What a man of thirty years needs is mirth more abundantly than at twenty, but the clouds were too thick around me then to take sane views.

Contentment comes when a man can shake the clouds inside out and bask in the reflection of the silver lining that makes the other half of the comedy agreeable. I seemed to be plunged into despair, to be confined in a dungeon, with the devils of hate and all the monsters of abandoned hopes shooting their tongues at me from the crannies of the damp, green walls that hedged me in. Were they to be my torturers to the death? Then why send a sick man to the hospital?

Even though my mind had been at peace otherwise, it would have been impossible for me to regain my habit of unconcern and reliance upon my own resources, deserted by the man in whom I had anch.o.r.ed my faith since boyhood. Thought of his guilt oppressed me.

"Which would you rather go to--a wedding or a hanging?" I abruptly questioned the nurse, waking from a troubled nap.

"Calm yourself all you can. You are not so well to-day."

"I am beginning to think better of a hanging," said I. "It seems like a sure thing, so it's well to get used to it."

"Tut, tut!" said Hygeia softly, adjusting a cold cloth to my brow. She reported to the doctor that I was wandering again. But I wasn't crazy. I was looking for consolation.

The detectives had reported Jim with the undertakers in the same carriage that night, while I was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and the card of the notorious Collins, whose specialty, cremations, removed all traces of such crime, lay on the table. I waited to inquire about the card until the next morning. The morning came and here I was, alive, but hardly thankful for my escape. Why was it, I asked myself, that the only two circ.u.mstances, the carriage and the card, that pointed with any directness to Jim Hosley's guilt, should have come under my notice the same night? Why, if he had deceived me for years, should he leave a damaging card where it could be seen by me at a time when he was deep in one of his most awful crimes? But, on the other hand, had he not fooled me for ten years? So why should he be careful about the mere card of an undertaker? How did he know where I had gone that night to be enlightened? Still, why did he squirm and appear so uneasy when I went out? Was it only because he had so much to tell me about his disappointment over the interview with Mr. Tescheron? Certainly, that must be it. Then came the last "but" of all--Why didn't he come to see me, or why had I not heard from him? If Jim Hosley had been devoted to me like a loyal friend there was no possible way for me not to have heard from him before this. Any man in his right mind could take the same state of facts and reach no other conclusion. Suspicion had worked its way through narrow openings, and my doubts were giving way to convictions, so that soon I believed I would be as much against Hosley as the fiery Tescheron, when goaded by the mercenary Smith.

I cannot tell how hard it was for me to believe this of Jim Hosley, that great, lumbering fellow, handsome and manly, the personification of comfortable, attractive indolence and agreeable indifference.

"Pity you never saw Hosley," said I to Hygeia. She was now prepared to hear me speak of him at any time.

"What did he look like? Dark and swarthy; rather short, I imagine, with curly, black hair."

"Turn that upside down, inside out and stretch it and you'll have it,"

said I.

She laughed and left the room.

What a charming fellow Jim was to get on with! Perhaps those virtues had been his resources in a wild career of crime and his strongest allies in effecting a concealment of his true self. Thus my a.n.a.lytical mind threshed out the ramifications of possibilities. My intimate relations with him for so many years further convinced me that if he had followed that long career of crime outlined by Tescheron he must have begun when he was playing "Injuns" up in Oswegatchie County.

Then I would cheer myself with the thought that something in Jim's favor would turn up soon and all would be well again, and we would get a new outfit of stuff for about eighty-five dollars--that's what we paid before--and start in housekeeping again; perhaps on the second floor, so as to get in line with the inexorable law of falling bodies.

Mr. Tescheron, I supposed, would somehow blame Jim for the fire and count it part of the grand plot to seize his daughter. Well, it was all too much for me, with my weak body and easily fatigued brain. It was hard work to keep my nerves calm under the circ.u.mstances.

My brother Silas had come down to see me, but when I began to mend he returned to Oswegatchie County, completely worn out with three weeks'

tramping on city sidewalks. He made a number of inquiries for me concerning Hosley at the City Hall and among our old neighbors. He could learn nothing, however, so it was clear that Jim had departed for parts unknown. Silas carried back the news of my returning health to the folks, and was also able to inform them that the cars ran all night down here in New York--a matter they had never seen reported in the papers and I had never referred to in my letters. When he left, I was as lonesome as a retired pork packer dabbling in the fine arts. It seemed that

"Turn where'er I may I find Thorns where roses bloomed before O'er the green fields of my soul; Where the springs of joy were found, Now the clouds of sorrow roll, Shading all the prospect round."

These lines of George P. Morris came to mind, and they, too, recalled Jim Hosley and the early days when I began to be the middleman in his love affairs, and gave my aid to his amorous cause by writing his love letters. I had worked Shakespeare, Scott, Burns, Byron and Morris (the only five we had handy) in relays to support his fervent song of love, for behind the scene with my pen Jim said I was a wonder in stringing this fetching gush together. But I tried to be modest about it. There was enough in those five to marry the inhabitants of Europe to those of Africa. I understood that anything Jim said to a woman would be taken in good part, and those love letters in which the green fields of his soul must have appeared well irrigated by those bubbling springs of joy, undoubtedly pleased the fair dames and, I supposed, did no harm. But a joke is the most dangerous thing a middleman in the love business can engage in. The business is full of danger anyhow, but joking is worse than dynamite.

If the mechanical part of our arrangements had been seen by the young women--Jim generally asleep and I copying the poetry from a clumsy, big book and scratching my tousled head for sentiment enough to glue the verses together in a prose somewhere near the same temperature--I don't suppose there would have been many victories. Perhaps there were none; Jim never spoke of results; he kept them to himself and I don't know what he did with them. All the margin there was in it for me was the literary exercise which in value hardly covered the cost of the ink.

Perhaps he had married each one of the women and had killed them off, because he enjoyed the excitement of courtship's gamble more than the sure thing of matrimony. If so, I was undoubtedly an accomplice, although entirely innocent. A jury, however, might not take that comfortable view of it, if a handwriting expert were called and took seven weeks to tell them his story. They would certainly hang me to get home.

So first my grief and loneliness recalled the lines of the poet whose music I had used to Jim's advantage, and then followed the matters attached to the same chain of thought. The moment was ripe for one of those coincidences that occasionally arise to startle us. It came sure enough, and gave me the worst shock of all, for when I afterward considered its full meaning, I realized that I had for ten years been the innocent tool of the criminal whom Tescheron had discovered after an investigation of six hours. Had the truth been revealed to the world, thought I, with evidence of Hosley's guilt, my bust would be lined up on the same shelf with his in the Hall of Infamy.

"Must I to the lees Drain thy bitter chalice, Pain?

Silent grief all grief excels; Life and it together part-- Like a restless worm it dwells Deep within the human heart."

More of Morris came to mind. I was sitting alone in the sun parlor at the hospital that morning, gathering strength in the abundant sunshine that poured through the gla.s.s windows on all sides, reaching from roof to floor. Wrapped in a single blanket, in my cushioned wheel chair, I was as comfortable as a man with a half dozen or so newly knit bones could feel if he sat perfectly still and did not exhaust his energies by worrying over the slow ups and the rapid downs of life, as one who had dropped five stories into the depths of solitude might, if not careful to turn to the saving grace of his philosophy and political economy.

Learning is the only thing a man can count on in the bottomless pit, and then it won't help him unless he has a little humor for a light. Alas!

my light had gone out.

Well, I was sitting there sunning myself and thinking how deep a hole I had fallen into, when Hygeia appeared, as ever a vision of loveliness, a picture of a merry heart gathering the sweets of life and scattering the seeds of contentment by pa.s.sing busily from one task to another, full of the joy of sound health and thankful for the privilege of service. How did she find time to pursue a course in medicine? Her ambition amazed me.

"A gentleman wishes to see you, sir," she said, and she handed his card to me. It read:

A. OBREEON, 30 West 24th Street, New York.

Private Detective Service.

I felt that light was about to break on a dark subject, and I was not mistaken. A. Obreeon was as much Dutch in appearance as French in name; he had a rosy, round face and cheeks that were like a picture of two red apples. He seemed husky enough to be a corner groceryman, who benefits incidentally through the fresh air advantages bestowed on his vegetables to keep them marketable. His beard was trimmed to look like a farmer's, with a clean-shaven upper lip--a form of barbering that prevents bronchitis, but not soup. No one would suspect him of anything except tight boots, for his mouth and forehead were wrinkled as if he were suffering from acute cornitis; you might call it "an injured air," for a man who has just run a sliver in his toe shows the same symptoms.

Mr. Obreeon seemed interested to the point of being worried when I asked him to have a seat, and at this and every suggestion he was taken with violent shooting pains, and his lips were pursed for a drawn whistle of discomfort. A smooth man was never so ill at ease. Any promoter who will abandon his air of supreme confidence and adopt the Obreeon principle of disinterestedness in all worldly affairs except his agony, will pull millions from the pockets that now begrudgingly yield ten thousand dollar allotments in return for smooth talk concerning gigantic ventures, as viewed from the sub-cellar of enterprise.

Obreeon apologized for coming; said he ought really to be home, he felt so badly; had been so wretched, etc.; but he had waited so long, if he was going to do anything with me, it must be done now. Then he would draw a few whistles, pinch up his face and screw his mouth around in a way that convinced me he had no axe to grind. No one but a philanthropist would go out to see a man when in such pain.

"There is a matter which I wanted to see you about before going to my friend Smith," said Mr. Obreeon. "Of course, I know he is working on this case--we tip each other off sometimes, you know, and would like to have this bit of evidence." He pointed to a small leather bag. I eyed it, but failed to identify it as a Hosley exhibit. "Some of my men gathered this evidence at the fire," he continued. "Of course, what I have found out won't be of any use to them unless they have plenty of Hosley's handwriting for expert examination--"

Hosley's handwriting! My swallowing was on walnuts. I could see that they were close on Jim's trail, but I dared not reveal where I stood in the matter or that Tescheron had not been near me. If there was any handwriting it must be mine, moreover, for Jim never wrote; he sent telegrams in great emergencies. I pulled myself together, offering to get Mr. Obreeon a drink or a drug that would ease his intense pain, so that he might be persuaded to remain and divulge all he knew. This man was at work independently of Smith, and might help me. No, he would not take anything, thank you, as it might cause him to collapse! Gracious, but I was afraid he might collapse. He a.s.sured me he shared my fears, and made me promise he would be taken at once in the ambulance to the address on the card, should the worst happen. My a.s.surances calmed him and he proceeded, but with great effort:

"Yes, I have here one hundred and sixty-two letters written by Hosley.

I--"

At that moment the collapse was on me. I fell back in my recovery a clean two weeks, because of the nerve force squandered in trying to take that in.

"I think they prove he was connected with the woman down-stairs, for after the fire my men found them in one of her private boxes, tied up with a lot of her letters. But I have here only those written by him."

"Perhaps another man named Hosley wrote them," I ventured, after recovering, "if you found them so; Hosley is not such an unusual name."

"Well, now, that's just what I want to get at, Mr. Hopkins. Maybe you're right, and so, of course, I wouldn't want to bother Smith with 'em, you know, if they are only a false clue; he'd only laugh at me, you see. As you, I understand, are friendly with Tescheron and against this Hosley as much as he is, I thought I'd consult you first and find out if these letters were really written by your Hosley or another. If they are his, I think I have the evidence you all will want."

Letters written by Hosley, and found with that woman's things! Then I had written them and they might prove to the world that I was his accomplice in crime, for if he had won her heart with these letters and had done away with her, as alleged, and Smith had the evidence to prove it, then I was his pal. My protestations of innocence would not avail.

There were the letters and Smith had the specimens of my handwriting in the many messages sent to Tescheron at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But how lucky for me that the sleuths of Obreeon and not those of Smith had found them! How I clutched at that thought! Surely all luck had not left me. How fortunate that Obreeon did not suspect me as an accomplice, for with those letters he might have convicted us both!

How eagerly I reached for them as Obreeon took them from the bag while undergoing a wave of pain that I felt sure took his attention from me!

They had been written for Jim several years before in one of his most severe cases. That villain, Hosley, had certainly fooled me. I could see that I had been his dupe all through. I, his chum from boyhood, blinded at every turn by this clever knave! But at last I was getting wise to the trickery of the world; from this time forth I would be wary of every suggestion and live and die alone to insure the preservation of my innocence. What a harvest of whirlwind these letters would have brought me had they pa.s.sed into the hands of Smith or the authorities! Here's where the profits come in, thought I, when a fellow sets up to do a jobbing business in love, as I read on and on through the first pile, pretending to have some difficulty in recognizing Hosley's handwriting.

A few off the top of pile No. 1 ran as follows:

April 4,----

My Dear Miss Brown:

You have not forgotten the honor granted to me at Mrs. Pratt's. May I call to-morrow evening? I shall be eager to hear from you.

Sincerely,

JAMES HOSLEY.

April 10,----

My Dear Miss Brown: