Anna Katharine Green

“ Groups of excited men and women peered from the open doorways, and mingled their shadows with those of the huge pillars which adorn the front of this picturesque block of dwellings.
The house in which the crime had been committed was near the centre of the row, and, long before I reached it, I had learned [5] from more than one source that the alarm was first given to the street by a woman’s shriek, and secondly by the shouts of an old man-servant who had appeared, in a half-dressed condition, at the window of Mr. Hasbrouck’s room, crying “Murder! murder!” ”

“ Hasbrouck, in his endeavor to shut out light and sound, that by the time she had succeeded in unfastening them, all trace of the flying murderer had vanished from the street.
Sick with grief and terror, she stepped back into the room just as the three frightened servants descended the stairs. As they appeared [11] in the open doorway, she pointed at her husband’s inanimate form, and then, as if suddenly realizing in its full force the calamity which had befallen her, she threw up her arms, and sank forward to the floor in a dead faint. ”

“ The gentleman, whom Harry now saw to be Mr. Stanton, an intimate friend of Dr. Zabriskie, smiled very queerly at this, and taking the Doctor’s arm led him away to a carriage. Harry naturally followed them, but the Doctor, hearing his steps, turned and bade him, in a very peremptory tone, to take the omnibus home, and then, as if on second thought, told him to go to Poughkeepsie in his stead and explain to the people there that he was too shaken up by his [86] mis-step to do his duty, and that he would be with them next morning. ”

“ Dr. Zabriskie, the mystery of your crime is no longer a mystery [120] to me. Listen and see if I do not understand your temptation, and how you, a conscientious and God-fearing man, came to slay your innocent neighbor.
“A friend of yours, or so he called himself, had for a long time filled your ears with tales tending to make you suspicious of your wife and jealous of a certain man whom I will not name. You knew that your friend had a grudge against this man, and so for many months turned a deaf ear to his insinuations. ”

“ Zabriskie,” interposed his friend, “the why is the most important thing for us to consider just now. If you really desire to convince us that you committed the dreadful crime of killing a totally inoffensive man, you should give us some reason for an act so opposed to all your instincts and general conduct.”
But the Doctor continued unmoved:
“I had no reason for murdering Mr. Hasbrouck. A hundred questions can elicit no other reply; you had better keep to the how.” ”

“ Zabriskie loves his wife, but in a way that tortures both himself and her. If she is gone from the house he is wretched, and yet when she returns he often forbears to speak to her, or if he does speak, it is with a constraint that hurts her more than his silence. ”

“ If I had dared, I would have consulted some physician about this hallucination of his; but he was so sane on other points that I hesitated to give my dreadful secret to the world. I kept hoping that time and his daily pursuits would have their effect and restore him to himself. But his illusion grows, and now I fear that nothing will ever convince him that he did not commit [44] the deed of which he accuses himself. If he were not blind I would have more hope, but the blind have so much time for brooding. ”

“ But how can I approach secrets so delicate without compromising the woman I feel bound to respect, if only for the devoted love she manifests for her unhappy husband!
“I shall have to appeal to Joe Smithers. This is something which I always hate to do, but as long as he will take money, and as long as he is fertile in resources for obtaining the truth from people I am myself unable to reach, so long must I make use of his cupidity and his genius. He is an honorable fellow in one way, and never retails as gossip what he acquires for our [90] use. ”

“ Zabriskie to his own door, he could tell us nothing that would convince my husband that he is laboring under an illusion.”
“But he might tell us something which would convince us that Dr. Zabriskie was not himself after the accident, that he——”
“Hush!” came from her lips in imperious tones. “I will not believe that he shot Mr. Hasbrouck even if you prove him to have been insane at the time. How could he? My husband is blind. It would take a man of very keen [50] sight to force himself into a house that was closed for the night, and kill a man in the dark at one shot.” ”

“ To see this splendid-looking man, hallowed by an affliction so great that in itself it called forth the compassion of the most indifferent, accusing himself of a cold-blooded crime, in tones that sounded dispassionate because of the will that forced their utterance, was too painful in itself for us to indulge in any unnecessary words. ”

“ Hasbrouck’s house at so late an hour as this murder occurred?”
The blind doctor’s head fell forward on his breast, and he hesitated for the first and only time.
“You will not believe me,” said he; “but the door was ajar when [58] I came to it. Such things make crime easy; it is the only excuse I have to offer for this dreadful deed.” ”

“ Zabriskie seated in his great chair, lost in thought or deep in those memories which make an abyss in [77] one’s consciousness. His hands, which were clenched, rested upon the arms of his chair, and in one of them I detected a woman’s glove, which I had no difficulty in recognizing as one of the pair worn by his wife this morning. ”

“ Zabriskie in the habit of thus going and coming alone at an hour so late as this must have been?”
“You forget that to the blind, night is less full of perils than the day. Often and often has my husband found his way to his patients’ houses alone after midnight; but on this especial evening he had Harry with him. Harry was his driver, and always accompanied him when he went any distance.”
“Well, then,” said I, “all we have to do is to summon Harry and hear what he has to say concerning this affair. He surely will know whether or not his master went into the house next door.” ”

“ I have spent the whole day in weaving together the facts I have gleaned, and the suspicions I have formed, into a consecutive whole likely to present my theory in a favorable light to my superiors. But just as I thought myself in [101] shape to meet their inquiries, I received an immediate summons into their presence, where I was given a duty to perform of so extraordinary and unexpected a nature, that it effectually drove from my mind all my own plans for the elucidation of the Zabriskie mystery. ”

“ He is a physician and has had many such instances in his own practice. Why, he was very much attached to Mr. Hasbrouck! They were the best of friends, and though he [37] insists that he killed him, he cannot give any reason for the deed.”
At these words the Doctor’s face grew stern, and he spoke like an automaton repeating some fearful lesson.
“I killed him. I went to his room and deliberately shot him. I had nothing against him, and my remorse is extreme. Arrest me, and let me pay the penalty of my crime. It is the only way in which I can obtain peace.” ”

“ Pitying her shame and terror, I ventured to remark that it was not an uncommon thing for a man to confess to a crime he had never committed, and assured her that the matter would be inquired into very carefully before any attempt was made upon his liberty. ”

“ I will never believe that your hands have been plunged in blood. You are my own pure-hearted Constant, cold, perhaps, and stern, but with no guilt upon your conscience, save in your own wild imagination. ”

“ She had been accorded the privilege of setting the clock on this stump, and I saw it shining in her hand as she paused for a moment to glance back at the circle of gentlemen who were awaiting her movements. The hands of the clock stood at five minutes to five, though I scarcely noted the fact at the time, for her eyes were on mine, and as she passed me she spoke:
“If he is not himself, he cannot [110] be trusted. Watch him carefully, and see that he does no mischief to himself or others. Be at his right hand, and stop him if he does not handle his pistol properly.” ”

“ Zabriskie had committed the crime he avowed, but—let me proceed a little further with my story before I reveal what lies beyond that “but.”
Notwithstanding Dr. Zabriskie’s almost frenzied appeal for solitude, a man had been placed in surveillance over him in the shape of a young doctor skilled in diseases of the brain. This man communicated more or less with the police, and one morning I received from him the following extracts from the diary he had been ordered to keep.
“The Doctor is settling into a deep melancholy from which he [70] tries to rise at times, but with only indifferent success. ”

“ Hasbrouck’s unaccountable death, my husband has been laboring under an hallucination which I have only to mention for you to recognize its perfect absurdity. He thinks—oh! do not look like that, Constant; you know it is an hallucination which [36] must vanish the moment we drag it into broad daylight—that he—he, the best man in all the world, was himself the assailant of Mr. Hasbrouck. ”

“ Zabriskie was just stepping on to the train when a man pushed himself hurriedly between them and whispered something into his master’s ear, which caused him to fall back and lose his footing. Dr. Zabriskie’s body slid half under the car, but he was withdrawn before any harm was done, though [85] the cars gave a lurch at that moment which must have frightened him exceedingly, for his face was white when he rose to his feet, and when Harry offered to assist him again on to the train, he refused to go and said he would return home and not attempt to ride to Poughkeepsie that night. ”

“ Hers, drawn with horror and filled with question that was fast taking the form of doubt, bespoke an awful tragedy from which more that one of us recoiled.
“Can you shoot a man dead without seeing him?” asked the Superintendent, with painful effort.
“Give me a pistol and I will show you,” was the quick reply.
A low cry came from the wife. In a drawer near to every one of us there lay a pistol, but no one [62] moved to take it out. There was a look in the Doctor’s eye which made us fear to trust him with a pistol just then. ”

“ Zabriskie, with vehement assertion. “If I had seen him with such a weapon——”
“I threw it away. When I left the house, I cast it as far from me as possible, for I was frightened at what I had done, horribly frightened.”
“No pistol was ever found,” I answered, with a smile, forgetting for the moment that he could not see. “If such an instrument had been found in the street after a murder of such consequence it certainly would have been brought to the police.”
“You forget that a good pistol is valuable property,” he went on stolidly. “Some one came along before the general alarm was given ”

“ If I am any judge of woman, Helen Zabriskie is superior to most of her sex. That her husband mistrusts her is evident, but whether this is the result of the stand she has taken in his regard, [75] or only a manifestation of dementia, I have as yet been unable to determine. ”

“ When she offers herself [76] as his guide, or assists him with his mail, or performs any of the many acts of kindness by which she continually manifests her sense of his affliction, he thanks her with courtesy and often with kindness, yet I know she would willingly exchange all his set phrases for one fond embrace or impulsive smile of affection. That he is not in the full possession of his faculties would be too much to say, and yet upon what other hypothesis can we account for the inconsistencies of his conduct. ”

“ I always knew that Joe Smithers was invaluable to the police, but I really did not know he possessed talents of so high an order. He wrote me this morning that he had succeeded in getting Mr. T——’s promise to spend the evening with him, and advised me that if I desired to be present also, his own servant would not be at home, and that an opener of bottles would be required.
“As I was very anxious to see Mr. T—— with my own eyes, I accepted the invitation to play the [91] spy upon a spy, and went at the proper hour to Mr. Smithers’s rooms, which are in the University Building. ”

“ She seemed to know many there, and passed from cot to cot with a smile in which I alone discerned the sadness of a broken heart. When she left, I left also, without having learned anything beyond the fact that Mrs. Zabriskie is one who does her duty in sorrow as in happiness. A rare and trustworthy woman I should say, and yet her husband does not trust her. Why?
“I have spent this day in accumulating [81] details in regard to Dr. and Mrs. Zabriskie’s life previous to the death of Mr. Hasbrouck. ”

“ Hasbrouck’s house.
The story told me was very simple. Dr. Zabriskie had not been born blind, but had become so after a grievous illness which had stricken him down soon after he received his diploma. Instead of succumbing to an affliction which would have daunted most men, he expressed his intention of practising his profession, and soon became so successful in it that he found no difficulty in establishing himself in one of the best-paying quarters of the city. ”

“ THE CLOCK [3] The Doctor, his Wife,
and the Clock. I. On the 17th of July, 1851, a tragedy of no little interest occurred in one of the residences of the Colonnade in Lafayette Place.
Mr. Hasbrouck, a well-known and highly respected citizen, was attacked in his room by an unknown assailant, and shot dead before assistance could reach him. His murderer escaped, and the problem offered to the police was, how to identify this person who, by some happy chance or by the [4] exercise of the most remarkable forethought, had left no traces behind him, or any clue by which he could be followed. ”