<h2>III</h2>
<p>On the afternoon of the following day Mr. Shackford was duly
buried. The funeral, under the direction of Mr. Richard
Shackford, who acted as chief mourner and was sole mourner by
right of kinship, took place in profound silence. The carpenters,
who had lost a day on Bishop's new stables, intermitted their
sawing and hammering while the services were in progress; the
steam was shut off in the iron-mills, and no clinking of the
chisel was heard in the marble yard for an hour, during which
many of the shops had their shutters up. Then, when all was over,
the imprisoned fiend in the boilers gave a piercing shriek; the
leather bands slipped on the revolving drums, the spindles leaped
into life again, and the old order of things was
reinstated,--outwardly, but not in effect.</p>
<p>In general, when the grave closes over a man his career is
ended. But Mr. Shackford was never so much alive as after they
had buried him. Never before had he filled so large a place in
the public eye. Though invisible, he sat at every fireside. Until
the manner of his death had been made clear, his ubiquitous
presence was not to be exorcised. On the morning of the memorable
day a reward of one hundred dollars--afterwards increased to five
hundred, at the insistence of Mr. Shackford's cousin--had been
offered by the board of selectmen for the arrest and conviction
of the guilty party. Beyond this and the unsatisfactory inquest,
the authorities had done nothing, and were plainly not equal to
the situation.</p>
<p>When it was stated, the night of the funeral, that a
professional person was coming to Stillwater to look into the
case, the announcement was received with a breath of relief.</p>
<p>The person thus vaguely described appeared on the spot the
next morning. To mention the name of Edward Taggett is to mention
a name well known to the detective force of the great city lying
sixty miles southwest of Stillwater. Mr. Taggett's arrival sent
such a thrill of expectancy through the village that Mr. Leonard
Tappleton, whose obsequies occurred this day, made his exit
nearly unobserved. Yet there was little in Mr. Taggett's physical
aspect calculated to stir either expectation or enthusiasm: a
slender man of about twenty-six, but not looking it, with
overhanging brown mustache, sparse side-whiskers, eyes of no
definite color, and faintly accentuated eyebrows. He spoke
precisely, and with a certain unembarrassed hesitation, as
persons do who have two thoughts to one word,--if there are such
persons. You might have taken him for a physician, or a
journalist, or the secretary of an insurance company; but you
would never have supposed him the man who had disentangled the
complicated threads of the great Barnabee Bank defalcation.</p>
<p>Stillwater's confidence, which had risen into the nineties,
fell to zero at sight of him. "Is <i>that</i> Taggett?" they
asked. That was Taggett; and presently his influence began to be
felt like a sea-turn. The three Dogberrys of the watch were
dispatched on secret missions, and within an hour it was ferreted
out that a man in a cart had been seen driving furiously up the
turnpike the morning after the murder. This was an agricultural
district, the road led to a market town, and teams going by in
the early dawn were the rule and not the exception; but on that
especial morning a furiously driven cart was significant.
Jonathan Beers, who farmed the Jenks land, had heard the wheels
and caught an indistinct glimpse of the vehicle as he was feeding
the cattle, but with a reticence purely rustic had not been moved
to mention the circumstance before.</p>
<p>"Taggett has got a clew," said Stillwater under its
breath.</p>
<p>By noon Taggett had got the man, cart and all. But it was only
Blufton's son Tom, of South Millville, who had started in hot
haste that particular morning to secure medical service for his
wife, of which she had sorely stood in need, as two tiny girls in
a willow cradle in South Millville now bore testimony.</p>
<p>"I haven't been cutting down the population <i>much,"</i> said
Blufton, with his wholesome laugh.</p>
<p>Thomas Blufton was well known and esteemed in Stillwater, but
if the crime had fastened itself upon him it would have given
something like popular satisfaction.</p>
<p>In the course of the ensuing forty-eight hours four or five
tramps were overhauled as having been in the neighborhood at the
time of the tragedy; but they each had a clean story, and were
let go. Then one Durgin, a workman at Slocum's Yard, was called
upon to explain some half-washed-out red stains on his overalls,
which he did. He had tightened the hoops on a salt-pork barrel
for Mr. Shackford several days previous; the red paint on the
head of the barrel was fresh, and had come off on his clothes.
Dr. Weld examined the spots under a microscope, and pronounced
them paint. It was manifest that Mr. Taggett meant to go to the
bottom of things.</p>
<p>The bar-room of the Stillwater hotel was a center of interest
these nights; not only the bar-room proper, but the adjoining
apartment, where the more exclusive guests took their
seltzer-water and looked over the metropolitan newspapers. Twice
a week a social club met here, having among its members Mr.
Craggie, the postmaster, who was supposed to have a great
political future, Mr. Pinkham, Lawyer Perkins, Mr. Whidden, and
other respectable persons. The room was at all times in some
sense private, with a separate entrance from the street, though
another door, which usually stood open, connected it with the
main salon. In this was a long mahogany counter, one section of
which was covered with a sheet of zinc perforated like a sieve,
and kept constantly bright by restless caravans of lager-beer
glasses. Directly behind that end of the counter stood a Gothic
brass-mounted beer-pump, at whose faucets Mr. Snelling, the
landlord, flooded you five or six mugs in the twinkling of an
eye, and raised the vague expectation that he was about to grind
out some popular operatic air. At the left of the pump stretched
a narrow mirror, reflecting he gaily-colored wine-glasses and
decanters which stood on each other's shoulders, and held up
lemons, and performed various acrobatic feats on a shelf in front
of it.</p>
<p>The fourth night after the funeral of Mr. Shackford, a dismal
southeast storm caused an unusual influx of idlers in both rooms.
With the rain splashing against the casements and the wind
slamming the blinds, the respective groups sat discussing in a
desultory way the only topic which could be discussed at present.
There had been a general strike among the workmen a fortnight
before; but even that had grown cold as a topic.</p>
<p>"That was hard on Tom Blufton," said Stevens, emptying the
ashes out of his long-stemmed clay pipe, and refilling the bowl
with cut cavendish from a jar on a shelf over his head.</p>
<p>Michael Hennessey sat down his beer-mug with an air of
argumentative disgust, and drew one sleeve across his glistening
beard.</p>
<p>"Stevens, you've as many minds as a weather-cock, jist! Didn't
ye say yerself it looked mighty black for the lad when he was
took?"</p>
<p>"I might have said something of the sort," Stevens admitted
reluctantly, after a pause. "His driving round at daybreak with
an empty cart did have an ugly look at first."</p>
<p>"Indade, then."</p>
<p>"Not to anybody who knew Tom Blufton," interrupted Samuel
Piggott, Blufton's brother-in-law. "The boy hasn't a bad streak
in him. It was an outrage. Might as well have suspected Parson
Langly or Father O'Meara."</p>
<p>"If this kind of thing goes on," remarked a man in the corner
with a patch over one eye, "both of them reverend gents will be
hauled up, I shouldn't wonder."</p>
<p>"That's so, Mr. Peters," responded Durgin. "If my
respectability didn't save me, who's safe?"</p>
<p>"Durgin is talking about his respectability! He's joking."</p>
<p>"Look here, Dexter," said Durgin, turning quickly on the
speaker, "when I want to joke, I talk about your
intelligence."</p>
<p>"What kind of man is Taggett, anyhow?" asked Piggott. "You saw
him, Durgin."</p>
<p>"I believe he was at Justice Beemis's office the day Blufton
and I was there; but I didn't make him out in the crowd.
Shouldn't know him from Adam."</p>
<p>"Stillwater's a healthy place for tramps jest about this
time," suggested somebody. "Three on 'em snaked in to-day."</p>
<p>"I think, gentlemen, that Mr. Taggett is on the right track
there," observed Mr. Snelling, in the act of mixing another Old
Holland for Mr. Peters. "Not too sweet, you said? I feel it in my
bones that it was a tramp, and that Mr. Taggett will bring him
yet."</p>
<p>"He won't find him on the highway yonder," said a tall,
swarthy man named Torrini, an Italian. Nationalities clash in
Stillwater. "That tramp is a thousand miles from here."</p>
<p>"So he is if he has any brains under his hat," returned
Snelling. "But they're on the lookout for him. The minute he
pawns anything, he's gone."</p>
<p>"Can't put up greenbacks or gold, can he? He didn't take
nothing else," interposed Bishop, the veterinary surgeon.</p>
<p>"Now jewelry nor nothing?"</p>
<p>"There wasn't none, as I understand it," said Bishop, "except
a silver watch. That was all snug under the old man's
piller."</p>
<p>"Wanter know!" ejaculated Jonathan Beers.</p>
<p>"I opine, Mr. Craggie," said the school-master, standing in
the inner room with a rolled-up file of the Daily Advertiser in
his hand, "that the person who--who removed our worthy townsman
will never be discovered."</p>
<p>"I shouldn't like to go quite so far as that, sir," answered
Mr. Craggie, with that diplomatic suavity which leads to
postmasterships and seats in the General Court, and has even been
known to oil a dull fellow's way into Congress. "I cannot take
quite so hopeless a view of it. There are difficulties, but they
must be overcome, Mr. Pinkham, and I think they will be."</p>
<p>"Indeed, I hope so," returned the school-master. "But there
are cases--are there not?--in which the--the problem, if I may so
designate it, has never been elucidated, and the persons who
undertook it have been obliged to go to the foot, so to
speak."</p>
<p>"Ah, yes, there are such cases, certainly. There was the
Burdell mystery in New York, and, later, the Nathan affair--By
the way, I've satisfactory theories of my own touching both. The
police were baffled, and remain so. But, my <i>dear</i> sir,
observe for a moment the difference."</p>
<p>Mr. Pinkham rested one finger on the edge of a little round
table, and leaned forward in a respectful attitude to observe the
difference.</p>
<p>"Those crimes were committed in a vast metropolis affording a
thousand chances for escape, as well as offering a thousand
temptations to the lawless. But we are a limited community. We
have no professional murderers among us. The deed which has
stirred society to its utmost depths was plainly done by some
wayfaring amateur. Remorse has already arrived upon him, if the
police haven't. For the time being he escapes; but he is bound to
betray himself sooner or later. If the right steps are
taken,--and I have myself the greatest confidence in Mr.
Taggett,--the guilty party can scarcely fail to be brought to the
bar of justice, if he doesn't bring himself there."</p>
<p>"Indeed, indeed, I hope so," repeated Mr. Pinkham.</p>
<p>"The investigation is being carried on very closely."</p>
<p>"Too closely," suggested the school-master.</p>
<p>"Oh dear, no," murmured Mr. Craggie. "The strictest secrecy is
necessary in affairs of this delicate nature. If Tom, Dick, and
Harry were taken behind the scenes," he added, with the air of
one wishing to say too much, "the bottom would drop out of
everything."</p>
<p>Mr. Pinkham shrunk from commenting on a disaster like that,
and relapsed into silence. Mr. Craggie, with his thumbs in the
arm-holes of his waistcoat, and his legs crossed in an easy,
senatorial fashion, leaned back in the chair and smiled
blandly.</p>
<p>"I don't suppose there's nothing new, boys!" exclaimed a fat,
florid man, bustling in good-naturedly at the public entrance,
and leaving a straight wet trail on the sanded floor from the
threshold to the polished mahogany counter. Mr. Wilson was a
local humorist of the Falstaffian stripe, though not so much
witty in himself as the cause of wit in others.</p>
<p>"No, Jimmy, there isn't anything new," responded Dexter.</p>
<p>"I suppose you didn't hear that the ole man done somethin'
handsome for me in his last will and testyment."</p>
<p>"No, Jemmy, I don't think he has made any provision whatever
for an almshouse."</p>
<p>"Sorry to hear that, Dexter," said Willson, absorbedly chasing
a bit of lemon peel in his glass with the spoon handle, "for
there isn't room for us all up at the town-farm. How's your
grandmother? Finds it tol'rably comfortable?"</p>
<p>They are a primitive, candid people in their hours of unlaced
social intercourse in Stillwater. This delicate <i>tu quoque</i>
was so far from wounding Dexter that he replied carelessly,--</p>
<p>"Well, only so so. The old woman complains of too much
chicken-sallid, and hot-house grapes all the year round."</p>
<p>"Mr. Shackford must have left a large property," observed Mr.
Ward, of the firm of Ward & Lock, glancing up from the columns of
the Stillwater Gazette. The remark was addressed to Lawyer
Perkins, who had just joined the group in the reading-room.</p>
<p>"Fairly large," replied that gentleman crisply.</p>
<p>"Any public bequests?"</p>
<p>"None to speak of."</p>
<p>Mr. Craggie smiled vaguely.</p>
<p>"You see," said Lawyer Perkins, "there's a will and no
will,--that is to say, the fragments of what is supposed to be a
will were found, and we are trying to put the pieces together. It
is doubtful if we can do it; it is doubtful if we can decipher it
after we have done it; and if we decipher it it is a question
whether the document is valid or not."</p>
<p>"That is a masterly exposition of the dilemma, Mr. Perkins,"
said the school-master warmly.</p>
<p>Mr. Perkins had spoken in his court-room tone of voice, with
one hand thrust into his frilled shirt-bosom. He removed this
hand for a second, as he gravely bowed to Mr. Pinkham.</p>
<p>"Nothing could be clearer," said Mr. Ward. "In case the paper
is worthless, what then? I am not asking you in your professional
capacity," he added hastily; for Lawyer Perkins had been known to
send in a bill on as slight a provocation as Mr. Ward's.</p>
<p>"That's a point. The next of kin has his claims."</p>
<p>"My friend Shackford, of course," broke in Mr. Craggie.
"Admirable young man!--one of my warmest supporters."</p>
<p>"He is the only heir at law so far as we know," said Mr.
Perkins.</p>
<p>"Oh," said Mr. Craggie, reflecting. "The late Mr. Shackford
might have had a family in Timbuctoo or the Sandwich
Islands."</p>
<p>"That's another point."</p>
<p>"The fact would be a deuced unpleasant point for young
Shackford to run against," said Mr. Ward.</p>
<p>"Exactly."</p>
<p>"If Mr. Lemuel Shackford," remarked Coroner Whidden, softly
joining the conversation to which he had been listening in his
timorous, apologetic manner, "had chanced, in the course of his
early sea-faring days, to form any ties of an unhappy
complexion"--</p>
<p>"Complexion is good," murmured Mr. Craggie. "Some Hawaiian
lady!"</p>
<p>--"perhaps that would be a branch of the case worth
investigating in connection with the homicide. A discarded wife,
or a disowned son, burning with a sense of wrong"--</p>
<p>"Really, Mr. Whidden!" interrupted Lawyer Perkins witheringly,
"it is bad enough for my client to lose his life, without having
his reputation filched away from him."</p>
<p>"I--I will explain! I was merely supposing"--</p>
<p>"The law never supposes, sir!"</p>
<p>This threw Mr. Whidden into great mental confusion. As coroner
was he not an integral part of the law, and when, in his official
character, he supposed anything was not that a legal supposition?
But was he in his official character now, sitting with a glass of
lemonade at his elbow in the reading-room of the Stillwater
hotel? Was he, or was he not, a coroner all the time? Mr. Whidden
stroked an isolated tuft of hair growing low on the middle of his
forehead, and glared mildly at Mr. Perkins.</p>
<p>"Young Shackford has gone to New York, I understand," said Mr.
Ward, breaking the silence.</p>
<p>Mr. Perkins nodded. "Went this morning to look after the
real-estate interests there. It will probably keep him a couple
of weeks,--the longer the better. He was of no use here. Lemuel's
death was a great shock to him, or rather the manner of it
was."</p>
<p>"That shocked every one. They were first cousin's weren't
they?" Mr. Ward was a comparatively new resident in
Stillwater.</p>
<p>"First cousins," replied Lawyer Perkins; "but they were never
very intimate, you know."</p>
<p>"I imagine nobody was ever very intimate with Mr.
Shackford."</p>
<p>"My client was somewhat peculiar in his friendships."</p>
<p>This was stating it charitably, for Mr. Perkins knew, and
every one present knew, that Lemuel Shackford had not had the
shadow of a friend in Stillwater, unless it was his cousin
Richard.</p>
<p>A cloud of mist and rain was blown into the bar-room as the
street door stood open for a second to admit a dripping figure
from the outside darkness.</p>
<p><i>"What's</i> blowed down?" asked Durgin, turning round on
his stool and sending up a ring of smoke which uncurled itself
with difficulty in the dense atmosphere.</p>
<p>"It's only some of Jeff Stavers's nonsense."</p>
<p>"No nonsense at all," said the new-comer, as he shook the
heavy beads of rain from his felt hat. "I was passing by Welch's
Court--it's as black as pitch out, fellows--when slap went
something against my shoulder; something like wet wings. Well, I
was scared. It's a bat, says I. But the thing didn't fly off; it
was still clawing at my shoulder. I put up my hand, and I'll be
shot if it wasn't the foremast, jib-sheet and all, of the old
weather-cock on the north gable of the Shackford house! Here you
are!" and the speaker tossed the broken mast, with the mimic
sails dangling from it, into Durgin's lap.</p>
<p>A dead silence followed, for there was felt to be something
weirdly significant in the incident.</p>
<p>"That's kinder omernous," said Mr. Peters,
interrogatively.</p>
<p>"Ominous of what?" asked Durgin, lifting the wet mass from his
knees and dropping it on the floor.</p>
<p>"Well, sorter queer, then."</p>
<p>"Where does the queer come in?" inquired Stevens, gravelly. "I
don't know; but I'm hit by it."</p>
<p>"Come, boys, don't crowd a feller," said Mr. Peters, getting
restive. "I don't take the contract to explain the thing. But it
does seem some way droll that the old schooner should be wrecked
so soon after what has happened to the old skipper. If you don't
see it, or sense it, I don't insist. What's yours, Denyven?"</p>
<p>The person addressed as Denyven promptly replied, with a fine
sonorous English accent, "a mug of 'alf an' 'alf,--with a head on
it, Snelling."</p>
<p>At the same moment Mr. Craggie, in the inner room was saying
to the school-master,--</p>
<p>"I must really take issue with you there, Mr. Pinkham. I admit
there's a good deal in spiritualism which we haven't got at yet;
the science is in its infancy; it is still attached to the bosom
of speculation. It is a beautiful science, that of psychological
phenomena, and the spiritualists will yet become an influential
class of"--Mr. Craggie was going to say voters, but glided over
it--"persons. I believe in clairvoyance myself to a large extent.
Before my appointment to the post-office I had it very strong.
I've no doubt that in the far future this mysterious factor will
be made great use of in criminal cases; but at present I should
resort to it only in the last extremity,--the very last
extremity, Mr. Pinkham!"</p>
<p>"Oh, of course," said the school-master deprecatingly. "I
threw it out only as the merest suggestion. I shouldn't think
of--of--you understand me?"</p>
<p>"Is it beyond the dreams of probability," said Mr. Craggie,
appealing to Lawyer Perkins, "that clairvoyants may eventually be
introduced into cases in our courts?"</p>
<p>"They are now," said Mr. Perkins, with a snort,--"the police
bring 'em it."</p>
<p>Mr. Craggie finished the remainder of his glass of sherry in
silence, and presently rose to go. Coroner Whidden and Mr. Ward
had already gone. The guests in the public room were thinning
out; a gloom, indefinable and shapeless like the night, seemed to
have fallen upon the few that lingered. At a somewhat earlier
hour than usual the gas was shut off in the Stillwater
hotel.</p>
<p>In the lonely house in Welch's Court a light was still
burning.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />