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Read Ebook: The Four-Fingered Glove; Or The Cost of a Lie by Carter Nicholas House Name
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Ebook has 2063 lines and 62965 words, and 42 pages
"The murder? Do you mean to say that you are speaking seriously and that you have come here to see me about a murder?"
"Yes. That's the long and short of it."
"Who is killed? Where was the crime committed? I hope, Mr. Danton, that this is not a specimen of one of the jokes you are so fond of perpetrating," said Nick severely.
"Joke! gad! I wish it were a joke! No, Mr. Carter, it is very far from being a joke, I'm sorry to say. It's a murder of the first water. A regular gem of the blue-stone variety. An out-and-out, dyed-in-the-wool, double-back-action, deliberate murder, carefully planned and scientifically executed, and"--he leaned forward in his chair and looked the detective straight in the eyes--"the joke will be on me, don't you know."
"What do you mean, Danton? You will have to be more explicit if you wish me to pretend to understand you."
He paused and rose from his chair, crossing the room to the window and then returning.
"Well?" said Nick. "What were you about to add to your statement?"
"I mean," he said, slowly and impressively, "that I am not, myself, positive of my own innocence."
There was half a moment of silence after that extraordinary statement, and it was Danton who spoke first.
"Do you wonder now that I asked you if I looked excited, and if you thought I could tell a connected story?"
"In the light of the statement you have just made, it seems doubtful if you can tell one," said Nick slowly. "You tell me that there has been a murder committed, that you will be accused of the crime, that there will be circumstantial evidence which will tend to convict you of the crime, and that you are not sure that you are not guilty. Those statements are rather extraordinary, coming from a man who is supposed to be sane, Mr. Danton."
"Well, all the same, they are God's truths, every one of them."
"Then suppose you tell me why you have come to me at five o'clock in the morning?" said Nick severely. "If you are not sure that you have not committed a crime--which is a statement to be taken with a large proportion of salt--you are more than half convinced that you have committed one. My business, Mr. Danton, is to catch criminals, not to protect them."
"Well, that's all right. That's just what I want you to do. That's why I came here at five o'clock in the morning."
"Why?"
"Because I want you to catch and convict the criminal. If I am guilty I want you to convict me of it, just as if I were not here to engage your services. I want you to prove who did commit the crime, and if I did it I want you to prove it to my own satisfaction, as well as to a jury of twelve men. I've been asleep ever since I was born, Mr. Carter, but I woke up this morning in earnest, and I'm awake now, to stay awake."
THE QUARREL IN REGINALD DANTON'S ROOM.
"You seem to be very much in earnest in what you say, Mr. Danton," said the detective.
"I am very much in earnest, sir."
"Ramon Orizaba; my mother's guest."
"Your cousin, is he--or rather, was he not?"
"A kinsman of my mother's so far removed that the ties of blood are very thin; still, he has passed as our cousin. You know of him. He has been our guest, at intervals of two or three months at a time, for half a dozen seasons."
"Oh, yes; I know of him. Now where was he killed?"
"In my own room at the Fells."
"In your room? Where were you?"
"I was there."
"There in the room when he was killed?"
"Just that."
"No. You're wrong."
"Well, what, then?"
"I was there when he was killed; at least I suppose I was, but I was either unconscious, or asleep, for I did not see it done, and I did not know that he was dead until I awoke, at three o'clock this morning, and found him."
"Had you quarreled?"
"We always quarreled. There never was a time when we did not quarrel."
"How was he killed? What killed him?"
Danton left his chair and crossed to the window again, but after a moment he returned and stood facing the detective.
"I was waiting for that question," he said slowly, "and wondering when it would come, for I had not yet determined how I would reply to it. The fact is, Mr. Carter, I believe that even the coroner and the physicians will find it difficult to determine at first how Orizaba was killed; but nevertheless, although I have not examined the body, save to look at one spot where I expected to find something, I can tell you what killed him."
"Then tell me."
"He was killed with a glass needle, three inches in length, and of the size of a common darning needle. Orizaba's hair grew very low on the back of his neck, and the weapon I have described was jabbed into the vertebra at that point."
"So that death was almost instantaneous, I suppose?"
"It must have been."
"Now, how do you know that he was killed as you describe?"
"Because I looked at that spot to find out."
"Why did you look there?"
"Because I expected to find what I did find."
"Why?"
"Because I had meditated killing him in just that way."
"It's true."
"In that case, I do not see what I can do to assist you. A man who will meditate such an infamous thing and then have the effrontery to come here and confess it to me in cold blood expecting me to sympathize with his troubles, must be beyond the pale of human sympathy."
"Wait, Mr. Carter. I quite agree with you--in the abstract; but this is different."
"I cannot determine the nice points of reasoning of that kind, sir."
"Just listen to me, won't you? I have been careful to tell you all the worst phases of this case first."
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