The House of the Whispering Pines

hand

den and an i

th the crimson

bosom neve

otion of a mur

g J

when I could think

image with pity.” The next, “Will they find her wet clothes and discover that she was out la

tant knowledge of what was going on in the house where all my thoughts, my fears, and shall I say it, latent hopes were centred. To know Carmel ill and not to know how ill! To feel the threatening arm of the law hovering constantly over her head and neither to know the instant of its fall nor be given the least opportunity to divert it. To realise that some sma

them over the telephone; a wild cry, in a woman’s choked and tremulous voice: “Help at The Whispering Pines! Help!” That was all, or all they revealed to me. In their endeavour to find out whether or not I was present when this call was made, I learned the nature of their own suspicions. They believed that Adelaide in some moment of prevision had managed to reach the telephone and send out this messa

omething like spirit and a decent show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad taste for liquor which had led him away from home that night. Carmel was still ill, and likely to be so for many days to come. Her case was diagnosed as one of brain fever and of a most dangerous type. Doctors and nurses were busy at her bedside and little hope was held out of her being able to tell soon, if ever, what she knew of her sister’s departure from the house on tha

covery which might have acted as a clew to the suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been explained by the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner. Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the c

er the secret and forsaken spot where I later found them, the one dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a thoughtless frenzy as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the club-house door behind her. That she, on her return home, should have had sufficient presence of mind to toss t

ly morning, but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out in the snow since he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the stable-door at that time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where any one could get it. This was on account of Arthur, who, if he want

nly one who had a drop too much down-town,” was the dogged assertion with which he met all questions on this subject. “I wouldn’t give a snap of my finger for Zadok’s opinion on any subject, after five hou

le conditions. Of all the mysteries surrounding her dead presence in the club-house, the one which from the first had struck me as the most inexplicable was the manner of her reaching there. Now I could understand both that fact and how Carmel had succeeded in returning in safety to her home. She had ridden both ways — a theory which likewise explained how she came to wear a man’s derby and possibly a man’s overcoat. With her skirts cov

dy had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one young girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium, serve to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with this crime? There wa

rinciple or any display of selfishness in others. A little cold, a little reserved, a little lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole nature would rise at any evidence of meanness or ingratitude, and though she said little, you would feel her disapprobation through and through. She would even change physically. Naturally pallid and of small inconspicuous features, her eyes on these occasions would so flame and her whole figure so dilate that she looked like another woman. I have seen her brother, six feet in height and weighty for his years, cringe under her few quiet words at these times till she absolutely seemed the taller of the two. It was only in these moments she was handsome, and had I loved her, I should probably have admired this passionate purity, this intolerance of a

of my inner conflict, I had almost cried aloud the fierce denial which would arise at this thought. But ere the word could leave my lips, such a vision rose before me of a bewildering young face with wonderful eyes and a smile too innocent for guile and too loving for hypocrisy, that I forgot my late antagonistic feelings, forgot the claims of my dear, dead mother, and even those of my own

and it was as such he had now come. Cordial as our relations had been — though he was hardly one of my ilk — I noted no instinctive outstretching of his hand, and so did not reach out mine. Appearances had been too strong a

e first

tack made upon Miss Cumberland goes. I had no hand in her murder, if murder it is found out to be. My story which you have read in the papers and which I felt forced to give out, possibly to my own shame and that of another whom I would fain have s

aid. But I saw that I had made no impression on his convictions. He regarded me as a guilty man, and what

s of strangling fingers. I could not believe that she had been so killed and, led away by my doubts, I leaned over her and — You shall believe me, you must,” I insisted, as I perceived his hard gaze remain unsoftened. “I don’t ask it of the rest of the world. I hardly expect any one to give me credit for good impulses or even for speaking the plain truth after the discovery which has been made of my treacherous attitude towards these two virtuous an

te situation demanded. I, therefore, watched him with great anxiety for the least change in the constrained attitude and fixed, unpromising gaze with

nelagh. God help me to mak

! It was like a great rock in the weary desert. My sigh of relief bespoke my feelings and I longed to take his hand, but the moment had not

Then, you had not been long on the sc

ew minutes. I do not know how l

e time they received Miss Cumberland’s appeal for help and t

ents are hours at

onfusedly stopped. He was surveying me wi

ed those pillows from the couch? You are not a fanciful man, nor have you any cowardly instincts. Why were you in suc

never taken the trouble to measure my words and the whole truth being impossible, I necessarily must make a slip now and then. He had better be warned of this. I did not wish him to und

at I cannot promise. I am caught in a net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be frank with you. A common question may trip me up, others find me free and ready with my defence. Y

een. It would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to

means you have certain memories connected

ven an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so far as Adelaide’s death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis without fear. That is,

with a dogged rather than genial persistence. “But I should like to know what I am to wor

t the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that buildi

ing points so indisputably to your guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet yo

ed which part of this let

portion, leaving

hen all is done. Hesitation will only undo us. To-n

ressions of affection linked to Carmel’s name which ha

ed, the sister whom you profess to have urged to leave the town with you that very evening; and she can tell us nothing,— may die without ever being able to do so. Some shock to her feelings — you may know its character and you may not — drove her from a state of apparent health into the wildest delirium in a few hours. It was not your letter — if your story is true about that letter — or she would have shown its effect immediately upon receiving it; that is, in the early evening. And she did not. Helen, one of the maids, decl

t confusion of ideas. Carmel beaming and beautiful at an hour I had supposed her suffering and full of struggle! I could not reconcil

proceeded with his presentation of my

e an alibi in case it should be wanted. I do not believe any of this myself, not since accepting your assurance of innocence, but there are those who do believe it firmly and discern in the whole affair a cool and premeditated murder. Your passion for Carmel, while not generally known, has not passed unsuspected by your or her intimates; and this in itself is enough to give colour to these suspicions, even if you had not gone so far as to admit its power over you and the extremes to which you

arl

ught myself back in time. While Carmel lay ill and unconscious, I

rpose, “how do they account for the cordial that was drunk — the two e

the flask and glasses not come from her house, you would get no one to believe that she had had anythi

so; also by the presence of the third unused one. As I dwelt in thought on the latter

tentatively. “He seemed to consider it an important item, hiding some truth that would materi

out comment. It is a curious circumstance. I will make a no

on

a small one

er may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never dug those out of the cellar where the

from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland’s. That it was used to open the

myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from circumstances and my own instinct that no such planning had occurred. I was a victim, not of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of Providence? As to t

nceded, after I had gone thus far in my own mind.

their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one of them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the idea whi

hirsty that night,” I firmly decl

e, but being a cheerful fellow by nature, he simply e

the club-house’s wine-va

the steward the morning we c

that, didn’t you? Probably this inventory has

shoul

ld it! No thoroughfa

ome loop-hole of escape may suggest itself to me. I should l

ar given him no intimation, and he waited anxiously for m

rieved. Think well before you bid me leave you, unenligh

any means ready, and he dete

to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me on the station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I have hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy task to find him and if yo

prospect of making any practical

hat she planned to return it to me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such messenger or such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you heard anyth

inding it; but I have not heard that they have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me

hat she may have taken it off befo

is ver

ther they have looke

do

nd will you see that

u must not expect to rece

ppose

cted. My heart had been lightened of one load. The ring h

eful and show a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview you. I hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If y

thought, however, and I quietly

with an assumption of ease which left

proffering a request which had been more or less in

at he had shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that

ver outrage he may have planned to her feelings, is not without reverence for her character and a heartfelt repentance for whatever he may have done to grieve her. Charles, a few flowers,— white — no wreath, just a few wh

wil

t is

d mine in it; there was a slight pressure, s

t that