Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 131: what you’re looking at

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SERAPION. guard us in the midst of so much trouble. At least, it would be like him. Dear, faith- ful, loving, lovable Serapion!” CHAPTER XV. BAD DAYS. Bet had my desired obsession, or fami- liar, or haunting ghost really desired to help, he might have warned me defi- nitely of Sabina Cassel. | Alicia did not appear at the inquest. She was ill and under a physician’s care. Her semi-conscious state as reported by him prevented even the taking of a depo- sition. I did not, however, stand alone as star witness before the coroner’s jury. Sabina Cassel, Mrs. Moore’s old colored “ Mam- my ”’ whom she had brought north with her from Virginia, shared and rather more than shared the honors with me. They had taken pains that Nils and I should not meet. He was kept rigorously incommunicado till the inquest, no one, save the police and the district attorney, having access to him. At the inquest I caught only a glimpse of him, when he was led out past where I awaited my turn be- fore the jury. Involuntarily I sprang up, only to be caught by a constable’s hand, while Nils was hustled on out. As he went, he threw me a glance that was a burning, dictatorial command. I obeyed it. I told the jury exactly that story which Nils’s letter had outlined for us both. There was tempered steel in Ber- quist. I could be sure that no long-drawn torment of inquisition could make him vary a hairs-breadth from the line he had set for us to follow. In my testimony, which preceded Sa- bina’s, I explained what Nils had objected to my interest in spiritualism, fostered by a single previous visit to the Moores’ place. That he wished me to leave the house with him, and that Alicia also had seemed set against my remaining. That an argument ensued, at the height of which Moore be- came very angry and excited, shouted: “ I’ll settle with you, once for all!” and came around the table toward Berquist. — 121 “He grasped Berquist’s arm,” I said. ‘When my friend tried to free himself, Moore snatched the—the file from the table. 1 saw Berquist seize Moore’s wrist. They struggled a moment, and then Moore staggered away with his hands to his face. Then—he fell down. Berquist called to me, and— No, I had not tried to inter- fere. It all happened too quickly. There wasn’t time. After Berquist wrenched the file from Moore’s hand I don’t believe he struck at Moore. I think the file was driven into his eye by accident.” That surmise, of course, was struck from the record; but I had said it, at least, and hoped it impressed the jury. “ Afterward, the—the sight of blood and the suddenness of it all turned me sick— no, my recollections were clear up to that time.” And so forth. It was a straight story. I knew it agreed to a hair with Nils’s. con- fession. What I did not, could not know, was that it varied in one essential detail from an entirely different confession—a confes- sion made by a person whom we had not considered as an even possible eye-witness, and whose very existence I, at least, had forgotten. Given that a second eye-witness existed, one would have supposed that the disagree- ment would have been over the slayer’s identity. It was not. By a curious trick of fate, Sabina Cassel, Alicia’s old colored maid, did undoubtedly see me strike Moore down, and yet, not through such a super- normal illusion as caused me to kill Moore, but in a perfectly natural manner, she had confused Berquist’s identity with mine. She related as having been done by Ber- quist that which had been done by me. In one detail only did Sabina’s testimony conflict with ours, but that was the kind of detail which would hang a man, if its truth were established. She had seen me—Berquist by her own account—snatch the file from the table and strike Moore, and she had seen me do it on no further provocation than the laying of Moore’s hand on my arm. The Fifth Presence was right when he foretold that Nils would be indicted. comiclboook C©