The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century

by Penzler, Otto

  “Arrest her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suppose she doesn’t squeal?”

  “Then I’ll search the ship anyway. That is, that was my plan. Of course, since you are here I put the whole matter in your hands.”

  “I don’t see how you could do better than carry out your design. You can’t lose anything by it. If the woman is straight she can help you. If she isn’t, you’ll search the vessel, and that’s all you could have done in any case.”

  “That was my idea.”

  “Isn’t it nearly time the woman appeared?”

  “I should say so. Ah, there she is!”

  He directed Nick’s attention to a young and stylishly dressed woman who had just come to the rail above the gangway.

  The woman put her hand to the right side of her head with a somewhat peculiar movement.

  “That’s the signal,” said the officer. “It means that she is in doubt.”

  “Then let’s go aboard and talk with her.”

  “Can this be a plan to get me out of the way while the fellow slips aboard?”

  “I think not, but at any rate, we’ll balk it. You go on the upper deck where she is, and I’ll wait here. When you get there, you’ll command the gangway. Then I’ll join you.”

  “Good.”

  In a couple of minutes the officer appeared beside the woman.

  Nick then left his post and proceeded at once to the upper deck.

  “Miss Laselle,” said the officer, “this gentleman is Mr. Nick Carter, the famous detective. He is now in charge of the case.”

  “I am glad to see you, Mr. Carter,” said the woman, speaking with a slight French accent. “You will not let this man escape me.”

  “No danger of that,” said Nick.

  “She is afraid that he is aboard, although she has found no trace of him,” said the headquarters officer.

  “Why do you believe him to be here?” asked Nick.

  “Because I am sure that he had planned to sail on this steamer.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  “She has suggested a plan which looks to me good,” said the police officer. “She proposes to sail on the steamer if I can furnish the necessary funds.

  “She believes that Martel is here, and she is sure that she can spot him before voyage is over. Of course we shall cable to have the vessel searched on the other side, and she can point out the man to the French police.”

  “A shrewd scheme,” said Nick.

  “There is an assistant steward aboard,” said the woman, “who was a friend to Martel. His manner when I questioned him confirmed my suspicion that Martel is hidden on the vessel.”

  “And if the money is furnished you, you will take the voyage?” said Nick.

  “Yes, gladly. Do you approve of the plan?”

  “No,” said Nick slowly; “I do not. Martel will not sail on this steamer. Come; the lines will be cast off in another minute. We must go ashore.”

  “And abandon the pursuit?” exclaimed Miss Laselle.

  “No; far from it. We will go and put Martel behind the bars.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that this farce is played out. Alphonse Martel, you are my prisoner!”

  Miss Laselle turned deadly pale. The man from headquarters uttered a cry of astonishment.

  “There’s no doubt about it,” said Nick. “He makes a very pretty woman, but he opens his mouth too wide when he talks. He shows that peculiar gold filling in his eyetooth.”

  “Caught, for a thousand dollars to a doughnut!” exclaimed the police officer.

  Martel collapsed.

  “Of what am I accused?” he stammered. “Who brings a charge against me?”

  “Dr. Keane is your accuser,” said Nick.

  “Those jewels?”

  “Oh, no; a much graver crime.”

  Every trace of color left Martel’s face. Even his lips looked white.

  “Do you admit your guilt?” asked Nick.

  “What is the use of denying it?” said Martel, almost in a whisper. “I am guilty.”

  CHAPTER IV: NO REFUGE BUT THE GRAVE

  “TAKE HIM TO headquarters,” said Nick to the officer.

  “What is the exact charge?” whispered the other in Nick’s ear.

  “Murder!” returned Nick in the same tone.

  The officer was amazed.

  “Question him on your way to headquarters,” whispered Nick, “concerning the murder of Mrs. Keane by prussic acid poisoning. Let me know what he says about it.”

  “He has already admitted his guilt.”

  “True, but I wish to know the details. I am going to Keane’s house now.”

  Martel had been in a sort of stupor from which he was aroused by the heavy hand of the officer on his shoulder.

  The prisoner made no resistance.

  Nick hurried away from the pier. He was anxious to return to Dr. Keane’s house as soon as possible. There was one point which needed explanation. Why had not Patsy appeared?

  It was possible, of course, that Dr. Keane, in his agitation, had not delivered Nick’s message aright.

  Yet Nick wondered that Chick had not sent Patsy in any case.

  It was a little after seven o’clock when Nick reached Dr. Keane’s house.

  All was quiet. He noted the heavy curtains at the windows of Mrs. Keane’s room, and he wondered that Chick had not let in more light.

  He rang the bell, and there was no answer. Again he tried, but without success.

  Could the house be empty? There was every indication that only the corpse was within.

  In a second Nick had picked the lock.

  Coming from the dazzling daylight into the dim hall, Nick was blinded for a few seconds.

  Then he saw clearly, and the sight that met his eyes was the first of the complete surprises in this case.

  On the lower steps of the stairway leading to the floor above was the body of Dr. Keane.

  His face was sunken, white and ghastly.

  A surprising quantity of blood was gathered in a pool at the dead man’s feet.

  By his side, on the step, was a shining implement of surgery.

  Nick examined the body, to make sure that the man was quite dead. There was no doubt of that.

  He had opened the carotid artery.

  As Nick rose from the dead man’s side, he heard a noise of wheels without.

  A carriage had dashed up to the curb.

  Opening the door, Nick admitted a policeman in uniform, who announced at once that he came with a hurried message from the officer whom Nick had left in charge of Martel.

  “The man denies all knowledge of the murder,” said the policeman. Garrison, the Central Office man, picked me up on the street and sent me to you.

  “He says you ought to know Martel’s story at once. It seems that Martel admits having robbed Keane by forgery. He drew the doctor’s balance from two banks.

  “But as to the murder, he professes absolute ignorance. He accuses Keane of the deed, and says that he knows that Mrs. Keane was insured for a large amount in her husband’s favor.

  “Garrison believes that Martel speaks the truth. He told me to put myself under your orders. If you desire it, Garrison will bring Martel up here, so that you can question him.”

  “It won’t be necessary,” said Nick. “There is the answer to all questions.”

  He pointed to the body of the suicide.

  There was a piece of paper on the stairs. It was a leaf torn from the doctor’s diary.

  On it was scrawled a dying message and confession.

  It was rambling and incoherent, but the story was this:

  Keane had killed his wife for the insurance money. She was the third victim of his deadly avarice. He had hired Martel as his assistant, knowing that the man was a criminal, and expecting to put the crime onto him. The jewelry had been stolen by the doctor himself in order to make his wife accuse Martel, and thus raise a presumption of resen
tment as a motive for the murder. There had been no money in the safe. That was another trick.

  Knowing that he was to be out all night with a patient, Dr. Keane had left the bottle of prussic acid by his wife’s bedside. On coming home he had found her dead, as he had expected.

  And then, as he wrote, for the first time in his wicked life, remorse had overwhelmed him. Terror of discovery had shaken all his nerves.

  It was with the greatest possible effort that he carried out his plan of going to Nick’s house.

  Afterward the manner of the detective, and especially his closing words, had completed the wreck of Keane’s determination.

  He had not dared to summon Chick. He had not even dared to look again into his wife’s room.

  On the first occasion he had not dared approach her side. The blackened lips seemed to be moving in the utterance of curses upon him.

  And so, a prey to utter panic terror, he had taken his own life to cheat the law.

  “You said,” were the last words of the message, “that there was no refuge but the grave. I seek that refuge.”

  Nick read this terrible confession aloud, and even the policeman, hardened by the sight of many crimes, was nearly overcome by this.

  There was such dread in every word of that last writing; it gave so awful a picture of a life’s remorse concentrated into a few heartrending moments, that Nick was ready to declare it the most fearful cry of conscience which had ever come to him.

  The thought of this wretched old man who had bartered his soul for money, and dared not wait for the miserable pay, alone with the dead in that house, and seeking the last refuge of the hunted criminal, was infinitely terrible.

  Nick drew a long breath, and then with a firm step ascended the stairs.

  In the upper hall, as he turned, was a door to the right, which evidently led to Mrs. Keane’s apartment.

  Nick pushed it open. The policeman, trembling with excitement, looked over the detective’s shoulder.

  It was a pretty room, decked out with all the resources of feminine good taste.

  There were bright pictures and many little ornaments such as a woman loves to surround herself with.

  There was the bed in the corner, and the small table with its glasses and vials much disturbed.

  All these things came to Nick in a flash, but they were of small moment to the main purpose.

  In the bed, sitting up, and not stretched dead upon her pillow, was the golden-haired young wife of the physician.

  She had a glass raised to her lips, and Nick could see that the liquid within it was bubbling and seething.

  “Stop!” cried Nick, in horror. “It is poisoned!”

  He was too late. The beautiful head was already thrown back to drink off the potion. It passed her lips.

  She dropped the empty glass, and uttered a piercing scream.

  Never in all the great detective’s experience had he known such a moment as that.

  The whole case was clear to him in a flash.

  Dr. Keane’s fears had deceived him. He had returned expecting to find his wife dead, and had found her sleeping. He feared to examine more closely, for something in her attitude had suggested death, and he had leaped to the conclusion that the poison had done its work.

  And now, right under the eyes of the detective, the deadly draft had been drunk off. Could that be possible?

  The sickening vapor of the fatal acid could be perceived in the room, but not strongly.

  As Nick sprang toward the bed, his only hope was in that. Could there have been less of the acid than the doctor had supposed? Might the wronged wife still be saved?

  She lay perfectly still upon the pillows. Faintly about her lips could be seen a dark discoloration. Surely the acid had done its work.

  Nick was beside her in a moment. As he bent over her, he was surprised to see the dark stain disappear.

  And then he saw the cause.

  That stain was a shadow!

  The night lamp, still burning in the corner, cast the shadow of a vial on the table directly on her face.

  Nick had interrupted it, and the illusion had vanished.

  The woman was only fainting. The sight of two strangers invading her bedroom was enough to account for that.

  The detective seized the glass from which she had drunk. A strong aromatic odor was exhaled from it, but there was no suggestion of prussic acid.

  And yet the deadly vapor could be perceived in the room.

  Nick’s quick eye glanced at the table. He marked the disarray of the vials.

  One had fallen to the floor and was broken.

  He seized it. The odor of prussic acid was so strong upon it that it made Nick’s head throb with that peculiar terrible shock which those who know the infernal acid cannot fail to recognize.

  “It is as plain as day!” cried Nick, speaking aloud in the extremity of his joy. “In her sleep she upset the bottle with the poison.

  “It was spilled and gave forth the odor which Dr. Keane recognized. That and the shadow on her face and the terror of his guilty soul deceived him, so that he thought her dead.

  “She slept well. She had just awakened. Her head ached from the vapor in the room.

  “She looked for the medicine which she was accustomed to take to relieve a headache. She saw the broken vial.

  “But there was more of it in the closet. She secured it, and was just in the act of taking a harmless draft when we entered.”

  And so it proved. The young woman was quickly brought to her senses, and she subsequently confirmed, as far as possible, the theory Nick had formed.

  She had not wakened during the night. Her sleep had saved her life. She must have had a sort of nightmare, in which she had struck the table and broken some of the vials, the poison one, happily, among them.

  Her horror, when the truth was told to her, was intense, for she had really loved the wretched old man who had plotted to take her life.

  And this is the end of the story. The money which Martel had stolen was recovered and paid to Mrs. Keane.

  Martel was sentenced to a long term in prison, but he was not disposed to regard his fate as hard. He had escaped a much more serious charge which the old physician’s plot had nearly fastened upon him.

  1899

  ELLEN GLASGOW

  A Point in Morals

  The justly respected realism in the work of the noted southern writer ELLEN (ANDERSON GHOLSON) GLASGOW (1873–1945) is so believable that it takes a second thought to accept the notion that casual shipboard acquaintances would calmly discuss the life and death of a human being as if it had no more significance than the morality of stepping on an ant. This story is somewhat unusual for Glasgow as it has a varied cast of characters from different backgrounds. It is her portrayal of southern life, among both its aristocracy and its lower social levels, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between women and the men in their lives, that won Glasgow accolades in the 1920s and 1930s as one of the enduring leaders of the literary renaissance of the South. In 1940 she was awarded the Howells Medal for fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her 1942 novel, In This Our Life, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. While she is recognized as an important regional writer, her sophisticated ghost stories have been frequently anthologized and are much read today. “A Point in Morals” is a mystery that invites the reader to make some decisions. How many murderers are there in the story? And would you have done what the alienist (psychologist) did?

  Born in Richmond, Virginia, Glasgow was a rather frail child and dropped out of school at the age of nine, after which she taught herself by reading her father’s substantial library. She lived briefly in New York, where she began and then maintained a lengthy, long-distance affair with a married man (as recounted in her posthumous autobiography, The Woman Within, 1954), but soon returned to her birthplace, where she continued to live and write, very much in solitude, in an old gray stone house in the middle of the city.

  “
A Point in Morals” was first published in the May 1899 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 98; it was first collected in Glasgow’s short story collection The Shadowy Third and Other Stories (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1923).

  ***

  “THE QUESTION SEEMS to be—” began the Englishman. He looked up and bowed to a girl in a yachting-cap who had just come in from deck and was taking the seat beside him. “The question seems to be—” The girl was having some difficulty in removing her coat, and he turned to assist her.

  “In my opinion,” broke in a well-known alienist on his way to a convention in Vienna, “the question is simply whether or not civilization, in placing an exorbitant value upon human life, is defeating its own aims.” He leaned forward authoritatively, and spoke with a half-foreign precision of accent.

  “You mean that the survival of the fittest is checkmated,” remarked a young journalist traveling in the interest of a New York daily, “that civilization should practice artificial selection, as it were?”

  The alienist shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. “My dear sir,” he protested, “I don’t mean anything. It is the question that means something.”

  “Well, as I was saying,” began the Englishman again, reaching for the salt and upsetting a spoonful, “the question seems to be whether or not, under any circumstances, the saving of a human life may become positively immoral.”

  “Upon that point—” began the alienist; but a young lady in a pink blouse who was seated on the Captain’s right interrupted him.

  “How could it?” she asked. “At least I don’t see how it could; do you, Captain?”

  “There is no doubt,” remarked the journalist, looking up from a conversation he had drifted into with a lawyer from one of the Western States, “that the more humane spirit pervading modern civilization has not worked wholly for good in the development of the species. Probably, for instance, if we had followed the Spartan practice of exposing unhealthy infants, we should have retained something of the Spartan hardihood. Certainly if we had been content to remain barbarians both our digestions and our nerves would have been the better for it, and melancholia would perhaps have been unknown. But, at the same time, the loss of a number of the more heroic virtues is overbalanced by an increase of the softer ones. Notably, human life has never before been regarded so sacredly.”