Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/336

330 think," said Arthur, two hours later, when Maxwell returned and found his associate thoughtfully sitting beside the window alone. "And I believe it. He is as innocent of this crime as you or I. Of that I have always been confident. How far he is accessory after the fact—I know he is not accessory before—is another question. But his story, that to me is perfectly convincing, I am afraid won't do before a jury and the world generally. It involves too much that is incredible, and damning to him secondarily if believed. We must try something else. As far as I can see, really, it seems that his own suggestion of a defense, as you told it to me, has more significance in it than the absurdity you only saw. We must admit the killing, and confine ourselves to showing excessive provocation. I know something of the public sentiment here, and the sympathies of the average jury, and if Gabriel should tell them the story he has just told me, they would hang him at once! Unfortunately for him, the facts show a complication of property interests and impostures on the part of his wife, of which he is perfectly innocent, and which are not really the motive of the murder, but which the jury would instantly accept as a sufficient motive. We must fight, you understand, this very story, from the outset; you will find it to be the theory of the prosecution, but if we can keep him silent it cannot be proved except by him. The facts are such that if he had really committed the murder he could have defied prosecution, but through his very stupidity and blind anxiety to shield his wife, he has absolutely fixed the guilt upon himself."

"Then you don't think that Mrs. Conroy is the culprit?" asked Maxwell.

"No," said Arthur, "she is capable but not culpable. The real murderer has never been suspected nor his presence known to One Horse Gulch. But I must see Gabriel again and Olly, and you must hunt up a Chinaman—one Ah Ri—who, Gabriel tells me, brought him the note, and who is singularly enough missing, now that he is wanted."

"But you can't use a Chinaman's evidence before a jury?" interrupted Maxwell.

"Not directly; but I can find Christian Caucasians who would be willing to swear to the facts he supplied them with. I shall get at the facts in a few days—and then, my dear fellow," continued Arthur, laying his hand familiarly and patronizingly on the shoulder of his senior, "and then you and I will go to work to see how we can get rid of them."

When Gabriel recounted the events of the day to Olly, and described his interview with Poinsett, she became furiously indignant.

"And did that man mean to say he don't know whether Gracy is livin' or dead ? And he pertendin' to hev bin her bo?"

"In course," explained Gabriel; "ye disremember, Olly, thet Gracy never hez let on to me, her own brother, war she ez, and she wouldn't be goin' to tell a stranger. Thar's them 'Personals' as she never answered!"

"Mebbe she didn't want to speak to him agin," said Olly, fiercely, with a toss of her curls. "I'd like to know what he'd bin sayin' to her—like his impudence. Enny how he ought to hev found her out, and she his sweetheart! Why didn't he go right off to the Presidio? What did he come back for? Not find her—indeed? Why, Gabe, do you suppose as July won't find you out soon—why, I bet anythin' she knows jest whar you are" (Gabriel trembled and felt an inward sinking), "and is on'y waitin' to come forward to the trial. And yer you are taken in agin and fooled by these yer lawyers!—you old Gabe, you. Let me git at thet Philip—Ashley Poinsett—thet's all!"

CHAPTER XLVIII. WHAT AH RI ' DOES NOT KNOW.

admonished by the practical-minded Olley, Gabriel retired precipitately to the secure fastnesses of Conroy's Hill, where, over a consolatory pipe in his deserted cabin, he gave himself up to reflections upon the uncertainty of the sex and the general vagaries of womanhood. At such times, he would occasionally extend his wanderings to the gigantic pine-tree, which still towered preeminently above its fellows in ominous loneliness, and seated upon one of its out-lying roots, would gently philosophize to himself regarding his condition, the vicissitudes of fortune, the awful prescience of Olly, and the beneficence of a Creator who permitted such awkward triviality and uselessness as was incarnate in himself to exist at all! Sometimes, following the impulse of habit, he would encroach abstractedly upon the limits of his own domain, and find himself under the shadow of his fine house on the hill; from which, since that eventful parting with his wife, he had always rigidly withheld his foot. As soon as he would make this alarming discovery he would turn