Part 22 (1/2)
”No--but it's true; it is!”
”But, if your supposition is to hold good, how did your father happen to be in possession of that dagger, which evidently was made with malice aforethought, as the lawyers say?”
”Exactly,” she said, her lips quivering, hands gripping spasmodically at her knees. ”He didn't do it! He didn't do it! Berne's idea was a mistake!”
”Who, then?” he pressed her, realizing now that she was so unstrung she would give him her thoughts unguarded.
”Why, that man Russell,” she said, her voice so low and the words so slow that he thought her at the limit of her endurance. ”But I've said all this to show you why Berne put his hand over the judge's mouth. I want to make it very clear that he feared father--think of it, Mr.
Hastings!--had killed her! At first, I thought----”
She bowed her face in both her hands and wept unrestrainedly, without sobs, the tears streaming between her fingers and down her wrists.
The old man put one hand on her hair, and with the other brought forth his handkerchief, being bothered by the sudden mistiness of his spectacles.
”A brave girl,” he said, his own voice insecure. ”What a woman! I know what you mean. At first, you feared your father might have been concerned in the murder. I saw it in your eyes last night. You had the same thought that young Webster had--rather, that you say he had.”
Her weeping ceased as suddenly as it had begun. She looked at him through tears.
”And I've only injured Berne in your eyes; I think, irreparably! This morning I thought you heard me when I asked him not to let it be known that our engagement was broken? Don't you remember? You were on the porch as we came around the corner.”
For the first time since its utterance, he recalled her statement then, ”We'll have to leave it as it was,” and Webster's significant rejoinder.
He despised his own stupidity. Had he magnified Webster's desire to keep that promise into guilty knowledge of the crime itself? And had not the mistake driven him into false and valueless interpretations of his entire interview with Webster?
”He promised,” Lucille pursued, ”for the same reason I had in asking it--to prevent discovery of the fact that father might have had a motive for wis.h.i.+ng her dead! It was a mistake, I see now, a terrible mistake!”
”Can you tell me why you didn't have the same thoughts about Berne?” He was sorry he had to make that inquiry. If he could, he would have spared her further distress. ”Why wouldn't he have had the same motive, hatred of Mildred Brace, a thousand times stronger?”
”I don't know,” she said. ”I simply never thought of it--not once.”
Fine psychologist that he was, Hastings knew why that view had not occurred to her. Her love for Webster was an idealizing sentiment, putting him beyond even the possibility of wrong-doing. Her love for her father, unusual in its devotion as it was, recognized his weaknesses nevertheless.
And, while seeking to protect the two, she had told a story which, so far as bald facts went, incriminated the lover far more than the father.
She had attributed to Sloane, in her uneasiness, the motive which would have been most natural to the discarded Webster. Even now, she could not suspect Berne; her only fear was that others, not understanding him as she did, might suspect him! Although she had broken with him, she still loved him. More than that: his illness and consequent helplessness increased her devotion for him, brought to the surface the maternal phase of it.
”If she had to choose between the two,” Hastings thought, ”she'd save Webster--every time!”
”I know--I tell you, Mr. Hastings, I _know_ neither Berne nor father is at all responsible for this crime. I tell you,” she repeated, rising to her feet, as if by mere physical height she hoped to impress her knowledge upon him, ”I _know_ they're innocent.--Don't _you_ know it?”
She stood looking down at him, her whole body tense, arms held close against her sides, the knuckles of her fingers white as ivory. Her eyes now were dry, and brilliant.
He evaded the flat statement to which she pressed him.
”But your knowledge, Miss Sloane, and what we must prove,” he said, also standing, ”are two different things just now. The authorities will demand proofs.”
”I know. That's why I've told you these things.” Somehow, her manner reproached him. ”You said you had to have them in order to handle this--this situation properly. Now that you know them, I'm sure you'll feel safe in devoting all your time to proving Russell's guilt.” She moved her head forward, to study him more closely. ”You know he's guilty, don't you?”
”I'm certain Mrs. Brace figured in her daughter's murder,” he said. ”She was concerned in it somehow. If that's true, and if your father approached neither her nor her daughter yesterday, it does seem highly possible that Russell's guilty.”