The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century

by Otto Penzler (ed)

“Oh,” she gasped out finally, “I knew, I knew! I told Phoebe—I knew just how it would be. I—knew!”

  I roused myself at that. “What do you mean?” said I.

  “When Phoebe came home Tuesday night and said she heard your father and Rufus Bennett having words, I knew how it would be,” she choked out. “I knew he had a dreadful temper.”

  “Did Phoebe Dole know Tuesday night that father and Rufus Bennett had words?” said I.

  “Yes,” said Maria Woods.

  “How did she know?”

  “She was going through your yard, the short cut to Mrs. Ormsby’s, to carry her brown alpaca dress home. She came right home and told me; and she overheard them.”

  “Have you spoken of it to anybody but me?” said I.

  Maria said she didn’t know; she might have done so. Then she remembered Phoebe herself speaking of it to Harriet Sargent when she came in to try on her dress. It was easy to see how people knew about it.

  I did not say any more, but I thought it was strange that Phoebe Dole had asked me if father had had words with anybody when she knew it all the time.

  Phoebe came in before long. I tried on my dress, and she made her plan about the alterations and the trimming. I made no suggestions. I did not care how it was done, but if I had cared, it would have made no difference. Phoebe always does things her own way. All the women in this village are in a manner under Phoebe Dole’s thumb. Their garments are visible proofs of her force of will.

  While she was taking up my black silk on the shoulder seams, Phoebe Dole said: “Let me see—you had a green silk dress made at Digby three summers ago, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well,” said she, “why don’t you have it dyed black? those thin silks dye real nice. It would make you a good dress.”

  I scarcely replied, and then she offered to dye it for me herself. She had a recipe, which she had used with great success. I thought it very kind of her, but did not say whether I would accept her offer or not. I could not fix my mind upon anything but the awful trouble I was in.

  “I’ll come over and get it to-morrow morning,” said Phoebe.

  I thanked her. I thought of the stains, and then my mind seemed to wander away again to the one subject.

  All the time Maria Woods sat weeping. Finally Phoebe turned to her with impatience. “If you can’t keep calmer, you’d better go upstairs, Maria,” said she. “You’ll make Sarah sick. Look at her! She doesn’t give way—and think of the reason she’s got.”

  “I’ve got reason, too,” Maria broke out; then, with a piteous shriek: “Oh, I’ve got reason!”

  “Maria Woods, go out of the room!” said Phoebe. Her sharpness made me jump, half dazed as I was.

  Maria got up without a word and went out of the room, bending almost double with convulsive sobs.

  “She’s been dreadful worked up over your father’s death,” said Phoebe calmly, going on with the fitting. “She’s terribly nervous. Sometimes I have to be real sharp with her, for her own good.”

  I nodded. Maria Woods has always been considered a sweet, weakly, dependent woman, and Phoebe Dole is undoubtedly very fond of her. She has seemed to shield her and take care of her nearly all her life. The two have lived together since they were young girls.

  Phoebe is tall and very pale and thin; but she never had a day’s illness. She is plain, yet there is a kind of severe goodness and faithfulness about her colorless face, with the smooth bands of white hair over her ears.

  I went home as soon as my dress was fitted. That evening Henry Ellis came over to see me. I do not need to go into details concerning that visit. It is enough to say that he tendered the fullest sympathy and protection, and I accepted them. I cried a little, for the first time, and he soothed and comforted me.

  Henry had driven over from Digby and tied his horse in the yard. At ten o’clock he bade me good-night on the doorstep, and was just turning his buggy around when Mrs. Adams came running to the door.

  “Is this yours?” said she, and she held out a knot of yellow ribbon.

  “Why, that’s the ribbon you have around your whip, Henry,” said I.

  He looked at it. “So it is,” he said. “I must have dropped it.” He put it into his pocket and drove away.

  “He didn’t drop that ribbon to-night!” said Mrs. Adams. “I found it Wednesday morning, out in the yard. I thought I remembered seeing him have a yellow ribbon on his whip.”

  CHAPTER III: SUSPICION IS NOT PROOF

  WHEN MRS. ADAMS told me that she had picked up Henry’s whip ribbon Wednesday morning, I said nothing, but thought that Henry must have driven over Tuesday evening after all, and even come up into the yard, although the house was shut up and I in bed, to get a little nearer to me. I felt conscience-stricken because I could not help a thrill of happiness, when my father lay dead in the house.

  My father was buried as privately and quietly as we could bring it about. But it was a terrible ordeal. Meantime word came from Vermont that Rufus Bennett had been arrested on his farm. He was perfectly willing to come back with the officers, and, indeed, had not the slightest trouble in proving that he was at his home in Vermont when the murder took place. He proved by several witnesses that he was out of the state long before my father and I sat on the step together that evening, and that he proceeded directly to his home as fast as the train and stagecoach could carry him.

  The screwdriver with which the deed was supposed to have been committed was found, by the neighbor from whom it had been borrowed, in his wife’s bureau drawer. It had been returned, and she had used it to put up a picture-hook in her chamber. Bennett was discharged, and returned to Vermont.

  Then Mrs. Adams told of her finding the yellow ribbon from Henry Ellis’s whip, and he was arrested, since he was held to have a motive for putting my father out of the world. Father’s opposition to our marriage was well known, and Henry was suspected also of having had an eye to his money. It was found, indeed, that my father had more money than I had known myself.

  Henry owned to having driven into our yard that night, and to having missed the ribbon from his whip on his return; but one of the hostlers in the livery stable in Digby, where he kept his horse and buggy, came forward and testified to finding the yellow ribbon in the carriage-room that Tuesday night before Henry returned from his drive. There were two yellow ribbons in evidence, therefore, and the one produced by the hostler seemed to fit Henry’s whipstock the more exactly.

  Moreover, nearly the exact minute of the murder was claimed to be proved by the post-mortem examination; and by the testimony of the stableman as to the hour of Henry’s return and the speed of his horse he was further cleared of suspicion; for, if the opinion of the medical experts was correct, Henry must have returned to the livery stable too soon to have committed the murder.

  He was discharged, at any rate, although suspicion still clung to him. Many people believe now in his guilt—those who do not, believe in mine; and some believe we were accomplices.

  After Henry’s discharge I was arrested. There was no one else left to accuse. There must be a motive for the murder; I was the only person left with a motive. Unlike the others, who were discharged after a preliminary examination, I was held to the grand jury and taken to Dedham, where I spent four weeks in jail, awaiting the meeting of the grand jury.

  Neither at the preliminary examination nor before the grand jury was I allowed to make the full and frank statement that I am making here. I was told simply to answer the questions that were put to me, and to volunteer nothing, and I obeyed.

  I know nothing about law. I wished to do the best I could—to act in the wisest manner, for Henry’s sake and my own. I said nothing about the green silk dress. They searched the house for all manner of things, at the time of my arrest, but the dress was not there—it was in Phoebe Dole’s dye-kettle. She had come over after it herself one day when I was picking beans in the garden, and had taken it out of the closet. She brought it back herself a
nd told me this, after I had returned from Dedham.

  “I thought I’d get it and surprise you,” said she. “It’s taken a beautiful black.”

  She gave me a strange look: half as if she would see into my very soul, in spite of me, half as if she were in terror of what she would see there, as she spoke. I do not know just what Phoebe Dole’s look meant. There may have been a stain left on that dress after all, and she may have seen it.

  I suppose if it had not been for that flour paste which I had learned to make, I should have been hung for the murder of my father. As it was, the grand jury found no bill against me, because there was absolutely no evidence to convict me; and I came home a free woman. And if people were condemned for their motives, would there be enough hangmen in the world?

  They found no weapon with which I could have done the deed. They found no blood-stains on my clothes. The one thing which told against me, aside from my ever-present motive, was the fact that on that morning after the murder the doors and windows were fastened. My volunteering that information had, of course, weakened its force as against myself.

  Then, too, some held that I might have been mistaken in my terror and excitement, and there was a theory, advanced by a few, that the murderer had meditated making me also a victim, and had locked the doors that he might not be frustrated in his designs, but had lost heart at the last and allowed me to escape, and then fled himself. Some held that he had intended to force me to reveal the whereabouts of father’s money, but his courage had failed him.

  Father had quite a sum in a hiding place which only he and I knew. But no search for money had been made, so far as anyone could see—not a bureau drawer had been disturbed, and father’s gold watch was ticking peacefully under his pillow; even his wallet in his vest pocket had not been opened. There was a small roll of banknotes in it, and some change; father never carried much money. I suppose if father’s wallet and watch had been taken, I should not have been suspected at all.

  I was discharged, as I have said, from lack of evidence, and have returned to my home, free, indeed, but with this awful burden of suspicion upon my shoulders. That brings me up to the present day. I returned yesterday evening. This evening Henry Ellis has been over to see me; he will not come again, for I have forbidden him to do so. This is what I said to him:

  “I know you are innocent, you know I am innocent. To all the world we are under suspicion—I more than you, but we are both under suspicion. If we are known to be together, that suspicion is increased for both of us. I do not care for myself, but I do care for you. Separated from me, the stigma attached to you will soon fade away, especially if you should marry elsewhere.”

  Then Henry interrupted me. “I will never marry elsewhere!” said he.

  I could not help being glad that he said it, but I was firm.

  “If you should see some good woman whom you can love, it will be better for you to marry elsewhere,” said I.

  “I never will!” he said again. He put his arms around me, but I had strength to push him away.

  “You never need, if I succeed in what I undertake before you meet the other,” said I. I began to think he had not cared for that pretty girl who boarded in the same house after all.

  “What is that?” he said. “What are you going to undertake?”

  “To find my father’s murderer,” said I.

  Henry gave me a strange look; then, before I could stop him, he took me fast in his arms and kissed my forehead.

  “As God is my witness, Sarah, I believe in your innocence,” he said. And from that minute I have felt sustained and fully confident of my power to do what I have undertaken.

  My father’s murderer I will find. To-morrow I begin my search. I shall first make an exhaustive examination of the house, such as no officer in the case has yet made, in the hope of finding a clue. Every room I propose to divide into square yards, by line and measure, and every one of those square yards I will study as if it were a problem in algebra.

  I have a theory that it is impossible for any human being to enter any house and commit in it a deed of this kind and not leave behind traces which are the known quantities in an algebraic equation to those who can use them.

  There is a chance that I shall not be quite unaided. Henry has promised not to come again until I bid him, but he is to send a detective here from Boston—one whom he knows. In fact, the man is a cousin of his, or else there would be small hope of our securing him, even if I were to offer him a large price.

  The man has been remarkably successful in several cases, but his health is not good; the work is a severe strain upon his nerves, and he is not driven to it by any lack of money. The physicians had forbidden him to undertake any new case, for a year at least, but Henry is confident that we may rely upon him for this.

  I will now lay this aside and go to bed. To-morrow is Wednesday; my father will have been dead seven weeks. To-morrow morning I commence the work, in which, if it be in human power, aided by a higher wisdom, I shall succeed.

  CHAPTER IV: THE BOX OF CLUES

  (The pages which follow are from Miss Fairbanks’s journal, begun after the conclusion of the notes already given to the reader.)

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT.—I have resolved to record carefully each day the progress I make in my examination of the house. I began to-day at the bottom—that is, with the room least likely to contain any clue, the parlor. I took a chalk line and a yard stick, and divided the floor into square yards, and every one of these squares I examined on my hands and knees. I found in this way literally nothing on the carpet but dust, lint, two common white pins, and three inches of blue sewing silk.

  At last I got the dust-pan and brush, and yard by yard swept the floor. I took the sweepings in a white pasteboard box out into the yard in the strong sunlight, and examined them. There was nothing but dust and lint and five inches of brown woolen thread—evidently a raveling from some dress material. The blue silk and the brown thread are the only possible clues which I have found to-day, and they are hardly possible. Rufus’s wife can probably account for them. I have written to her about them.

  Nobody has come to the house all day. I went down to the store this afternoon to get some necessary provisions, and people stopped talking when I came in. The clerk took my money as if it were poison.

  Thursday night.—To-day I have searched the sitting room, out of which my father’s bedroom opens. I found two bloody footprints on the carpet which no one had noticed before—perhaps because the carpet itself is red and white. I used a microscope which I had in my school work. The footprints, which are close to the bedroom door, pointing out into the sitting room, are both from the right foot; one is brighter than the other, but both are faint. The foot was evidently either bare or clad only in a stocking—the prints are so widely spread. They are wider than my father’s shoes. I tried one in the brightest print.

  I found nothing else new in the sitting room. The blood-stains on the doors, which have been already noted, are still there. They had not been washed away, first by order of the sheriff, and next by mine. These stains are of two kinds; one looks as if made by a bloody garment brushing against it; the other, I should say, was made in the first place by the grasp of a bloody hand, and then brushed over with a cloth. There are none of these marks upon the door leading into the front entry and the china closet. The china closet is really a pantry, although I use it only for my best dishes and preserves.

  Friday night.—To-day I searched the closet. One of the shelves, which is about as high as my shoulders, was blood-stained. It looked to me as if the murderer might have caught hold of it to steady himself. Did he turn faint, after his dreadful deed? Some tumblers of jelly were ranged on that shelf and they had not been disturbed. There was only that bloody clutch on the edge.

  I found on this closet floor, under the shelves, as if it had been rolled there by a careless foot, a button, evidently from a man’s clothing. It is an ordinary black enameled metal trousers button; it had evidently been wo
rn off and clumsily sewn on again, for a quantity of stout white thread is still clinging to it. This button must have belonged either to a single man or to one with an idle wife.

  If one black button has been sewn on with white thread, another is likely to be. I may be wrong, but I regard this button as a clue.

  The pantry was thoroughly swept—cleaned, indeed, by Rufus’s wife the day before she left. Neither my father nor Rufus could have dropped it there, and they never had occasion to go to the closet. The murderer dropped the button.

  I have a white pasteboard box which I have marked, “Clues.” In it I have put the button.

  This afternoon Phoebe Dole came in. She is very kind. She has recut the dyed silk, and she fitted it to me. Her great shears, clicking in my ears, made me nervous. I did not feel like stopping to think about clothes. I hope I did not appear ungrateful, for she is the only soul besides Henry who has treated me as before this happened.

  Phoebe asked me what I found to busy myself about, and I replied, “I am searching for my father’s murderer.” She asked me if I thought I should find a clue, and I replied, “I think so.” I had found the button then, but I did not speak of it. She said Maria was not very well.

  I saw her eyeing the stains on the doors, and I said I had not washed them off, for I thought they might yet serve a purpose in detecting the murderer. She looked at those on the entry door—the brightest ones—and said she did not see how they could help, for there were no plain finger-marks there, and she should think they would make me nervous.

  “I’m beyond being nervous,” said I.

  Saturday.—To-day I have found something which I cannot understand. I have been at work in the room where my father came to his dreadful end. Of course some of the most startling evidences have been removed. The bed is clean, and the carpet washed, but the worst horror of it all clings to that room. The spirit of murder seems to haunt it. It seemed to me at first that I could not enter that room, but in it I made a strange discovery.