The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-22
Whispering
 Pines

1 yon6 that I cannot promise. I am | caught in net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be frank | with you. A common question may | trip me up. Others find me free and l ready with my defense. You have | chanced upon one of the former. was in turmoil of mind from the 1 moment of my entrance into that fa- tai house, but I can give no reason 1 for it''
 You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain memories connected with that night | which you cannot dfvulge."
 Right, Charles, but not memories of guilt-of active guilt, I mean. I am perfectly innocent SC far as Ade- | laide's death is concerned. You may | proceed on that basis without fear that is, if you continue to take an in terest in my case"
 "I have accepted the case, and I shall continue to interest myself in it." be assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. "But I should like to know what I am to | work upon if it cannot be shown that her call for help came before you en- tered the building"
 "That would be the best defense possible. of course" I replied. but neither from your standpoint nor mine Is it feasible one. I have no proof of my assertion. All I know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building prior to the ar rival of the police is that it could not have been very long, since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated cushions, but in a room some little distance from the tele- phone"
 "That will do for me-" said he, "but scarcely for those who are prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the station looks very much more like one to Miss Cumber- land to meet you at the clubhouse"
 It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been burned of. It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:
 Come, come, my darling, my life! She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will only undo us. Tonight at 10:39. shall never marry any but you.
 It was also evident that had fail ed to add those expressions of affec- ton linked to Carmeps name which had been in my mind and awakened my keenest apprehension.
 Otherwise" pursued Clifton, "what could have taken her there: These lines said 'Comen and she went, for reasons which may be clear to you, who were acquainted with her weak as well as strong points. Went how? No one knows. By chance or by in- tention on her part or yours. every servant was out of the house by g o'clock. and her brother too. Only the sister remained, the sister whom you profess to have urged to leave the town with you that very evening, and she can tell us nothing--may die with out ever being able to do so. Some shock to her feelings-you may know its character and you may not-drove her from a state of apparent health into the widest delirium in a few hours. It was not your letter-f your story is true about that letter-or she would have shown it's effect immedi- ately upon receiving it-that is, in the early evening. And she did not. Hell en, one of the maids, declares that she saw her some time after you left the house and that she wore anything but ad I,of Ta o% tenance was beaming and beautiful
 Carmel, beaming and beautiful at an hour had supposed her suffering and full of struggle: I could not reconcile 1t with the letter she had written me.
 The lawyer proceeded with his pres entation of my case as it looked to unprejudiced eyes.
 Miss Cumberland comes to the club house; so do you. You have not the keys and so go searching about the building till you find an unlocked win dow, by which you both enter. There are those who say you purposely left this window unfastened when you went about the house the day before; that you dropped the keys in her house where they would be sure to be found and drove down to the station and stood about there for a good half hour in order to divert suspicion from your self afterward and create an aIibi in case it should be wanted. I do not believe any of this myself. but there are those who do. Your passion for Carmel, while not generally known, has not passed unsuspected by your or her intimates. and this in itself is enough to give color to these suspi cions even if you had not gone so far as to admit its power over you and the extremes to which you were will ing to go to secure the wife you wish ed. So much for the situatioI as it appears to outsiders. Of the Nrcum- stantial evidence which links you per. sonally to this crime we have already spoken. It is very strong and appar ently unassailable.''
 Charles" I asked. Chow do they account for the cordial that was drunl the two emptied glasses and tht flask which were found in the adjacen closet?"
 'Tt's one of the affairs conceded ir congruities. Miss Cumberland was { well known temperance woman. Had the flask and glasses not come from her house you would get no one to be- Ieve that she had had anything to do with them. Have you any hint to eyfuo oD f,;s y,o{rf2 r5nulH ha yUoI-