Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries | Page 3

smooth as a

sheet of glass. But that is not all. Look at these window frames; they
are cemented into their casement with dust and they are bound along
their edges with cobwebs. These windows have not been opened. How
did the assassin enter?" "The answer is evident," said Randolph: "The
one who killed Doomdorf hid in the room until he was asleep; then he
shot him and went out."
"The explanation is excellent but for one thing," replied Abner: "How
did the assassin bolt the door behind him on the inside of this room
after he had gone out?"
Randolph flung out his arms with a hopeless gesture. "Who knows?" he
cried. "Maybe Doomdorf killed himself."
Abner laughed. "And after firing a handful of shot into his heart he got
up and put the gun back carefully into the forks against the wall!"
"Well," cried Randolph, "there is one open road out of this mystery.
Bronson and this woman say they killed Doomdorf, and if they killed
him they surely know how they did it. Let us go down and ask them."
"In the law court," replied Abner, "that procedure would be considered
sound sense; but we are in God's court and things are managed there in
a somewhat stranger way. Before we go let us find out, if we can, at
what hour it was that Doomdorf died."
He went over and took a big silver watch out of the dead man's pocket.
It was broken by a shot and the hands lay at one hour after noon. He
stood for a moment fingering his chin.
"At one o'clock," he said. "Bronson, I think, was on the road to this
place, and the woman was on the mountain among the peach trees."
Randolph threw back his shoulders.
"Why waste time in a speculation about it, Abner?" he said. "We know
who did this thing. Let us go and get the story of it out of their own
mouths. Doomdorf died by the hands of either Bronson or this woman."

"I could better believe it," replied Abner, "but for the running of a
certain awful law."
"What law?" said Randolph. "Is it a statute of Virginia?"
"It is a statute," replied Abner, "of an authority somewhat higher. Mark
the language of it: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed with
the sword.'"
He came over and took Randolph by the arm. "Must! Randolph, did
you mark particularly the word 'must'? It is a mandatory law. There is
no room in it for the Vicissitudes of chance or fortune. There is no way
round that word. Thus, we reap what we sow and nothing else; thus, we
receive what we give and nothing else. It is the weapon in our own
hands that finally destroys us. You are looking at it now." And he
turned him about so that the table and the weapon and the dead man
were before him. "'He that killeth with the sword must be killed with
the sword'. And now," he said, "let us go and try the method of the law
courts. Your faith is in the wisdom of their ways."
They found the old circuit rider at work in the still, staving in
Doomdorf's liquor casks, splitting the oak heads with his ax.
"Bronson," said Randolph, "how did you kill Doomdorf?" The old man
stopped and stood leaning on his ax. "I killed him," replied the old man,
"as Elijah killed the captains of Ahaziah and their fifties. But not by the
hand of any man did I pray the Lord God to destroy Doomdorf, but
with fire from heaven to destroy him."
He stood up and extended his arms.
"His hands were full of blood," he said. "With his abomination from
these groves of Baal he stirred up the people to contention, to strife and
murder. The widow and the orphan cried to heaven against him. 'I will
surely hear their cry,' is the promise written in the Book. The land was
weary of him; and I prayed the Lord God to destroy him with fire from
heaven, as he destroyed the Princes of Gomorrah in their palaces!"
Randolph made a gesture as of one who dismisses the impossible, but

Abner's face took on a deep, strange look.
"With fire from heaven!" he repeated slowly to himself. Then he asked
a question. "A little while ago," he said, "when we came, I asked you
where Doomdorf was, and you answered me in the language of the
third chapter of the Book of Judges. Why did you answer me like that,
Bronson?-'Surely he covereth his feet in his summer chamber.'"
"The woman told me that he had not come down from the room where
he had gone up to sleep," replied the old man,