Tales of Men and Ghosts | Page 7

"You _know?_ Well, who did?" he laughed.
"I did," said Granice, rising.
He stood before Ascham, and the lawyer lay back staring up at him.
Then he broke into another laugh.
"Why, this is glorious! You murdered him, did you? To inherit his
money, I suppose? Better and better! Go on, my boy! Unbosom
yourself! Tell me all about it! Confession is good for the soul."
Granice waited till the lawyer had shaken the last peal of laughter from
his throat; then he repeated doggedly: "I murdered him."
The two men looked at each other for a long moment, and this time
Ascham did not laugh.
"Granice!"
"I murdered him--to get his money, as you say."
There was another pause, and Granice, with a vague underlying sense
of amusement, saw his guest's look change from pleasantry to
apprehension.
"What's the joke, my dear fellow? I fail to see."
"It's not a joke. It's the truth. I murdered him." He had spoken painfully
at first, as if there were a knot in his throat; but each time he repeated
the words he found they were easier to say.
Ascham laid down his extinct cigar.
"What's the matter? Aren't you well? What on earth are you driving
at?"
"I'm perfectly well. But I murdered my cousin, Joseph Lenman, and I
want it known that I murdered him."
"_You want it known?_"
"Yes. That's why I sent for you. I'm sick of living, and when I try to kill
myself I funk it." He spoke quite naturally now, as if the knot in his

throat had been untied.
"Good Lord--good Lord," the lawyer gasped.
"But I suppose," Granice continued, "there's no doubt this would be
murder in the first degree? I'm sure of the chair if I own up?"
Ascham drew a long breath; then he said slowly: "Sit down, Granice.
Let's talk."

II

GRANICE told his story simply, connectedly.
He began by a quick survey of his early years--the years of drudgery
and privation. His father, a charming man who could never say "no,"
had so signally failed to say it on certain essential occasions that when
he died he left an illegitimate family and a mortgaged estate. His lawful
kin found themselves hanging over a gulf of debt, and young Granice,
to support his mother and sister, had to leave Harvard and bury himself
at eighteen in a broker's office. He loathed his work, and he was always
poor, always worried and in ill-health. A few years later his mother
died, but his sister, an ineffectual neurasthenic, remained on his hands.
His own health gave out, and he had to go away for six months, and
work harder than ever when he came back. He had no knack for
business, no head for figures, no dimmest insight into the mysteries of
commerce. He wanted to travel and write--those were his inmost
longings. And as the years dragged on, and he neared middle-age
without making any more money, or acquiring any firmer health, a sick
despair possessed him. He tried writing, but he always came home
from the office so tired that his brain could not work. For half the year
he did not reach his dim up-town flat till after dark, and could only
"brush up" for dinner, and afterward lie on the lounge with his pipe,
while his sister droned through the evening paper. Sometimes he spent
an evening at the theatre; or he dined out, or, more rarely, strayed off
with an acquaintance or two in quest of what is known as "pleasure."
And in summer, when he and Kate went to the sea-side for a month, he
dozed through the days in utter weariness. Once he fell in love with a
charming girl--but what had he to offer her, in God's name? She
seemed to like him, and in common decency he had to drop out of the
running. Apparently no one replaced him, for she never married, but

grew stoutish, grayish, philanthropic--yet how sweet she had been
when he had first kissed her! One more wasted life, he reflected...
But the stage had always been his master-passion. He would have sold
his soul for the time and freedom to write plays! It was _in him_--he
could not remember when it had not been his deepest-seated instinct.
As the years passed it became a morbid, a relentless obsession--yet
with every year the material conditions were more and more against it.
He felt himself growing middle-aged, and he watched the reflection of
the process in his sister's wasted face. At eighteen she had been pretty,
and as full of enthusiasm as he. Now she was sour, trivial,
insignificant--she had missed her chance of life. And she had no
resources, poor creature, was fashioned simply for the primitive
functions she