The House of the Whispering Pines Read Online Free PDF Page A

her dead as they certainly must have respected her
living? I listened but caught only a low murmur as they conferred
together. I imagined their movements; saw them in my mind's eye leaning
over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with accusing finger at those
two dark marks, and consulting each other with side-long looks, as they
passed from one detail of her appearance to another. I even imagined them
crossing the floor and lifting the two cordial glasses just as I had
done, and then slowly setting them down again, with perhaps a lift of the
brows or a suggestive shake of the head; and maddened by my own
intolerable position, drawn by a power I felt it impossible to resist, I
crept to my feet and took my staggering way down the half-dozen steps of
the gallery and thence along by the left-hand wall towards the further
doorway, and through it to where these men stood weighing the chances in
which my life and honour were involved, and those of one other of whom I
dared not think and would not have these men think for all that was left
me of hope and happiness.
    It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
corridor. All the light was in
that
room; but I still slid along the
wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word which
might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a man
of me again:
    "That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this."
    He!
I had been dreading to hear a
she
. Yet why? Who on God's earth,
save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
to-night.
He!
I never stopped to question who was meant by this
definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was in
a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
into the room where the two officials stood.
    Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless and
more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which made my
heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made upon them.
It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by nature and
training easy masters of themselves; but its language was unmistakable
and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must get all the
support I could from the truth, save where it would involve her—from the
truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any such
consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
precipitated this tragedy,—how I might never know, but a knowledge of
the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my hands
were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact to take a
foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real feeling, but
as little display of it as possible, I observed:
    "You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
wife—the woman I was to marry—and I find her lying here dead, in this
closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do."

IV - The Odd Candlestick
*
    It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand,
If that it be the work of any hand.
    King John
.
    The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet and
sternly retorted:
    "Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you."
    They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
point in these words:
    "Perhaps—but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my own
presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I did
not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her here
covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the shock. I
do not look like