The Sleuth of St. James's Square Read online

  XII. The Spread Rails

  It was after dinner, in the great house of Sir Henry Marquis in St.James's Square.

  The talk had run on the value of women in criminal investigation;their skill as detective agents... the suitability of the feminineintelligence to the hard, accurate labor of concrete deductions.

  It was the American Ambassadress, Lisa Lewis, who told the story.

  It was a fairy night, and the thing was a fairy story.

  The sun had merely gone behind a colored window. The whole vault of theheaven was white with stars. The road was like a ribbon winding throughthe hills. In little whispers, in the dark places, Marion told me it.We sat together in the tonneau of the motor. It was past midnight, ofa heavenly September. We were coming in from a stately dinner at theFanshaws'.

  A fairy story is a nice, comfortable human affair. It's about a hero,and a thing no man could do, and a princess and a dragon. It tellshow the hero found the task that was too big for other men, how heaccomplished it, circumvented the dragon and won the princess.

  The Arabian formula fitted snugly to the facts.

  The great Dominion railroad, extending from Montreal into New York, washaving a run of terrible luck; one frightful wreck followed another.Nobody could get the thing straightened out. Old Crewe, the railroadcommissioner of New York, was relentless in pressing hard conditionson the road. Then out of the West, had come young Clinton Howard, big,tawny, virile, like the race of heroes. He had cleaned out the tangles,set the thing going, restored order and method; and the confidence ofCanada was flowing back. Then Howard had made love to Marion inhis persistent dominating fashion.... and here, with her whisperedconfession, was the fairy story ended.

  Marion pointed her finger out north, where, far across the valley, agreat country-house sat on the summit of a wooded hill.

  "Clinton has discovered the Commissioner's secret, Sarah," she said."The safety of the public isn't the only thing moving old Crewe tohammer the railroad. He pretends it is. But in fact he wishes to getcontrol of the road in a bankrupt court."

  She paused.

  "Crewe is a Nietzsche creature. Victory is the only thing with him.Nothing else counts. The way the road was going he would have got itin the bankrupt court by now. He's howling 'safety first' all over thecountry. 'Negligence' is the big word in every report he issues. Itwon't do for Clinton to have an accident now that any degree of humanforesight could have prevented."

  "Well," I said, "the dragon will give the hero no further trouble. Dr.Martin told mother to-day that Mr. Crewe's mind had broken down, andthey had brought him out from New York. He got up in a directors'meeting and tried to kill the president of the Pacific Trust Company,with a chair. He went suddenly mad, Dr. Martin said."

  Marion put out her hands in an unconscious gesture.

  "I am not surprised," she said. "That sort of temperament in the strainof a great struggle is apt to break down and attempt to gain its end bysome act of direct violence."

  Then she added:

  "My grandfather says in his work on evidence that the human mind ifdominated by a single idea will finally break out in some bizarre act.And he cites the case of the minister who, having maneuvered in vainto compass the death of the king by some sort of accident, finallyundertook to kill him with an andiron."

  She reflected a moment.

  "I am afraid," she continued, "that the harm is already done. Crewe hasset the whole country on the watch. Clinton says there simply must notbe a slip anywhere now. The road must be safe; he must make it safe."She repeated her expression.

  "An accident now that any sort of human foresight could prevent wouldruin him."

  "Oh, dear, it's an awful strain on us... on him," she corrected. "Hesimply can't be everywhere to see that everything is right and everybodycareful. And besides, there's the finances of the road to keep in shape.He had to go to Montreal to-day to see about that."

  She leaned over toward me in her eager interest.

  "I don't see how he can sleep with the thing on him. The big trains mustgo through on time, and every workman and every piece of machinery mustbe right as a clock. I get in a panic. I asked him to-day if he thoughthe could run a railroad like that, like a machine, everything in placeon the second, and he said, 'Sure, Mike!'"

  I laughed.

  "'Sure, Mike,"' I said, "is the spirit in which the world is conquered."

  And then the strange attraction of these two persons for one anotherarose before me; this big, crude, virile, direct son of the hustlingWest, and this delicate, refined, intellectual daughter of New England.The ancestors of the man had been the fighting and the building pioneer.And those of the girl, reflective people, ministers of the gospel andcounselors at law. Marion's grandfather had been a writer on the law.Warfield on Evidence, had been the leading authority in this country.And this ambitious girl had taken a special course in college to fither to revise her grandfather's great work. There was no grandson toundertake this labor, and she had gone about the task herself. She wouldnot trust the great book to outside hands. A Warfield had written it,and a Warfield should keep the edition up. Her revision was now in thehands of a publisher in Boston, and it was sound and comprehensive, thecritics said; the ablest textbook on circumstantial evidence in America.I looked in a sort of wonder at this girl, carried off her feet by atawny barbarian!

  Marion was absorbed in the thing; and I understood her anxiety. But themost pressing danger, she did not seem to realize.

  It lay, I thought, in the revenge of a discharged workman. ClintonHoward had to drop any number of incompetent persons, and they wrote himall sorts of threatening letters, I had been told. With all the awfulthings that happen over the country some of these angry people might doanything. There are always some half-mad people.

  She went on.

  "But Clinton says the public is as just as Daniel. If he has an accidentin the ordinary course of affairs the public will hold him for it. Butif anything should happen that he could not help, the public will nothold him responsible."

  I realized the force of that. What reasonable human care could preventhe must answer for, but the outrage of a criminal would not be taken inthe public mind against him. On the contrary, the sympathy of the publicwould flow in. When the people feel that a man is making every effortfor their welfare, the criminal act of an outsider brings them overwholly to his support. Profound interest carried Marion off her feet.

  "I was in a panic the other day, and Clinton said, 'Don't let rottenluck get your goat. I'm done if an engineer runs by a block, but nothingelse can put it over on me'!"

  She laughed with me at the direct, virile idiom of young America inaction.

  An event interrupted the discourse. The motor took a sharp curve and ayoung man running across the road suddenly flung himself face down inthe grass beyond the curb.

  "Is he hurt?" said Marion to the chauffeur.

  "No, Miss, he's hiding, Miss," said the man, and we swept out of sight.

  I thought it more likely that the creature was in liquor. In spiteof the great country-houses, it was not good hunting-ground for thecriminal class, during the season when everybody was about. The verynumber of servants, when a place is open, in a rather effective way,police it. Besides the young man looked like a sort of workman. One getssuch impressions at a glance.

  The motor descended the long hill toward the river and the flat valley.It hummed into the curves and hollows, through the pockets of chill air,and out again into the soft September night.

  Then finally it swept out into the flat valley, and stopped with a grindof the emergency brake that caused the wheels to skid, ripping upthe dust and gravel. For a moment in the jar and confusion we did notrealize what had happened, then we saw a great locomotive lying on itsside, and a line of Pullmans, sunk to the axles in the soft earth.

  The whole "Montreal Express" was derailed, here in the flat land at thegrade crossing. The thing had been done some time. The fire had beendrawn from the engine; there was
only a sputtering of steam. Thepassengers had been removed. A wrecking-car had come up from down theline. A telegrapher was setting up a little instrument on a box by theroadside. A lineman was climbing a pole to connect his wire. A trackboss with a torch and a crew of men were coming up from an examinationof the line littered with its wreck.

  I hardly know what happened in the next few minutes. We were out of themotor and among the men almost before the car stopped.

  No one had been hurt. The passenger-coaches were not turned over, andthe engineer and fireman had jumped as the cab toppled. By the greatestgood fortune the train had gone off the track in this low flat landalmost level with the grade. Several things joined to avoid a terribledisaster; the flat ground that enabled the whole train to plow alongupright until it stopped, the track lying flush with the highway wherethe engine went off, and the fact that trains must slow up for thisgrade crossing. Had there been an embankment, or a big ditch, or thetrain under its usual headway the wreck would have been a horror, forevery wheel, from the engine to the last coach, had left the rails.

  We were an excited group around the train's crew, when the trackmancame up with his torch. Everybody asked the same question as the manapproached.

  "What caused the accident?"

  "Spread rails," he said. "These big brutes," he pointed to the mammothengine sprawling like a child's top on its side, the gigantic wheelsin the air, "and these new steel coaches, are awful heavy. There's anupgrade here. When they struck it, they just spread out the rails."

  And he pushed his closed hands out before him, slowly apart, inillustration.

  The man knew Marion, for he spoke directly to her in reply to ourconcerted query. Then he added "If you step down the track, MissWarfield, I'll show you exactly how it happened."

  We followed the big workman with his torch. Marion walked beside him,and I a few steps behind. The girl had been plunged, on the instant,headlong into the horror she feared, into the ruin that she had lainawake over--and yet she met it with no sign, except that grim stiffeningof the figure that disaster brings to persons of courage. She gave noattention to her exquisite gown. It was torn to pieces that night; myown was a ruin. The crushing effect of this disaster swept out everytrivial thing.

  In a moment we saw how the accident happened, the workman lighting thesweep of track with his torch. Here were the plow marks on the woodencross ties, where the wheels had run after they left the rails. One sawinstantly that the thing happened precisely as the workman explainedit. When the heavy engine struck the up-grade, the rails had spread,the wheels had gone down on the cross-ties, and the whole train wasderailed.

  I saw it with a sickening realization of the fact.

  Marion took the workman's torch and went over the short piece of trackon which the thing had happened. All the evidences of the accident werewithin a short distance. The track was not torn up when the thing began.There was only the displaced rail pushed away, and the plow marks of thewheels on the ties. The spread rails had merely switched the train offthe track onto the level of the highway roadbed into the flat field.

  Marion and the workman had gone a little way down the track. I was quitealone at the point of accident, when suddenly some one caught my hand.

  I was so startled that I very nearly screamed. The thing happened soswiftly, with no word.

  There behind me was a woman, an old foreign woman, a peasant from someland of southern Europe. She had my hand huddled up to her mouth.

  And she began to speak, bending her aged body, and with every expressionof respect.

  "Ah, Contessa, he is not do it, my Umberto. He is run away in fear tohide in the Barrington quarry. It is accident. It is the doing of thegood God. Ah, Contessa," and her old lips dabbed against my hand. "Ibeg him to not go, but he is discharge; an' he make the threat like thegreat fool. Ah, Contessa, Contessa," and she went over the words withabsurd repetition, "believe it is by chance, believe it is the doingof the good God, I pray you." And so she ran on in her quaint old-worldwords.

  Instantly I remembered the man lying by the roadside, and the threats ofdischarged workmen.

  I told her the thing was a clean accident, and tried to show her how itcame about. She was effusive in gratitude for my belief. But she seemedconcerned about Marion and the others. She did not go away; she wentover and sat down beside the track.

  Presently the others returned. They were so engrossed that they did notnotice my adventure or the aged woman seated on the ground.

  Marion was putting questions to the workman.

  "There was no obstruction on the track?"

  "No, Miss."

  "The engineer was watching?"

  "Yes, Miss Warfield, he had to slow up and be careful about thecrossing. There is no curve on this grade, he could see every foot ofthe way. The track was clear and in place, and he was watching it. Therewas nothing on it.--The rails simply spread under the weight of theengine."

  And he began to comment on the excessive size and weight of the hugemodern passenger engine.

  "The brute drove the rails apart," he said, "that's all there is to it."

  "Was the track in repair?" said Marion.

  "It was patrolled to-day, Miss, and it was all in shape."

  Then he repeated:

  "The big engine just pushed the rails out."

  "But the road is built for this type of engine," said Marion.

  "Yes, Miss Warfield," replied the man, "it's supposed to be, but everyroadbed gets a spread rail sometimes."

  Then he added:

  "It has to be mighty solid to hold these hundred ton engines on therails at sixty miles an hour."

  "It does hold them," said Marion.

  "Yes, Miss Warfield, usually," said the man.

  "Then why should it fail here?"

  The man's big grimy face wrinkled into a sort of smile.

  "Now, Miss Warfield," he said, "if we knew why an accident was likely tohappen at one place more than another we wouldn't have any wrecks."

  "Precisely," replied Marion, "but isn't it peculiar that the trackshould spread at the synclinal of this grade with the train running ata reduced speed, when it holds on the synclinal of other grades with thetrain running at full speed?"

  The man's big face continued to smile.

  "All accidents are peculiar, Miss Warfield; that's what makes themaccidents."

  "But," said Marion, "is not the aspect of these peculiarities indicatoryof either a natural event or one designed by a human intelligence?"

  The man fingered his torch.

  "Mighty strange things happen, Miss Warfield. I've seen a train goover into a canal and one coach lodge against a tree that was standingexactly in the right place to save it. And I've seen a passenger enginerun by a signal and through a block and knock a single car out of apassing freight-train, at a crossing, and that car be the very one thatthe freight train's brakeman had just reached on his way to the caboose;just like somebody had timed it all, to the second, to kill him. AndI've seen a whole wreck piled up, as high as a house, on top of a man,and the man not scratched."

  "I do not mean the coincidence of accident," said Marion, "that isa mystery beyond us; what I mean is that there must be an organicdifference in the indicatory signs of a thing as it happens in thecourse of nature, and as it happens by human arrangement."

  The trackman was a person accustomed to the reality and not the theoryof things.

  "I don't see how the accident would have been any different," he said,"if somebody had put that tree in the right spot to catch the coach; ortimed the minute with a stop-watch to kill that brakeman; or piled thatwreck on the man so it wouldn't hurt him. The result would have beenjust the same."

  "The result would have been the same," replied Marion, "but thearrangement of events would have been different."

  "Just what way different, Miss Warfield?" said the man.

  "We cannot formulate an iron rule about that," replied Marion, "but asa general thing catastrophes in nature seem to lack a
motive, and theircontributing events are not forced."

  The big trackman was a person of sound practical sense. He knew whatMarion was after, but he was confused by the unfamiliar terms in whichthe idea was stated.

  "It's mighty hard to figure out," he said. "Of course, when you find anobstruction on the track or a crowbar under a rail, or some plain thing,you know."

  Then he added:

  "You've got to figure out a wreck from what seems likely."

  "There you have it exactly," said Marion. "You must begin yourinvestigation from what your common experience indicates is likelyto happen. Now, your experience indicates that the rails of a tracksometimes spread under these heavy engines."

  "Yes, Miss Warfield."

  "And your experience indicates that this is more likely to happen atthe first rise of the synclinal on a grade than anywhere on a straighttrack."

  "Yes, Miss Warfield."

  "Good!" said Marion, "so far. But does not your experience also indicatethat such an accident usually happens when the train is running at ahigh rate of speed?"

  "Yes, Miss Warfield," said the man. "It's far more likely to happenthen, because the engine strikes the rails at the first rise of thegrade with more force. Naturally a thing hits harder when it's going...But it might happen with a slow train."

  Marion made a gesture as of one rejecting the man's final sentence.

  "When you turn that way," she said, "you at once leave the lines ofgreatest probability. Why should you follow the preponderance of commonexperience on two features here, and turn aside from it on the thirdfeature?"

  "Because the thing happened," replied the man, with the directness ofthose practical persons who drive through to the fact.

  "That is to say an unlikely thing happened!" Marion made a decisivegesture with her clenched fingers. "Thus, the inquiry, beginning withtwo consistent elements, now comes up against one that is inconsistent."

  "But not impossible," said the man.

  "Possible," said Marion, "but not likely. Not to be expected, not inline with the preponderance of common experience; therefore, not tobe passed. We have got to stop here and try to find out why this trackspread under a slow train."

  "But we see it spread, Miss Warfield," said the trackman with aconclusive gesture.

  "True," replied Marion, "we see that it did spread, under thiscondition, but why?"

  The old woman sitting beside the track seemed to realize what wasunder way; for she rose and came over to where I stood. "Contessa," shewhispered, in those quaint, old world words, "do not reveal, what I havetol'. I pray you!"

  And she followed me across the few steps to where the others stood.

  I did not answer. I stood like one in some Hellenic drama, betweentwo tragic figures. The love of woman lay in the solution of thisproblem--in the beginning and at the end of life.

  Marion and the big track boss continued with this woman looking on.

  I feared to speak or move; the thing was like a sort of trap, set withghastly cunning, by some evil Fate. The ruin of a woman it would have.And perhaps on the vast level plain where it evilly dwelt, throughits hard all-seeing eyes, the ruin and the sorrow either way would beprecisely equal. How could I, then, lay a finger on the scale.

  "Now," said Marion, "when the engine reached this point on the track,one of the rails gave way first."

  The big workman looked steadily at her.

  "How do you know that, Miss Warfield?" he said.

  "Because," replied Marion, "the marks of the wheels of the locomotiveon the ties are found, in the beginning, only on one side of the track,showing that the rail on that side gave way, when the engine struck it,and the other rail for some distance bore the weight of the train."

  She illustrated with her hands.

  "When the one rail was pushed out, the wheels on that side went down andcontinued on the ties, while the wheels on the other side went ahead onthe firm rail."

  The workman saw it.

  "That's true, Miss Warfield," he said, "one rail sometimes spreads andthe other holds solid."

  Marion was absorbed in the problem.

  "But why should the one rail give way like this and its companion hold?"

  "One of the rails might not be as solid as the other," said the man.

  "But it should have been nearly as solid," replied Marion. "This pieceof track, you tell me, was examined to-day; the ties are equallysound on both sides, the rail is the same weight. We have the right toconclude then that each of these rails was about in the same condition.I do not say precisely in the same condition. Now, it is true thatunder these conditions one of the rails might have been pushed out ofalignment before the other. We can grant a certain factor of difference,a certain reasonable factor of difference. But not a great factor ofdifference. We have a right to conclude that one rail would give waybefore the other. But not that one would very readily give way beforethe other. For some reason this particular rail did give way, much morereadily than it ought to have done."

  The trackman was listening with the greatest interest.

  "Just how do you know that, Miss Warfield?" he said.

  "Why," replied Marion, "don't you see, from the mark on the ties, thatthe engine wheels left the rail almost at the moment they struck it. Themarks of the wheels commence on the second tie ahead of the beginning ofthe rail. Therefore, this rail, for some reason, was more easily pushedout of alignment than it should have been. What was the reason?"

  The track boss reflected.

  "You see, Miss Warfield, this place is the beginning of an up-grade, theengine was coming down a long grade toward it, so when this train struckthe first rails of the up-grade it struck it just like you'd drive ina wedge, and the hundred-ton brute of an engine jammed this rail out ofalignment. That's all there is to it. When the rail sprung the wheelswent down on the ties on that side and the train was ditched."

  "It was a clean accident, then, you think?" said Marion.

  "Sure, Miss Warfield," replied the man. "If anybody had tried to movethat rail out of alignment, he would have to disconnect it at the otherend, that is, take off the plate that joins it to the next rail. Thatwould leave the end of the rail clean, with no broken plate. But the endof the rail is bent and the plate is twisted off. We looked at that thefirst thing. Nobody could twist that plate off. The engine did it whenit left the track.

  "You see, Miss Warfield, the weight of the engine, like a wedge, simplyforced one of these rails out of alignment. Don't you understand how ahundred ton wedge driven against the track, at the start of an upgrade,could do it?"

  The old peasant woman stood behind the track boss. The thing was a sortof awful game. She did not speak, but the vicissitudes of the inquiryadvanced her, or retired her, with the effect of points, won or lost.

  "I understand perfectly," replied Marion, "how the impact of the heavyengine might drive both rails out of alignment, if they offered an equalresistance, or one of them out if it offered a less resistance. This isstraight track. The wedge would go in even. It should have spreadthe rails equally. That's the probable thing. But instead it did theimprobable thing; it spread one. I hold the improbable thing always inquestion. Human knowledge is built up on that postulate.

  "True, a certain factor of difference in conditions must be allowed, asI have said, but an excessive factor cannot be allowed. We have gotto find it, or discard human reason as an implement for getting at thetruth."

  Again the big track boss smashed through the niceties of logic.

  "These things happen all the time, Miss Warfield. You can't figure itout."

  "One ought to be able to determine it,"' replied the girl.

  The track boss shook his head.

  "We can't tell what made that rail give."

  "Of course, we can tell," said Marion. "It gave because it wasweakened."

  "But what weakened it?" replied the man. "You can't tell that? Therail's sound."

  "There could be only two causes," said Marion. "It was either weak
enedby a natural agency or a human agency."

  The track boss made an annoyed gesture, like a practical person vexedwith the refinements of a theorist.

  "But how are you going to tell?"

  "Now," said Marion, "there is always a point as you follow a thing down,where the human design in it must appear, if there is a human design init. The human mind can falsify events within a limited area. But if onekeeps moving out, as from a center, he will find somewhere this point atwhich intelligence is no longer able to imitate the aspect of the resultof natural forces... I think we have reached it."

  She paused and drove her query at the track boss.

  "The spikes on the outside of this rail held it in place, did they not?"

  "Yes, Miss Warfield."

  "Did the impact of the engine force these spikes out of the ties?"

  "Yes, Miss Warfield, it forced them out."

  "How do you know it forced them out?"

  "Well, Miss Warfield," said the man, pointing to the rail and thedenuded cross-ties, don't you see they're out?"

  "I see that they are out," replied Marion, "but I do not yet see thatthey have been forced out."

  She moved a step closer to the track boss and her voice hardened. "Ifthese spikes were forced out by the impact of the engine, we ought tofind torn spike holes inclining toward the end of the crossties....Look!"

  The big practical workman suddenly realized what the girl meant.

  He stooped over and began to flash his torch along the end of the ties.We crowded against him. Every one of the spike holes, for the entirelength of the rail, was straight and clean. The man seized one of thespikes and scrutinized it under his torch.

  Then he stood up. For a moment he did not speak. He merely looked atMarion. "It's the holy truth!" he said. "Somebody pulled these spikeswith a clawbar. That weakened the rail, and she bowed out when theengine struck her."

  Then he turned around, and shouted down the track to his crew. "Hey,boys! Spread out along the right of way and see if you can't finda claw-bar. The devils that do these tricks always throw away theirtools."

  We stood together in a little tragic group. The old peasant woman cameover to where I stood, she walked with a dead, wooden step. "Contessa,"she whispered, her old lips against my hand. "You will save him?"

  And suddenly with a wild human resentment, I longed to cut a way out ofthe trap of this Fatality; to force its ruthless decree into a sort ofequity, if I could do it.

  "Yes," I said, "I will save him!"

  It was an impulse with no plan behind it. But the dabbing of thewithered mouth on my fingers was like actual physical contact with ahuman heart.

  For a moment she looked at me as one among the damned might look atMichael. Then she went slowly away, down through the wooded copse of themeadow. And I turned about to meet Marion. I knew that she was now afterthe identity of the wrecker, and I faced her to foul her lines.

  "This is not the work of one with murder in his heart," she said "Acriminal agent set on a ruthless destruction of property and life wouldhave drawn these spikes on a trestle or an embankment, at a point wherethe train would be running at high speed."

  She paused for a moment, then she went on speaking to me as though shemerely uttered her mental comment to herself.

  "These spikes are drawn at a point where the train slows down for acrossing and precisely where the engine would go off onto the hardroad-bed of the highway into a level meadow. That means some one plannedthis wreck to result in the least destruction of life and propertypossible. Now, what class of persons could be after the effect of awreck, exclusive of a loss of life?"

  I saw where her relentless deductions would presently lead. This wasprecisely the result that a discharged foreign workman would seek in hisreprisal. This man would have hot blood, the southern Europe instinctfor revenge, but with such a mother, no mere lust to kill. I tried todivert her from the fugitive.

  "Train robbers," I said. "I wonder what was in the express-car?"

  She very nearly laughed. "This is New York," she said, "not Arizona. Andbesides there was no express-car. This thing was done by somebody whowanted the effect of a wreck, and nothing else, and it was done by someone who knew about railroads.

  "Now, what class of persons who know about railroads could be moved bythat motive?"

  She was driving straight now at the boy I stood to cover. At anotherstep she would name the class. Discharged workmen would know aboutrailroads; they would be interested to show how less efficient theroad was without them; and a desperate one might plan such a wreck asa demonstration. If so, he would wish only the effect of the wreck,and not loss of life. Marion was going dead ahead on the right line,in another moment she would remember the man we passed, and the "blackband" letters. I made a final desperate effort to divert her.

  "Come along!" I called, "the first thing to do now is to talk withClinton Howard. The nearest telephone will be at Crewe's house on thehill."

  And it won.

  "Lisa!" she cried, "you're right I We must tell him at once."

  We hurried down the track to the motor-car. I had gained a little time.But how could I keep my promise. And the next moment the problem becamemore difficult. The track boss came up with a short iron bar that hismen had found in the weeds along the right of way.

  "There's the claw-bar, that the devil done it with," he said.

  "You can tell it's just been handled by the way the rust's rubbed off."

  It was conclusive evidence. Everybody could see how the workman's hands,as he labored with the claw-bar to draw the spikes, had cleaned off therust.

  I hurried the motor away. We raced up the long winding road to Crewe'scountry-house, sitting like a feudal castle on the summit. And Iwondered, at every moment, how I could keep my promise. The boy was acriminal, deserving to be hanged, no doubt, but the naked mother's heartthat had dabbed against my fingers overwhelmed me.

  Almost in a flash, I thought, we were in the grounds and before Crewe'shouse. Then I noticed lights and a confusion of voices. No one came tomeet us. And we got out of the motor and went in through the open door.We found a group of excited servants. An old butler began to stammer toMarion.

  "It was his heart, Miss... the doctor warned the attendants. But hegot away to-night. It was overexertion, Miss. He fell just now as theattendants brought him in." And he flung open the library door.

  On a leather couch illumined by the brilliant light, Crewe lay; hismassive relentless face with the great bowed nose, like the iron castof what Marion had called a Nietzsche creature, motionless in death; hisarms straight beside him with the great gloved hands open.

  And all at once, at the sight, with a heavenly inspiration, I kept mypromise.

  "Look!" I cried. "Oh, everybody, how the palms of his gloves are coveredwith rust!"