Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries Read online

  Abner looked at him hard, but he did not answer. He turned, instead, to me.

  “Martin,” he said, “you must go to sleep, lad.” And he wrapped me in his greatcoat and put me to bed on the sofa—behind him in the corner. I was snug and warm there and I could have slept like Saul, but I was curious to know what Abner came for and I peeped out through a buttonhole of the greatcoat.

  Abner sat for a long time, his elbows on his knees, his hands together and his eyes looking into the fire. The hunchback watched him, his big, hairy hands moving on the padded arms of his chair and his sharp eyes twinkling like specks of glass. Finally Abner spoke—I judged he believed me now asleep.

  “And so, Gaul,” he said, “you think God is a scarecrow?”

  “I do,” said Gaul.

  “And you have taken what you liked?”

  “I have,” said Gaul.

  “Well,” said Abner, “I have come to ask you to return what you have taken—and something besides, for usury.”

  He got a folded paper out of his pocket and handed it across the hearth to Gaul.

  The hunchback took it, leaned back in his chair, unfolded it at his leisure and at his leisure read it through.

  “A deed in fee,” he said, “for all these lands… to my brother’s children. The legal terms are right: ‘Doth grant, with covenants of general warranty.’ … It is well drawn, Abner; but I am not pleased to ‘grant.’”

  “Gaul,” said Abner, “there are certain reasons that may move you.”

  The hunchback smiled.

  “They must be very excellent to move a man to alienate his lands.”

  “Excellent they are,” said Abner. “I shall mention the best one first.”

  “Do,” said Gaul, and his grotesque face was merry.

  “It is this,” said Abner: “You have no heirs. Your brother’s son is now a man; he should marry a wife and rear up children to possess these lands. And, as he is thus called upon to do what you cannot do, Gaul, he should have the things you have, to use.”

  “That’s a very pretty reason, Abner,” said the hunchback, “and it does you honor; but I know a better.”

  “What is it, Gaul?” said Abner.

  The hunchback grinned. “Let us say, my pleasure!”

  Then he struck his bootleg with his great black stick.

  “And now,” he cried, “who’s back of this tomfoolery?”

  “I am,” said Abner.

  The hunchback’s heavy brows shot down. He was not disturbed, but he knew that Abner moved on no fool’s errand.

  “Abner,” he said, “you have some reason for this thing. What is it?”

  “I have several reasons for it,” replied Abner, “and I gave you the best one first.”

  “Then the rest are not worth the words to say them in,” cried Gaul.

  “You are mistaken there,” replied Abner; “I said that I would give you the best reason, not the strongest… Think of the reason I have given. We do not have our possessions in fee in this world, Gaul, but upon lease and for a certain term of service. And when we make default in that service the lease abates and a new man can take the title.”

  Gaul did not understand and he was wary.

  “I carry out my brother’s will,” he said.

  “But the dead,” replied Abner, “cannot retain dominion over things. There can be no tenure beyond a life estate. These lands and chattels are for the uses of men as they arrive. The needs of the living overrule the devises of the dead.”

  Gaul was watching Abner closely. He knew that this was some digression, but he met it with equanimity. He put his big, hairy fingers together and spoke with a judicial air.

  “Your argument,” he said, “is without a leg to stand on. It is the dead who govern. Look you, man, how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! And the titles to our lands—have not the dead devised them?… If a surveyor runs a line he begins at some corner that the dead set up; and if one goes to law upon a question the judge looks backward through his books until he finds out how the dead have settled it—and he follows that. And all the writers, when they would give weight and authority to their opinions, quote the dead; and the orators and all those who preach and lecture—are not their mouths filled with words that the dead have spoken? Why, man, our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!”

  He got on his feet and looked at Abner. “What my brother has written in his will I will obey,” he said. “Have you seen that paper, Abner?”

  “I have not,” said Abner, “but I have read the copy in the county clerk’s book. It bequeathed these lands to you.”

  The hunchback went over to an old secretary standing against the wall. He pulled it open, got out the will and a pack of letters and brought them to the fire. He laid the letters on the table beside Abner’s deed and held out the will.

  Abner took the testament and read it.

  “Do you know my brother’s writing?” said Gaul.

  “I do,” said Abner.

  ‘Then you know he wrote that will.”

  “He did,” said Abner. “It is in Enoch’s hand.” Then he added: “But the date is a month before your brother came here.”

  “Yes,” said Gaul; “it was not written in this house. My brother sent it to me. See—here is the envelope that it came in, postmarked on that date.”

  Abner took the envelope and compared the date. “It is the very day,” he said, “and the address is in Enoch’s hand.”

  “It is,” said Gaul; “when my brother had set his signature to this will he addressed that cover. He told me of it.” The hunchback sucked in his cheeks and drew down his eyelids. “Ah, yes,” he said, “my brother loved me!”

  “He must have loved you greatly,” replied Abner, “to thus disinherit his own flesh and blood.”

  “And am not I of his own flesh and blood too?” cried the hunchback. “The strain of blood in my brother runs pure in me; in these children it is diluted. Shall not one love his own blood first?”

  “Love!” echoed Abner. “You speak the word, Gaul—but do you understand it?”

  “I do,” said Gaul; “for it bound my brother to me.”

  “And did it bind you to him?” said Abner.

  I could see the hunchback’s great white eyelids drooping and his lengthened face.

  “We were like David and Jonathan,” he said. “I would have given my right arm for Enoch and he would have died for me.”

  “He did!” said Abner.

  I saw the hunchback start, and, to conceal the gesture, he stooped and thrust the trunk of the apple tree a little farther into the fireplace. A cloud of sparks sprang up. A gust of wind caught the loose sash in the casement behind us and shook it as one, barred out and angry, shakes a door. When the hunchback rose Abner had gone on.

  “If you loved your brother like that,” he said, “you will do him this service—you will sign this deed.”

  “But, Abner,” replied Gaul, “such was not my brother’s will. By the law, these children will inherit at my death. Can they not wait?”

  “Did you wait?” said Abner.

  The hunchback flung up his head.

  “Abner,” he cried, “what do you mean by that?” And he searched my uncle’s face for some indicatory sign; but there was no sign there—the face was stern and quiet.

  “I mean,” said Abner, “that one ought not to have an interest in another’s death.”

  “Why not?” said Gaul.

  “Because,” replied Abner, “one may be tempted to step in before the providence of God and do its work for it.”

  Gaul turned the innuendo with a cunning twist.

  “You mean,” he said, “that these children may come to seek my death?”

  I was astonished at Abner’s answer.

  “Yes,” he said; “that is what I mean.”

  “Man,” cried the hunchback, “y
ou make me laugh!”

  “Laugh as you like,” replied Abner; “but I am sure that these children will not look at this thing as we have looked at it.”

  “As who have looked at it?” said Gaul.

  “As my brother Rufus and Elnathan Stone and I,” said Abner.

  “And so,” said the hunchback, “you gentlemen have considered how to save my life. I am much obliged to you.” He made a grotesque, mocking bow. “And how have you meant to save it?”

  “By the signing of that deed,” said Abner.

  “I thank you!” cried the hunchback. “But I am not pleased to save my life that way.”

  I thought Abner would give some biting answer; but, instead, he spoke slowly and with a certain hesitation.

  “There is no other way,” he said. “We have believed that the stigma of your death and the odium on the name and all the scandal would in the end wrong these children more than the loss of this estate during the term of your natural life; but it is clear to me that they will not so regard it. And we are bound to lay it before them if you do not sign this deed. It is not for my brother Rufus and Elnathan Stone and me to decide this question.”

  “To decide what question?” said Gaul. “Whether you are to live or die!” said Abner. The hunchback’s face grew stern and resolute. He sat down in his chair, put his stick between his knees and looked my uncle in the eyes.

  “Abner,” he said, “you are talking in some riddle… Say the thing out plain. Do you think I forged that will?”

  “I do not,” said Abner.

  “Nor could any man!” cried the hunchback. “It is in my brother’s hand—every word of it; and, besides, there is neither ink nor paper in this house. I figure on a slate; and when I have a thing to say I go and tell it.”

  “And yet,” said Abner, “the day before your brother’s death you bought some sheets of foolscap of the postmaster.”

  “I did,” said Gaul—“and for my brother. Enoch wished to make some calculations with his pencil. I have the paper with his figures on it.”

  He went to his desk and brought back some sheets.

  “And yet,” said Abner, “this will is written on a page of foolscap.”

  “And why not?” said Gaul. “Is it not sold in every store to Mexico?”

  It was the truth—and Abner drummed on the table.

  “And now,” said Gaul, “we have laid one suspicion by looking it squarely in the face; let us lay the other. What did you find about my brother’s death to moon over?”

  “Why,” said Abner, “should he take his own life in this house?”

  “I do not know that,” said Gaul.

  “I will tell you,” said Abner; “we found a bloody handprint on your brother!”

  “Is that all that you found on him?”

  “That is all,” said Abner.

  “Well,” cried Gaul, “does that prove that I killed him? Let me look your ugly suspicion in the face. Were not my brother’s hands covered with his blood and was not the bed covered with his fingerprints, where he had clutched about it in his death-struggle?”

  “Yes,” said Abner; “that is all true.”

  “And was there any mark or sign in that print,” said Gaul, “by which you could know that it was made by any certain hand”—and he spread out his fingers—“as, for instance, my hand?”

  “No,” said Abner.

  There was victory in Gaul’s face.

  He had now learned all that Abner knew and he no longer feared him. There was no evidence against him—even I saw that.

  “And now,” he cried, “will you get out of my house? I will have no more words with you. Begone!”

  Abner did not move. For the last five minutes he had been at work at something, but I could not see what it was, for his back was toward me. Now he turned to the table beside Gaul and I saw what he had been doing. He had been making a pen out of a goosequill! He laid the pen down on the table and beside it a horn of ink. He opened out the deed that he had brought, put his finger on a line, dipped the quill into the ink and held it out to Gaul.

  “Sign there!” he said.

  The hunchback got on his feet, with an oath.

  “Begone with your damned paper!” he cried.

  Abner did not move.

  “When you have signed,” he said.

  “Signed!” cried the hunchback. “I will see you and your brother Rufus, and Elnathan Stone, and all the kit and kittle of you in hell!”

  “Gaul,” said Abner, “you will surely see all who are to be seen in hell!”

  By Abner’s manner I knew that the end of the business had arrived. He seized the will and the envelope that Gaul had brought from his secretary and held them out before him.

  “You tell me,” he said, “that these papers were written at one sitting! Look! The hand that wrote that envelope was calm and steady, but the hand that wrote this will shook. See how the letters wave and jerk! I will explain it. You have kept that envelope from some old letter; but this paper was written in this house—in fear! And it was written on the morning that your brother died… Listen! When Elnathan Stone stepped back from your brother’s bed he stumbled over a piece of carpet. The under side of that carpet was smeared with ink, where a bottle had been broken. I put my finger on it and it was wet.”

  The hunchback began to howl and bellow like a beast penned in a corner. I crouched under Abner’s coat in terror. The creature’s cries filled the great, empty house. They rose a hellish crescendo on the voices of the wind; and for accompaniment the sleet played shrill notes on the windowpanes, and the loose shingles clattered a staccato, and the chimney whistled—like weird instruments under a devil’s fingers.

  And all the time Abner stood looking down at the man—an implacable, avenging Nemesis—and his voice, deep and level, did not change.

  “But, before that, we knew that you had killed your brother! We knew it when we stood before his bed. ‘Look there,’ said Rufus—‘at that bloody handprint!’… We looked… And we knew that Enoch’s hand had not made that print. Do you know how we knew that, Gaul?… I will tell you… The bloody print on your brother’s right hand was the print of a right hand!”

  Gaul signed the deed, and at dawn we rode away, with the hunchback’s promise that he would come that afternoon before a notary and acknowledge what he had signed; but he did not come—neither on that day nor on any day after that.

  When Abner went to fetch him he found him swinging from his elm tree.

  Chapter 3

  The Angel of the Lord

  I always thought my father took a long chance, but somebody had to take it and certainly I was the one least likely to be suspected. It was a wild country. There were no banks. We had to pay for the cattle, and somebody had to carry the money. My father and my uncle were always being watched. My father was right, I think.

  “Abner,” he said, “I’m going to send Martin. No one will ever suppose that we would trust this money to a child.”

  My uncle drummed on the table and rapped his heels on the floor. He was a bachelor, stem and silent. But he could talk… and when he did, he began at the beginning and you heard him through; and what he said—well, he stood behind it.

  “To stop Martin,” my father went on, “would be only to lose the money; but to stop you would be to get somebody killed.”

  I knew what my father meant. He meant that no one would undertake to rob Abner until after he had shot him to death.

  I ought to say a word about my Uncle Abner. He was one of those austere, deeply religious men who were the product of the Reformation. He always carried a Bible in his pocket and he read it where he pleased. Once the crowd at Roy’s Tavern tried to make sport of him when he got his book out by the fire; but they never tried it again. When the fight was over Abner paid Roy eighteen silver dollars for the broken chairs and the table—and he was the only man in the tavern who could ride a horse. Abner belonged to the church militant and his God was a war lord.

  So tha
t is how they came to send me. The money was in greenbacks in packages. They wrapped it up in newspaper and put it into a pair of saddle-bags, and I set out. I was about nine years old. No, it was not as bad as you think. I could ride a horse all day when I was nine years old—most any kind of a horse. I was tough as whit’-leather, and I knew the country I was going into. You must not picture a little boy rolling a hoop in the park.

  It was an afternoon in early autumn. The clay roads froze in the night; they thawed out in the day and they were a bit sticky. I was to stop at Roy’s Tavern, south of the river, and go on in the morning. Now and then I passed some cattle driver, but no one overtook me on the road until almost sundown; then I heard a horse behind me and a man came up. I knew him. He was a cattleman named Dix. He had once been a shipper, but he had come in for a good deal of bad luck. His partner, Alkire, had absconded with a big sum of money due the grazers. This had ruined Dix; he had given up his land, which wasn’t very much, to the grazers. After that he had gone over the mountain to his people, got together a pretty big sum of money and bought a large tract of grazing land. Foreign claimants had sued him in the courts on some old title and he had lost the whole tract and the money that he had paid for it. He had married a remote cousin of ours and he had always lived on her lands, adjoining those of my Uncle Abner.

  Dix seemed surprised to see me on the road.

  “So it’s you, Martin,” he said; “I thought Abner would be going into the upcountry.”

  One gets to be a pretty cunning youngster, even at this age, and I told no one what I was about.

  “Father wants the cattle over the river to run a month,” I returned easily, “and I’m going up there to give his orders to the grazers.”

  He looked me over, then he rapped the saddlebags with his knuckles. “You carry a good deal of baggage, my lad.”

  I laughed. “Horse feed,” I said. “You know my father! A horse must be fed at dinner time, but a man can go till he gets it.”

  One was always glad of any company on the road, and we fell into an idle talk. Dix said he was going out into the Ten Mile country; and I have always thought that was, in fact, his intention. The road turned south about a mile our side of the tavern. I never liked Dix; he was of an apologetic manner, with a cunning, irresolute face.