The Stillwater Tragedy | Page 8

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."
"That is a masterly exposition of the dilemma, Mr. Perkins," said the
school-master warmly.

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.
"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.
"That's a point. The next of kin has his claims."
"My friend Shackford, of course," broke in Mr. Craggie. "Admirable
young man!--one of my warmest supporters."
"He is the only heir at law so far as we know," said Mr. Perkins.
"Oh," said Mr. Craggie, reflecting. "The late Mr. Shackford might have
had a family in Timbuctoo or the Sandwich Islands."
"That's another point."
"The fact would be a deuced unpleasant point for young Shackford to
run against," said Mr. Ward.
"Exactly."
"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"--
"Complexion is good," murmured Mr. Craggie. "Some Hawaiian lady!"
--"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"--
"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."
"I--I will explain! I was merely supposing"--
"The law never supposes, sir!"
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.
"Young Shackford has gone to New York, I understand," said Mr.
Ward, breaking the silence.
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."
"That shocked every one. They were first cousin's weren't they?" Mr.
Ward was a comparatively new resident in Stillwater.
"First cousins," replied Lawyer Perkins; "but they were never very
intimate, you know."
"I imagine nobody was ever very intimate with Mr. Shackford."
"My client was somewhat peculiar in his friendships."
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.
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.
_"What's_ 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.
"It's only some of Jeff Stavers's nonsense."
"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.
A dead silence followed, for there wa felt to be something weirdly
significant in the incident.
"That's kinder omernous," said Mr. Peters, interrogatively.
"Ominous of what?" asked Durgin, lifting the wet mass from his knees
and dropping it on the floor.

"Well, sorter queer, then."
"Where does the queer come in?" inquired Stevens, gravelly. "I don't
know; but I'm