bundle and came up to me. I do not now know whether there was in his mind any trace of suspicion, but I do know that at this suggestion the man seized my arm and tried to look into my face, and I am certain that had it been light he would have discovered the treachery which I was contemplating. But it was dark, and the man said nothing except to curse the night. He was exceedingly profane, this Hirst, and as we walked the length of the bridge, he holding my arm and damning the night in half whispers, I somehow felt that this man appreciated in a vague way the doom that was impending. But I presume that this was simply an impression arising from the intense strain under which I was laboring.
"As we were about to return, I pointed to the white surf, breaking on the bowlders below. The man, still holding my arm, stopped, leaned over the low railing, and peered down into the water. This was the position into which I had hoped to trap him, and, wrenching my arm loose suddenly, I struck him heavily between the shoulders. The man plunged forward over the railing, clutching wildly at the air, but he uttered no cry. and his body whirled downward into the blackness below.
"I clung to the railing and strove to see where the body would strike, but it was folly. The bridge was high above the rough stream, and I heard only the dull splash that told of his death."
The eyes of the coal operator seemed to stretch at the corners, and a dull gray spread over his face.
"I should like to be rid of that scene," he continued after a moment. "It is frightfully vivid. Every detail of it seems to have been photographed on my brain, and it runs before me like the pictures in a vitascope. Men sometimes forget such things, it is said, but, in the name of Heaven, how? Why, I can see him any moment in the dark. I can see his strained white face mad with horror, I can see his clutching hands, I can feel in my own throat just how the terror of death choked in his, and I know, I know——"
Randolph Mason struck his clenched fist heavily on the table. "Sir," he said sharply, "you will kindly omit this drivel. Give me the facts just as they occurred. You may reserve your melodrama for the purposes of a copyright."
Gilmore started and threw up his head as though some one had suddenly dashed ice-water in his face. He put his hand up to his forehead and pressed his fingers hard against the skin; then he straightened in his chair and seemed to gain his self-control.
"Well," he went on, "I went back to the east side of the bridge, threw the bundle over into the river, slipped through to the Chesapeake and Ohio on one of the night freights, and by noon of the same day I was in Philadelphia.
"That afternoon the city office was advised of Brown Hirst's suicide. We immediately wired the prosecuting attorney for details, and were informed that he had jumped from the bridge, leaving a note in his pocket which explained that he had taken his own life. The body was shipped to Philadelphia, as his wife directed. Almost immediately I began to close the affairs of the Octagon Coal Company, and very shortly after the funeral I called upon Mrs. Hirst in order to take the preliminary steps looking toward the collection of her husband's insurance.
"Here my plan struck and went to pieces like a vapor. The wife of Brown Hirst was a good woman, and I had failed to foresee what she would do under circumstances of this nature. To my utter astonishment, she informed me that the representatives of the insurance companies had been to see her and had asked time in which to investigate the case, and that she had gladly concurred in their request. And then, like a woman, she declared that there was no reason why her husband should commit suicide, and that she did not believe he had done so, but that, if he had deliberately taken his own life, she would not touch one dollar of the insurance money; that she would have nothing bought with life. If it could be shown that her husband was murdered, as she believed, then she saw no reason why she should not claim the insurance; but if, on the other hand, it proved true that he had planned to defraud the life insurance company for her benefit, and, pursuant to that awful plan, had hurled himself into eternity, then she would starve in an almshouse before she would touch a penny of the money.
"This statement struck me with the crushing power of an axe stroke. The world seemed to pass out from under me. I saw every hope of the future vanish. I realized in a flash, as one is said to do at the grave's edge, in what a prodigious error I had been engaged."
There must have been some suggestion of annoyance on the counsellor's face, for the coal operator stopped short and moved uneasily in his chair.
"I was about to forget your instructions," he explained, with a shade of apology in his voice; "it is rather hard to crowd one's emotions out of a desperate, personal narrative like this, although, of course, it is all nonsense to rant about it.
"To be brief, I was totally unable to shake this woman's purpose, and I returned to the city knowing that a tireless investigation was about to begin. I have not waited to see the result of this investigation. I know that the insurance companies and this unusual woman will leave no stone unturned in order to discover just how Hirst came to his death, and I am not fool enough to think that they will eventually fail. I don't believe any of the bosh about murder crying from the ground, but I am entirely convinced that it is almost impossible to cover a crime so that human ingenuity cannot trail down the man who committed it.
"I judge that I was not intended for business of this sort. I cannot fight out in good order. With me a retreat is a rout. I have abandoned everything. I have thrown away every plan. I am trying now to save myself from the hangman, or at least the penitentiary. I have not waited to be caught; I have come to you at once."
The man seemed to relax and settle back in his chair.
"Now," he added, with the utter dependence of a patient stretched upon the table of the surgeon, "you must save me."
The eyes of Randolph Mason flattened as though they were being pressed down from above, and the lines of his face deepened and widened into rugged furrows.
"There are two methods of evading the law," he said. "The escape ipso jure planned before the fact; and the escape ipso jure after the fact. The first is a matter of no great difficulty, and may easily be prepared by any man reasonably conversant with the law of the place of his intended act, and if skilfully arranged need contain no element of hazard whatever. The latter is far more difficult, and must be handled with some care in order to reduce the element of peril to its minimum. In the first, one constructs the facts to suit the defects in the law, and if executed with any degree of intelligence, the criminal actor has nothing whatever to fear, and the law is as harmless as a painted devil.
"In the latter, the expert must take the facts as circumstance and the blundering criminal agent have made them, and strive to adapt these prepared facts to the law as it stands, which is a far more difficult proceeding, and not infrequently attended with disastrous results. Hence the skill of certain criminal lawyers, and the long technical legal battles with which the books are crowded.
"As for you, sir, the scheme in which you have been an actor was abominably planned, and more abominably executed. The most drivelling intelligence should have seen peril staring out from every infantile move made by you and this stupendous blunderer Hirst. You have taken an old, time-worn plan, teeming with dangers, and, not content with its frightful hazards, you and this witless Hirst have added one complicated peril after another until you have finally constructed a masterpiece of idiocy that in its complex nonsense approaches the sublime.
"I wonder, sir, that you have not gone to the authorities and requested an execution. It would be a fitting sequel to your atrocious errors."
The face of the counsellor was ugly with a sneer.
"Your seeking counsel at once stands out as your one intelligent act. It is marvellous discretion, Judged by your narrative; marvellous and unexpected. Let us hope that your period of mental aberration is past."
Then he arose and stood looking down at the man who, like many another, had striven to throw the machinery of human justice out of its proper gear, and had simply succeeded in tangling himself in its complicated wheels.
"In order to save you now," said Randolph Mason, "we must move quickly. These great insurance companies have the ablest detective service of the world. With such a bungle as you have made, it is merely a question of a few weeks until they will succeed