Speaker 1: A difficult problem by Anna Catherine Greene.
Speaker 2: A lady to see you, sir. I looked up and
was at once impressed by the grace and beauty of
the person thus introduced to me. Is there anything I
can do to serve you? I asked, rising. She cast
me a childlike look, full of trust and candor, as
she seated herself in the chair.
Speaker 3: I pointed out to her, I believe so, I hope so.
Speaker 2: She earnestly assured me.
Speaker 1: I I am in great trouble. I've just lost my husband.
But it is not that. It's the slip of paper
I found on my dresser, and.
Speaker 2: Which which she was trembling violently, and her words were
fast becoming incoherent. I calmed her and asked her to
relate her story just as it had happened, and after
a few minutes of silent struggle, she succeeded in collecting
herself sufficiently to respond with some degree of connection and
self possession.
Speaker 1: I have been married six months. My name is Lucy Holmes.
For the last few weeks, my husband and myself have
been living in an apartment house on fifty ninth Street,
and as we had not a care in the world.
We were very happy till mister Holmes was called away
on business to Philadelphia. This was two weeks ago. Five
days later I received an affectionate letter from him, in
which he promised to come back the next day, and
the news so delighted me that I accepted an invitation
to the theater from some intimate friends of ours. The
next morning. I naturally felt fatigued and rose late, but
I was very cheerful, for I expected my husband at noon.
And now comes the perplexing mystery. In the course of
dressing myself, I stepped to my bureau, and, seeing a
small newspaper slip attached to the cushion by a pin,
I drew it off and read it. It was a
death notice, and my hair rose and my limbs failed
me as I took in its fatal and incredible words.
Died this day at the Colonnade. James Forsyth de Witt Holmes,
New York Papers, Please copy. James Forsyth de Wit Holmes
was my husband, and his last letter, which was at
that very moment lying beside the cushion, had been dated
from the Colonnade. Was I dreaming or under the spell
of some frightful hallucination, which led me to misread the
name on the slip of paper before me I could
not determine. My head, throat, and chest seemed bound about
with iron, so that I could neither speak nor breathe
with freedom and suffering. Thus I stood staring at this
demoniacal piece of paper, which in an instant had brought
the shadow of death upon my happy life. Nor was
I at all relieved when a little later I flew
with the notice into a neighbor's apartment, and, praying her
to read it for me, found that my eyes had
not deceived me, and that the name was indeed my husband's,
and the notice one of death. Not from my own mind,
but from hers. Came the first suggestion of comfort. It
cannot be your husband who is meant, said she, but
some one of the same name. Your husband wrote to
you yesterday. And this person must have been dead at
least two days for the printed notice of his decease
to have reached New York. Some one has remarked the
striking similarity of names, and, wishing to startle you, cut
the slip out and pinned it on your cushion. I
certainly knew of no one inconsiderate enough to do this.
But the explanation was so plausible I at once embraced
it and sobbed aloud in my relief. But in the
midst of my rejoicing, I heard the bell ring in
my apartment, and running thither, encountered a telegraph boy holding
in his outstretched hand the yellow envelope which so often
bespeaks death or disaster. The sight took my breath away.
Summoning my maid, whom I saw hastening towards me from
an inn room, I begged her to open the telegram
for me. Sir, I saw in her face before she
had read the first line a confirmation of my very
worst fears. My husband was.
Speaker 2: The young widow, choked with her emotions, paused, recovered herself
for the second time.
Speaker 1: And then went on, I had better show you the telegram.
Speaker 2: Taking it from her pocket book, she held it towards me.
I read it at a glance. It was short, simple
and direct. Come at once. Your husband found dead in
his room this morning, doctor Sehart disease.
Speaker 3: Please telegraph you see it says this morning, she explained,
placing her delicate finger on the word.
Speaker 2: She so eagerly quoted.
Speaker 1: That means a week ago Wednesday, the same day on
which the printed slip recording his death was found on
my cushion. Do you not see something very strange in this?
Speaker 2: I did, But before I ventured to express myself on
this subject, I desired her to tell me what she
had learned in her visit to Philadelphia. Her answer was
simple and.
Speaker 1: Straightforward, but little more than you found in this telegram.
He died in his room. He was found lying on
the floor near the bell button, which he had evidently
risen to touch. One hand was clenched on his chest,
but his face wore a peaceful look, as if death
had come too suddenly to cause him much suffering. His
bed was undisturbed. He had died before retiring, possibly in
the act of packing his trunk, for it was found
nearly ready for the expressman. Indeed, there was every evidence
of his intention to leave on an early morning train.
He had even desired to be awakened at six o'clock,
and it was his failure to respond to the summons
of the bell boy which led to so early a
discovery of his death. He had never complained of any
distress in breathing, and we had always considered him a
perfectly healthy man. But there was no reason for assigning
any other cause than heart failure to his sudden death,
And so the burial certificate was made out to that effect,
and I was allowed to bring him home and bury
him in our vault at Woodlawn.
Speaker 2: But and here her earnestness dried up the tears which
had been flowing freely during this recital of her husband's
lonely death and sad burial.
Speaker 1: Do you not think an investigation should be made into
a death preceded by a false obituary notice? For I
found when I was in Philadelphia that no paragraph such
as I had found pinned to my cushion had been
inserted in any paper there, nor had any other man
of the same name ever registered at the Colonnade, much
less died there.
Speaker 2: Have you this notice with you, I asked. She immediately
produced it, and, while I was glancing it over, remarked.
Speaker 1: Some persons would give a superstitious explanation to the whole matter.
Think I had received a supernatural warning and been satisfied
with what they would call a spiritual manifestation. But I
have not a bit of such folly in my composition.
Living hands set up the type and printed the words
which gave me so deathly a shock, And hands with
a real purpose in them cut it from the paper
and pinned it to my cushion for me to see
when I woke on that fatal morning. But whose hands?
That is what I want you to discover.
Speaker 2: I had caught the fever of her suspicions long before this,
and now felt justified in showing my interest. First, let
me ask, said I, who has access to your rooms
besides your maid?
Speaker 1: No one, absolutely no one?
Speaker 2: And what of her?
Speaker 1: She is innocence itself. She is no common housemaid, but
a girl my mother brought up, who, for love of me,
consents to do such work in the household as my
simple needs require.
Speaker 2: I should like to see her.
Speaker 1: There is no objection to your doing so, but you
will gain nothing by it. I have already talked the
subject over with her a dozen times, and she is
as much puzzled by it as I am myself. She
says she cannot see how any one could have found
an entrance to my room during my sleep, as the
doors were all locked. Yet, as she very naturally observes,
some one must have done so, for she was in
my bedroom herself just before I returned from the theater,
and can swear, if necessary, that no such slip of
paper was to be seen on my cushion at that time,
for her duty's letter directly to my bureau, and kept
her there for full five minutes.
Speaker 2: And you believed her, I suggested.
Speaker 3: Implicitly, in what direction.
Speaker 2: Then do your suspicions.
Speaker 1: Turn alas in no direction? That's the trouble. I don't
know whom to mistrust. It was because I was told
that you had the credit of seeing light where others
can see nothing but darkness, that I have sought your
aid in this emergency, for the uncertainty surrounding this matter
is killing me and will make my sorrow quite unendurable
if I cannot obtain relief from it.
Speaker 2: I do not wonder. I began struck by the note
of truth in her tones, and I shall certainly do
what I can for you. But before we go any further,
let us examine this scrap of newspaper and see what
we can make out of it. I had already noted
two or three points in connection with it, to which
I now proceeded to direct her attention. Have you compared
this notice I pursued with such others as you find
every day in the papers. No, was her eager answer.
Speaker 1: Is it not like them?
Speaker 2: All? Read? Was my quiet interruption on this day at
the Colonnade. On what day? The date is usually given
in all the bonafida notices I have seen?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: She asked, her eyes moist with unshad tears opening widely
in her astonishment. Look in the papers on your return
home and see then the print. Observe that the type
is identical on both sides of this make believe clipping
which in fact there is always a perceptible difference between
that used in the obituary column and that to be
found in the columns devoted to other matter. Notice also,
I continued, holding up the scrap of paper between her
and the light, that the alignment on one side is not
exactly parallel with that on the other, a discrepancy which
would not exist if both sides had been printed on
a newspaper press. These facts lead me to conclude, first
that the effort to match the type exactly was the
mistake of a man who tries to do too much.
And secondly, that one of the sides, at least presumably
that containing the obituary notice, was printed on a hand press,
on the blank side of a piece of galley proof
picked up in some newspaper office. Let me see, and,
stretching out her hand with the utmost eagerness, she took
the slip and turned it over. Instantly, a change took
place in her countenance. She sank back in her seat,
and a blush of manifest confusion suffused her cheeks.
Speaker 1: Oh, she exclaimed, what will you think of me? I
brought this scrap of print into the house myself, and
it was I who pinned it on the cushion with
my own hands. I remember it now. The sight of
those words recalls the whole occurrence.
Speaker 2: Then there is one mystery less for us to solve,
I remarked, somewhat dryly. Do you think so, she protested
with a deprecatory look.
Speaker 1: For me, the mystery deepens and becomes every minute more serious.
It is true that I brought this scrap of newspaper
into the house, and that it had then, as now,
the notice of my husband's death upon it. But the
time of my bringing it in was Tuesday night, and
he was not found dead till Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2: A discrepancy worth noting, I.
Speaker 1: Remarked, involving a mystery of some importance.
Speaker 2: She concluded, I agreed to that, and since we have
discovered how the slip came into your room, we can
now proceed to the clearing up of this mystery. I observed.
You can, of course inform me where you procured this clipping,
which you say you brought into the house.
Speaker 1: Yes, you may think it strange, but when I alighted
from the carriage that night, a man on the sidewalk
put this tiny scrap of paper into my hand. It
was done so mechanically that it made no more impression
on my mind than the thrusting of an advertisement upon me. Indeed,
I supposed it was an advertisement, And I only wonder
that I retained it in my hand at all, But
that I did so, and that in a moment of abstraction,
I went so far as to pin it to my
cushion is evident from the fact that a vague memory
remains in my mind of having read this recipe, which
you see printed on the reverse side of the paper.
Speaker 2: It was the recipe, then, and not the obituary. Notice
that attracted your attention the night before.
Speaker 1: Probably, but in pinning it to the cushion, it was
the obituary notice that chanced to come uppermost. Oh, why
should I not have remembered this till now? Can you
understand my forgetting a matter of so much importance?
Speaker 2: Yes, I allowed, after a momentary consideration of her ingenuous countenance.
The words you read in the morning were so startling
that they disconnected themselves from those who had carelessly glanced
at the night before.
Speaker 1: That is it, she replied, And since then I have
had eyes for the one side only. How could I
think of the other? But who could have printed this thing?
And who was the man who put it into my hand?
He looked like a beggar.
Speaker 2: But oh, she suddenly exclaimed, her cheeks flushing scarlet and
her eyes flashing with a feverish, almost alarming glitter. What
is it now, I asked, another recollection. Yes, she spoke
so low I could hardly hear her.
Speaker 3: He coughed, And and what I encouragingly suggested, seeing that
she was under some new and overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Emotion, That cough had a familiar sound now that I
think of it, it was like that of a friend
who But no, no, I will not wrong him by
any false surmises. He would stoop too much, but not
to that.
Speaker 2: Yet the flush on her cheeks had died away, but
the two vivid spots which remained showed the depth of
her excitement.
Speaker 3: Do you think she suddenly.
Speaker 1: Asked that a man out of revenge might play and
to frighten me by a false notice of my husband's death,
and that God to punish him made the notice a prophecy.
Speaker 2: I think a man influenced by the spirit of revenge
might do almost anything, I answered, purposely, ignoring the latter
part of her question.
Speaker 1: But I always considered him a good man, at least,
I never looked upon him as a wicked one. Every
other beggar we meet has a cough.
Speaker 2: And yet, she added, after a moment's pause, if it was.
Speaker 1: Not he who gave me this mortal shock, who was it?
He is the only person in the world I ever wronged.
Speaker 2: Had you not better tell me his name?
Speaker 3: I suggested, No, I am in too great doubt.
Speaker 1: I should hate to do him a second injury.
Speaker 2: You cannot injure him if he is innocent. My methods
are very safe.
Speaker 1: If I could forget his cough, but it had that
peculiar catch in it that I remembered so well in
the cough of John Gray. I did not pay any
especial heed to it. At the time, old days and
old troubles were far enough from my thoughts. But now
that my suspicions are raised, that low choking sound comes
back to me in a strangely persistent way, and I
seemed to see a well remembered form in the stooping
figure of this beggar. Oh, I hope the good God
will forgive me if I attribute to this disappointed man
a wickedness he never committed.
Speaker 2: Who is John Graham? I urged? And what was the
nature of the wrong you did him? She rose, cast
me one appealing glance, and, perceiving that I meant to
have her whole story, turned towards the fire, and stood
warming her feet before the hearth, with her face turned
away from my gaze.
Speaker 1: I was once engaged to marry him. She began, not
because I loved him, but because we were very poor,
I mean my mother and myself, and he had a
home and seemed both good and generous. The day came
when we were to be married. This was in the west,
way out in Kansas, and I was even dressed for
the wedding when a letter came from my uncle here,
a rich uncle, very rich, who had never had anything
to do with my mother since her marriage, And in
it he promised me fortune and everything else desirable in
life if I would come to him, unencumbered by any
foolish ties. Think of it, and I within half an
hour of marriage with a man I had never loved
and now suddenly hated. The temptation was overwhelming and heartless,
as my conduct may appear to you, I succumbed to it,
telling my lover that I had changed my mind. I
dismissed the minister when he came and announced my intention
of proceeding east as soon as possible. Mister Graham was
simply paralyzed by his disappointment, and during the few days
which intervened before my departure, I was haunted by his face,
which was like that of a man who had died
from some overwhelming shock. But when I was once free
of the town, especially after I arrived in New York,
I forgot alike his misery and himself. Everything I saw
was so beautiful, life was so full of charm, and
my uncle so delighted with me and everything I did.
Then there was James Holmes, and after I had seen him,
but I cannot talk of that, we loved each other.
And under the surprise of this new delight, how could
I be expected to remember the man I had left
behind me in that barren region in which I had
spent my youth. But he did not forget the misery
I had caused him. He followed me to New York,
and on the morning I was married, found his way
into the house, and, mixing with the wedding guests, suddenly
appeared before me, just as I was receiving the congratulations
of my friends. At sight of him, I experienced all
the terror he had called upon causing, But remembering at
whose side I stood, I managed to hide my confusion
under an aspect of apparent haughtiness. This irritated John Graham,
flushing with anger and ignoring my imploring look, he cried, peremptorily,
present me to your husband, and I felt forced to
present him. But his name produced no effect upon mister Holmes.
I had never told him of my early experience with
this man, and John Graham, perceiving this cast me a
bitter glance of disdain, and passed on, muttering between his teeth,
false to me and false to him. Your punishment will
be upon you, and I felt as if I had
been cursed.
Speaker 2: She stopped here, moved by emotions readily to be understood. Then,
with quick impetuosity, she caught up the thread of her story.
Speaker 1: And went on, that was six months ago, And again
I forgot My mother died, and my husband soon absorbed
my every thought. How could I dream that this man,
who was little more than a memory to me, and
scarcely that was secretly planning mischief against me? Yet this
scrap about which we have talked so much may have
been the work of his hands, and even my husband's death.
Speaker 2: She did not finish, but her face, which was turned
towards me, spoke volumes. Your husband's death shall be inquired into,
I assured her, and she, exhausted by the excitement of
her discoveries, asked that she might be excused from further
discussion of the subject at that time, as I had
no wish myself to enter any more fully into the matter.
Just then I readily acceded to her request, and the
pretty widow left me two. Obviously, the first fact to
be settled was whether mister Holmes had died from purely
natural causes. I accordingly busied myself the next few days
with this question, and was fortunate enough to so interest
the proper authorities that an order was issued for the
exhimation and examination of the body. The result was disappointing.
No traces of poison were to be found in the stomach,
nor was there to be seen on the body any
mark of violence, with the exception of a minute prick
upon one of his thumbs. This speck was so small
that it escaped every eye but my own. The authorities
assuring the widow that the doctor's certificate given her in
Philadelphia was correct, he was again interred. But I was
not satisfied, neither do I think she was. I was
confident that this death was not a natural one, and
entered upon one of those secret and prolonged investigations which
have constituted the pleasure of my life for so many years. First,
I visited the Colonnade in Philadelphia, and, being allowed to
see the room in which mister Holmestead, went through it carefully,
as it had not been used since that time. I
had some hopes of coming upon a clue, but it
was a vain hope, and the only result of my
journey to this place was the assurance I received that
the gentleman had spent the entire evening preceding his death
in his own room, where he had been brought several
letters and one small package, the latter coming by mail.
With this one point gained. If it was a point,
I went back to New York. Calling on missus Holmes.
I asked her if while her husband was away she
had sent him anything besides letters, and, upon her replying
to the contrary, requested to know if in her visit
to Philadelphia she had noted among her husband's effects anything
that was new or unfamiliar to her. For he received
a package while there, I explained, And though its contents
may have been perfectly harmless, it is just as well
for us to be assured of this before going any further.
Speaker 1: Oh you think then he was really the victim of
some secret violence.
Speaker 2: We have no proof of it, I said. On the contrary,
we are assured that he died from natural causes. But
the incident of the newspaper slip outweighs in my mind
the doctor's conclusions, and until the mystery surrounding that obituary
notice has been satisfactorily explained by its author, I shall
hold to the theory that your husband has been made away
with in some strange and seemingly unaccountable manner, which it
is our duty to bring to light.
Speaker 1: You are right, You are right, oh John Graham.
Speaker 2: She was so carried away by this plain expression of
my belief that she forgot the question I had put
to her. You have not told whether or not you
found anything among your husband's effects that can explain this mystery,
I suggested. She at once became attentive.
Speaker 4: Nothing, said she.
Speaker 1: His trunks were already packed, and his bag nearly so.
There were a few things lying about the room which
were put into the latter, But I saw nothing but
what was familiar to me among them, at least I
think not. Perhaps we had better look through his trunk
and see. I have not had the heart to open
it since I came back.
Speaker 2: As this was exactly what I wished. I said as much,
and she led me into a small room, against the
wall of which stood a trunk with a traveling bag
on top of it. Opening the ladder she spread the
contents out on the trunk.
Speaker 1: I know all these things.
Speaker 2: She sadly murmured, the tears welling in her eyes. This
I inquired, lifting up a bit of coiled wire with
two or three little rings dangling from it.
Speaker 1: No, why what is that?
Speaker 2: It looks like a puzzle of some kind.
Speaker 1: Then it is of no consequence. My husband was forever
amusing himself over some such contrivance. All his friends knew
how well he liked these toys, and frequently sent them
to him. This one evidently reached him in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, I was eyeing the bit of wire curiously. It
was undoubtedly a puzzle, but it had appendages to it
that I did not understand. It is more than ordinarily complicated.
I observed moving the rings up and down in a
vain endeavor to work them off.
Speaker 1: The better he would like it, said she.
Speaker 2: I kept on working with the rings. Suddenly I gave
a painful start. A little prong in the handle of
the toy had started out and pricked me. You had
better not handle it, said I, and laid it down.
But the next minute I took it up again and
put it in my pocket. The prick made by This
treacherous bit of mechanism was in or near the same
place on my thumb as the one I had noticed
on the hand of the deceased mister Holmes. There was
a fire in the room, and before proceeding further, I
cauterized that prick with the end of a red hot poker.
Then I made my adieu to missus Holmes, and went
immediately to a chemist friend of mine test the end
of this bit of steel for me, said I, I
have reason to believe it carries with it a deadly poison.
He took the toy, promised to subject it to every
test possible and let me know the result. Then I
went home. I felt ill, or imagined that I did,
which under the circumstances, was almost as bad. Next day, however,
I was quite well, with the exception of a certain
inconvenience in my thumb. But not till the following week
did I receive the chemist's report. It overthrew my whole theory.
He had found nothing and returned me the bit of steel.
But I was not convinced. I will hunt up this
John Graham, thought, I and study him. But this was
not so easy attack as it may appear, as Missus
Holmes possessed no clue to the whereabouts of her quondam lover.
I had nothing to aid me in my search for him,
save her rather vague description of his personal appearance and
the fact that he was constantly interrupted in speaking by
a low, choking cough. However, my natural perseverance carried me through.
After seeing and interviewing a dozen John Grahams without result,
I at last lit upon a man of that name,
who presented a figure of such vivid unrest and showed
such desperate hatred of his fellows that I began to
entertain hopes of his being the person I was in
search of. But determined to be sure of this before
proceeding further, I confided my suspicions to Missus Holmes and
induced her to accompany me down to a certain spot
on the elevated from which I had more than once
seen this man go by to his usual lounging place
in printing house square. She showed great courage in doing this,
for she had such a dread of him that she
was in a state of nervous excitement from the moment
she left her house, feeling sure that she would attract
his attention and thus risk a disagreeable encounter. But she
might have spared herself these fears. He did not even
glance up in passing us, and it was mainly by
his walk she recognized him. But she did recognize him,
and this nerved me at once to set about the
formidable task of fixing upon him a crime which was
not even admitted as a fact by the authorities. He
was a man about town, living, to all appearances by
his wits. He was to be seen mostly in the
downtown portions of the city, standing for hours in front
of some newspaper office, gnawing at his finger ends and
staring at the passers by with a hungry look. But
alarmed the timid and provoked alms from the benevolent. Needless
to say that he rejected the latter express of sympathy
with angry contempt. His face was long and pallid, his
cheek bones high, and his mouth bitter and resolute in expression.
He wore neither beard nor mustache, but made up for
their lack by an abundance of light brown hair, which
hung very nearly to his shoulders. He stooped in standing,
but as soon as he moved, showed decision and a
certain sort of pride, which caused him to hold his
head high and his body more than usually erect. With
all these good points, his appearance was decidedly sinister, and
I did not wonder that missus Holmes feared him. My
next move was to accost him. Pausing before the doorway
in which he stood, I addressed him some trivial question.
He answered me with sufficient politeness, but with a grudging
attention which betrayed the hold which his own thoughts had
upon him. He coughed while speaking, and his eye, which
for a moment rested on mine, produced upon me an
impression for which I was hardly prepared. Great as was
my prejudice against him, there was such an icy composure
in it, the composure of an envenomed nature, conscious of
its superiority to all surprise. As I lingered to study
him more closely, the many dangerous qualities of the man
became more and more apparent to me. And convinced that
to proceed further without deep and careful thought would be
to court failure, where triumph would set me up for life,
I gave up all present attempt at enlisting him in conversation,
and went my way in an inquiring and serious mood.
In fact, my position was a peculiar one, and the
problem I had set for myself one of unusual difficulty.
Only by means of some extraordinary device, such as is
seldom resorted to by the police of this or any
other nation, could I hope to arrive at the secret
of this man's conduct and triumph in a manner which,
to all appearance was beyond human penetration. But what device
I knew of? None, Nor through two days and nights
of strenuous thought, did I receive the least light on
the subject. Indeed, my mind seemed to grow more and
more confused the more I urged it into action. I
failed to get inspiration indoors or out, and, feeling my
health suffer from the constant irritation of my recurring disappointment,
I resolved to take a day off and carry myself
and my perplexities into the country. I did so, governed
by an impulse which I did not then understand. I
went to a small town in New Jersey and entered
the first house on which I saw the sign room
to let. The result was most fortunate. No sooner had
I crossed the threshold of the neat and homely apartment
thrown open to my use, than it recalled a room
in which I had slept two years before, and in
which I had read a little book I was only
too glad to remember at this moment. Indeed, it seemed
as if a veritable inspiration had come to me through
this recollection. For though the tale to which I allude
was a simple child's story written for moral purposes, it
contained an idea which promised to be invaluable to me
at this juncture. Indeed, by means of it, I believed
myself to have solved the problem that was puzzling me,
and relieved beyond expression. I paid for the night's lodging
I had now determined to forego, and returned immediately to
New York, having spent just fifteen minutes in the town
where I had received this happy inspiration. My first step
on entering the city was to order a dozen steel
coils made similar to the one which I still believed
answerable for James Holmes's death. My next to learn, as
far as possible, all of John Graham's haunts and habits.
At a week's end, I had the springs, and knew
almost as well as he did himself where he was
likely to be found at all times of the day
and night. I immediately acted upon this knowledge. Assuming a
slight disguise, I repeated my former stroll through printing house square,
looking into each doorway as I passed. John Graham was
in one of them, staring in his old way at
the passing crowd, but evidently seeing nothing but the images
formed by his own disordered brain. A manuscript roll stuck
out of his breast pocket, and from the way his
nervous fingers fumbled with it. I began to understand the
restless glitter of his eyes, which were as full of
wretchedness as any eyes I have ever seen. Entering the
doorway where he stood, I dropped at his feet one
of the small steel coils with which I was provided.
He did not see it. Stopping near him, I directed
his attention to it by saying, pardon me, but did
I not see something drop out of your hand? He
started glanced at the seeming inoffensive toy at which I pointed,
and altered so suddenly and so vividly that it became
instantly apparent that the surprise I had planned for him,
was fully as keen and searching a one as I
had anticipated. Recoiling sharply, he gave me a quick look,
then glanced down again at his feet, as if half
expecting to find the object vanished which had startled him,
but perceiving it still lying there, he crushed it viciously
with his heel, and, uttering some incoherent words, dashed impetuously
from the building, Confident that he would regret this hasty
impulse and return. I withdrew a few steps and waited,
and sure enough, in less than five minutes he came
slinking back, picking up the coil. With more than one
sly look about, he examined it closely. Suddenly he gave
a sharp cry and went staggering out. Had he discovered
that the seeming puzzle possessed the same invisible spring which
had made the one handled by James Holmes so dangerous.
Certain as to the place he would be found in, next,
I made a short cut to an obscure little saloon
in Nassau Street, where I took up my stand in
a spot convenient for seeing without being seen. In ten
minutes he was standing at the bar, asking for a
drink whiskey, he cried straight it was given him. But
as he set the empty glass down on the counter,
he saw lying before him another of the steel springs,
and was so confounded by the sight that the proprietor,
who had put it there at my instigation, thrust out
his hand toward him, as if half afraid he would fall.
Speaker 4: Where did that that thing come from?
Speaker 2: Stammered John Graham, ignoring the other's gesture, and pointing with
a trembling hand at this seemingly insignificant bit of wire
between them.
Speaker 4: Didn't it drop from your coat pocket.
Speaker 2: Inquired the proprietor.
Speaker 4: It wasn't lyne here before you came in with a
horrible oath.
Speaker 2: The unhappy man turned and fled from the place. I
lost sight of him after that for three hours. Then
I suddenly came upon him again. He was walking up
town with a set purpose in his face that made
him look more dangerous than ever. Of course, I followed him,
expecting him to turn towards fifty ninth Street, but at
the corner of Madison Avenue and forty seventh Street, he
changed his mind and dashed toward Third Avenue. At Park Avenue,
he faltered and again turned north, walking for several blocks
as if the fiends were behind him. I began to
think that he was but attempting to walk off his excitement,
when at a sudden rushing sound in the cut beside us,
he stopped and trembled. An express train was shooting by.
As it disappeared in the tunnel beyond. He looked about
him with a blanched face and wandering eye, but his
glance did not turn my way, or if it did,
he failed to attach any meaning to my near presence.
He began to move on again, and this time towards
the bridge spanning the cut. I followed him very closely.
In the center of it, he paused and looked down
at the track beneath him. Another train was approaching. As
it came near, he trembled from head to foot, and
catching at the railing against which he leaned. Was about
to make a quick move forward when a puff of
smoke arose from below and sent him staggering backward, gasping
with a terror I could hardly understand till I saw
that the smoke had taken the form of a spiral
and was sailing away before him. In what to his
disordered imagination must have looked like a gigantic image of
the coil with which twice before on this day he
had found himself confronted. It may have been chance, and
it may have been providence, but whichever it was, it
saved him. He could not face that semblance of his
haunting thought, and turning away, he cowered down on the
neighboring kerbstone, where he sat for several minutes with his
head buried in his hands. When he rose again, he
was his own daring and sinister self. Knowing that he
was now too much master of his faculties to ignore
me any longer, I walked quickly away and left him.
I knew where he would be at six o'clock, and
had already engaged a table at the same restaurant. It
was seven, however, before he put in an appearance, and
by this time he was looking more composed. There was
a reckless air about him, however, which was perhaps only
noticeable to me, for none of the habitues of this
especial restaurant were entirely without it. Wild eyes and unkempt
Haire being in the majority, I let him eat. The
dinner he ordered was simple, and I had not the
heart to interrupt his enjoyment of it. But when he
had finished and came to pay, then I allowed the
shock to come. Under the bill, which the waiter laid
at the side of his plate, was the inevitable steel coil,
and it produced even more than its usual effect. I
own I felt sorry for him. He did not dash
from the place, however, as he had from the liquor saloon.
A spirit of resistance had seized him, and he demanded
to know where this object of his fear had come from.
No one could tell him or would Whereupon he began
to rave, and would certainly have done himself or somebody
else an injury if he had not been calmed by
a man almost as wild looking as himself. Paying his bill,
but vowing he would never enter the place again, he
went out clay white, but with the swaggering air of
a man who had just asserted himself. He drooped, however,
as soon as he reached the street, and I had
no difficulty in following him to a certain gambling den,
where he gave three dollars and lost five. From there
he went to his lodgings in West tenth Street. I
did not follow him in. He had passed through many
deep and wearing emotions since noon, and I had not
the heart to add another to them. But late the
next day I returned to this house and rang the bell.
It was already dusk, but there was light enough for
me to notice the unrepaired condition of the iron railings
on either side of the old stone stoop, and to
compare this abode of decayed grandeur with the spacious and
elegant apartment in which pretty Missus Holmes mourned the loss
of her young husband. Had any such comparison ever been
made by the unhappy John Graham as he hurried up
these decayed steps into the dismal halls beyond In answer
to my summons, There came to the door a young
woman to whom I had but to intimate my wish
to see mister Graham for her to let me in
with the short announcement.
Speaker 1: Top floor back room door opens, out door shut.
Speaker 2: He's in, as an open door meant liberty to enter.
I lost no time in following the direction of her
pointing finger, and presently found myself in a low attic
chamber overlooking an acre of roofs A fire had been
lighted in the open grate, and the flickering red beams
danced on ceiling and walls with a cheeriness, greatly in
contrast to the nature of the business which had led
me there, as they also served to light the room.
I proceeded to make myself at home, and, drawing up
a chair, sat down at the fireplace in such a
way as to conceal myself from any one entering the door.
In less than half an hour he came in. He
was in a state of high emotion, his face was
flushed and his eyes burning. Stepping rapidly forward, he flung
his hat on the table in the middle of the
room with a curse that was half cry and half groan.
Then he stood silent, and I had an opportunity of
noting how haggard he had grown in the short time
which had elapsed since I had seen him last. But
the interval of his inaction was short, and in a
moment he flung up his arms with a loud curse
her that rang through the narrow room and betrayed the
source of his present frenzy. Then he again stood still,
grating his teeth and working his hands in a way
terribly suggestive of the murderer's instinct. But not for long.
He saw something that attracted his attention on the table,
a something upon which my eyes had long before been fixed.
And starting forward with a fresh and quite different display
of emotion, he caught up what looked like a roll
of manuscript and began to tear it open.
Speaker 4: Back again always back.
Speaker 2: Wailed from his lips, and he gave the roll a
toss that sent from its midst a small object, which
he no sooner saw than he became speechless and reeled back.
It was another of the.
Speaker 4: Steel good God fell.
Speaker 2: At last from his stiff and working lips. Am I
mad or.
Speaker 4: Has the devil joined in the pursuit against me? I
cannot eat, I cannot drink. But this diabolical spring starts
up before me. It is here, there, everywhere, the visible
sign of my guilt.
Speaker 2: The the He had stumbled back upon my chair, and
turning saw me. I was on my feet at once,
and noting that he was dazed by the shock of
my presence, I slid quietly between him and the door.
The movement roused him, turning upon me with a sarcastic smile,
in which was concentrated the bitterness of years. He briefly said,
so I am caught. Well.
Speaker 4: There has to be an end to men as well
as to things, and I am ready for mine. She
turned me away from her door to day, and after
the hell of that moment, I don't much fear any other.
Speaker 2: You had better not talk, I admonished him. All that
falls from you now will only tell against you on
your trial. He broke into a harsh laugh.
Speaker 4: And do you think I care for that, that, having
been driven by a woman's perfidy into crime. I am
going to bridle my tongue and keep down the words
which are my only safeguard from insanity. No, No, while
my miserable breath lasts, I will curse her, And if
the halter is to cut short my words, it shall
be with her name blistering my lips.
Speaker 2: I attempted to speak, but he would not give me
the opportunity. The passion of weeks had found vent, and
he rushed on recklessly.
Speaker 4: I went to her house to day. I wanted to
see her in her widow's weeds. I wanted to see
her eyes red with weeping over a grief which owed
its bitterness to me. But she would not grant me
an admittance. She had me thrust from her door, and
I shall never know how deeply the iron has sunk
into her soul. But and here his face showed a
sudden change. I shall see her if I'm tried for murder.
She will be in the court room, on the witness stand.
Speaker 2: Doubtless, I interjected. But his interruption came quickly and with
vehement passion.
Speaker 4: Then I am ready welcome trial, conviction, death. Even to
confront her eye to eye is all I wish. She
shall never forget it. Never.
Speaker 2: Then you do not deny, I began.
Speaker 4: I deny nothing. He returned and held out his hands
with a grim gesture. How can I when there falls
from everything I touch, the devilish thing which took away
the life I hated? Have you anything more to say
or do before you leave these rooms? I asked?
Speaker 2: He shook his head, and then, bethinking himself, pointed to
the roll of paper which he had flung on the table.
Burn that he cried. I took up the roll and
looked at it. It was the manuscript of a poem
in blank verse. I have been with it into a
dozen newspaper and magazine offices, he explained, with great bitterness.
Speaker 4: Had I succeeded in getting a publisher for it, I
might have forgotten my wrongs and tried to build up
a new life on the ruins of the old. But
they would not have it, none of them. So I
say burn it, that no memory of me may remain
in this miserable world.
Speaker 2: Keep to the facts, I severely retorted. It was while
carrying this poem from one newspaper to another that you
secured that bit of print, upon the blank side of
which you yourself printed the obituary notice with which you
savored your revenge upon the woman who had disappointed you.
Speaker 4: You know that, then you know where I got the
poison with which I tipped the silly toy with which
that weak man fooled away his life.
Speaker 2: No, said I, I do not know where you got it.
I merely know it was no common poison bought at
a druggist's or from any ordinary chemist.
Speaker 4: It was war all Eye, the deadly secret war All Eye.
I got it from. But that's another man's secret. You'll
never hear from me anything that will compromise a friend.
I got it, that is all one drop. But it
killed my man. The satisfaction, the delight which he threw
into these words are beyond description. As they left his lips,
a jet of flame from the neglected fire shot up
and threw his figure for one instant into bold relief
upon the lowering ceiling. Then it died out, and nothing
but the twilight dusk remained in the room, and on
the countenance of this doomed and despairing man, end of
a difficult problem.