OCR Text |
Show . ' 'r'r"r'r''''r'"r'r'' r f TSue Mystery of Hartley Housse i By CLIFFORD S. RAYMOND jjjj I Illustrated by IRWIN MYERS 1 Copyright by George H. Doran Co, J? 1 &4-yzZKIZKZ-'KZZKKZZZZKZZZZKKZZ fr --- CHAPTER XVI Continued. 1 6 'T.nt this srhi-ini- of life had this In It Unit brought llsnsr-r to Ills sons a liixni's.s of any discipline related to their f-piritunl iind menial development. develop-ment. Whet we were corrected or punished It was for conduct which affected af-fected his comfort or dignity, never for a thing which affected the development develop-ment of our character. "We hud nhiindant money to spend. It was n part of our father's egotism that we should l; young swells, and we were early In disorderly ways. Jtichard had a Renins for cruelty. A Tiormnl hoy Is likely to be thoughtless, tint Itlchard was Inventive In his cruellies. cru-ellies. It was hrutal. He liked to tear things to pieces slowly, a (ly If It was all he could catch a grasshopper, a field mouse. I had a faithful little dog which Richard staked out in the ground and killed by vivisection. I saw the little animal when It was breathing Us last with Its bowels exposed ex-posed and Its lungs laid bare. "Hlchard destroyed birds' nests for pleasure. He liked to cut a leg off a hen and see It stagger about vainly trying to walk. He maimed dogs. lie tortured cattle and horses. He killed n fine carriage horse by driving it to death purposely to see how long it would live under the treatment he gave It. "I doubt that I was a more lovable child, but at least I did not have the attribute of cruelly. I was not only younger but I was weaker physically. I was sensitive to a degree which made me an extraordinary victim to Richard when he cared to express his fiendish-ness fiendish-ness to or upon me. "We were getting Into late childhood child-hood I should say that I was about fourteen when Richard began to use his Inventiveness In cruelty upon me directly. As soon as he had a taste of the delight which came from tormenting tor-menting me I had no further peace. "I remember with a si ill agonized vividness my experience in finding a enake in my bed. lie had put it there. He used his superior strength to torture tor-ture me physically.- He dominated me spiritually. He made life a hell, such a hell as life can be made only for a child by mistreatment, when reality has not starkly asserted itself, when proportions are not established and when Illusions can be kindly or hideous. hide-ous. "Richard and I grew up In this fash-Ion, fash-Ion, I in terror of him and his malevolence. malevo-lence. When I was fifteen mother died. She had been an unassertive mother. Circumstances and conditions were beyond be-yond her strength of mind or body, but she had been a friend, and I missed her cruelly. It was really a terrible loss at a time when I much needed a friend. "As we grew older Richard's diabolical dia-bolical habits became only shrewder, not less assertive. He contrived the most Ingenious schemes for my torment. tor-ment. He humiliated me whenever possible before other boys and, better for his purpose, before girls. "My father put us out to school together, to-gether, and this suited Richard's purpose pur-pose admirably. How I hated this thing that bore my name and my blood ! It became an indomitable hate. It exists to this day. No human being ever was so haled by another as my brother Richard was by me and Is Is to this moment and will be hated while a breath remains In my body. "When I was eighteen my father died, and Rich;id and I inherited the estate under a trusteeship to continue tintil I was twenty-one. Richard was then twenty. In another year he attained at-tained his majority. He was profligate and wild, a heavy drinker, a coarse, cruel boor, a licentious young ruffian who had suffered twice in actions brought by weak and unfortunate girls. "It Irritated him beyond expression that he had to wait the slow process of my coming of age before he could come Into his share of the property. His constant demeanor toward me was violent. Several times I tried to establish estab-lish the reasonable relations which ought. In convention, to exist between brothers. It was quite hopeless, and my hate for this boor canie to be an tnsane passion. It remains as a passion pas-sion now. I "I may not be able to satisfy anyone that this was the Inevitable consequence conse-quence of the treatment given me, but I could If I were to elaborate the details de-tails or merely state them. However, my purpose Is not so much to Indict my brother as to record my own triumph tri-umph to assist the commission of a crime which has heen of intense satisfaction satis-faction to me, a crime in which I have main1 ulned my culpability with Joy find rrom which Richard has suffered and is suffering. "He Is a broken old man. He is In e penitentiary." Ifcre followed a section of the manuscript man-uscript from which, as I recognized, the page Pravada had taken was missing. miss-ing. Then it continued : "I tiecame a little more assertive of my rights and dignity, with the result that our quarrels were more violent. I tried to fit myself physically to meet Richard, but he was very sturdy, and Ills profligate habits had not yet undermined un-dermined his henith. When I resisted I; 1 1 ;i physically ha had the better of me. ! Three times he knocked me unconscious. uncon-scious. Once I was 111 In bed a week as the result of a beating he gave me. "Frequently he threatened that he would kill me. He said this often and openly, with every evidence of earnestness earnest-ness and determination. Later that counted against him. "I was not cowed, and with the great hatred firmly rooted I was willing to accept the unequal struggle with him. It was a joy to hate him, fight him, even to be beaten by him. I had regained re-gained enough courage to seek sociability. socia-bility. It was dillicult, because his refined sense of cruelty led him to search me out, wherever I might be with my friends, and to humiliate me, If possible, before them. "One night I had been at a tavern In the village with some boys of my acquaintance when Richard, being drunk and very violent, found me, and there was a scene In which he made loud threats that he intended to kill me. "One of my friends persuaded me to go home. At Hartley house we walked the distance from the house to the village In those days. I set mit alone, but Richard, breaking away from the young men who would have detained him, pursued me. He caught up with me, and we abused each other as we walked, being overheard by several sev-eral persons along the way. "When we came to a pool by the river near the house, he became insanely in-sanely violent, cried that he was sick is He Became Insanely Violent. of seeing me on earth and would rid himself of the sight of me. He attacked at-tacked me with a heavy stick he carried, car-ried, succeeded in breaking down my guard and knocked me unconscious. Our cries, while he was attacking, were heard by a farmer living across the road. Richard was insanely drunk. He intended to kill me and thought he had done so. He left the spot, disturbed, probably, by the thought of physical consequences but, I am sure, not by any spiritual misgivings. mis-givings. "I do not know how long I remained remain-ed unconscious or when I awoke. It may have been ten, forty or sixty minutes. min-utes. It may have been an hour or two. When it was, consciousness brought an aching head and a dawn-lug dawn-lug determination. "Life with Richard at Hartley house had become impossible. I could no longer control him, I could no lODger endure him. "A chance of escape and of revenge was possible.. I was, in Richard's understanding, un-derstanding, dead. He had tried to kill me. He might be made to think he had. I had considerable money with me. Richard, of course, had not touched It. Each of us had been given, giv-en, that morning, five hundred dollars by trustees. That had been the occasion occa-sion of Richard's murderous debauch. It is strange or is it? that I never think of him as, or ever called him, Dick. "I arranged the spot as well as I could in the details to suggest that my drunken and brutal brother had not only killed me but had disposed of my body in the river. When I had done this, relying for success on his uncertain, memory of the act which already had terrified him, I left Hartley Hart-ley house all Its painful memories and brutal experiences, the nnhappi-ness nnhappi-ness I had experienced there, the miserable mis-erable childhood, the wretched boyhood boy-hood and the young manhood, come to this furtive, malevolent end. And I there resolved that If I got safaiy away and if my design worked out successfully, I should return to the selfsame spot some time to live a jovial jo-vial life where life had been so drear. "My plans were not perfect ; my resources and my Intelligence for this sudden meeting of the world were slender;, but my success was beyond expectation. "First I had the satisfaction of knowing that my brother was taken for my murder. Circumstances were all against him, and he was convinced In his own heart that he had not only killed me as he so often had wished to do, but that he had disposed of my body. "In arranging the spot to Indicate a murder I had thrown my hat, which was broken and bl'jody, down the bank. It had caught on a projecting rock. I had taken a ring off my finger and had thrown that into the pool. I also had thrown in my coat. It had blood on the collar and slu ilders. All this seemed to me to afford inconclusive inconclus-ive evidence, but there were obvious difficulties in finding a body which might increase Richard's troubles. "I waited in New York, carefully concealed, many months, reading of the progress of my murder trial in the newspapers. It gained some celebrity. The prosecuting zeal was tremendous, and public interest, I gathered, acute. My ring was dredged up and was regarded re-garded as important evidence. The dredge also brought up some bones' which, as I read in the papers, were, regarded as fish-nibbled remains of me. "Much legalistic argument ensued. I became a case of Importance, involving involv-ing principles of evidence. The superficial super-ficial facts were all against Richard. His confession faced him. The evidence evi-dence I had arranged damned him. Our relationship in hate and his threats against me arose against him. He thought he had killed me. He knew he had. There were many witnesses against him. "The only thing helping him was the lack of a clearly Identified body. But there were vestiges of something which, in the circumstances, were accepted ac-cepted as parts of the corpus delicti. I think Uie prosecution and the jury, convinced that I was dead and my remains re-mains swept away, were anxious to meet technically the requirements of law. "The story of our lives together, as I read it in the testimony of witnesses who knew more of its terrors than I thought anyone knew, was terrific. It would have damned any aggressor in the opinion of any body of men. Everyone Ev-eryone who knew anything of 'the case, Richard himself included, was convinced con-vinced that I had been murdered. The doubt which remained merely served to get Richard a life sentence instead of the gallows. Popular . psychology condemned him. The lack of essential evidence was ignored. "I waited until I knew what his fate was, and then, rejoicing, I left the country. I had no prospects and few plans, but my Inclination was to go to South America, and I followed it. "My hatred never ceased. It grew as a passion, at first a disturbing one, later a satisfactory one. I wanted this man to suffer. Nothing that he can suffer will properly pay him at least it will not pay my score. "Some day, I know, for I have the determination, I shall return to Hartley Hart-ley house as its owner, although esteemed es-teemed an alien, wiUi a false name, a false life and a great joy. What is a family that I should not enjoy my perfect per-fect revenge upon this brute who made fifteen years and more of my life, in its most impressionable form, an undesirable thing when it was most desired? "I shall go back to Hartley house, and if life and health be spared me, I shall make it and life in it jovial, and if strength be spared my will, the knowledge that my brother Richard is suffering for the murder of a dead live man shall be the cosy north vind in the caves below which burn my cheerful fires. "This is my crime, and If it causes no one dear to me later to suffer, I w-ant it known. Some day I shall, go back as a man wholly unknown to people, who knew the Dobsons. I shall be what I have been, Homer Sidney. I shall buy the old place. I shall kuow that Richard Dobson is suffering a most equitable but illegal punishment in a penitentiary close to the place where I shall live in the circumstances which a great deal of money will enable en-able me to set up. "That is my natural revenge upon a fiend who happened to cojue of the same parents as I. Hate is a wonderful wonder-ful friend." CHAPTER XVII. Jed came into the room again as 1 finished reading, and put another log on the fire. Then he sat down in a rocking chair by the fire. "They met that night, you know," he said after he had rocked a while. "They?" I said. "Arthur and Richard Dobson," said Jed. "Mr. Sidney and his brother, who is over there in the penitentiary." peniten-tiary." "They met what night?" I asked. Jed was patient "They met the night last fall," he explained, "when you found Mr. Sidney Sid-ney leaving the house, the night I found you outside, the night we pretended pre-tended I was sick, the night he came In here and had us call the penitentiary to say a convict had escaped. That night, he met his brother. His brother broth-er was the convict." Jed was rocking and talking to the fire. "Mr. Sidney Arthur Dobson " he said, "went out to see the pool ou every anniversary of his murder. He found the strength out of some reser. voir of will. The reaction was almost disastrous. I imagine he might have lived another year or two if he had not had the experience he had this fall. "I knew it was a great hate that was keeping Mr. Sidney alive," he continued. "Such a hate as he had I I don't know that I understand It now. It was so unprofitable. Or was It? I do not know. It had a great value In his life. I think the hate he cherished warmed and colored his life. "H went to the pool every year the night of his murder. He did not know that I went with him. It was such an abnormal abuse of his strength. I was afraid for him." "Your prospects depended upon him," I suggested. He allowed a moment to pass In silence. It was as If he permitted ventilation ven-tilation before we again entered the room of common thought and communion. com-munion. . He did not look pained or hurt In any fashion. There was no display about it. He just refrained for a moment from talking. It was as if he were opening the windows for that moment. When the air was cleared of the odors of my testy remark, re-mark, he went on as if I had said nothing. The old rascal was very difficult dif-ficult to deal with. "The nLght I am reminding you of he met Richard Dobson at the pool and recognized him. The poor old fool, Dick, had walked out of the penitentiary. peniten-tiary. He had every opportunity to do so. The warden would have let hint out if he had asked to go. He was helpless outside. He did not have a place to get a rag or a crust. But he wanted to escape. "There must have been something In his mind about this night and this place. Arthur Dobson found his brother broth-er standing by the pool. I was 50 feet away, hidden by the bushes. I could see the two old men In the moonlight, moon-light, and when Arthur Dobson began to -speak, I could hear distinctly. " 'Well, Richard,' " said Mr. Sidney, 'we are here again.' "Richard Dobson quavered in a weak, senile rone, almost a falsetto: 'Who are you ?' " 'I'm your brother Arthur,' said Mr. Sidney. 'What are you doing here?' "Richarc" Dobson must have felt that he was confronted by a ghost. He made a shrill little sound, as an old woman might. I was palsied. The situation Was tremendous. I didn't know what would happen, and I didn't know what to do. Mr. Sidney was calm as an oyster. " T am your brother Arthur, Richard,' Rich-ard,' he said, 'and I am not dead. I haven't been dead. You didn't kill me. I have been living in the old place comfortably while you have been in prison. No one would believe be-lieve you if you told that. You are old and half crazy. If you were out of prison, you would die of starvation starva-tion and exposure in 24 hours. I ani not a ghost, Richard ; I am your living liv-ing brother.' (TO BE CONTINUED.) |