as you can, I’ll have vouchers for it all put through with the auditor. And to-morrow or Monday I’ll pitch in and help myself.”
And here he gripped Heit’s right hand – then patted him on the shoulder. And Heit, much gratified by his various moves so far – and in consequence hopeful for the future – now took up his weird straw hat and buttoning his thin, loose coat, returned to his office to get his faithful Earl on the long distance telephone to instruct him and to say that he was returning to the scene of the crime himself.
Chapter 4
Orville Mason could readily sympathize with a family which on sight struck him as having, perhaps, like himself endured the whips, the scorns and contumelies of life. As he drove up in his official car from Bridgeburg at about four o’clock that Saturday afternoon, there was the old tatterdemalion farmhouse and Titus Alden himself in his shirt-sleeves and overalls coming up from a pig-pen at the foot of the hill, his face and body suggesting a man who is constantly conscious of the fact that he has made out so poorly. And now Mason regretted that he had not telephoned before leaving Bridgeburg, for he could see that the news of his daughter’s death would shock such a man as this most terribly. At the same time, Titus, noting his approach and assuming that it might be some one who was seeking a direction, civilly approached him.
“Is this Mr. Titus Alden?”
“Yes, sir, that’s my name.”
“Mr. Alden, my name is Mason. I am from Bridgeburg, district attorney of Cataraqui County.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Titus, wondering by what strange chance the district attorney of so distant a county should be approaching and inquiring of him. And Mason now looked at Titus, not knowing just how to begin. The bitterness of the news he had to impart – the crumpling power of it upon such an obviously feeble and inadequate soul. They had paused under one of the large, dark fir trees that stood in front of the house. The wind in its needles was whispering its world-old murmur.
“Mr. Alden,” began Mason, with more solemnity and delicacy than ordinarily characterized him, “you are the father of a girl by the name of Bert, or possibly Alberta, are you not? I’m not sure that I have the name right.”
“Roberta,” corrected Titus Alden, a titillating sense of something untoward affecting his nerves as he said it.
And Mason, before making it impossible, probably, for this man to connectedly inform him concerning all that he wished to know, now proceeded to inquire: “By the way, do you happen to know a young man around here by the name of Clifford Golden?”
“I don’t recall that I ever hard of any such person,” replied Titus, slowly.
“Or Carl Graham?”
“No, sir. No one by that name either that I recall now.”
“I thought so,” exclaimed Mason, more to himself than to Titus. “By the way,” this shrewdly and commandingly, “where is your daughter now?”
“Why, she’s in Lycurgus at present. She works there. But why do you ask? Has she done anything she shouldn’t – been to see you about anything?” He achieved a wry smile while his gray-blue eyes were by now perturbed by puzzled inquiry.
“One moment, Mr. Alden,” proceeded Mason, tenderly and yet most firmly and effectively. “I will explain everything to you in a moment. Just now I want to ask a few necessary questions.” And he gazed at Titus earnestly and sympathetically. “How long has it been since you last saw your daughter?”
“Why, she left here last Tuesday morning to go back to Lycurgus. She works down there for the Griffiths Collar & Shirt Company. But – ?”
“Now, one moment,” insisted the district attorney determinedly, “I’ll explain all in a moment. She was up here over the week-end, possibly. Is that it?”
“She was up here on a vacation for about a month,” explained Titus, slowly and meticulously. “She wasn’t feeling so very good and she came home to rest up a bit. But she was all right when she left. You don’t mean to tell me, Mr. Mason, that anything has gone wrong with her, do you?” He lifted one long, brown hand to his chin and cheek in a gesture, of nervous inquiry. “If I thought there was anything like that – ?” He ran his hand through his thinning gray hair.
“Have you had any word from her since she left here?” Mason went on quietly, determined to extract as much practical information as possible before the great blow fell. “Any information that she was going anywhere but back there?”
“No, sir, we haven’t. She’s not hurt in any way, is she? She’s not done anything that’s got her into trouble? But, no, that couldn’t be. But your questions! The way you talk.” He was now trembling slightly, the hand that sought his thin, pale lips, visibly and aimlessly playing about his mouth. But instead of answering, the district attorney drew from his pocket the letter of Roberta to her mother, and displaying only the handwriting on the envelope, asked: “Is that the handwriting of your daughter?”
“Yes, sir, that’s her handwriting,” replied Titus, his voice rising slightly. “But what is this, Mr. District Attorney? How do you come to have that? What’s in there?” He clinched his hands in a nervous way, for in Mason’s eyes he now clearly foresaw tragedy in some form. “What is this – this – what has she written in that letter? You must tell me – if anything has happened to my girl!” He began to look excitedly about as though it were his intention to return to the house for aid – to communicate to his wife the dread that was coming upon him – while Mason, seeing the agony into which he had plunged him, at once seized him firmly and yet kindly by the arms and began:
“Mr. Alden, this is one of those dark times in the lives of some of us when all the courage we have is most needed. I hesitate to tell you because I am a man who has seen something of life and I know how you will suffer.”
“She is hurt. She is dead, maybe,” exclaimed Titus, almost shrilly, the pupils of his eyes dilating.
Orville Mason nodded.
“Roberta! My first born! My God! Our Heavenly Father!” His body crumpled as though from a blow and he leaned to steady himself against an adjacent tree. “But how? Where? In the factory by a machine? Oh, dear God!” He turned as though to go to his wife, while the strong, scar-nosed district attorney sought to detain him.
“One moment, Mr. Alden, one moment. You must not go to your wife yet. I know this is very hard, terrible, but let me explain. Not in Lycurgus. Not by any machine. No! No – drowned! In Big Bittern. She was up there on an outing on Thursday, do you understand? Do you hear? Thursday. She was drowned in Big Bittern on Thursday in a boat. It overturned.”
The excited gestures and words of Titus at this point so disturbed the district attorney that he found himself unable to explain as calmly as he would have liked the process by which even an assumed accidental drowning had come about. From the moment the word death in connection with Roberta had been used by Mason, the mental state of Alden was that of one not a little demented. After his first demands he now began to vent a series of animal-like groans as though the breath had been knocked from his body. At the same time, he bent over, crumpled up as from pain – then struck his hands together and threw them to his temples.
“My Roberta dead! My daughter! Oh, no, no, Roberta! Oh, my God! Not drowned! It can’t be. And her mother speaking of her only an hour ago. This will be the death of her when she hears it. It will kill me, too. Yes, it will. Oh, my poor, dear, dear girl. My darling! I’m not strong enough to stand anything like this, Mr. District Attorney.”
