounts to. It isn't worth a moment's thought,whichever way it goes."

  "You think nothing, then, of the disgrace of such a death--of the bitterinjustice of it?"

  The broken toy.]

  "When you were in the world did you ever see a child cry over a brokentoy? Did the sight pain you to any extent? Did you not know that a newtoy could be purchased that would quite obliterate all thoughts of theother? Did the simple griefs of childhood carry any deep and lastingconsternation to the mind of a grown-up man? Of course it did not. Youare sensible enough to know that. Well, we here in this world look onthe pain and struggles and trials of people in the world you have left,just as an aged man looks on the tribulations of children over a brokendoll. That is all it really amounts to. That is what I mean when I saythat you have not yet got your sense of proportion. Any grief and miserythere is in the world you have left is of such an ephemeral, transientnature, that when we think for a moment of the free, untrammelled,and painless life there is beyond, those petty troubles sink intoinsignificance. My dear fellow, be sensible, take my advice. I havereally a strong interest in you, and I advise you, entirely for your ownwelfare, to forget all about it. Very soon you will have something muchmore important to do than lingering around the world you have left. Ifyour wife comes amongst us I am sure you will be glad to welcome her,and to teach her the things that you will have already found out of yournew life. If she does not appear, then you will know that, even from theold-world standpoint, things have gone what you would call 'all right.'Let these trivial matters go, and attend to the vastly more importantconcerns that will soon engage your attention here."

  Ferris talked earnestly, and it was evident, even to Brenton, that hemeant what he said. It was hard to find a pretext for a quarrel with aman at once so calm and so perfectly sure of himself.

  "We will not talk any more about it," said Brenton. "I presume peoplehere agree to differ, just as they did in the world we have both left."

  "Certainly, certainly," answered Ferris. "Of course, you have just heardmy opinion; but you will find myriads of others who do not share it withme. You will meet a great many who are interested in the subject ofcommunication with the world they have left. You will, of course, excuseme when I say that I consider such endeavours not worth talking about."

  "Do you know any one who is interested in that sort of thing? and canyou give me an introduction to him?"

  "Oh! for that matter," said Ferris, "you have had an introduction to oneof the most enthusiastic investigators of the subject. I refer to Mr.John Speed, late of Chicago."

  "Ah!" said Brenton, rather dubiously. "I must confess that I wasnot very favourably impressed with Mr. Speed. Probably I did him aninjustice."

  "You certainly did," said Ferris. "You will find Speed a man well worthknowing, even if he does waste himself on such futile projects as ascheme for communicating with a community so evanescent as that ofChicago. You will like Speed better the more you know him. He really isvery philanthropic, and has Sommers on his hands just now. From what hesaid after you left Venice, I imagine he does not entertain the samefeeling toward you as you do toward him. I would see Speed if I wereyou."

  "I will think about it," said Brenton, as they separated.

  To know that a man thinks well of a person is no detriment to furtheracquaintance with that man, even if the first impressions have not beenfavourable; and after Ferris told Brenton that Speed had thought well ofhim, Brenton found less difficulty in seeking the Chicago enthusiast.

  "I have been in a good deal of trouble," Brenton said to Speed, "andhave been talking to Ferris about it. I regret to say that he gave mevery little encouragement, and did not seem at all to appreciate myfeelings in the matter."

  "Oh, you mustn't mind Ferris," said Speed. "He is a first-rate fellow,but he is as cold and unsympathetic as--well, suppose we say as anoyster. His great hobby is non-intercourse with the world we have left.Now, in that I don't agree with him, and there are t
housands who don'tagree with him. I admit that there are cases where a man is more unhappyif he frequents the old world than he would be if he left it alone. Butthen there are other cases where just the reverse is true. Take my ownexperience, for example; I take a peculiar pleasure in rambling aroundChicago. I admit that it is a grievance to me, as an old newspaper man,to see the number of scoops I could have on my esteemed contemporaries,but--"

  "Scoop? What is that?" asked Brenton, mystified.

  "Why, a scoop is a beat, you know."

  "Yes, but I don't know. What is a beat?"

  "A beat or a scoop, my dear fellow, is the getting of a piece of newsthat your contemporary does not obtain. You never were in the newspaperbusiness? Well, sir, you missed it. Greatest business in the world. Youknow everything that is going on long before anybody else does, and theway you can reward your friends and jump with both feet on your enemiesis one of the delights of existence down there."

  "Well, what I wanted to ask you was this," said Brenton. "You have madea speciality of finding out whether there could be any communicationbetween one of us, for instance, and one who is an inhabitant of theother world. Is such communication possible?"

  "I have certainly devoted some time to it, but I can't say that mysuccess has been flattering. My efforts have been mostly in the line ofnews. I have come on some startling information which my facilities heregave me access to, and I confess I have tried my best to put some of theboys on to it. But there is a link loose somewhere. Now, what is yourtrouble? Do you want to get a message to anybody?"

  "My trouble is this," said Brenton, briefly, "I am here because a fewdays ago I was poisoned."

  "George Washington!" cried the other, "you don't say so! Have thenewspapers got on to the fact?"

  "I regret to say that they have."

  "What an item that would have been if one paper had got hold of it andthe others hadn't! I suppose they all got on to it at the same time?"

  "About that," said Brenton, "I don't know, and I must confess that I donot care very much. But here is the trouble--my wife has been arrestedfor my murder, and she is as innocent as I am."

  "Sure of that?"

  "_Sure_ of it?" cried the other indignantly. "Of course I am sure ofit."

  "Then who is the guilty person?"

  "Ah, that," said Brenton, "I do not yet know."

  "Then how can you be sure she is not guilty?"

  "If you talk like that," exclaimed Brenton, "I have nothing more tosay."

  "Now, don't get offended, I beg of you. I am merely looking at this froma newspaper standpoint, you know. You must remember it is not youwho will decide the matter, but a jury of your very stupidfellow-countrymen. Now, you can never tell what a jury _will_ do, exceptthat it will do something idiotic. Therefore, it seems to me that thevery first step to be taken is to find out who the guilty party is.Don't you see the force of that?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Very well, then. Now, what were the circumstances of this crime? whowas to profit by your death?"

  Brenton winced at this.

  "I see how it is," said the other, "and I understand why you don'tanswer. Now--you'll excuse me if I am frank--your wife was the one whobenefited most by your death, was she not?"

  "No," cried the other indignantly, "she was not the one. That is whatthe lawyers said. Why in the world should she want to poison me, whenshe had all my wealth at her command as it was?"

  "Yes, that's a strong point," said Speed. "You were a reasonably goodhusband, I suppose? Rather generous with the cash?"

  "Generous?" cried the other. "My wife always had everything she wanted."

  "Ah, well, there was no--you'll excuse me, I am sure--no former lover inthe case, was there?"

  Again Brenton winced, and he thought of Roland sitting beside his wifewith her hand in his.

  "I see," said Speed; "you needn't answer. Now what were thecircumstances, again?"

  "They were these: At a dinner which I gave, where some twenty ortwenty-five of my friends were assembled, poison, it appears, was putinto my cup of coffee. That is all I know of it."

  "Who poured out that cup of coffee?"

  "My wife did."

  "Ah! Now, I don't for a moment say she is guilty, remember; but you mustadmit that, to a stupid jury, the case _might_ look rather bad againsther."

  "Well, granted that it does, there is all the more need that I shouldcome to her assistance if possible."

  "Certainly, certainly!" said Speed. "Now, I'll tell you what we haveto do. We must get, if possible, one of the very brightest Chicagoreporters on the track of this thing, and we have to get him on thetrack of it early. Come with me to Chicago. We will try an experiment,and I am sure you will lend your mind entirely to the effort. We mustact in conjunction in this affair, and you are just the man I've beenwanting, some one who is earnest and who has something at stake in thematter. We may fail entirely, but I think it's worth the trying. Willyou come?"

  "Certainly," said Brenton; "and I cannot tell you how much I appreciateyour interest and sympathy."

  Arriving at a brown stone building on the corner of two of the principalstreets in Chicago, Brenton and Speed ascended quickly to one of the topfloors. It was nearly midnight, and two upper stories of the huge darkbuilding were brilliantly lighted, as was shown on the outside by thelong rows of glittering windows. They entered a room where a man wasseated at a table, with coat and vest thrown off, and his hat set wellback on his head. Cold as it was outside, it was warm in this man'sroom, and the room was blue with smoke. A black corn-cob pipe was in histeeth, and the man was writing away as if for dear life, on sheets ofcoarse white copy paper, stopping now and then to fill up his pipe or torelight it after it had gone out.

  "There," said Speed, waving his hand towards the writer with a certainair of proprietory pride, "there sits one of the very cleverest men onthe Chicago press. That fellow, sir, is gifted with a nose for newswhich has no equal in America. He will ferret out a case that he oncestarts on with an unerringness that would charm you. Yes, sir, I got himhis present situation on this paper, and I can tell you it was a goodone."

  "He must have been a warm friend of yours?" said Brenton, indifferently,as if he did not take much interest in the eulogy.

  "Quite the contrary," said Speed. "He was a warm enemy, made it mightywarm for _me_ sometimes. He was on an opposition paper, but I tell you,although I was no chicken in newspaper business, that man would scoopthe daylight out of me any time he tried. So, to get rid of opposition,I got the managing editor to appoint him to a place on our paper; andI tell you, he has never regretted it. Yes, sir, there sits GeorgeStratton, a man who knows his business. Now," he said, "let usconcentrate our attention on him. First let us see whether, by puttingour whole minds to it, we can make any impression on _his_ mindwhatever. You see how busily he is engaged. He is thoroughly absorbed inhis work. That is George all over. Whatever his assignment is, Georgethrows himself right into it, and thinks of nothing else until it isfinished. _Now_ then."

  In that dingy, well-lighted room George Stratton sat busily pencillingout the lines that were to appear in next morning's paper. He wasevidently very much engrossed in his task, as Speed had said. If hehad looked about him, which he did not, he would have said that he wasentirely alone. All at once his attention seemed to waver, and he passedhis hand over his brow, while perplexity came into his face. Then henoticed that his pipe was out, and, knocking the ashes from it byrapping the bowl on the side of the table, he filled it with anabsent-mindedness unusual with him. Again he turned to his writing, andagain he passed his hand over his brow. Suddenly, without any apparentcause, he looked first to the right and then to the left of him. Oncemore he tried to write, but, noticing his pipe was out, he struckanother match and nervously puffed away, until clouds of blue smoke rosearound him. There was a look of annoyance and perplexity in his face ashe bent resolutely to his writing. The door opened, and a man appearedon the threshold.

  "Anything more about the c
onvention, George?" he said.

  "Yes; I am just finishing this. Sort of pen pictures, you know."

  "Perhaps you can let me have what you have done. I'll fix it up."

  "All right," said Stratton, bunching up the manuscript in front of him,and handing it to the city editor.

  That functionary looked at the number of pages, and then at the writer.

  "Much more of this, George?" he said. "We'll be a little short of roomin the morning, you know."

  "Well," said the other, sitting back in his chair, "it is pretty goodstuff that. Folks always like the pen pictures of men engaged in theskirmish better than the reports of what most of them say."

  "Yes," said the city editor, "that's so."

  "Still," said Stratton, "we could cut it off at the last page. Just letme see the last two pages, will you?"

  These were handed to him, and, running his eye through them, he drew hisknife across one of the pages, and put at the bottom the cabalistic markwhich indicated the end of the copy.

  "There! I think I will let it go at that. Old Rickenbeck don't amount tomuch, anyhow. We'll let him go."

  "All right," said the city editor. "I think we won't want anything moreto-night."

  "She's pretty as a picture."]

  Stratton put his hands behind his head, with his fingers interlaced, andleaned back in his chair, placing his heels upon the table before him.A thought-reader, looking at his face, could almost have followed thetheme that occupied his mind. Suddenly bringing his feet down with acrash to the floor, he rose and went into the city editor's room.

  "See here," he said. "Have you looked into that Cincinnati case at all?"

  "What Cincinnati case?" asked the local editor, looking up.

  "Why, that woman who is up for poisoning her husband."

  "Oh yes; we had something of it in the despatches this morning. It'srather out of the local line, you know."

  "Yes, I know it is. But it isn't out of the paper's line. I tell youthat case is going to make a sensation. She's pretty as a picture. Beenmarried only six months, and it seems to be a dead sure thing thatshe poisoned her husband. That trial's going to make racy reading,especially if they bring in a verdict of guilty."

  The city editor looked interested.

  "Want to go down there, George?"

  "Well, do you know, I think it'll pay."

  "Let me see, this is the last day of the convention, isn't it? And Clarkcomes back from his vacation to-morrow. Well, if you think it's worthit, take a trip down there, and look the ground over, and give us aspecial article that we can use on the first day of the trial."

  "I'll do it," said George.

  * * * * *

  Speed looked at Brenton.

  "What would old Ferris say _now_, eh?"