That Affair at Elizabeth 23 – Stevenson · Verses Across
Literature · Detective Fiction
That Affair at Elizabeth 23The Story
18
Literature · Detective Fiction
That Affair at Elizabeth 23
The Story
StevensonEnglish
It was not until I unfolded my Record at the breakfast table, next morning, that I fully appreciated Godfrey's tremendous activity. I had always known, of course, that he was energetic, indefatigable, and fertile of expedient, but his results, remarkable as they often were, were usually achieved with such apparent ease that I had never suspected the extent of the downright hard work which lay back of them. Now, as I looked over the paper before me, I understood and wondered.
I had left him at ten o'clock the night before, with the mystery still unsolved and seemingly unsolvable, for the only clue in his possession had led him to a blank wall. Yet here before me was the story. An entire page was devoted to it--and an astonishing story it was, written with verve and vividness, complete in every detail, and illustrated with photographs and sketches of all the scenes and characters. There was the Kingdon cottage, the grave in the cellar, the Kingdon sisters, the murdered man, the pearl-handled revolver--even the coroner and the chief of police. Many of the photographs had, of course, been collected the day before, and some of them, no doubt, had been used in the afternoon edition, but here they were welded into a homogeneous whole, complete and satisfying. I could fancy the city editors of the other morning papers turning green with envy as they read it.
And looking at the story, I understood, more clearly than I had ever done, the wide appeal of the yellow press--it paid for the best talent in the market; it handled its matter in a way to attract attention; it told its stories in a style incisive and easily comprehensible, and added the visual appeal of pictures, which gave the supreme touch of reality. And it got the news. Abstractly, I am anything but an admirer of the yellow press; concretely, I have often found that to get the last detail of any event--more especially of any event with a sensational or mysterious side--I must have recourse to its columns, just as I had recourse to them now.
As I read on, I marvelled more and more at the system which rendered possible the securing of all these details in so short a time--subterranean, Godfrey had called it; superhuman, I would have said, and I determined that he should some day introduce me to it. He had run down Parello, unmasked him, laid him bare in all his treachery and vileness; the whole sordid, terrible story lay revealed--and as I thought of Harriet Kingdon's sufferings and abasement, I did not wonder that she had shot down the brute who was trying to drag her back to them. Some of the details, I knew, Godfrey must have filled in for himself, since there could be no way of verifying them at this late day; but they fitted so closely with the rest of the structure that there could be no doubt of their essential truthfulness.
Such, for instance, was the detail of their meeting. Parello had been a teacher of music, and Godfrey shrewdly guessed that he must have met Harriet Kingdon and become acquainted with her at the house where she was employed as governess. The rest of the story could be easily built up. He was a handsome and magnetic fellow, she a passionate and attractive woman. He had struck a chord in her which she could not but obey. He had seemed then to have a future before him; the brave exterior gave no hint of the rottenness within. He had that grandiloquent way of speaking of the future which is characteristic of the Latin races--that sublime faith in himself which needed no justification. He had impressed himself upon her as a genius who would one day astonish the world; and if he had certain assertive peculiarities which jarred disagreeably at times, why, was not all genius so? She began by admiring him; she ended by yielding to him. No doubt she fancied that she was hitching her wagon to a star.
Whether there had been a marriage was not certain; Godfrey believed there had been. At any rate, Parello had introduced her to his friends as his wife, and, for a time, all went well. Then the devil in the man cropped out. He was naturally indolent. He quit teaching under the pretext that he wished to compose a masterpiece, and forced her to support him. No doubt she even yet believed in him; but he dragged her down to depths unspeakable, trampling her into the very mire of the Italian colony.
At last, he brought his real wife from Italy to live with him. This swarthy vixen had added new torments to the unfortunate girl's position, had devised new insults for her, and the end had been Bloomingdale. Up to the very last, such was the nature of the woman, she had continued to love the man, contented to be his dog, his slave, for the privilege of being near him. Doubtless all this time her mind was weakening, and she clung to him out of old habit. But with the sudden accession of madness, hate had blazed up in her, white-hot, and she had attempted to stab him. He had called the police, and she had been dragged away, cursing, shrieking, a spectacle to shake the strongest nerves. It was in that struggle that he had lost the end of his little finger. She had seized it between her teeth and bitten it clean through. From a woman she had changed into a monster.
But insanity of this type usually yields to treatment; and though Harriet Kingdon's case proved to be of unusual obstinacy, patience and careful nursing triumphed in the end, and reason was restored to her. Restored, that is, as life is restored to a man stricken with heart disease; resting not on the firm foundation of assured health, but on a delicate balance which any shock may disturb.
Not until she was ready to leave the asylum, did her sister know her whereabouts; I doubt if she ever knew the whole story of the sufferings which went before. She had come for her, had taken her back to Elizabeth, to the home which Mrs. Lawrence's kindness and generosity had provided.
The Parellos had remained with the Italian colony, sinking lower and lower. Parello, driven by his wife, the target of her abuse now that she no longer had any other, endeavoured to resume his teaching, but he had so coarsened in habits and appearance that the old doors were shut to him. Still, he managed to scrape along, always on the verge of want. Then, in a fortunate hour, his wife had been run down and killed by a trolley car, he managed to exact damages for her death, and for the moment found himself in affluence.
It was at this time that his thoughts turned to Harriet Kingdon. Why? It is impossible to say. Perhaps he felt some revival of his old passion for her; perhaps he may even have had some twinges of remorse; more probably he realised that he was growing old; he wanted some one to wait on him and slave for him, some one upon whom he could wreak his gusts of passion. He had always believed himself irresistible to women; he knew the dog-like devotion which Harriet Kingdon had had for him; he believed that he had only to speak the word, and she would crawl back to him. But he would do more than that; he would be generous; he would offer to make her really his wife. Magnificent! Could she refuse such an offer as that? The wife of Parello!
So he had made inquiries at the asylum, had learned her address, and had taken the train for Elizabeth on the morning of that fatal tenth of June. He had made his way to the Kingdon cottage, had found Harriet Kingdon there alone, had entered, seated himself familiarly, perhaps attempted some endearment. He was confident, self-satisfied. It was better than he had hoped. Here was a comfortable home ready for him; a wife who seemed to be making a good living. If it should be necessary, he could no doubt find many pupils at Elizabeth, and if the pay was not quite metropolitan, why, neither was the work. Here was a golden future; yes, he would be generous; she should be his wife; he would forget all that had happened....
But the sight of him had brought back the memory of her old infamy, which her attack of madness and the years had partially blotted out; the cloud rolled down upon her brain again, that white hate leaped to life. She snatched up her revolver and shot him through the heart, even as he sat there confidently smiling. Then, with a strength born of insanity, she had dragged him to the cellar and dug a grave for him there.
The story was strong in every link; there could be no doubting it.
Not until the inquest was finished, and we entered the train together to return to New York, did I get the chance to talk quietly with Godfrey.
"You did great work," I said, as we sat down together.
"Yes," he agreed, smiling, "I was pleased with it myself. The story developed beautifully."
"And clearly. Even the coroner's jury couldn't question it. There's no possibility, now, of any one associating this affair with Miss Lawrence's disappearance. If it had to happen, I'm glad that it happened just when it did--it's served to make the public forget the other mystery. I'm pleased for another reason," I added. "Lucy Kingdon won't be called upon to tell that story on the stand. I don't like her nor trust her, but I'm glad she'll be spared that ordeal."
"It would have been a trying one," Godfrey agreed. "The coroner tells me that she's very ill. I feel guilty, in a way. I should have prepared her for that horror in the cellar. I shouldn't have taken her without warning to the brink of that grave."
"That wasn't the only cause of her illness," I said. "She had sins of her own on her conscience. I don't understand even yet," I added, "why that face should affect her so. She couldn't have recognised it, since she'd never seen Parello."
"How do you know she never saw him? I'm decidedly inclined to think she had--that he was the cause of that violent quarrel between her and her sister which Dr. Schuyler mentioned. Lucy Kingdon, looking at the man clear-eyed, saw him as he was and tried to dissuade her sister from the entanglement; the elder woman, blinded by passion, wouldn't listen, and the quarrel followed, in which both, no doubt, used words which they afterwards regretted."
"Yes," I agreed, "perhaps you're right."
"Even if she'd never seen him," Godfrey added, "she must have suspected who it was--there was only one man in the world whom her sister was capable of killing. Or she might have imagined that it was some one else. There's been nothing in all this, Lester, to disprove my original theory about Miss Lawrence."
"Godfrey," I said impulsively, "I'm going to disprove it once and for all. Look at this," and I thrust into his hands the photograph Burr Curtiss had entrusted to me.
He gazed at it for some moments in silence. At last he handed it back to me.
"Do you believe that theory now?" I asked.
"No," he answered, and sat staring straight before him, his lips compressed.
"I knew you'd say so," I said. "I knew you'd see how impossible it was that there should be any shameful secret in her life. I wavered once or twice when every discovery we made seemed to confirm your theory, but I never really believed it. I'd only to recall this photograph----"
"Why didn't you show it to me before?" he asked.
"Candidly, Godfrey," I answered, crimsoning a little, "I--I don't know."
"Oh, yes, you do!" he retorted. "You were afraid I'd chin it out of you."
"Well, yes, I was," I admitted.
He looked at me curiously for a moment.
"I see you don't know me very well, even yet, Lester," he said, at last. "I'm sorry you didn't let me see it. It would have saved me a wild-goose chase. But then," he added, with a grim little laugh, "I might not have stumbled upon this second tragedy. So perhaps it was as well, after all. I forgive you."
"You think the photograph would have made the mystery clearer?" I asked.
"Clearer?" he echoed. "My dear Lester, it makes it more unexplainable than ever. It converts it from a vulgar intrigue into the most puzzling problem I ever had to deal with!"
I was staring at him in astonishment.
"I don't see how it can do that!" I protested.
"Don't you? Well, I'll tell you. I've already pointed out to you that, so far as I could see, my theory was the only conceivable one which would explain Marcia Lawrence's flight. I look at that photograph and see at once that I must throw that theory aside. What have I left? Nothing! That photograph shows me a pure, cultured, innocent woman; I know that she loved devotedly the man she was to marry. Yet she deliberately deserts him. I should say it was incredible, if I didn't know it was true!"
"Then," I said, "while we've solved one mystery, the other is as deep as ever."
"Deeper!" he corrected. "Miles deeper. In fact, it hasn't any bottom at all, that I can see," and he sank back into his seat again, a deep line between his eyebrows.
