She recalled also now having heard somewhere that it was a common characteristic of these poor creatures to have a passion for fast automobiling, to go on long rides, perhaps even without having the money to pay for them. That, too, confirmed the idea which she had.
As the night advanced she determined to stick to her post. What could it have been that Drummond was doing? It was no good, she felt positive.
Suddenly before her eye, glued to its eavesdropping aperture, she saw a strange sight. There was a violent commotion in the store. Blue-coated policemen seemed to swarm in from nowhere. And in the rear, directing them, appeared Drummond, holding by the arm the unfortunate Sleighbells, quaking with fear, evidently having been picked up already elsewhere by the wily detective.
Muller put up a stout resistance, but the officers easily seized him and, after a hasty but thorough search, unearthed his cache of the contraband drug.
As the scene unfolded, Constance was more and more bewildered after having witnessed that which preceded it, the signing of the letter and the passing of the money. Muller evidently had nothing to say about that. What did it mean?
The police were still holding Muller, and Constance had not noted that Drummond had disappeared.
‘It’s on the first floor – left, men,’ sounded a familiar voice outside her own door. ‘I know she’s there. My shadow saw her buy the dope and take it home.’
Her heart was thumping wildly. It was Drummond leading his squad of raiders, and they were about to enter the apartment of Adele. They knocked, but there was no answer.
A few moments before Constance would have felt perfectly safe in saying that Adele was out. But if Drummond’s man had seen her enter, might she not have been there all the time, be there still, in a stupor? She dreaded to think of what might happen if the poor girl once fell into their hands. It would be the final impulse that would complete her ruin.
Constance did not stop to reason it out. Her woman’s intuition told her that now was the time to act – that there was no retreat.
She opened her own door just as the raiders had forced in the flimsy affair that guarded the apartment of Adele.
‘So!’ sneered Drummond, catching sight of her in the dim light of the hallway. ‘You are mixed up in these violations of the new drug law, too!’
Constance said nothing. She had determined first to make Drummond display his hand.
‘Well,’ he ground out, ‘I’m going to get these people this time. I represent the Medical Society and the Board of Health. These men have been assigned to me by the Commissioner as a dope squad. We want this girl. We have others who will give evidence; but we want this one, too.’
He said it with a bluster that even exaggerated the theatrical character of the raid itself. Constance did not stop to weigh the value of his words, but through the door she brushed quickly. Adele might need her if she was indeed there.
As she entered the little living-room she saw a sight which almost transfixed her. Adele was there – lying across a divan, motionless.
Constance bent over. Adele was cold. As far as she could determine there was not a breath or a heartbeat!
What did it mean? She did not stop to think. Instantly there flashed over her the recollection of an instrument she had read about at one of the city hospitals. It might save Adele. Before anyone knew what she was doing she had darted to the telephone in the lower hall of the apartment and had called up the hospital frantically, imploring them to hurry. Adele must be saved.
Constance had no very clear idea of what happened next in the hurly-burly of events, until the ambulance pulled up at the door and the white-coated surgeon burst in carrying a heavy suitcase.
With one look at the unfortunate girl he muttered, ‘Paralysis of the respiratory organs – too large a dose of the drug. You did perfectly right,’ and began unpacking the case.
Constance, calm now in the crisis, stood by him and helped as deftly as could any nurse.
It was a curious arrangement of tubes and valves, with a large rubber bag, and a little pump that the doctor had brought. Quickly he placed a cap, attached to it, over the nose and mouth of the poor girl, and started the machine.
‘Wh-what is it?’ gasped Drummond as he saw Adele’s hitherto motionless breast now rise and fall.
‘A pulmotor,’ replied the doctor, working quickly and carefully, ‘an artificial lung. Sometimes it can revive even the medically dead. It is our last chance with this girl.’
Constance had picked up the packet which had fallen beside Adele and was looking at the white powder.
‘Almost pure cocaine,’ remarked the young surgeon, testing it. ‘The hydrochloride, large crystals, highest quality. Usually it is adulterated. Was she in the habit of taking it this way?’
Constance said nothing. She had seen Muller make up the packet – specially now, she recalled. Instead of the adulterated dope he had given Adele the purest kind. Why? Was there some secret he wished to lock in her breast forever?
Mechanically the pulmotor pumped. Would it save her?
Constance was living over what she had already seen through the detectascope. Suddenly she thought of the strange letter and of the money.
She hurried into the drug store. Muller had already been taken away, but before the officer left in charge could interfere she picked up the carbon sheet on which the letter had been copied, turned it over and held it eagerly to the light.
She read in amazement. It was a confession. In it Muller admitted to Dr Moreland Price that he was the head of a sort of dope trust, that he had messengers out, like Sleighbells, that he had often put dope in the prescriptions sent him by the doctor, and had repeatedly violated the law and refilled such prescriptions. On its face it was complete and convincing.
Yet it did not satisfy Constance. She could not believe that Adele had committed suicide. Adele must possess some secret. What was it?
‘Is – is there any change?’ she asked anxiously of the young surgeon now engrossed in his work.
For answer he merely nodded to the apparently motionless form on the bed, and for a moment stopped the pulmotor.
The mechanical movement of the body ceased. But in its place was a slight tremor about the lips and mouth.
Adele moved – was faintly gasping for breath!
‘Adele!’ cried Constance softly in her ear. ‘Adele!’
Something, perhaps a faraway answer of recognition, seemed to flicker over her face. The doctor redoubled his efforts.
‘Adele – do you know me?’ whispered Constance again.
‘Yes,’ came back faintly at last. ‘There – there’s something – wrong with it – they – they –’
‘How? What do you mean?’ urged Constance. ‘Tell me, Adele.’
The girl moved uneasily. The doctor administered a stimulant and she vaguely opened her eyes, began to talk hazily, dreamily. Constance bent over to catch the faint words which would have been lost to the others.
‘They – are going to – double cross the Health Department,’ she murmured as if to herself, then gathering strength she went on, ‘Muller and Sleighbells will be arrested and take the penalty. They have been caught with the goods, anyhow. It has all been arranged so that the detective will get his case. Money – will be paid to both of them, to Muller and the detective, to swing the case and protect him. He made me do it. I saw the detective, even danced with him and he agreed to do it. Oh, I would do anything – I am his willing tool when I have the stuff. But – this time – it was –’ She rambled off incoherently.
‘Who made you do it? Who told you?’ prompted Constance. ‘For whom would you do anything?’
Adele moaned and clutched Constance’s hand convulsively. Constance did not pause to consider the ethics of questioning a half-unconscious girl. Her only idea was to get at the truth.
‘Who was it?’ she reit
erated.
Adele turned weakly.
‘Dr Price,’ she murmured as Constance bent her ear to catch even the faintest sound. ‘He told me – all about it – last night – in the car.’
Instantly Constance understood. Adele was the only one outside who held the secret, who could upset the carefully planned frame-up that was to protect the real head of the dope trust, who had paid liberally to save his own wretched skin.
She rose quickly and wheeled about suddenly on Drummond.
‘You will convict Dr Price also,’ she said in a low tone. ‘This girl must not be dragged down, too. You will leave her alone, and both you and Mr Muller will hand over that money to her for her cure of the habit.’
Drummond started forward angrily, but fell back as Constance added in a lower but firmer tone, ‘Or I’ll have you all up on a charge of attempting murder.’
Drummond turned surlily to those of his ‘dope squad’ who remained:
‘You can go, boys,’ he said brusquely. ‘There’s been some mistake here.’
SARAH FAIRBANKS
Created by Mary E Wilkins (1852-1930)
Born in Massachusetts, Mary Wilkins began her career writing for children when she was no more than a teenager herself. After the death of both her parents, she needed to find new ways to support herself and turned to producing short stories and longer fiction for an adult readership. Her tales of New England, often of marginalised characters struggling with the frustrations and constraints of their lives, were collected in volumes such as A Humble Romance and A New England Nun and won her much praise, although today she is probably better known for her stories of ghosts and the supernatural. ‘Luella Miller’, the story of a metaphorical vampire leeching the life force out of her victims, and ‘The Shadows on the Wall’, in which a spirit finds an original way of haunting its former home, make regular appearances in anthologies. ‘The Long Arm’ was first published in Pocket Magazine in 1895 and later appeared in a collection of four detective stories by four different authors. Mary E Wilkins was not, however, a crime writer in any sense and Sarah Fairbanks is not a detective in the same way that most of the other characters in this book are. She is a woman suspected of a crime who is obliged to turn sleuth in order to clear her name. Disappointingly, she is unable to do so without male assistance in the shape of the professional detective Francis Dix but none the less she is a strong, determined character who refuses to submit meekly to fate. ‘The Long Arm’, which has been described as ‘a typical Wilkins story plus a murder’, is also interesting in its depiction of what is implicitly a lesbian relationship, unusual in a work of fiction from that period.
THE LONG ARM
(From notes written by Miss Sarah Fairbanks immediately after the report of the Grand Jury.)
As I take my pen to write this, I have a feeling that I am in the witness-box – for, or against myself, which? The place of the criminal in the dock I will not voluntarily take. I will affirm neither my innocence nor my guilt. I will present the facts of the case as impartially and as coolly as if I had nothing at stake. I will let all who read this judge me as they will.
This I am bound to do, since I am condemned to something infinitely worse than the life-cell or the gallows. I will try my own self in lieu of judge and jury; my guilt or my innocence I will prove to you all, if it be in mortal power. In my despair I am tempted to say, I care not which it may be, so something be proved. Open condemnation could not overwhelm me like universal suspicion.
Now, first, as I have heard is the custom in the courts of law, I will present the case. I am Sarah Fairbanks, a country school teacher, twenty-nine years of age. My mother died when I was twenty-three. Since then, while I have been teaching at Digby, a cousin of my father’s, Rufus Bennett, and his wife have lived with my father. During the long summer vacation they returned to their little farm in Vermont, and I kept house for my father.
For five years I have been engaged to be married to Henry Ellis, a young man whom I met in Digby. My father was very much opposed to the match, and has told me repeatedly that if I insisted upon marrying him in his lifetime he would disinherit me. On this account Henry never visited me at my own home; while I could not bring myself to break off my engagement. Finally, I wished to avoid an open rupture with my father. He was quite an old man, and I was the only one he had left of a large family.
I believe that parents should honour their children, as well as children their parents; but I had arrived at this conclusion: in nine-tenths of the cases wherein children marry against their parents’ wishes, even when the parents have no just grounds for opposition, the marriages are unhappy.
I sometimes felt that I was unjust to Henry, and resolved that, if ever I suspected that his fancy turned toward any other girl, I would not hinder it, especially as I was getting older and, I thought, losing my good looks.
A little while ago, a young and pretty girl came to Digby to teach the school in the south district. She boarded in the same house with Henry. I heard that he was somewhat attentive to her, and I made up my mind I would not interfere. At the same time it seemed to me that my heart was breaking. I heard her people had money, too, and she was an only child. I had always felt that Henry ought to marry a wife with money, because he had nothing himself, and was not very strong.
School closed five weeks ago, and I came home for the summer vacation. The night before I left, Henry came to see me, and urged me to marry him. I refused again; but I never before had felt that my father was so hard and cruel as I did that night. Henry said that he should certainly see me during the vacation, and when I replied that he must not come, he was angry, and said – but such foolish things are not worth repeating. Henry has really a very sweet temper, and would not hurt a fly.
The very night of my return home, Rufus Bennett and my father had words about some maple sugar which Rufus made on his Vermont farm and sold to father, who made a good trade for it to some people in Boston. That was father’s business. He had once kept a store, but had given it up, and sold a few articles that he could make a large profit on here and there at wholesale. He used to send to New Hampshire and Vermont for butter, eggs, and cheese. Cousin Rufus thought father did not allow him enough profit on the maple sugar, and in the dispute father lost his temper, and said that Rufus had given him underweight. At that, Rufus swore an oath, and seized father by the throat. Rufus’s wife screamed, ‘Oh, don’t! don’t! oh, he’ll kill him!’
I went up to Rufus and took hold of his arm.
‘Rufus Bennett,’ said I, ‘you let go my father!’
But Rufus’s eyes glared like a madman’s, and he would not let go. Then I went to the desk-drawer where father had kept a pistol since some houses in the village were broken into; I got out the pistol, laid hold of Rufus again, and held the muzzle against his forehead.
‘You let go of my father,’ said I, ‘or I’ll fire!’
Then Rufus let go, and father dropped like a log. He was purple in the face. Rufus’s wife and I worked a long time over him to bring him to.
‘Rufus Bennett,’ said I, ‘go to the well and get a pitcher of water.’ He went, but when father had revived and got up, Rufus gave him a look that showed he was not over his rage.
‘I’ll get even with you yet, Martin Fairbanks, old man as you are!’ he shouted out, and went into the outer room.
We got father to bed soon. He slept in the bedroom downstairs, out of the sitting-room. Rufus and his wife had the north chamber, and I had the south one. I left my door open that night, and did not sleep. I listened; no one stirred in the night. Rufus and his wife were up very early in the morning, and before nine o’clock left for Vermont. They had a day’s journey, and would reach home about nine in the evening. Rufus’s wife bade father goodbye, crying, while Rufus was getting their trunk downstairs, but Rufus did not go near father nor me. He ate no breakfast; his very back looked ugly when he went out of the
yard.
That very day about seven in the evening, after tea, I had just washed the dishes and put them away, and went out on the north doorstep, where father was sitting, and sat down on the lowest step. There was a cool breeze there; it had been a very hot day.
‘I want to know if that Ellis fellow has been to see you any lately?’ said father all at once.
‘Not a great deal,’ I answered.
‘Did he come to see you the last night you were there?’ said father.
‘Yes, sir,’ said I, ‘he did come.’
‘If you ever have another word to say to that fellow while I live, I’ll kick you out of the house like a dog, daughter of mine though you be,’ said he. Then he swore a great oath and called God to witness. ‘Speak to that fellow again, if you dare, while I live!’ said he.
I did not say a word; I just looked up at him as I sat there. Father turned pale and shrank back, and put his hand to his throat, where Rufus had clutched him. There were some purple fingermarks there.
‘I suppose you would have been glad if he had killed me,’ father cried out.
‘I saved your life,’ said I.
‘What did you do with that pistol?’ he asked.
‘I put it back in the desk-drawer.’
I got up and went around and sat on the west doorstep, which is the front one. As I sat there, the bell rang for the Tuesday evening meeting, and Phoebe Dole and Maria Woods, two old maiden ladies, dressmakers, our next-door neighbours, went past on their way to meeting. Phoebe stopped and asked if Rufus and his wife were gone. Maria went around the house. Very soon they went on, and several other people passed. When they had all gone, it was as still as death.
I sat alone a long time, until I could see by the shadows that the full moon had risen. Then I went to my room and went to bed.
I lay awake a long time, crying. It seemed to me that all hope of marriage between Henry and me was over. I could not expect him to wait for me. I thought of that other girl; I could see her pretty face wherever I looked. But at last I cried myself to sleep.
Sherlock's Sisters Page 12
