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The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
CHAPTER XIV.
Roxana Insists Upon Reform
The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world’s luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.– Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
About the time that Wilson was bowing the committee out, Pembroke Howard was entering the next house to report. He found the old Judge sitting grim and straight in his chair, waiting.
“Well, Howard – the news?”
“The best in the world.”
“Accepts, does he?” and the light of battle gleamed joyously in the Judge’s eye.
“Accepts? Why, he jumped at it.”
“Did, did he? Now that’s fine – that’s very fine. I like that. When is it to be?”
“Now! Straight off! To-night! An admirable fellow – admirable!”
“Admirable? He’s a darling! Why, it’s an honor as well as a pleasure to stand up before such a man. Come – off with you! Go and arrange everything – and give him my heartiest compliments. A rare fellow, indeed; an admirable fellow, as you have said!”
Howard hurried away, saying —
“I’ll have him in the vacant stretch between Wilson’s and the haunted house within the hour, and I’ll bring my own pistols.”
Judge Driscoll began to walk the floor in a state of pleased excitement; but presently he stopped, and began to think – began to think of Tom. Twice he moved toward the secretary, and twice he turned away again; but finally he said —
“This may be my last night in the world – I must not take the chance. He is worthless and unworthy, but it is largely my fault. He was intrusted to me by my brother on his dying bed, and I have indulged him to his hurt, instead of training him up severely, and making a man of him. I have violated my trust, and I must not add the sin of desertion to that. I have forgiven him once already, and would subject him to a long and hard trial before forgiving him again, if I could live; but I must not run that risk. No, I must restore the will. But if I survive the duel, I will hide it away, and he will not know, and I will not tell him until he reforms, and I see that his reformation is going to be permanent.”
He re-drew the will, and his ostensible nephew was heir to a fortune again. As he was finishing his task, Tom, wearied with another brooding tramp, entered the house and went tiptoeing past the sitting-room door. He glanced in, and hurried on, for the sight of his uncle had nothing but terrors for him to-night. But his uncle was writing! That was unusual at this late hour. What could he be writing? A chill of anxiety settled down upon Tom’s heart. Did that writing concern him? He was afraid so. He reflected that when ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers. He said he would get a glimpse of that document or know the reason why. He heard some one coming, and stepped out of sight and hearing. It was Pembroke Howard. What could be hatching?
Howard said, with great satisfaction:
“Everything’s right and ready. He’s gone to the battle-ground with his second and the surgeon – also with his brother. I’ve arranged it all with Wilson – Wilson’s his second. We are to have three shots apiece.”
“Good! How is the moon?”
“Bright as day, nearly. Perfect, for the distance – fifteen yards. No wind – not a breath; hot and still.”
“All good; all first-rate. Here, Pembroke, read this, and witness it.”
Pembroke read and witnessed the will, then gave the old man’s hand a hearty shake and said:
“Now that’s right, York – but I knew you would do it. You couldn’t leave that poor chap to fight along without means or profession, with certain defeat before him, and I knew you wouldn’t, for his father’s sake if not for his own.”
“For his dead father’s sake I couldn’t, I know; for poor Percy – but you know what Percy was to me. But mind – Tom is not to know of this unless I fall to-night.”
“I understand. I’ll keep the secret.”
The Judge put the will away, and the two started for the battle-ground. In another minute the will was in Tom’s hands. His misery vanished, his feelings underwent a tremendous revulsion. He put the will carefully back in its place, and spread his mouth and swung his hat once, twice, three times around his head, in imitation of three rousing huzzas, no sound issuing from his lips. He fell to communing with himself excitedly and joyously, but every now and then he let off another volley of dumb hurrahs.
He said to himself: “I’ve got the fortune again, but I’ll not let on that I know about it. And this time I’m going to hang on to it. I take no more risks. I’ll gamble no more, I’ll drink no more, because – well, because I’ll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It’s the sure way, and the only sure way; I might have thought of that sooner – well, yes, if I had wanted to. But now – dear me, I’ve had a scare this time, and I’ll take no more chances. Not a single chance more. Land! I persuaded myself this evening that I could fetch him around without any great amount of effort, but I’ve been getting more and more heavy-hearted and doubtful straight along, ever since. If he tells me about this thing, all right; but if he doesn’t, I sha’n’t let on. I – well, I’d like to tell Pudd’nhead Wilson, but – no, I’ll think about that; perhaps I won’t.” He whirled off another dead huzza, and said, “I’m reformed, and this time I’ll stay so, sure!”
He was about to close with a final grand silent demonstration, when he suddenly recollected that Wilson had put it out of his power to pawn or sell the Indian knife, and that he was once more in awful peril of exposure by his creditors for that reason. His joy collapsed utterly, and he turned away and moped toward the door moaning and lamenting over the bitterness of his luck. He dragged himself up-stairs, and brooded in his room a long time disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi’s Indian knife for a text. At last he sighed and said:
“When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone, the thing hadn’t any interest for me because it hadn’t any value, and couldn’t help me out of my trouble. But now – why, now it is full of interest; yes, and of a sort to break a body’s heart. It’s a bag of gold that has turned to dirt and ashes in my hands. It could save me, and save me so easily, and yet I’ve got to go to ruin. It’s like drowning with a life-preserver in my reach. All the hard luck comes to me, and all the good luck goes to other people – Pudd’nhead Wilson, for instance; even his career has got a sort of a little start at last, and what has he done to deserve it, I should like to know? Yes, he has opened his own road, but he isn’t content with that, but must block mine. It’s a sordid, selfish world, and I wish I was out of it.” He allowed the light of the candle to play upon the jewels of the sheath, but the flashings and sparklings had no charm for his eye; they were only just so many pangs to his heart. “I must not say anything to Roxy about this thing,” he said, “she is too daring. She would be for digging these stones out and selling them, and then – why, she would be arrested and the stones traced, and then – ” The thought made him quake, and he hid the knife away, trembling all over and glancing furtively about, like a criminal who fancies that the accuser is already at hand.
Should he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble was too haunting, too afflicting for that. He must have somebody to mourn with. He would carry his despair to Roxy.
He had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing was not uncommon, and they had made no impression upon him. He went out at the back door, and turned westward. He passed Wilson’s house and proceeded along the lane, and presently saw several figures approaching Wilson’s place through the vacant lots. These were the duelists returning from the fight; he thought he recognized them, but as he had no desire for white people’s company, he stooped down behind the fence until they were out of his way.
Roxy was feeling fine. She said:
“Whah was you, child? Warn’t you in it?”
“In what?”
“In de duel.”
“Duel? Has there been a duel?”
“’Co’se dey has. De ole Jedge has be’n havin’ a duel wid one o’ dem twins.”
“Great Scott!” Then he added to himself: “That’s what made him re-make the will; he thought he might get killed, and it softened him toward me. And that’s what he and Howard were so busy about… Oh dear, if the twin had only killed him, I should be out of my – ”
“What is you mumblin’ bout, Chambers? Whah was you? Didn’t you know dey was gwyne to be a duel?”
“No, I didn’t. The old man tried to get me to fight one with Count Luigi, but he didn’t succeed, so I reckon he concluded to patch up the family honor himself.”
He laughed at the idea, and went rambling on with a detailed account of his talk with the Judge, and how shocked and ashamed the Judge was to find that he had a coward in his family. He glanced up at last, and got a shock himself. Roxana’s bosom was heaving with suppressed passion, and she was glowering down upon him with measureless contempt written in her face.
“En you refuse’ to fight a man dat kicked you, ’stid o’ jumpin’ at de chance! En you ain’t got no mo’ feelin’ den to come en tell me, dat fetched sich a po’ low-down ornery rabbit into de worl’! Pah! it make me sick! It’s de nigger in you, dat’s what it is. Thirty-one parts o’ you is white, en on’y one part nigger, en dat po’ little one part is yo’ soul. Tain’t wuth savin’; tain’t wuth totin’ out on a shovel en throwin’ in de gutter. You has disgraced yo’ birth. What would yo’ pa think o’ you? It’s enough to make him turn in his grave.”
The last three sentences stung Tom into a fury, and he said to himself that if his father were only alive and in reach of assassination his mother would soon find that he had a very clear notion of the size of his indebtedness to that man, and was willing to pay it up in full, and would do it too, even at risk of his life; but he kept this thought to himself; that was safest in his mother’s present state.
“Whatever has come o’ yo’ Essex blood? Dat’s what I can’t understan’. En it ain’t on’y jist Essex blood dat’s in you, not by a long sight – ’deed it ain’t! My great-great-great-gran’father en yo’ great-great-great-great-gran’father was Ole Cap’n John Smith, de highest blood dat Ole Virginny ever turned out, en his great-great-gran’mother or somers along back dah, was Pocahontas de Injun queen, en her husbun’ was a nigger king outen Africa – en yit here you is, a slinkin’ outen a duel en disgracin’ our whole line like a ornery low-down hound! Yes, it’s de nigger in you!”
She sat down on her candle-box and fell into a reverie. Tom did not disturb her; he sometimes lacked prudence, but it was not in circumstances of this kind, Roxana’s storm went gradually down, but it died hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone, it would now and then break out in a distant rumble, so to speak, in the form of muttered ejaculations. One of these was, “Ain’t nigger enough in him to show in his finger-nails, en dat takes mighty little – yit dey’s enough to paint his soul.”
Presently she muttered. “Yassir, enough to paint a whole thimbleful of ’em.” At last her ramblings ceased altogether, and her countenance began to clear – a welcome sign to Tom, who had learned her moods, and knew she was on the threshold of good-humor, now. He noticed that from time to time she unconsciously carried her finger to the end of her nose. He looked closer and said:
“Why, mammy, the end of your nose is skinned. How did that come?”
She sent out the sort of whole-hearted peal of laughter which God had vouchsafed in its perfection to none but the happy angels in heaven and the bruised and broken black slave on the earth, and said:
“Dad fetch dat duel, I be’n in it myself.”
“Gracious! did a bullet do that?”
“Yassir, you bet it did!”
“Well, I declare! Why, how did that happen?”
“Happened dis-away. I ’uz a-sett’n’ here kinder dozin’ in de dark, en che-bang! goes a gun, right out dah. I skips along out towards t’other end o’ de house to see what’s gwyne on, en stops by de ole winder on de side towards Pudd’nhead Wilson’s house dat ain’t got no sash in it, – but dey ain’t none of ’em got any sashes, fur as dat’s concerned, – en I stood dah in de dark en look out, en dar in de moonlight, right down under me ’uz one o’ de twins a-cussin’ – not much, but jist a-cussin’ soft – it ’uz de brown one dat ’uz cussin’, ’ca’se he ’uz hit in de shoulder. En Doctor Claypool he ’uz a-workin’ at him, en Pudd’nhead Wilson he ’uz a-he’pin’, en ole Jedge Driscoll en Pem Howard ’uz a-standin’ out yonder a little piece waitin’ for ’em to git ready agin. En treckly dey squared off en give de word, en bang-bang went de pistols, en de twin he say, ‘Ouch!’ – hit him on de han’ dis time, – en I hear dat same bullet go spat! ag’in, de logs under de winder; en de nex’ time dey shoot, de twin say, ‘Ouch!’ ag’in, en I done it too, ’ca’se de bullet glance’ on his cheek-bone en skip up here en glance on de side o’ de winder en whiz right acrost my face en tuck de hide off’n my nose – why, if I’d ’a’ be’n jist a inch or a inch en a half furder ’t would ’a’ tuck de whole nose en disfiggered me. Here’s de bullet; I hunted her up.”
“Did you stand there all the time?”
“Dat’s a question to ask, ain’t it? What else would I do? Does I git a chance to see a duel every day?”
“Why, you were right in range! Weren’t you afraid?”
The woman gave a sniff of scorn.
“’Fraid! De Smith-Pocahontases ain’t ’fraid o’ nothin’, let alone bullets.”
“They’ve got pluck enough, I suppose; what they lack is judgment. I wouldn’t have stood there.”
“Nobody’s accusin’ you!”
“Did anybody else get hurt?”
“Yes, we all got hit ’cep’ de blon’ twin en de doctor en de seconds. De Jedge didn’t git hurt, but I hear Pudd’nhead say de bullet snip some o’ his ha’r off.”
“’George!” said Tom to himself, “to come so near being out of my trouble, and miss it by an inch. Oh dear, dear, he will live to find me out and sell me to some nigger-trader yet – yes, and he would do it in a minute.” Then he said aloud, in a grave tone —
“Mother, we are in an awful fix.”
Roxana caught her breath with a spasm, and said —
“Chile! What you hit a body so sudden for, like dat? What’s be’n en gone en happen’?”
“Well, there’s one thing I didn’t tell you. When I wouldn’t fight, he tore up the will again, and – ”
Roxana’s face turned a dead white, and she said —
“Now you’s done!– done forever! Dat’s de end. Bofe un us is gwyne to starve to – ”
“Wait and hear me through, can’t you! I reckon that when he resolved to fight, himself, he thought he might get killed and not have a chance to forgive me any more in this life, so he made the will again, and I’ve seen it, and it’s all right. But – ”
“Oh, thank goodness, den we’s safe ag’in! – safe! en so what did you want to come here en talk sich dreadful – ”
“Hold on, I tell you, and let me finish. The swag I gathered won’t half square me up, and the first thing we know, my creditors – well, you know what’ll happen.”
Roxana dropped her chin, and told her son to leave her alone – she must think this matter out. Presently she said impressively:
“You got to go mighty keerful now, I tell you! En here’s what you got to do. He didn’t git killed, en if you gives him de least reason, he’ll bust de will ag’in, en dat’s de las’ time, now you hear me! So – you’s got to show him what you kin do in de nex’ few days. You’s got to be pison good, en let him see it; you got to do everything dat’ll make him b’lieve in you, en you got to sweeten aroun’ ole Aunt Pratt, too, – she’s pow’ful strong wid de Jedge, en de bes’ frien’ you got. Nex’, you’ll go ’long away to Sent Louis, en dat’ll keep him in yo’ favor. Den you go en make a bargain wid dem people. You tell ’em he ain’t gwyne to live long – en dat’s de fac’, too, – en tell ’em you’ll pay ’em intrust, en big intrust, too, – ten per – what you call it?”
“Ten per cent. a month?”
“Dat’s it. Den you take and sell yo’ truck aroun’, a little at a time, en pay de intrust. How long will it las’?”
“I think there’s enough to pay the interest five or six months.”
“Den you’s all right. If he don’t die in six months, dat don’t make no diff’rence – Providence’ll provide. You’s gwyne to be safe – if you behaves.” She bent an austere eye on him and added, “En you is gwyne to behave – does you know dat?”
He laughed and said he was going to try, anyway. She did not unbend. She said gravely:
“Tryin’ ain’t de thing. You’s gwyne to do it. You ain’t gwyne to steal a pin – ’ca’se it ain’t safe no mo’; en you ain’t gwyne into no bad comp’ny – not even once, you understand; en you ain’t gwyne to drink a drop – nary single drop; en you ain’t gwyne to gamble one single gamble – not one! Dis ain’t what you’s gwyne to try to do, it’s what you’s gwyne to do. En I’ll tell you how I knows it. Dis is how. I’s gwyne to foller along to Sent Louis my own self; en you’s gwyne to come to me every day o’ yo’ life, en I’ll look you over; en if you fails in one single one o’ dem things – jist one– I take my oath I’ll come straight down to dis town en tell de Jedge you’s a nigger en a slave – en prove it!” She paused to let her words sink home. Then she added, “Chambers, does you b’lieve me when I says dat?”
Tom was sober enough now. There was no levity in his voice when he answered:
“Yes, mother, I know, now, that I am reformed – and permanently. Permanently – and beyond the reach of any human temptation.”
“Den g’ long home en begin!”
CHAPTER XV.
The Robber Robbed
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.– Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket” – which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention;” but the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and – watch that basket”– Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
What a time of it Dawson’s Landing was having! All its life it had been asleep, but now it hardly got a chance for a nod, so swiftly did big events and crashing surprises come along in one another’s wake: Friday morning, first glimpse of Real Nobility, also grand reception at Aunt Patsy Cooper’s, also great robber-raid; Friday evening, dramatic kicking of the heir of the chief citizen in presence of four hundred people; Saturday morning, emergence as practising lawyer of the long-submerged Pudd’nhead Wilson; Saturday night, duel between chief citizen and titled stranger.
The people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put together, perhaps. It was a glory to their town to have such a thing happen there. In their eyes the principals had reached the summit of human honor. Everybody paid homage to their names; their praises were in all mouths. Even the duelists’ subordinates came in for a handsome share of the public approbation: wherefore Pudd’nhead Wilson was suddenly become a man of consequence. When asked to run for the mayoralty Saturday night he was risking defeat, but Sunday morning found him a made man and his success assured.
The twins were prodigiously great, now; the town took them to its bosom with enthusiasm. Day after day, and night after night, they went dining and visiting from house to house, making friends, enlarging and solidifying their popularity, and charming and surprising all with their musical prodigies, and now and then heightening the effects with samples of what they could do in other directions, out of their stock of rare and curious accomplishments. They were so pleased that they gave the regulation thirty days’ notice, the required preparation for citizenship, and resolved to finish their days in this pleasant place. That was the climax. The delighted community rose as one man and applauded; and when the twins were asked to stand for seats in the forthcoming aldermanic board, and consented, the public contentment was rounded and complete.
Tom Driscoll was not happy over these things; they sunk deep, and hurt all the way down. He hated the one twin for kicking him, and the other one for being the kicker’s brother.
Now and then the people wondered why nothing was heard of the raider, or of the stolen knife or the other plunder, but nobody was able to throw any light on that matter. Nearly a week had drifted by, and still the thing remained a vexed mystery.
On Saturday Constable Blake and Pudd’nhead Wilson met on the street, and Tom Driscoll joined them in time to open their conversation for them. He said to Blake – “You are not looking well, Blake; you seem to be annoyed about something. Has anything gone wrong in the detective business? I believe you fairly and justifiably claim to have a pretty good reputation in that line, isn’t it so?” – which made Blake feel good, and look it; but Tom added, “for a country detective” – which made Blake feel the other way, and not only look it, but betray it in his voice —
“Yes, sir, I have got a reputation; and it’s as good as anybody’s in the profession, too, country or no country.”
“Oh, I beg pardon; I didn’t mean any offense. What I started out to ask was only about the old woman that raided the town – the stoop-shouldered old woman, you know, that you said you were going to catch; and I knew you would, too, because you have the reputation of never boasting, and – well, you – you’ve caught the old woman?”
“D – the old woman!”
“Why, sho! you don’t mean to say you haven’t caught her?”
“No; I haven’t caught her. If anybody could have caught her, I could; but nobody couldn’t, I don’t care who he is.”
“I am sorry, real sorry – for your sake; because, when it gets around that a detective has expressed himself so confidently, and then – ”
“Don’t you worry, that’s all – don’t you worry; and as for the town, the town needn’t worry, either. She’s my meat – make yourself easy about that. I’m on her track; I’ve got clues that – ”
“That’s good! Now if you could get an old veteran detective down from St. Louis to help you find out what the clues mean, and where they lead to, and then – ”
“I’m plenty veteran enough myself, and I don’t need anybody’s help. I’ll have her inside of a we – inside of a month. That I’ll swear to!”
Tom said carelessly —
“I suppose that will answer – yes, that will answer. But I reckon she is pretty old, and old people don’t often outlive the cautious pace of the professional detective when he has got his clues together and is out on his still-hunt.”
Blake’s dull face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his retort in order Tom had turned to Wilson, and was saying, with placid indifference of manner and voice —
“Who got the reward, Pudd’nhead?”
Wilson winced slightly, and saw that his own turn was come.
“What reward?”
“Why, the reward for the thief, and the other one for the knife.”
Wilson answered – and rather uncomfortably, to judge by his hesitating fashion of delivering himself —
“Well, the – well, in fact, nobody has claimed it yet.”
Tom seemed surprised.
“Why, is that so?”
Wilson showed a trifle of irritation when he replied —
“Yes, it’s so. And what of it?”
“Oh, nothing. Only I thought you had struck out a new idea, and invented a scheme that was going to revolutionize the time-worn and ineffectual methods of the – ” He stopped, and turned to Blake, who was happy now that another had taken his place on the gridiron: “Blake, didn’t you understand him to intimate that it wouldn’t be necessary for you to hunt the old woman down?”
“B’George, he said he’d have thief and swag both inside of three days – he did, by hokey! and that’s just about a week ago. Why, I said at the time that no thief and no thief’s pal was going to try to pawn or sell a thing where he knowed the pawnbroker could get both rewards by taking him into camp with the swag. It was the blessedest idea that ever I struck!”
“You’d change your mind,” said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, “if you knew the entire scheme instead of only part of it.”
“Well,” said the constable, pensively, “I had the idea that it wouldn’t work, and up to now I’m right anyway.”
“Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show. It has worked at least as well as your own methods, you perceive.”
The constable hadn’t anything handy to hit back with, so he discharged a discontented sniff, and said nothing.
After the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme at his house, Tom had tried for several days to guess out the secret of the rest of it, but had failed. Then it occurred to him to give Roxana’s smarter head a chance at it. He made up a supposititious case, and laid it before her. She thought it over, and delivered her verdict upon it. Tom said to himself, “She’s hit it, sure!” He thought he would test that verdict, now, and watch Wilson’s face; so he said reflectively —
“Wilson, you’re not a fool – a fact of recent discovery. Whatever your scheme was, it had sense in it, Blake’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. I don’t ask you to reveal it, but I will suppose a case – a case which will answer as a starting-point for the real thing I am going to come at, and that’s all I want. You offered five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred for the thief. We will suppose, for argument’s sake, that the first reward is advertised and the second offered by private letter to pawnbrokers and – ”
Blake slapped his thigh, and cried out —
“By Jackson, he’s got you, Pudd’nhead! Now why couldn’t I or any fool have thought of that?”
Wilson said to himself, “Anybody with a reasonably good head would have thought of it. I am not surprised that Blake didn’t detect it; I am only surprised that Tom did. There is more to him than I supposed.” He said nothing aloud, and Tom went on:
“Very well. The thief would not suspect that there was a trap, and he would bring or send the knife, and say he bought it for a song, or found it in the road, or something like that, and try to collect the reward, and be arrested – wouldn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Wilson.
“I think so,” said Tom. “There can’t be any doubt of it. Have you ever seen that knife?”
“No.”
“Has any friend of yours?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, I begin to think I understand why your scheme failed.”
“What do you mean, Tom? What are you driving at?” asked Wilson, with a dawning sense of discomfort.
“Why, that there isn’t any such knife.”
“Look here, Wilson,” said Blake, “Tom Driscoll’s right, for a thousand dollars – if I had it.”
Wilson’s blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played upon by those strangers; it certainly had something of that look. But what could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion. Tom replied:
“Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers making their way in a new community. Is it nothing to them to appear as pets of an Oriental prince – at no expense? Is it nothing to them to be able to dazzle this poor little town with thousand-dollar rewards – at no expense? Wilson, there isn’t any such knife, or your scheme would have fetched it to light. Or if there is any such knife, they’ve got it yet. I believe, myself, that they’ve seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it out with his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been inventing it, and of course I can’t swear that they’ve never had it; but this I’ll go bail for – if they had it when they came to this town, they’ve got it yet.”
Blake said —
“It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly does.”
Tom responded, turning to leave —
“You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can’t furnish the knife, go and search the twins!”
Tom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed. He hardly knew what to think. He was loath to withdraw his faith from the twins, and was resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence; but – well, he would think, and then decide how to act.
“Blake, what do you think of this matter?”
“Well, Pudd’nhead, I’m bound to say I put it up the way Tom does. They hadn’t the knife; or if they had it, they’ve got it yet.”
The men parted. Wilson said to himself:
“I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have restored it, that is certain. And so I believe they’ve got it yet.”
Tom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men. When he began his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a trifle of malicious entertainment out of it. But when he left, he left in great spirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no troublesome labor he had accomplished several delightful things: he had touched both men on a raw spot and seen them squirm; he had modified Wilson’s sweetness for the twins with one small bitter taste that he wouldn’t be able to get out of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the hated twins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around freely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or hadn’t lost. Tom was very well satisfied with himself.
Tom’s behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week. His uncle and aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find no fault with him anywhere.
Saturday evening he said to the Judge —
“I’ve had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away, and might never see you again, I can’t bear it any longer. I made you believe I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer. I had to get out of it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken unawares, but no honorable person could consent to meet him in the field, knowing what I knew about him.”
“Indeed? What was that?”
“Count Luigi is a confessed assassin.”
“Incredible!”
“It’s perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and charged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had to confess; but both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret, and swore they would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful that we gave our word of honor never to expose them while they kept that promise. You would have done it yourself, uncle.”
