THE SECRET OF LONESOME COVE
Adams, Samuel Hopkins
The Secret of Lonesome Cove By SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS iCopyright, 1912, by the Bobbs-Merrill Company.) CHAPTER XX The Face in the Coffin "HOLD on a bit," interrupted Law-yer Bain. "I remember...
...Which he did...
...She owns the house just next to Annalaka churchyard, where your son was buried as Jane Doe...
...For what...
...Wilfrid Blair has died suddenly, and Coroner Breed is helping Alexander Blair to suppress the news...
...I bear his name, and to leave him in a nameless grave is to dishonor not him alone, but myself...
...As for Bain, we needed a third man we could trust...
...You will excuse me if I ask Mr...
...Alexander Blair's clinched hands went to his temples in a singular gesture and dropped again...
...There was no other woman in the case, no disgrace, no shame...
...Kent secures an embroidered silver star found on top of the cliff above Lonesome Cove the night the woman died...
...Nothing," said Alexander Blair...
...Can't you see that after what has happened I must go...
...Sedgwick turned very white...
...She flushed to her temples...
...She left two weeks ago, very much mystified but pathetically thankful, poor old girl...
...I remember there was a fuss about the corpse not being publicly shown for identification...
...barked the sheriff...
...Hedgerow house was in charge of Gansett Jim as caretaker...
...she countered...
...No—a man's...
...But to be suspected by you, even though you were misled"— He stopped, catching Kent's frowning glance...
...he added in a low tone...
...You mean reimburse the subscribers...
...There is so much to forget...
...As you say, he had been very secretive, very silent too...
...But you made me believe that Mr...
...Oh, don't look like that...
...You see, It was necessary to get her out of the way...
...Oh, more than that, I think it would be a good idea if you were to assume the entire expense of the proceedings...
...As always, he was impeccably clad, though his stout boots showed the usage of recent hard wear...
...What man...
...No," she said, "it would be better—for both of us—that you should forget, for the time...
...It was no small risk for him...
...Kent to step outside...
...A ring glinted in her outstretched hand...
...What are you going to do with me...
...Have we not suffered enough from the scandal of his life that we should be further involved in the scandal of his death...
...Sedgwick exhumed the coffin...
...The sheriff gave in...
...Whut'll T do to thank you, ma'am...
...inquired Sedgwick in bewilderment...
...And bring down upon us unavoidably the publicity which we have escaped at so bitter a price...
...Do you think a thousand or perhaps more"— Kent smiled...
...I believed it myself," he retorted...
...It won't do," said the sheriff kindly...
...Whatever Wilfrid may have been," she continued after a moment's silence, "he was my husband...
...He's right, miss...
...That's what made you so cussed curious, was it Adam...
...asked Kent...
...You feel nothing but pity for an unhappy, wrecked mind, for which death was the happiest refuge...
...Exactly...
...Very well," he agreed...
...What lay nameless, in Annalaka churchyard now rests in its own place at Hedgerow house...
...I have some business with him...
...Professor Kent had left about the same time as the Blairs, but Francis Sedgwick had stuck to the Nook...
...Sedgwick tells of meeting a beautiful young woman, name unknown, with whom he has fallen in love...
...She is Wilfrid's widow...
...Have you lost your mind, Chet...
...He meets Alexander Blair, who acts in a suspicious manner...
...Sheriff Schlager and Coroner Breed suddenly withdraw the body from public view...
...Summer had waned from the coast and with it had passed the keenness of local interest in the strangest victim of Lonesome Cove...
...As Marjorie Blair stood smiling, soft eyed, at the door whence the overcome starmaster had disappeared, Sedgwick started to pass...
...By the cut on the cheek...
...Of course...
...Up to then he had been in voice, manner, thought, purpose, (Unconsciously playing a part...
...No wonder she—he put up such a fight...
...The coffin lid wasn't quarter off when Breed gave a yell and clapped it on again, and they took the body back to his house and shut themselves in with it for half an hour before they took it to the hall again...
...Kent and Sedgwick go to the inquest upon the woman's body and engage Adam Bain as Sedgwick's lawyer...
...And that it grows not only on the head, but on the face as well...
...I must have time to forget...
...Undoubtedly his striking likeness to the portrait of Camilla Grosvenor powerfully aided the obsession...
...Do you see the potentialities of blackmail...
...Sedgwick finds his nameless sweetheart at Alexander Blair's house...
...She looked up at Sedgwick with lifted eyebrows...
...Astraea...
...What else is there for us to do...
...I think," said Chester Kent gravely, "that lesson will last...
...said Sedgwick and Jax in a breath...
...She is a very worthy old lady...
...My dear," said the man—he seemed to have grown suddenly old under the unspoken arraignment—"I could not tell you what I thought the truth...
...The light of a great relief softened his hard little eyes...
...Who discovered that the burial was a false one...
...What brings him...
...The body in the coffin was that of the woman who met me at the entrance to the Nook...
...I'll go back to my studio...
...broke in Preston Jax, his chin in a spasm...
...Other subjects of absorbing interest supervened during the long winter, among them the rumor that Hedgerow house was to be sold before summer...
...Astraea...
...Blair approves...
...You wish me to subscribe...
...Camilla Grosvenor, great-grandmother of Wilfrid Blair, eloped many years before with one Hermann, and her body came in at Lonesome Cove...
...Take this," she said softly, "for your Irene...
...I asked him and got him...
...Yes...
...she whispered in affright...
...And you'll think of me at least kindly...
...Her windows overlook the churchyard...
...He meets Artist Sedgwick, an old friend, who is suspected of killing her and plans to help him...
...Kent hears of Wilfrid Blair, Alexander's scapegrace son...
...Has it ever occurred to you to think that after death the hair grows fast...
...It was one of those strange and complete assumptions of personality which puzzle the alienists...
...Wilfrid's body is where...
...My son, Wilfrid Blair," said Alexander Blair...
...exclaimed Jax...
...I thought then that Wilfrid had encountered Mr...
...That's your sentence if Mrs...
...he quoted very low...
...How much...
...She leaps off the cliff and is killed...
...You see, the sheriff had failed to foresee that telltale beard...
...Kent believes the woman was handcuffed to a man who wore the star...
...So some interested persons have subscribed money and sent her south to a sanatorium...
...Gansett Jim reports that there are signs of recent digging...
...Wilfrid Blair's diseased mind had fastened strange history of his ancestress and brooded on it until he became convinced that her spirit was reincarnated in himself...
...All eyes turned to Preston Jax, who had risen and was leaning against the wall, his chin jerking galvanically...
...who is apparently crazy thinks he is the Hermann of the past...
...He drew her gaze to his own, held It for the space of a heart beat and was gone...
...Throwing open the door, he called his friend's name...
...I rather opined that some one had changed bodies...
...With quick and unexpected tact, Alexander Blair drew the sheriff and the lawyer aside, giving to the young people their moment...
...she said sorrowfully...
...Well...
...Nevertheless, it's good exercise for Mr...
...she accused...
...No, no...
...We thought it melancholia," said Alexander Blair...
...But how did you discover it...
...Thank you very much, Mr...
...They had the body taken to the house and did the best they could...
...In fact, it keers her awake most of the night...
...At last he resumed his voice...
...Preston Jax, an astrologer, confesses to Kent that the handcuffed dead woman was Astraea and that he was with her on the cliff above Lonesome Cove the night she died...
...cried Alexander Blair...
...Some of us insisted...
...Astraea was not a woman, but Wilfrid Blair, a lunatic...
...Kent spies upon Wilfrid Blair's funeral...
...If you felt that his risk is worth some reward you might"— "Yes, yes...
...But she suffers severely from asthma...
...The face...
...exclaimed Sedgwick...
...And yet," she persisted, "it would be easier, now that i am going away...
...You would claim the body...
...That I found you at Hedgerow house...
...The voice of the man on the Cliff...
...Certainly...
...That, in itself, ought to have suggested the secret to me long before I discovered it...
...The man in the coffin...
...That was the night"— Her eyes questioned Sedgwick...
...said Kent in surprise...
...Yes...
...When she was safely out of the way and no longer overlooking Annalaka churchyard, by night from her window Schlager, Adam Bain and I paid a visit to the place...
...Have you gone in for local society...
...That is all past...
...cried Sedgwick, turning to Marjorie Blair...
...Are you not going to speak to me...
...What shall assuage the unforgotten pain And teach the unforgetful to forget...
...Sedgwick smiled bravely...
...And if ever you or Professor Kent or any of you want an Al, special charted, extra celestial star reading for self or friends, you—you—you c-c-c-ome" — He made a rush for the hallway, and the door banged a period to his emotion...
...By thinking hard I could think a thousand," he said, "but not more in this case...
...Blair...
...What is there to say, except one thing—and that I may not say now...
...Alexander Blair has been desperately endeavoring to avoid publicity...
...May you be very, very happy together...
...Why, he came down to Hedgerow house to look after certain books and papers and ran over here to make his amende honorable in form...
...The astrologer arew a quick breath...
...I'll think of you with every beat of my heart," he said passionately...
...Seems to me, if I was a millionaire like Alexander Blair, I wouldn't sell my own flesh and blood, dead or alive...
...Wind borne on the blast of a mid-March gale, Chester Kent dropped down at the door of the Nook one wild afternoon without warning...
...Gansett Jim, thinking" Sedgwick murdered the woman tries to kill him...
...Every one does...
...He and Mr...
...Bain might not survive the shock...
...No...
...In Annalaka churchyard...
...There was no exchange of bodies," said Kent...
...For having believed, even for an instant, what Father Blair said, that you were the murderer...
...Wh-wh-whut'll I say...
...But the man's voice...
...It looks as if ghouls had been at work there with the idea of getting the body and holding it for ransom...
...And young Blair's body along with It, I expect," remarked Elder Dennett malevolently...
...Though his work prospered, the worker had paled...
...Surely you can be patient—and trust...
...In the final moment he came to himself...
...You mean the grave at Hedgerow house...
...Sheriff Schlager can tell you...
...The tension was broken by a tremendous sigh...
...He is keeping the accounts...
...Hel-lo...
...interrupted the other eagerly...
...she faltered...
...then, as he saw her wince, "Forgive me...
...Do you know of an old lady named Orcutt in Annalaka...
...I need your assistance...
...We kept Gansett Jim with him as a sort of bodyguard...
...Sedgwick killed Wilfrid...
...What kind of a change...
...Who was he...
...Thank you for that last at least," said Sedgwick rather bitterly...
...Yes...
...So you took occasion to indicate before...
...It was the body of the man who, dressed in woman's clothing, met you at the Nook and knocked you down with a stone flung overhand as not one woman in a thousand could have thrown, it...
...Sedgwick and that—that there had been a fight, in which he was killed...
...asked Sedgwick...
...It's Alexander Elair...
...Having realized that much, I had to deal thenceforth with the mystery of a dead man masquerading as a woman and being abetted in the deception by the officers of the law"— "Astraea a man...
...Just the same, he made his apology as handsomely as need be...
...Some one has teen tampering with my son's grave," said Blair...
...Oh, you go back to Irene," said Kent, with his half smile...
...You...
...said Kent...
...I've got a caller up above," he said after the usual greetings and questionings were over...
...Of Alexander Blair himself nothing had been seen In the neighborhood since mid-Judy nor of his daughter-in-law...
...In self defense, I mean...
...You...
...Across her face passed the look of fairy wistfulness that was all her own...
...Yes," he said gently...
...For a few seconds the millionaire studied Kent's candid face...
...He leaned over her: Synopsis THE body of an unknown woman partly handcuffed is found at Lonesome Cove...
...I'd like to get you interested in her case...
...A mock funeral...
...I must understand this all," said Marjorie...
...A woman's face...
...cried the elder Blair...
...that he might have gone to find you and attacked you and that you killed him...
...Stay here," said the artist...
...he added in a low tone...
...You see, Mrs...
...But there was a change in the body itself...
...Chester Kent, a scientist, investigates the mystery...
...Blair denounces Sedgwick as a murderer...
...she asked after a pause...
...Gansett Jim, an Indian, accuses Sedgwick of murder...
...He's the grim jawed, hard bitted Blair of old...
...She nodded with compressed lips...
...Because they'd have found no body in it, you mean...
...They would have had a fine surprise if they had got the coffin out...
...Chet, I hate being apologized to...
...Kent and Sedgwick dig up Wilfrid Blair's body and are caught at work by Sheriff Schlager and Alexander Blair...
...I—I—I'll jest tell you this: It's me for the straight and narrow from now oh...
...Not exactly local...
...i can't bear it...
...Wilfrid Blair's," said Kent...
...The fabric magnate descended from the studio and greeted Kent briefly, then turned to his host...
...Repetition of a really relevant point is excusable...
...Why, Schlager had done some dirty work for you and wanted to even accounts with his own conscience...
...Instantly the artist came loping down the stairs and had him by the shoulders...
...Blair," said Kent very gently, "it isn't so bad as you feared...
...I—I— thought," she murmured, "that he might have known of our acquaintance and have misconstrued...
...Professor Kent," said Blair...
...The "body" is a bag of sand...
...Kent and Sedgwick discover an 1830 picture, which is like the dead woman of the beach...
...But suppose they discovered that there were no remains, nothing but a punctured sand bag...
...Then who—what is buried in his grave at Hedgerow house...
...I've heard it said," said Lawyer Bain, "that it grows faster than in life...
...A. Blair, Esquire...
...Going away...
...But what basis had you for suspecting me of the crime...
...It wouldn't be safe...
...That cut on the cheek was a razor cut...
...But say you forgive me...
...I'll bring him down here...
...A startled look widened them as Marjorie Blair, her own trouble forgotten for the moment, rose and went over to him, the reflection of another's happiness shining in her face and making it doubly lovely...
...For long...
...Rather than face the scandal of a murder trial, a scandal in which the family name would have been dragged through the mire of the public prints again, I chose the part of deceit...
...I wish that you might have heard the little prayer made by The Secret of Lonesome Cove Continued from page 9 that simple country lawyer over your son's grave...
...What interest did Schlager and Bain have in the matter...
Vol. 7 • November 1915 • No. 11
