The Corpus Delicti

I





"That man Mason," said Samuel Walcott, "is the mysterious member of

this club. He is more than that; he is the mysterious man of New

York."



"I was much surprised to see him," answered his companion, Marshall

St. Clair, of the great law firm of Seward, St. Clair & De Muth.

"I had lost track of him since he went to Paris as counsel for the

American stockholders of the Canal Company. When did he come back

to the States?"



"He turned up suddenly in his ancient haunts about four months

ago," said Walcott, "as grand, gloomy, and peculiar as Napoleon

ever was in his palmiest days. The younger members of the club

call him 'Zanona Redivivus.' He wanders through the house usually

late at night, apparently without noticing anything or anybody.

His mind seems to be deeply and busily at work, leaving his bodily

self to wander as it may happen. Naturally, strange stories are

told of him; indeed, his individuality and his habit of doing some

unexpected thing, and doing it in such a marvelously original

manner that men who are experts at it look on in wonder, cannot

fail to make him an object of interest.



"He has never been known to play at any game whatever, and yet one

night he sat down to the chess table with old Admiral Du Brey. You

know the Admiral is the great champion since he beat the French and

English officers in the tournament last winter. Well, you also

know that the conventional openings at chess are scientifically and

accurately determined. To the utter disgust of Du Brey, Mason

opened the game with an unheard-of attack from the extremes of the

board. The old Admiral stopped and, in a kindly patronizing way,

pointed out the weak and absurd folly of his move and asked him to

begin again with some one of the safe openings. Mason smiled and

answered that if one had a head that he could trust he should use

it; if not, then it was the part of wisdom to follow blindly the

dead forms of some man who had a head. Du Brey was naturally angry

and set himself to demolish Mason as quickly as possible. The game

was rapid for a few moments. Mason lost piece after piece. His

opening was broken and destroyed and its utter folly apparent to

the lookers-on. The Admiral smiled and the game seemed all one-

sided, when, suddenly, to his utter horror, Du Brey found that his

king was in a trap. The foolish opening had been only a piece of

shrewd strategy. The old Admiral fought and cursed and sacrificed

his pieces, but it was of no use. He was gone. Mason checkmated

him in two moves and arose wearily.



"'Where in Heaven's name, man,' said the old Admiral,

thunderstruck, 'did you learn that masterpiece?'



"'Just here,' replied Mason. 'To play chess, one should know his

opponent. How could the dead masters lay down rules by which you

could be beaten, sir? They had never seen you'; and thereupon he

turned and left the room. Of course, St. Clair, such a strange man

would soon become an object of all kinds of mysterious rumors.

Some are true and some are not. At any rate, I know that Mason is

an unusual man with a gigantic intellect. Of late he seems to have

taken a strange fancy to me. In fact, I seem to be the only member

of the club that he will talk with, and I confess that he startles

and fascinates me. He is an original genius, St. Clair, of an

unusual order."



"I recall vividly," said the younger man, "that before Mason went

to Paris he was considered one of the greatest lawyers of this city

and he was feared and hated by the bar at large. He came here, I

believe, from Virginia and began with the high-grade criminal

practice. He soon became famous for his powerful and ingenious

defenses. He found holes in the law through which his clients

escaped, holes that by the profession at large were not suspected

to exist, and that frequently astonished the judges. His ability

caught the attention of the great corporations. They tested him

and found in him learning and unlimited resources. He pointed out

methods by which they could evade obnoxious statutes, by which they

could comply with the apparent letter of the law and yet violate

its spirit, and advised them well in that most important of all

things, just how far they could bend the law without breaking it.

At the time he left for Paris he had a vast clientage and was in

the midst of a brilliant career. The day he took passage from New

York, the bar lost sight of him. No matter how great a man may be,

the wave soon closes over him in a city like this. In a few years

Mason was forgotten. Now only the older practitioners would recall

him, and they would do so with hatred and bitterness. He was a

tireless, savage, uncompromising fighter, always a recluse."



"Well," said Walcott, "he reminds me of a great world-weary cynic,

transplanted from some ancient mysterious empire. When I come into

the man's presence I feel instinctively the grip of his intellect.

I tell you, St. Clair, Randolph Mason is the mysterious man of New

York."



At this moment a messenger boy came into the room and handed Mr.

Walcott a telegram. "St. Clair," said that gentleman, rising, "the

directors of the Elevated are in session, and we must hurry." The

two men put on their coats and left the house.



Samuel Walcott was not a club man after the manner of the Smart

Set, and yet he was in fact a club man. He was a bachelor in the

latter thirties, and resided in a great silent house on the avenue.

On the street he was a man of substance, shrewd and progressive,

backed by great wealth. He had various corporate interests in the

larger syndicates, but the basis and foundation of his fortune was

real estate. His houses on the avenue were the best possible

property, and his elevator row in the importers' quarter was indeed

a literal gold mine. It was known that, many years before, his

grandfather had died and left him the property, which, at that

time, was of no great value. Young Walcott had gone out into the

gold-fields and had been lost sight of and forgotten. Ten years

afterwards he had turned up suddenly in New York and taken

possession of his property, then vastly increased in value. His

speculations were almost phenomenally successful, and, backed by

the now enormous value of his real property, he was soon on a level

with the merchant princes. His judgment was considered sound, and

he had the full confidence of his business associates for safety

and caution. Fortune heaped up riches around him with a lavish

hand. He was unmarried and the halo of his wealth caught the keen

eye of the matron with marriageable daughters. He was invited out,

caught by the whirl of society, and tossed into its maelstrom. In

a measure he reciprocated. He kept horses and a yacht. His

dinners at Delmonico's and the club were above reproach. But with

all he was a silent man with a shadow deep in his eyes, and seemed

to court the society of his fellows, not because he loved them, but

because he either hated or feared solitude. For years the strategy

of the match-maker had gone gracefully afield, but Fate is

relentless. If she shields the victim from the traps of men, it is

not because she wishes him to escape, but because she is pleased to

reserve him for her own trap. So it happened that, when Virginia

St. Clair assisted Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant at her midwinter

reception, this same Samuel Walcott fell deeply and hopelessly and

utterly in love, and it was so apparent to the beaten generals

present, that Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant applauded herself, so to

speak, with encore after encore. It was good to see this

courteous, silent man literally at the feet of the young debutante.

He was there of right. Even the mothers of marriageable daughters

admitted that. The young girl was brown-haired, brown-eyed, and

tall enough, said the experts, and of the blue blood royal, with

all the grace, courtesy, and inbred genius of such princely

heritage.



Perhaps it was objected by the censors of the Smart Set that Miss

St. Clair's frankness and honesty were a trifle old-fashioned, and

that she was a shadowy bit of a Puritan; and perhaps it was of

these same qualities that Samuel Walcott received his hurt. At any

rate the hurt was there and deep, and the new actor stepped up into

the old time-worn, semi-tragic drama, and began his role with a

tireless, utter sincerity that was deadly dangerous if he lost.





II





Perhaps a week after the conversation between St. Clair and

Walcott, Randolph Mason stood in the private waiting-room of the

club with his hands behind his back.



He was a man apparently in the middle forties; tall and reasonably

broad across the shoulders; muscular without being either stout or

lean. His hair was thin and of a brown color, with erratic streaks

of gray. His forehead was broad and high and of a faint reddish

color. His eyes were restless inky black, and not over-large. The

nose was big and muscular and bowed. The eyebrows were black and

heavy, almost bushy. There were heavy furrows, running from the

nose downward and outward to the corners of the mouth. The mouth

was straight and the jaw was heavy, and square.



Looking at the face of Randolph Mason from above, the expression in

repose was crafty and cynical; viewed from below upward, it was

savage and vindictive, almost brutal; while from the front, if

looked squarely in the face, the stranger was fascinated by the

animation of the man and at once concluded that his expression was

fearless and sneering. He was evidently of Southern extraction and

a man of unusual power.



A fire smoldered on the hearth. It was a crisp evening in the

early fall, and with that far-off touch of melancholy which ever

heralds the coming winter, even in the midst of a city. The man's

face looked tired and ugly. His long white hands were clasped

tight together. His entire figure and face wore every mark of

weakness and physical exhaustion; but his eyes contradicted. They

were red and restless.



In the private dining-room the dinner party was in the best of

spirits. Samuel Walcott was happy. Across the table from him was

Miss Virginia St. Clair, radiant, a tinge of color in her cheeks.

On either side, Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant and Marshall St. Clair were

brilliant and lighthearted. Walcott looked at the young girl and

the measure of his worship was full. He wondered for the

thousandth time how she could possibly love him and by what earthly

miracle she had come to accept him, and how it would be always to

have her across the table from him, his own table in his own house.



They were about to rise from the table when one of the waiters

entered the room and handed Walcott an envelope. He thrust it

quickly into his pocket. In the confusion of rising the others did

not notice him, but his face was ash white and his hands trembled

violently as he placed the wraps around the bewitching shoulders of

Miss St. Clair.



"Marshall," he said, and despite the powerful effort his voice was

hollow, "you will see the ladies safely cared for, I am called to

attend a grave matter."



"All right, Walcott," answered the young man, with cheery good

nature, "you are too serious, old man, trot along."



"The poor dear," murmured Mrs. Steuvisant, after Walcott had helped

them to the carriage and turned to go up the steps of the club,--

"The poor dear is hard hit, and men are such funny creatures when

they are hard hit."



Samuel Walcott, as his fate would, went direct to the private

writing-room and opened the door. The lights were not turned on

and in the dark he did not see Mason motionless by the mantel-

shelf. He went quickly across the room to the writing-table,

turned on one of the lights, and, taking the envelope from his

pocket, tore it open. Then he bent down by the light to read the

contents. As his eyes ran over the paper, his jaw fell. The skin

drew away from his cheekbones and his face seemed literally to sink

in. His knees gave way under him and he would have gone down in a

heap had it not been for Mason's long arms that closed around him

and held him up. The human economy is ever mysterious. The moment

the new danger threatened, the latent power of the man as an

animal, hidden away in the centers of intelligence, asserted

itself. His hand clutched the paper and, with a half slide, he

turned in Mason's arms. For a moment he stared up at the ugly man

whose thin arms felt like wire ropes.



"You are under the dead-fall, aye," said Mason. "The cunning of my

enemy is sublime."



"Your enemy?" gasped Walcott. "When did you come into it? How in

God's name did you know it? How your enemy?"



Mason looked down at the wide bulging eyes of the man.



"Who should know better than I?" he said. "Haven't I broken

through all the traps and plots that she could set?"



"She? She trap you?" The man's voice was full of horror.



"The old schemer," muttered Mason. "The cowardly old schemer, to

strike in the back; but we can beat her. She did not count on my

helping you--I, who know her so well."



Mason's face was red, and his eyes burned. In the midst of it all

he dropped his hands and went over to the fire. Samuel Walcott

arose, panting, and stood looking at Mason, with his hands behind

him on the table. The naturally strong nature and the rigid school

in which the man had been trained presently began to tell. His

composure in part returned and he thought rapidly. What did this

strange man know? Was he simply making shrewd guesses, or had he

some mysterious knowledge of this matter? Walcott could not know

that Mason meant only Fate, that he believed her to be his great

enemy. Walcott had never before doubted his own ability to meet

any emergency. This mighty jerk had carried him off his feet. He

was unstrung and panic-stricken. At any rate this man had promised

help. He would take it. He put the paper and envelope carefully

into his pocket, smoothed out his rumpled coat, and going over to

Mason touched him on the shoulder.



"Come," he said, "if you are to help me we must go."



The man turned and followed him without a word. In the hall Mason

put on his hat and overcoat, and the two went out into the street.

Walcott hailed a cab, and the two were driven to his house on the

avenue. Walcott took out his latchkey, opened the door, and led

the way into the library. He turned on the light and motioned

Mason to seat himself at the table. Then he went into another room

and presently returned with a bundle of papers and a decanter of

brandy. He poured out a glass of the liquor and offered it to

Mason. The man shook his head. Walcott poured the contents of the

glass down his own throat. Then he set the decanter down and drew

up a chair on the side of the table opposite Mason.



"Sir," said Walcott, in a voice deliberate, indeed, but as hollow

as a sepulcher, "I am done for. God has finally gathered up the

ends of the net, and it is knotted tight."



"Am I not here to help you?" said Mason, turning savagely. "I can

beat Fate. Give me the details of her trap."



He bent forward and rested his arms on the table. His streaked

gray hair was rumpled and on end, and his face was ugly. For a

moment Walcott did not answer. He moved a little into the shadow;

then he spread the bundle of old yellow papers out before him.



"To begin with," he said, "I am a living lie, a gilded crime-made

sham, every bit of me. There is not an honest piece anywhere. It

is all lie. I am a liar and a thief before men. The property

which I possess is not mine, but stolen from a dead man. The very

name which I bear is not my own, but is the bastard child of a

crime. I am more than all that--I am a murderer; a murderer before

the law; a murderer before God; and worse than a murderer before

the pure woman whom I love more than anything that God could make."



He paused for a moment and wiped the perspiration from his face.



"Sir," said Mason, "this is all drivel, infantile drivel. What you

are is of no importance. How to get out is the problem, how to get

out."



Samuel Walcott leaned forward, poured out a glass of brandy and

swallowed it.



"Well," he said, speaking slowly, "my right name is Richard Warren.

In the spring of 1879 I came to New York and fell in with the real

Samuel Walcott, a young man with a little money and some property

which his grandfather had left him. We became friends, and

concluded to go to the far west together. Accordingly we scraped

together what money we could lay our hands on, and landed in the

gold-mining regions of California. We were young and

inexperienced, and our money went rapidly. One April morning we

drifted into a little shack camp, away up in the Sierra Nevadas,

called Hell's Elbow. Here we struggled and starved for perhaps a

year. Finally, in utter desperation, Walcott married the daughter

of a Mexican gambler, who ran an eating house and a poker joint.

With them we lived from hand to mouth in a wild God-forsaken way

for several years. After a time the woman began to take a strange

fancy to me. Walcott finally noticed it, and grew jealous.



"One night, in a drunken brawl, we quarreled, and I killed him. It

was late at night, and, beside the woman, there were four of us in

the poker room,--the Mexican gambler, a half-breed devil called

Cherubim Pete, Walcott, and myself. When Walcott fell, the half-

breed whipped out his weapon, and fired at me across the table; but

the woman, Nina San Croix, struck his arm, and, instead of killing

me, as he intended, the bullet mortally wounded her father, the

Mexican gambler. I shot the half-breed through the forehead, and

turned round, expecting the woman to attack me. On the contrary,

she pointed to the window, and bade me wait for her on the cross

trail below.



"It was fully three hours later before the woman joined me at the

place indicated. She had a bag of gold dust, a few jewels that

belonged to her father, and a package of papers. I asked her why

she had stayed behind so long, and she replied that the men were

not killed outright, and that she had brought a priest to them and

waited until they had died. This was the truth, but not all the

truth. Moved by superstition or foresight, the woman had induced

the priest to take down the sworn statements of the two dying men,

seal it, and give it to her. This paper she brought with her. All

this I learned afterwards. At the time I knew nothing of this

damning evidence.



"We struck out together for the Pacific coast. The country was

lawless. The privations we endured were almost past belief. At

times the woman exhibited cunning and ability that were almost

genius; and through it all, often in the very fingers of death, her

devotion to me never wavered. It was doglike, and seemed to be her

only object on earth. When we reached San Francisco, the woman put

these papers into my hands." Walcott took up the yellow package,

and pushed it across the table to Mason.



"She proposed that I assume Walcott's name, and that we come boldly

to New York and claim the property. I examined the papers, found a

copy of the will by which Walcott inherited the property, a bundle

of correspondence, and sufficient documentary evidence to establish

his identity beyond the shadow of a doubt. Desperate gambler as I

now was, I quailed before the daring plan of Nina San Croix. I

urged that I, Richard Warren, would be known, that the attempted

fraud would be detected and would result in investigation, and

perhaps unearth the whole horrible matter.



"The woman pointed out how much I resembled Walcott, what vast

changes ten years of such life as we had led would naturally be

expected to make in men, how utterly impossible it would be to

trace back the fraud to Walcott's murder at Hell's Elbow, in the

wild passes of the Sierra Nevadas. She bade me remember that we

were both outcasts, both crime-branded, both enemies of man's law

and God's; that we had nothing to lose; we were both sunk to the

bottom. Then she laughed, and said that she had not found me a

coward until now, but that if I had turned chicken-hearted, that

was the end of it, of course. The result was, we sold the gold

dust and jewels in San Francisco, took on such evidences of

civilization as possible, and purchased passage to New York on the

best steamer we could find.



"I was growing to depend on the bold gambler spirit of this woman,

Nina San Croix; I felt the need of her strong, profligate nature.

She was of a queer breed and a queerer school. Her mother was the

daughter of a Spanish engineer, and had been stolen by the Mexican,

her father. She herself had been raised and educated as best might

be in one of the monasteries along the Rio Grande, and had there

grown to womanhood before her father, fleeing into the mountains of

California, carried her with him.



"When we landed in New York I offered to announce her as my wife,

but she refused, saying that her presence would excite comment and

perhaps attract the attention of Walcott's relatives. We therefore

arranged that I should go alone into the city, claim the property,

and announce myself as Samuel Walcott, and that she should remain

under cover until such time as we would feel the ground safe under

us.



"Every detail of the plan was fatally successful. I established my

identity without difficulty and secured the property. It had

increased vastly in value, and I, as Samuel Walcott, soon found

myself a rich man. I went to Nina San Croix in hiding and gave her

a large sum of money, with which she purchased a residence in a

retired part of the city, far up in the northern suburb. Here she

lived secluded and unknown while I remained in the city, living

here as a wealthy bachelor.



"I did not attempt to abandon the woman, but went to her from time

to time in disguise and under cover of the greatest secrecy. For a

time everything ran smooth, the woman was still devoted to me above

everything else, and thought always of my welfare first and seemed

content to wait so long as I thought best. My business expanded.

I was sought after and consulted and drawn into the higher life of

New York, and more and more felt that the woman was an albatross on

my neck. I put her off with one excuse after another. Finally she

began to suspect me and demanded that I should recognize her as my

wife. I attempted to point out the difficulties. She met them all

by saying that we should both go to Spain, there I could marry her

and we could return to America and drop into my place in society

without causing more than a passing comment.



"I concluded to meet the matter squarely once for all. I said that

I would convert half of the property into money and give it to her,

but that I would not marry her. She did not fly into a storming

rage as I had expected, but went quietly out of the room and

presently returned with two papers, which she read. One was the

certificate of her marriage to Walcott duly authenticated; the

other was the dying statement of her father, the Mexican gambler,

and of Samuel Walcott, charging me with murder. It was in proper

form and certified by the Jesuit priest.



"'Now,' she said, sweetly, when she had finished, 'which do you

prefer, to recognize your wife, or to turn all the property over to

Samuel Walcott's widow and hang for his murder?'



"I was dumfounded and horrified. I saw the trap that I was in and

I consented to do anything she should say if she would only destroy

the papers. This she refused to do. I pleaded with her and

implored her to destroy them. Finally she gave them to me with a

great show of returning confidence, and I tore them into bits and

threw them into the fire.



"That was three months ago. We arranged to go to Spain and do as

she said. She was to sail this morning and I was to follow. Of

course I never intended to go. I congratulated myself on the fact

that all trace of evidence against me was destroyed and that her

grip was now broken. My plan was to induce her to sail, believing

that I would follow. When she was gone I would marry Miss St.

Clair, and if Nina San Croix should return I would defy her and

lock her up as a lunatic. But I was reckoning like an infernal

ass, to imagine for a moment that I could thus hoodwink such a

woman as Nina San Croix.



"To-night I received this." Walcott took the envelope from his

pocket and gave it to Mason. "You saw the effect of it; read it

and you will understand why. I felt the death hand when I saw her

writing on the envelope."



Mason took the paper from the envelope. It was written in Spanish,

and ran:





"Greeting to RICHARD WARREN.



"The great Senor does his little Nina injustice to think she would

go away to Spain and leave him to the beautiful American. She is

not so thoughtless. Before she goes, she shall be, Oh so very

rich! and the dear Senor shall be, Oh so very safe! The Archbishop

and the kind Church hate murderers.



"NINA SAN CROIX.



"Of course, fool, the papers you destroyed were copies.



"N. SAN C."





To this was pinned a line in a delicate aristocratic hand saying

that the Archbishop would willingly listen to Madam San Croix's

statement if she would come to him on Friday morning at eleven.



"You see," said Walcott, desperately, "there is no possible way

out. I know the woman--when she decides to do a thing that is the

end of it. She has decided to do this."



Mason turned around from the table, stretched out his long legs,

and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Walcott sat with his

head down, watching Mason hopelessly, almost indifferently, his

face blank and sunken. The ticking of the bronze clock on the

mantel shelf was loud, painfully loud. Suddenly Mason drew his

knees in and bent over, put both his bony hands on the table, and

looked at Walcott.



"Sir," he said, "this matter is in such shape that there is only

one thing to do. This growth must be cut out at the roots, and cut

out quickly. This is the first fact to be determined, and a fool

would know it. The second fact is that you must do it yourself.

Hired killers are like the grave and the daughters of the horse

leech,--they cry always, 'Give, Give.' They are only palliatives,

not cures. By using them you swap perils. You simply take a stay

of execution at best. The common criminal would know this. These

are the facts of your problem. The master plotters of crime would

see here but two difficulties to meet:



"A practical method for accomplishing the body of the crime.



"A cover for the criminal agent.



"They would see no farther, and attempt to guard no farther. After

they had provided a plan for the killing, and a means by which the

killer could cover his trail and escape from the theater of the

homicide, they would believe all the requirements of the problems

met, and would stop. The greatest, the very giants among them,

have stopped here and have been in great error.



"In every crime, especially in the great ones, there exists a third

element, preeminently vital. This third element the master

plotters have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to

construct. They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They

plan with vast wisdom, almost genius, to baffle the trailer. But

they fail utterly to provide any plan for baffling the punisher.

Ergo, their plots are fatally defective and often result in ruin.

Hence the vital necessity for providing the third element--the

escape ipso jure."



Mason arose, walked around the table, and put his hand firmly on

Samuel Walcott's shoulder. "This must be done to-morrow night," he

continued; "you must arrange your business matters to-morrow and

announce that you are going on a yacht cruise, by order of your

physician, and may not return for some weeks. You must prepare

your yacht for a voyage, instruct your men to touch at a certain

point on Staten Island, and wait until six o'clock day after

tomorrow morning. If you do not come aboard by that time, they are

to go to one of the South American ports and remain until further

orders. By this means your absence for an indefinite period will

be explained. You will go to Nina San Croix in the disguise which

you have always used, and from her to the yacht, and by this means

step out of your real status and back into it without leaving

traces. I will come here to-morrow evening and furnish you with

everything that you shall need and give you full and exact

instructions in every particular. These details you must execute

with the greatest care, as they will be vitally essential to the

success of my plan."



Through it all Walcott had been silent and motionless. Now he

arose, and in his face there must have been some premonition of

protest, for Mason stepped back and put out his hand. "Sir," he

said, with brutal emphasis, "not a word. Remember that you are

only the hand, and the hand does not think." Then he turned around

abruptly and went out of the house.





III





The place which Samuel Walcott had selected for the residence of

Nina San Croix was far up in the northern suburb of New York. The

place was very old. The lawn was large and ill kept; the house, a

square old-fashioned brick, was set far back from the street, and

partly hidden by trees. Around it all was a rusty iron fence. The

place had the air of genteel ruin, such as one finds in the

Virginias.



On a Thursday of November, about three o'clock in the afternoon, a

little man, driving a dray, stopped in the alley at the rear of the

house. As he opened the back gate an old negro woman came down the

steps from the kitchen and demanded to know what he wanted. The

drayman asked if the lady of the house was in. The old negro

answered that she was asleep at this hour and could not be seen.



"That is good," said the little man, "now there won't be any row.

I brought up some cases of wine which she ordered from our house

last week and which the Boss told me to deliver at once, but I

forgot it until to-day. Just let me put it in the cellar now,

Auntie, and don't say a word to the lady about it and she won't

ever know that it was not brought up on time."



The drayman stopped, fished a silver dollar out of his pocket, and

gave it to the old negro. "There now, Auntie," he said, "my job

depends upon the lady not knowing about this wine; keep it mum."



"Dat's all right, honey," said the old servant, beaming like a May

morning. "De cellar door is open, carry it all in and put it in de

back part and nobody ain't never going to know how long it has been

in dar."



The old negro went back into the kitchen and the little man began

to unload the dray. He carried in five wine cases and stowed them

away in the back part of the cellar as the old woman had directed.

Then, after having satisfied himself that no one was watching, he

took from the dray two heavy paper sacks, presumably filled with

flour, and a little bundle wrapped in an old newspaper; these he

carefully hid behind the wine cases in the cellar. After awhile he

closed the door, climbed on his dray, and drove off down the alley.



About eight o'clock in the evening of the same day, a Mexican

sailor dodged in the front gate and slipped down to the side of the

house. He stopped by the window and tapped on it with his finger.

In a moment a woman opened the door. She was tall, lithe, and

splendidly proportioned, with a dark Spanish face and straight

hair. The man stepped inside. The woman bolted the door and

turned round.



"Ah," she said, smiling, "it is you, Senor? How good of you!"



The man started. "Whom else did you expect?" he said quickly.



"Oh!" laughed the woman, "perhaps the Archbishop."



"Nina!" said the man, in a broken voice that expressed love,

humility, and reproach. His face was white under the black

sunburn.



For a moment the woman wavered. A shadow flitted over her eyes,

then she stepped back. "No," she said, "not yet."



The man walked across to the fire, sank down in a chair, and

covered his face with his hands. The woman stepped up noiselessly

behind him and leaned over the chair. The man was either in great

agony or else he was a superb actor, for the muscles of his neck

twitched violently and his shoulders trembled.



"Oh," he muttered, as though echoing his thoughts, "I can't do it,

I can't!"



The woman caught the words and leaped up as though some one had

struck her in the face. She threw back her head. Her nostrils

dilated and her eyes flashed.



"You can't do it!" she cried. "Then you do love her! You shall do

it! Do you hear me? You shall do it! You killed him! You got

rid of him! but you shall not get rid of me. I have the evidence,

all of it. The Archbishop will have it to-morrow. They shall hang

you! Do you hear me? They shall hang you!"



The woman's voice rose, it was loud and shrill. The man turned

slowly round without looking up, and stretched out his arms toward

the woman. She stopped and looked down at him. The fire glittered

for a moment and then died out of her eyes, her bosom heaved and

her lips began to tremble. With a cry she flung herself into his

arms, caught him around the neck, and pressed his face up close

against her cheek.



"Oh! Dick, Dick," she sobbed, "I do love you so! I can't live

without you! Not another hour, Dick! I do want you so much, so

much, Dick!"



The man shifted his right arm quickly, slipped a great Mexican

knife out of his sleeve, and passed his fingers slowly up the

woman's side until he felt the heart beat under his hand, then he

raised the knife, gripped the handle tight, and drove the keen

blade into the woman's bosom. The hot blood gushed out over his

arm, and down on his leg. The body, warm and limp, slipped down in

his arms. The man got up, pulled out the knife, and thrust it into

a sheath at his belt, unbuttoned the dress, and slipped it off of

the body. As he did this a bundle of papers dropped upon the

floor; these he glanced at hastily and put into his pocket. Then

he took the dead woman up in his arms, went out into the hall, and

started to go up the stairway. The body was relaxed and heavy, and

for that reason difficult to carry. He doubled it up into an awful

heap, with the knees against the chin, and walked slowly and

heavily up the stairs and out into the bathroom. There he laid the

corpse down on the tiled floor. Then he opened the window, closed

the shutters, and lighted the gas. The bathroom was small and

contained an ordinary steel tub, porcelain lined, standing near the

window and raised about six inches above the floor. The sailor

went over to the tub, pried up the metal rim of the outlet with his

knife, removed it, and fitted into its place a porcelain disk which

he took from his pocket; to this disk was attached a long platinum

wire, the end of which he fastened on the outside of the tub.

After he had done this he went back to the body, stripped off its

clothing, put it down in the tub and began to dismember it with the

great Mexican knife. The blade was strong and sharp as a razor.

The man worked rapidly and with the greatest care.



When he had finally cut the body into as small pieces as possible,

he replaced the knife in its sheath, washed his hands, and went out

of the bathroom and downstairs to the lower hall. The sailor

seemed perfectly familiar with the house. By a side door he passed

into the cellar. There he lighted the gas, opened one of the wine

cases, and, taking up all the bottles that he could conveniently

carry, returned to the bathroom. There he poured the contents into

the tub on the dismembered body, and then returned to the cellar

with the empty bottles, which he replaced in the wine cases. This

he continued to do until all the cases but one were emptied and the

bath tub was more than half full of liquid. This liquid was

sulphuric acid.



When the sailor returned to the cellar with the last empty wine

bottles, he opened the fifth case, which really contained wine,

took some of it out, and poured a little into each of the empty

bottles in order to remove any possible odor of the sulphuric acid.

Then he turned out the gas and brought up to the bathroom with him

the two paper flour sacks and the little heavy bundle. These sacks

were filled with nitrate of soda. He set them down by the door,

opened the little bundle, and took out two long rubber tubes, each

attached to a heavy gas burner, not unlike the ordinary burners of

a small gas stove. He fastened the tubes to two of the gas jets,

put the burners under the tub, turned the gas on full, and lighted

it. Then he threw into the tub the woman's clothing and the papers

which he had found on her body, after which he took up the two

heavy sacks of nitrate of soda and dropped them carefully into the

sulphuric acid. When he had done this he went quickly out of the

bathroom and closed the door.



The deadly acids at once attacked the body and began to destroy it;

as the heat increased, the acids boiled and the destructive process

was rapid and awful. From time to time the sailor opened the door

of the bathroom cautiously, and, holding a wet towel over his mouth

and nose, looked in at his horrible work. At the end of a few

hours there was only a swimming mass in the tub. When the man

looked at four o'clock, it was all a thick murky liquid. He turned

off the gas quickly and stepped back out of the room. For perhaps

half an hour he waited in the hall; finally, when the acids had

cooled so that they no longer gave off fumes, he opened the door

and went in, took hold of the platinum wire and, pulling the

porcelain disk from the stopcock, allowed the awful contents of the

tub to run out. Then he turned on the hot water, rinsed the tub

clean, and replaced the metal outlet. Removing the rubber tubes,

he cut them into pieces, broke the porcelain disk, and, rolling up

the platinum wire, washed it all down the sewer pipe.



The fumes had escaped through the open window; this he now closed

and set himself to putting the bathroom in order, and effectually

removing every trace of his night's work. The sailor moved around

with the very greatest degree of care. Finally, when he had

arranged everything to his complete satisfaction, he picked up the

two burners, turned out the gas, and left the bathroom, closing the

door after him. From the bathroom he went directly to the attic,

concealed the two rusty burners under a heap of rubbish, and then

walked carefully and noiselessly down the stairs and through the

lower hall. As he opened the door and stepped into the room where

he had killed the woman, two police officers sprang out and seized

him. The man screamed like a wild beast taken in a trap and sank

down.



"Oh! oh!" he cried, "it was no use! it was no use to do it!" Then

he recovered himself in a manner and was silent. The officers

handcuffed him, summoned the patrol, and took him at once to the

station house. There he said he was a Mexican sailor and that his

name was Victor Ancona; but he would say nothing further. The

following morning he sent for Randolph Mason and the two were long

together.





IV





The obscure defendant charged with murder has little reason to

complain of the law's delays. The morning following the arrest of

Victor Ancona, the newspapers published long sensational articles,

denounced him as a fiend, and convicted him. The grand jury, as it

happened, was in session. The preliminaries were soon arranged and

the case was railroaded into trial. The indictment contained a

great many counts, and charged the prisoner with the murder of Nina

San Croix by striking, stabbing, choking, poisoning, and so forth.



The trial had continued for three days and had appeared so

overwhelmingly one-sided that the spectators who were crowded in

the court room had grown to be violent and bitter partisans, to

such an extent that the police watched them closely. The attorneys

for the People were dramatic and denunciatory, and forced their

case with arrogant confidence. Mason, as counsel for the prisoner,

was indifferent and listless. Throughout the entire trial he had

sat almost motionless at the table, his gaunt form bent over, his

long legs drawn up under his chair, and his weary, heavy-muscled

face, with its restless eyes, fixed and staring out over the heads

of the jury, was like a tragic mask. The bar, and even the judge,

believed that the prisoner's counsel had abandoned his case.



The evidence was all in and the People rested. It had been shown

that Nina San Croix had resided for many years in the house in

which the prisoner was arrested; that she had lived by herself,

with no other companion than an old negro servant; that her past

was unknown, and that she received no visitors, save the Mexican

sailor, who came to her house at long intervals. Nothing whatever

was shown tending to explain who the prisoner was or whence he had

come. It was shown that on Tuesday preceding the killing the

Archbishop had received a communication from Nina San Croix, in

which she said she desired to make a statement of the greatest

import, and asking for an audience. To this the Archbishop replied

that he would willingly grant her a hearing if she would come to

him at eleven o'clock on Friday morning. Two policemen testified

that about eight o'clock on the night of Thursday they had noticed

the prisoner slip into the gate of Nina San Croix's residence and

go down to the side of the house, where he was admitted; that his

appearance and seeming haste had attracted their attention; that

they had concluded that it was some clandestine amour, and out of

curiosity had both slipped down to the house and endeavored to find

a position from which they could see into the room, but were unable

to do so, and were about to go back to the street when they heard a

woman's voice cry out in, great anger: "I know that you love her

and that you want to get rid of me, but you shall not do it! You

murdered him, but you shall not murder me! I have all the evidence

to convict you of murdering him! The Archbishop will have it to-

morrow! They shall hang you! Do you hear me? They shall hang you

for this murder!" that thereupon one of the policemen proposed that

they should break into the house and see what was wrong, but the

other had urged that it was only the usual lovers' quarrel and if

they should interfere they would find nothing upon which a charge

could be based and would only be laughed at by the chief; that they

had waited and listened for a time, but hearing nothing further had

gone back to the street and contented themselves with keeping a

strict watch on the house.



The People proved further, that on Thursday evening Nina San Croix

had given the old negro domestic a sum of money and dismissed her,

with the instruction that she was not to return until sent for.

The old woman testified that she had gone directly to the house of

her son, and later had discovered that she had forgotten some

articles of clothing which she needed; that thereupon she had

returned to the house and had gone up the back way to her room,--

this was about eight o'clock; that while there she had heard Nina

San Croix's voice in great passion and remembered that she had used

the words stated by the policemen; that these sudden, violent cries

had frightened her greatly and she had bolted the door and been

afraid to leave the room; shortly thereafter, she had heard heavy

footsteps ascending the stairs, slowly and with great difficulty,

as though some one were carrying a heavy burden; that therefore her

fear had increased and that she had put out the light and hidden

under the bed. She remembered hearing the footsteps moving about

upstairs for many hours, how long she could not tell. Finally,

about half-past four in the morning, she crept out, opened the

door, slipped downstairs, and ran out into the street. There she

had found the policemen and requested them to search the house.



The two officers had gone to the house with the woman. She had

opened the door and they had had just time to step back into the

shadow when the prisoner entered. When arrested, Victor Ancona had

screamed with terror, and cried out, "It was no use! it was no use

to do it!"



The Chief of Police had come to the house and instituted a careful

search. In the room below, from which the cries had come, he found

a dress which was identified as belonging to Nina San Croix and

which she was wearing when last seen by the domestic, about six

o'clock that evening. This dress was covered with blood, and had a

slit about two inches long in the left side of the bosom, into

which the Mexican knife, found on the prisoner, fitted perfectly.

These articles were introduced in evidence, and it was shown that

the slit would be exactly over the heart of the wearer, and that

such a wound would certainly result in death. There was much blood

on one of the chairs and on the floor. There was also blood on the

prisoner's coat and the leg of his trousers, and the heavy Mexican

knife was also bloody. The blood was shown by the experts to be

human blood.



The body of the woman was not found, and the most rigid and

tireless search failed to develop the slightest trace of the

corpse, or the manner of its disposal. The body of the woman had

disappeared as completely as though it had vanished into the air.



When counsel announced that he had closed for the People, the judge

turned and looked gravely down at Mason. "Sir," he said, "the

evidence for the defense may now be introduced."



Randolph Mason arose slowly and faced the judge.



"If your Honor please," he said, speaking slowly and distinctly,

"the defendant has no evidence to offer." He paused while a murmur

of astonishment ran over the court room. "But, if your Honor

please," he continued, "I move that the jury be directed to find

the prisoner not guilty."



The crowd stirred. The counsel for the People smiled. The judge

looked sharply at the speaker over his glasses. "On what ground?"

he said curtly.



"On the ground," replied Mason, "that the corpus delicti has not

been proven."



"Ah!" said the judge, for once losing his judicial gravity. Mason

sat down abruptly. The senior counsel for the prosecution was on

his feet in a moment.



"What!" he said, "the gentleman bases his motion on a failure to

establish the corpus delicti? Does he jest, or has he forgotten

the evidence? The term 'corpus delicti' is technical, and means

the body of the crime, or the substantial fact that a crime has

been committed. Does anyone doubt it in this case? It is true

that no one actually saw the prisoner kill the decedent, and that

he has so successfully hidden the body that it has not been found,

but the powerful chain of circumstances, clear and close-linked,

proving motive, the criminal agency, and the criminal act, is

overwhelming.



"The victim in this case is on the eve of making a statement that

would prove fatal to the prisoner. The night before the statement

is to be made he goes to her residence. They quarrel. Her voice

is heard, raised high in the greatest passion, denouncing him, and

charging that he is a murderer, that she has the evidence and will

reveal it, that he shall be hanged, and that he shall not be rid of

her. Here is the motive for the crime, clear as light. Are not

the bloody knife, the bloody dress, the bloody clothes of the

prisoner, unimpeachable witnesses to the criminal act? The

criminal agency of the prisoner has not the shadow of a possibility

to obscure it. His motive is gigantic. The blood on him, and his

despair when arrested, cry 'Murder! murder!' with a thousand

tongues.



"Men may lie, but circumstances cannot. The thousand hopes and

fears and passions of men may delude, or bias the witness. Yet it

is beyond the human mind to conceive that a clear, complete chain

of concatenated circumstances can be in error. Hence it is that

the greatest jurists have declared that such evidence, being rarely

liable to delusion or fraud, is safest and most powerful. The

machinery of human justice cannot guard against the remote and

improbable doubt. The inference is persistent in the affairs of

men. It is the only means by which the human mind reaches the

truth. If you forbid the jury to exercise it, you bid them work

after first striking off their hands. Rule out the irresistible

inference, and the end of justice is come in this land; and you may

as well leave the spider to weave his web through the abandoned

court room."



The attorney stopped, looked down at Mason with a pompous sneer,

and retired to his place at the table. The judge sat thoughtful

and motionless. The jurymen leaned forward in their seats.



"If your Honor please," said Mason, rising, "this is a matter of

law, plain, clear, and so well settled in the State of New York

that even counsel for the People should know it. The question

before your Honor is simple. If the corpus delicti, the body of

the crime, has been proven, as required by the laws of the

commonwealth, then this case should go to the jury. If not, then

it is the duty of this Court to direct the jury to find the

prisoner not guilty. There is here no room for judicial

discretion. Your Honor has but to recall and apply the rigid rule

announced by our courts prescribing distinctly how the corpus

delicti in murder must be proven.



"The prisoner here stands charged with the highest crime. The law

demands, first, that the crime, as a fact, be established. The

fact that the victim is indeed dead must first be made certain

before anyone can be convicted for her killing, because, so long as

there remains the remotest doubt as to the death, there can be no

certainty as to the criminal agent, although the circumstantial

evidence indicating the guilt of the accused may be positive,

complete, and utterly irresistible. In murder, the corpus delicti,

or body of the crime, is composed of two elements:



"Death, as a result.



"The criminal agency of another as the means.



It is the fixed and immutable law of this State, laid down in the

leading case of Ruloff v. The People, and binding upon this Court,

that both components of the corpus delicti shall not be established

by circumstantial evidence. There must be direct proof of one or

the other of these two component elements of the corpus delicti.

If one is proven by direct evidence, the other may be presumed; but

both shall not be presumed from circumstances, no matter how

powerful, how cogent, or how completely overwhelming the

circumstances may be. In other words, no man can be convicted of

murder in the State of New York, unless the body of the victim be

found and identified, or there be direct proof that the prisoner

did some act adequate to produce death, and did it in such a manner

as to account for the disappearance of the body."



The face of the judge cleared and grew hard. The members of the

bar were attentive and alert; they were beginning to see the legal

escape open up. The audience were puzzled; they did not yet

understand. Mason turned to the counsel for the People. His ugly

face was bitter with contempt.



"For three days," he said," I have been tortured by this useless

and expensive farce. If counsel for the People had been other than

play-actors, they would have known in the beginning that Victor

Ancona could not be convicted for murder, unless he were confronted

in this court room with a living witness, who had looked into the

dead face of Nina San Croix; or, if not that, a living witness who

had seen him drive the dagger into her bosom.



"I care not if the circumstantial evidence in this case were so

strong and irresistible as to be overpowering; if the judge on the

bench, if the jury, if every man within sound of my voice, were

convinced of the guilt of the prisoner to the degree of certainty

that is absolute; if the circumstantial evidence left in the mind

no shadow of the remotest improbable doubt; yet, in the absence of

the eyewitness, this prisoner cannot be punished, and this Court

must compel the jury to acquit him."



The audience now understood, and they were dumfounded. Surely this

was not the law. They had been taught that the law was common

sense, and this,--this was anything else.



Mason saw it all, and grinned. "In its tenderness," he sneered,

"the law shields the innocent. The good law of New York reaches

out its hand and lifts the prisoner out of the clutches of the

fierce jury that would hang him."



Mason sat down. The room was silent. The jurymen looked at each

other in amazement. The counsel for the People arose. His face

was white with anger, and incredulous.



"Your Honor," he said, "this doctrine is monstrous. Can it be said

that, in order to evade punishment, the murderer has only to hide

or destroy the body of the victim, or sink it into the sea? Then,

if he is not seen to kill, the law is powerless and the murderer

can snap his finger in the face of retributive justice. If this is

the law, then the law for the highest crime is a dead letter. The

great commonwealth winks at murder and invites every man to kill

his enemy, provided he kill him in secret and hide him. I repeat,

your Honor,"--the man's voice was now loud and angry and rang

through the court room--"that this doctrine is monstrous!"



"So said Best, and Story, and many another," muttered Mason, "and

the law remained."



"The Court," said the judge, abruptly, "desires no further

argument."



The counsel for the People resumed his seat. His face lighted up

with triumph. The Court was going to sustain him.



The judge turned and looked down at the jury. He was grave, and

spoke with deliberate emphasis.



"Gentlemen of the jury," he said, "the rule of Lord Hale obtains in

this State and is binding upon me. It is the law as stated by

counsel for the prisoner: that to warrant conviction of murder

there must be direct proof either of the death, as of the finding

and identification of the corpse, or of criminal violence adequate

to produce death, and exerted in such a manner as to account for

the disappearance of the body; and it is only when there is direct

proof of the one that the other can be established by

circumstantial evidence. This is the law, and cannot now be

departed from. I do not presume to explain its wisdom. Chief-

Justice Johnson has observed, in the leading case, that it may have

its probable foundation in the idea that where direct proof is

absent as to both the fact of the death and of criminal violence

capable of producing death, no evidence can rise to the degree of

moral certainty that the individual is dead by criminal

intervention, or even lead by direct inference to this result; and

that, where the fact of death is not certainly ascertained, all

inculpatory circumstantial evidence wants the key necessary for its

satisfactory interpretation, and cannot be depended on to furnish

more than probable results. It may be, also, that such a rule has

some reference to the dangerous possibility that a general

preconception of guilt, or a general excitement of popular feeling,

may creep in to supply the place of evidence, if, upon other than

direct proof of death or a cause of death, a jury are permitted to

pronounce a prisoner guilty.



"In this case the body has not been found and there is no direct

proof of criminal agency on the part of the prisoner, although the

chain of circumstantial evidence is complete and irresistible in

the highest degree. Nevertheless, it is all circumstantial

evidence, and under the laws of New York the prisoner cannot be

punished. I have no right of discretion. The law does not permit

a conviction in this case, although every one of us may be morally

certain of the prisoner's guilt. I am, therefore, gentlemen of the

jury, compelled to direct you to find the prisoner not guilty."



"Judge," interrupted the foreman, jumping up in the box, "we cannot

find that verdict under our oath; we know that this man is guilty."



"Sir," said the judge, "this is a matter of law in which the wishes

of the jury cannot be considered. The clerk will write a verdict

of not guilty, which you, as foreman, will sign."



The spectators broke out into a threatening murmur that began to

grow and gather volume. The judge rapped on his desk and ordered

the bailiffs promptly to suppress any demonstration on the part of

the audience. Then he directed the foreman to sign the verdict

prepared by the clerk. When this was done he turned to Victor

Ancona; his face was hard and there was a cold glitter in his eyes.



"Prisoner at the bar," he said, "you have been put to trial before

this tribunal on a charge of cold-blooded and atrocious murder.

The evidence produced against you was of such powerful and

overwhelming character that it seems to have left no doubt in the

minds of the jury, nor indeed in the mind of any person present in

this court room.



"Had the question of your guilt been submitted to these twelve

arbiters, a conviction would certainly have resulted and the death

penalty would have been imposed. But the law, rigid, passionless,

even-eyed, has thrust in between you and the wrath of your fellows

and saved you from it. I do not cry out against the impotency of

the law; it is perhaps as wise as imperfect humanity could make it.

I deplore, rather, the genius of evil men who, by cunning design,

are enabled to slip through the fingers of this law. I have no

word of censure or admonition for you, Victor Ancona. The law of

New York compels me to acquit you. I am only its mouthpiece, with

my individual wishes throttled. I speak only those things which

the law directs I shall speak.



"You are now at liberty to leave this court room, not guiltless of

the crime of murder, perhaps, but at least rid of its punishment.

The eyes of men may see Cain's mark on your brow, but the eyes of

the Law are blind to it."



When the audience fully realized what the judge had said they were

amazed and silent. They knew as well as men could know, that

Victor Ancona was guilty of murder, and yet he was now going out of

the court room free. Could it happen that the law protected only

against the blundering rogue? They had heard always of the boasted

completeness of the law which magistrates from time immemorial had

labored to perfect, and now when the skillful villain sought to

evade it, they saw how weak a thing it was.





V





The wedding march of Lohengrin floated out from the Episcopal

Church of St. Mark, clear and sweet, and perhaps heavy with its

paradox of warning. The theater of this coming contract before

high heaven was a wilderness of roses worth the taxes of a county.

The high caste of Manhattan, by the grace of the check book, were

present, clothed in Parisian purple and fine linen, cunningly and

marvelously wrought.



Over in her private pew, ablaze with jewels, and decked with

fabrics from the deft hand of many a weaver, sat Mrs. Miriam

Steuvisant as imperious and self-complacent as a queen. To her it

was all a kind of triumphal procession, proclaiming her ability as

a general. With her were a choice few of the genus homo, which

obtains at the five-o'clock teas, instituted, say the sages, for

the purpose of sprinkling the holy water of Lethe.



"Czarina," whispered Reggie Du Puyster, leaning forward, "I salute

you. The ceremony sub jugum is superb."



"Walcott is an excellent fellow," answered Mrs. Steuvisant; "not a

vice, you know, Reggie."



"Aye, Empress," put in the others, "a purist taken in the net. The

clean-skirted one has come to the altar. Vive la vertu!"



Samuel Walcott, still sunburned from his cruise, stood before the

chancel with the only daughter of the blue blooded St. Clairs. His

face was clear and honest and his voice firm. This was life and

not romance. The lid of the sepulcher had closed and he had

slipped from under it. And now, and ever after, the hand red with

murder was clean as any.



The minister raised his voice, proclaiming the holy union before

God, and this twain, half pure, half foul, now by divine ordinance

one flesh, bowed down before it. No blood cried from the ground.

The sunlight of high noon streamed down through the window panes

like a benediction.



Back in the pew of Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant, Reggie Du Puyster turned

down his thumb. "Habet!" he said.





From "The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason," by Melville Davisson

Post. Copyright, 1896, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.