One of My Sons — A Summons

The doctor's emotion equalled mine.

"It may have been so," he admitted.

"There was always some unexplained mystery in connection with his presence at the wreck and the reticence he maintained in regard to it.

If what you suggest is true and he was the man who shared the engineer's ride down those precipitous slopes to the rescue of a train on which he knew his wife to be, it will be easy enough for us to start a plea of mental derangement.

No one could go through such an adventure, with its overpowering excitement and unspeakable suspense, without some injury to his mental or physical health.

But it is hard to conceive how Leighton Gillespie should have been wandering on the mountain-side that day instead of taking the excursion with his wife."

"I don't advance this explanation as a fact, only as a possibility," I replied.

"The shock of his wife's sudden death would be enough in itself to change the man."

"Yes, and it did change him; to that I can swear."

"How long a time elapsed after this catastrophe before you saw him?"

"Just two days.

He telegraphed for me, and I went West to assist him in bringing home the remains of his young wife.

I remember finding him in a strained, nervous condition; this was natural enough; but his worst symptoms disappeared after the funeral."

"Do you mind telling me where this funeral took place?"

"In a small place up the Hudson River, where the Gillespies have a country home.

Mr. Gillespie carried his feeling against his daughter-in-law so far as not to wish to have her buried from his New York house."

"I suppose so; another reason, perhaps, why Leighton has never recovered from this blow.

And little Claire?

You have not mentioned her.

Was she with her parents when this disastrous event occurred?"

"She was but an infant, and from her very birth was given into the charge of her grandfather.

She never knew her mother."

It would have been a satisfaction to me to have learned the cause of the determined hostility on the part of a man seemingly so just as Mr. Gillespie; but the doctor gave me no encouragement in this direction, and I merely said: "We have made a start in case the necessity arises for proving him to be no longer responsible for his actions.

But only a start.

The direction taken by his mania is perilously like the excesses of a discouraged and reckless man."

"I am not so sure of that.

In his sane mind, Leighton Gillespie is a great respecter of the rights of other people.

I shall look into this subject, Mr. Outhwaite; I shall look into it at once.

A half-hour's talk with him will satisfy me whether he is a victim of disease or the prey of unbridled passions and murderous instincts."

The good doctor rose with every appearance of starting forth then and there.

"But you have had no dinner," I suggested.

"I want none."

I accompanied the doctor out, but parted with him at the corner.

I

would have given much for the privilege of going with him to the Gillespie house, but as this was not to be thought of, I resolutely turned towards my apartments, which were in quite a different direction.

How was it, then, that by the time the lights began to be lit in the streets I found myself circulating restlessly in the vicinity of the very house I had determined to avoid?

Had the exciting incidents of the day been too much for me?

It certainly looked so.

Surely I had not wandered hither through any act of my own volition or for any definite purpose I could name.

Yet now that I had been so led; now that I was within sight of the house where so important an interview was going on, I surely might be pardoned for taking advantage of this proximity to note the doctor when he came out and see, if possible, from his manner and bearing the result of a visit upon which such serious issues hung.

It had threatened storm all day, and during the last few minutes the atmosphere had become permeated with a drizzle which made further tramping over wet pavements undesirable.

I therefore looked about for refuge, and perceiving a building in process of construction on the opposite side of the way, I glided amid its shadows, happy both at the protection it offered and the full view it gave me of the Gillespie front door.

That this was the act of one bent on espionage I am ready to acknowledge, but it was espionage undertaken in a good cause and for justifiable reasons.

At all events I was engaged in inwardly persuading myself to this effect, when an event occurred which drew my attention from myself and fixed it with renewed interest on the door I was watching.

A boy of whose proximity I had had some previous intimation suddenly darted out from the space behind me, and went flying across the street to the Gillespie house.

He had a missive in his hand, and seemed anxious lest he should be caught and stopped.

This roused my curiosity, so that no detail of what followed escaped me.

I noted the furtive way in which he thrust the letter into the unwilling hand of the old butler, who answered his frightened ring at the bell.

Also the misgiving shake of the head with which the latter received it, and the doubtful looks they both cast at someone back in the hall.

Who was this someone, and what lay behind old Hewson's agitated demeanour?

The door closed on my curiosity, and I was left to ponder this new event.

But not for long; scarcely had my eyes returned from following the escaping figure of the boy, when the door on the opposite side of the street unclosed again and Dr. Bennett came out.

Now, as I have taken pains to say, I had posted myself there in order to note how this gentleman looked on leaving Leighton Gillespie.

But now that this opportunity had come, I not only failed to avail myself of it, but found my whole attention caught and my interest fully absorbed by a glimpse I had received of the latter gentleman standing back in the hall reading the letter I had just seen delivered in such a surreptitious manner.

His attitude, the gestures he unconsciously made, argued sudden and overwhelming emotion, an emotion so sudden and overwhelming that he could not conceal it, though he evidently would have been glad to do so, judging from the haste with which he thrust the letter in his pocket and turned--But here the door closed, as frequently happens at critical moments, and I found my eyes resting upon nothing more exciting than the figure of the doctor feeling his way with due care down the damp steps.

Had I not been witness both to the peculiar actions of the urchin who brought this letter, and to the strange manner in which Leighton received it, I might not have considered it decorous to make my presence known to the doctor at a moment and in a place so suggestive of a watch upon his movements.

But as everything affecting Leighton was as interesting to this, his best friend, as it was to me, I crossed the street, and, with scant apology for the seeming intrusion, told the good doctor what had just come under my observation.

He seemed surprised, if not affected, by what I had to say.

He had seen no letter and no evidences of disorder on the part of Leighton.

To be sure, he had left before any letter had been received.

"Indeed, you astonish me," he declared.

"Seldom have I seen my young friend in a more equable frame of mind.

He talked evenly and with discretion about the most exciting subjects; and, though I could wish him to have been more open, he showed a self-control hardly to be expected from a man placed in such a disturbing situation.

The detective, who appeared to have full range of the house, hardly looked our way once.

The letter which you say he received just as I left him must have contained very agitating news.

I wonder if we will ever know what."

"Were you able to settle in your own mind the question just now raised between us at your office?"

I asked, after a momentary silence.

"It may not be in order for me to ask, and you may not feel at all ready to answer me.

If so, do not hesitate to rebuke my importunity, which springs entirely from my excessive interest in the matter."

"I will the more readily excuse you," was his reply, "because my answer must dash your client's hopes.

Leighton Gillespie is not a victim of double consciousness.

If he were, he would not remember in one state what passes in the other.

Now, he does remember.

Though he gives no explanation of what allures him into haunts so out of keeping with his usual associations, I caught the glint in his eye when I mentioned certain names.

Leighton cannot deceive me.

Moreover, Mr. Outhwaite, I cannot professionally state that in my opinion he is otherwise than completely sane, notwithstanding the tragic experience he once went through.

I say tragic, because the surmise you indulged in concerning him was true.

He was the man who flung himself upon the foot-rail of that plunging engine.

He acknowledged it to me just now, and acknowledged, also, that he knew that those cars contained dynamite.

A great and wonderful act for a man who had had no experience outside the club-room and the gymnasium."

"I respect heroism wherever I meet it," said I, slightly lifting my hat.

"And I," echoed the doctor; then as we turned down the street; "I do not comprehend Leighton or what has led him into this course of duplicity if not crime.

A hero at one period of his life; a scamp, if not worse, at another!

What are we to think of the man whose nature admits such contradictions!

What are we to think of human nature itself!

I declare I am sometimes baffled by its operations, and heartily wish that in this present instance I could ascribe them to an unsound mental condition."

I had no answer for this ebullition of feeling, so walked on silently till our ways divided.

As he turned towards home, I took the shortest route to my apartments.

But before entering them I dined in the cafe below, so that it was eight o'clock at least before I mounted to my rooms.

A man was sitting on the stairs waiting for me.

As I stooped to unlock my door, he made known his errand.

He was an officer in plain clothes, and he came to tell me that I was wanted at the earliest possible moment at the District Attorney's office.

XXVI