"That is the house," said a voice, "where Forder lives, who was shot by Walter Radnor. The murder took place just behind this wall."
"Did it really?" queried a second voice. "I suppose Radnor is rather an anxious man this week."
"Oh," said the first, "he has doubtless been anxious enough all along."
"True. But still if Forder lives the week out, Radnor will escape the gallows. If Forder were to die this week it would be rather rough on his murderer, for his case would come up before Judge Brent, who is known all over the State as a hanging judge. He has no patience with crimes growing out of politics, and he is certain to charge dead against Radnor, and carry the jury with him. I tell you that the man in jail will be the most joyous person in this city on Sunday morning if Forder is still alive, and I understand his friends have bail ready, and that he will be out of jail first thing Monday morning."
The two unseen persons, having now satisfied their curiosity by their scrutiny of the house, passed on and left Mrs. Forder standing looking into space, with her nervous hands clasped tightly together.
Coming to herself she walked quickly to the house and sent a messenger for her brother. He found her pacing up and down the room.
"How is John to-day?" he said.
"Still the same, still the same," was the answer. "It seems to me he is getting weaker and weaker. He does not recognise me any more."
"What do the doctors say?"
"Oh, how can I tell you? I don't suppose they speak the truth to me, but when they come again I shall insist upon knowing just what they think. But tell me this: is it true that if John lives through the week his murderer will escape?"
"How do you mean, escape?"
"Is it the law of the State that if my husband lives till the end of this week, the man who shot him will not be tried for murder?"
"He will not be tried for murder," said the lawyer, "but he may not be tried for murder even if John were to die now. His friends will doubtless try to make it out a case of manslaughter as it is; or perhaps they will try to get him off on the ground of self-defence. Still, I don't think they would have much of a chance, especially as his case will come before Judge Brent; but if John lives past twelve o'clock on Saturday night, it is the law of the State that Radnor cannot be tried for murder. Then, at most, he will get a term of years in a state prison, but that will not bother him to any great extent. He has a strong political backing, and if his party wins the next state election, which seems likely, the governor will doubtless pardon him out before a year is over."
"Is it possible," cried the wife, "that such an enormous miscarriage of justice can take place in a State that pretends to be civilised?"
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I don't bank much on our civilisation," he said. "Such things occur every year, and many times a year."
The wife walked up and down the room, while her brother tried to calm and soothe her.
"It is terribleit is awful!" she cried, "that such a dastardly crime may go unavenged!"
"My dear sister," said the lawyer, "do not let your mind dwell so much on vengeance. Remember that whatever happens to the villain who caused all this misery, it can neither help nor injure your husband."
"Revenge!" cried the woman, suddenly turning upon her brother; "I swear before God that if that man escapes, I will kill him with my own hand!"
The lawyer was too wise to say anything to his sister in her present frame of mind, and after doing what he could to comfort her he departed.
On Saturday morning Mrs. Forder confronted the physicians.
"I want to know," she said, "and I want to know definitely, whether there is the slightest chance of my husband's recovery or not. This suspense is slowly killing me, and I must know the truth, and I must know it now."
The physicians looked one at the other. "I think," said the elder, "that it is useless to keep you longer in suspense. There is not the slightest hope of your husband's recovery. He may live for a week or for a month perhaps, or he may die at any moment."
"I thank you, gentlemen," said Mrs. Forder, with a calmness that astonished the two men, who knew the state of excitement she had laboured under for a long time past. "I thank you. I think it is better that I should know."
All the afternoon she sat by the bedside of her insensible and scarcely breathing husband. His face was wasted to a shadow from his long contest with death. The nurse begged permission to leave the room for a few minutes, and the wife, who had been waiting for this, silently assented. When the woman had gone, Mrs. Forder, with tears streaming from her eyes, kissed her husband.
"John," she whispered, "you know and you will understand." She pressed his face to her bosom, and when his head fell back on the pillow her husband was smothered.
Mrs. Forder called for the nurse and sent for the doctors, but that which had happened was only what they had all expected.
* * * * *
To a man in the city jail the news of Forder's death brought a wild thrill of fear. The terrible and deadly charge of Judge Brent against the murderer doomed the victim, as every listener in the courthouse realised as soon as it was finished. The jury were absent but ten minutes, and the hanging of Walter Radnor did more perhaps than anything that ever happened in the State to make life within that commonwealth more secure than it had been before.
A DYNAMITE EXPLOSION
Dupré sat at one of the round tables in the Café Vernon, with a glass of absinthe before him, which he sipped every now and again. He looked through the open door, out to the Boulevard, and saw passing back and forth with the regularity of a pendulum, a uniformed policeman. Dupré laughed silently as he noticed this evidence of law and order. The Café Vernon was under the protection of the Government. The class to which Dupré belonged had sworn that it would blow the café into the next world, therefore the military-looking policeman walked to and fro on the pavement to prevent this being done, so that all honest citizens might see that the Government protects its own. People were arrested now and then for lingering around the café: they were innocent, of course, and by-and-by the Government found that out and let them go. The real criminal seldom acts suspiciously. Most of the arrested persons were merely attracted by curiosity. "There," said one to another, "the notorious Hertzog was arrested."
The real criminal goes quietly into the café, and orders his absinthe, as Dupré had done. And the policeman marches up and down keeping an eye on the guiltless. So runs the world.
There were few customers in the café, for people feared the vengeance of Hertzog's friends. They expected some fine day that the café would be blown to atoms, and they preferred to be taking their coffee and cognac somewhere else when that time came. It was evident that M. Sonne, the proprietor of the café, had done a poor stroke of business for himself when he gave information to the police regarding the whereabouts of Hertzog, notwithstanding the fact that his café became suddenly the most noted one in the city, and that it now enjoyed the protection of the Government.
Dupré seldom looked at the proprietor, who sat at the desk, nor at the waiter, who had helped the week before to overpower Hertzog. He seemed more intent on watching the minion of the law who paced back and forth in front of the door, although he once glanced at the other minion who sat almost out of sight at the back of the café, scrutinising all who came in, especially those who had parcels of any kind. The café was well guarded, and M. Sonne, at the desk, appeared to be satisfied with the protection he was receiving.
When customers did come in they seldom sat at the round metal tables, but went direct to the zinc-covered bar, ordered their fluid and drank it standing, seeming in a hurry to get away. They nodded to M. Sonne and were evidently old frequenters of the café who did not wish him to think they had deserted him in this crisis, nevertheless they all had engagements that made prompt departure necessary. Dupré smiled grimly when he noticed this. He was the only man sitting at a table. He had no fears of being blown up. He knew that his comrades were more given to big talk than to action. He had not attended the last meeting, for he more than suspected the police had agents among them; besides, his friend and leader, Hertzog, had never attended meetings. That was why the police had had such difficulty in finding him. Hertzog had been a man of deeds not words. He had said to Dupré once, that a single determined man who kept his mouth shut, could do more against society than all the secret associations ever formed, and his own lurid career had proved the truth of this. But now he was in prison, and it was the treachery of M. Sonne that had sent him there. As he thought of this, Dupré cast a glance at the proprietor and gritted his teeth.
The policeman at the back of the hall, feeling lonely perhaps, walked to the door and nodded to his parading comrade. The other paused for a moment on his beat, and they spoke to each other. As the policeman returned to his place, Dupré said to him
"Have a sip with me."
"Not while on duty," replied the officer with a wink.
"Garçon," said Dupré quietly, "bring me a caraffe of brandy. Fin champagne."
The garçon placed the little marked decanter on the table with two glasses. Dupré filled them both. The policeman, with a rapid glance over his shoulder, tossed one off, and smacked his lips. Dupré slowly sipped the other while he asked
"Do you anticipate any trouble here?"
"Not in the least," answered the officer confidently. "Talk, that's all."
"I thought so," said Dupré.
"They had a meeting the other nighta secret meeting;" the policeman smiled a little as he said this. "They talked a good deal. They are going to do wonderful things. A man was detailed to carry out this job."
"And have you arrested him?" questioned Dupré.
"Oh dear, no. We watch him merely. He is the most frightened man in the city to-night. We expect him to come and tell us all about it, but we hope he won't. We know more about it than he does."
"I dare say; still it must have hurt M. Sonne's business a good deal."
"It has killed it for the present. People are such cowards. But the Government will make it all right with him out of the secret fund. He won't lose anything."
"Does he own the whole house, or only the café?"
"The whole house. He lets the upper rooms, but nearly all the tenants have left. Yet I call it the safest place in the city. They are all poltroons, the dynamiters, and they are certain to strike at some place not so well guarded. They are all well known to us, and the moment one is caught prowling about here he will be arrested. They are too cowardly to risk their liberty by coming near this place. It's a different thing from leaving a tin can and fuse in some dark corner when nobody is looking. Any fool can do that."
"Then you think this would be a good time to take a room here? I am looking for one in this neighbourhood," said Dupré.
"You couldn't do better than arrange with M. Sonne. You could make a good bargain with him now, and you would be perfectly safe."
"I am glad that you mentioned it; I will speak to M. Sonne to-night, and see the rooms to-morrow. Have another sip of brandy?"
"No, thank you, I must be getting back to my place. Just tell M. Sonne, if you take a room, that I spoke to you about it."
"I will. Good-night."
Dupré paid his bill and tipped the garçon liberally. The proprietor was glad to hear of any one wanting rooms. It showed the tide was turning, and an appointment was made for next day.
Dupré kept his appointment, and the concierge showed him over the house. The back rooms were too dark, the windows being but a few feet from the opposite wall. The lower front rooms were too noisy. Dupré said that he liked quiet, being a student. A front room on the third floor, however, pleased him, and he took it. He well knew the necessity of being on good terms with the concierge, who would spy on him anyhow, so he paid just a trifle more than requisite to that functionary, but not enough to arouse suspicion. Too much is as bad as too little, a fact that Dupré was well aware of.
He had taken pains to see that his window was directly over the front door of the café, but now that he was alone and the door locked, he scrutinised the position more closely. There was an awning over the front of the café that shut off his view of the pavement and the policeman marching below. That complicated matters. Still he remembered that when the sun went down the awning was rolled up. His first idea when he took the room was to drop the dynamite from the third story window to the pavement below, but the more he thought of that plan the less he liked it. It was the sort of thing any fool could do, as the policeman had said. It would take some thinking over. Besides, dynamite dropped on the pavement would, at most, but blow in the front of the shop, kill the perambulating policeman perhaps, or some innocent passer-by, but it would not hurt old Sonne nor yet the garçon who had made himself so active in arresting Hertzog.
Dupré was a methodical man. He spoke quite truly when he said he was a student. He now turned his student training on the case as if it were a problem in mathematics.
First, the dynamite must be exploded inside the café. Second, the thing must be done so deftly that no suspicion could fall on the perpetrator. Third, revenge was no revenge when it (A) killed the man who fired the mine, or (B) left a trail that would lead to his arrest.
Dupré sat down at his table, thrust his hands in his pockets, stretched out his legs, knit his brows, and set himself to solve the conundrum. He could easily take a handbag filled with explosive material into the café. He was known there, but not as a friend of Hertzog's. He was a customer and a tenant, therefore doubly safe. But he could not leave the bag there, and if he stayed with it his revenge would rebound on himself. He could hand the bag to the waiter saying he would call for it again, but the waiter would naturally wonder why he did not give it to the concierge, and have it sent to his rooms; besides, the garçon was wildly suspicious. The waiter felt his unfortunate position. He dare not leave the Café Vernon, for he now knew that he was a marked man. At the Vernon he had police protection, while if he went anywhere else he would have no more safeguard than any other citizen; so he stayed on at the Vernon, such a course being, he thought, the least of two evils. But he watched every incomer much more sharply than did the policeman.
Dupré also realised that there was another difficulty about the handbag scheme. The dynamite must be set off either by a fuse or by clockwork machinery. A fuse caused smoke, and the moment a man touched a bag containing clockwork his hand felt the thrill of moving machinery. A man who hears for the first time the buzz of the rattlesnake's signal, like the shaking of dry peas in a pod, springs instinctively aside, even though he knows nothing of snakes. How much more, therefore, would a suspicious waiter, whose nerves were all alert for the soft, deadly purr of dynamite mechanism, spoil everything the moment his hand touched the bag? Yes, Dupré reluctantly admitted to himself, the handbag theory was not practical. It led to either self-destruction or prison.