The Silent Hour (5 page)

Mrs. Meade expressed her pleasure at Mrs.
Hall’s well-being, and then, after a moment’s consideration, she
put the following inquiry:

“How are things for young Jim Cambert, Mr.
Hall? I expect you are intimately concerned with this affair, as
his guardian now.”

“I haven’t seen much of Jim, to be honest
with you,” said Hall, some additional lines settling into his
forehead. “I had a talk with him once, after the funeral, but
that’s all. He’s been out at the ranch most of the time, working
pretty furiously, so I’m told. Of course I’ll be here to stand by
him when the time comes, but for now—maybe that’s best for
him.”

“You speak as if it were a foregone
conclusion that he will need someone to stand by him,” said Mrs.
Meade.

Tom Hall glanced out at the muddy street, at
a wagon passing and the few people on foot sloshing through the
mud, out of the range of hearing. Then he gave a slight shrug as if
to say it did not much matter who heard anyway. He looked at Mrs.
Meade. “Between you and me, Mrs. Meade, it’s only a matter of time
before Jim’s arrested. There’s plenty of people who can’t account
for their whereabouts that night, but Jim has the strongest motive
and the weakest story. Seems more natural for someone to say they
were asleep in bed than for them to turn up somewhere late without
a good reason why.”

“Riding slowly only becomes suspect when a
murder happens to occur on the same night,” observed Mrs.
Meade.

“Yes,” said Tom Hall, giving her a little
glance, as if he had not fully appreciated Mrs. Meade’s acuity till
this moment. “It does happen that way. When murder makes it a big
question, everybody’s ordinary ways of spending a night sound
pretty vague.”

Mrs. Meade said thoughtfully, “Alibis are
more difficult to provide than one might imagine—especially for
people who are unattached, and have no family. Late in the evening,
on any average day, one is apt to be alone.” Mrs. Meade’s eyes
clouded for just a fraction of a second, and then she went on with
an amused twist about her mouth. “Even myself, for instance—well,
we established once upon a time just how easy it is to get in and
out of Mrs. Henney’s house unseen after dark.”

Tom Hall laughed, the first really hearty
note in the conversation. “I don’t think Sheriff Royal would
appreciate you adding yourself to the list of suspects, though,
Mrs. Meade.”

“Nor I!” said Mrs. Meade. “For it’s a bad
enough case already, when an arrest is going to be made based upon
which worthless alibi is more worthless than the others.”

“I don’t think it’s a very strong case,
though. I’m no lawyer, but a good one should be able to get him off
by hammering home how precious little evidence there really
is.”

“And yet,” said Mrs. Meade, with a note of
sadness shadowing her voice, “if he is acquitted only for lack of
evidence, suspicion will always hang over him in people’s
minds.”

“Well, that’s the way the world goes,” said
Hall. “We can’t do anything about that. But our first concern is
saving his life, don’t you think, Mrs. Meade?”

“Yes—if he is innocent,” said Mrs. Meade,
seeming to wake from a slight reverie and fixing bright observant
eyes upon him.

Hall raised his eyebrows and smiled a little.
“I guess I was taking it for granted you thought he was. I haven’t
any doubt about it myself.”

“I cannot blame you for that,” said Mrs.
Meade. “And perhaps it’s just as well. For Jim to have someone
taking his part, that is, who does not question his innocence—amid
all this uncertainty.”

Tom Hall gave her a questioning look. For
half a second he looked almost curious enough to ask a question,
but thought better of it. Mrs. Meade smiled again; a pleasant
smile, but one that revealed nothing; and said “Good afternoon, Mr.
Hall,” and walked on.

* * *

The blow fell that same afternoon. It had
begun to rain again, a few desultory drops. Sheriff Royal stood in
the doorway of his office, under the shelter of the overhanging
eaves, and grimly surveyed the wet street. He had a good view of
the livery stable across the way, so when Jim Cambert rode down the
street and turned in at the stable door, the sheriff’s expression
darkened a little and his thick gray eyebrows settled down more
heavily over his eyes.

Old Ted, who had been keeping indoors out of
sight since an occasion earlier when he had encountered the
sheriff’s glare from the doorway, emerged just enough to take Jim’s
horse into custody, and Jim walked off up the street with his hands
in his coat pockets and his head bent a little so the brim of his
hat kept off the rain. Royal rubbed under the end of his nose with
a bony knuckle, and watched him go. Time enough to let him do
whatever he had come into town to do; he would be back before
long.

When Jim came back to the livery just before
dusk, Royal got up from his chair, from whence he had been keeping
a watch through the open door, went out and followed him across the
street. Jim was preparing to saddle his horse when the sheriff
entered the stable. Old Ted, in the act of picking up a pitchfork,
became an uncouth statue, his eyes darting from Royal to Jim under
his thatch of unkempt grizzled hair. Jim, becoming aware of the
sheriff’s presence, turned to face him and their eyes met for a
minute.

Andrew Royal came over and laid a hand on his
shoulder—the hand of officialdom. “Jim, I’ve got to ask you to come
across the street.”

Jim put the saddle he had been lifting back
over the stall partition. His face was pale, but showed little
emotion. “No more than I’ve been expecting,” he said. “Can I post
bail?”

Royal nodded. “Expect so.”

Jim turned to Old Ted, who had crept up to
hover at their elbows with nose-twitching curiosity. “Will you go
and find Tom Hall? Tell him I’ve been arrested and ask him if he’ll
come around to the sheriff’s office and post bail for me.”

“Sure,” said Old Ted, edging an inch or two
toward the door, “sure thing.”

He paused, and cleared his throat wheezily
and insinuatingly, rubbing together fingers that just protruded
from the ragged cuffs of his too-large castoff coat. “Oh,” said Jim
dully. He dug into his own pocket and found a silver dollar, and
handed it over to Old Ted. Old Ted gave a satisfied, rattling
chuckle, and slid away.

Andrew Royal and Jim Cambert walked back
across the street, the sheriff a little in the rear, and went into
the sheriff’s office. Royal lit the lamp on the wall in the cramped
back section of the jail, and with a raspy jangling of the two keys
on the ring, opened up one of the cells and motioned Jim to step
inside. The door clanged shut; the sheriff locked it and returned
to his desk to sit down and fill out the necessary papers. Jim sat
down on the narrow bunk. He gave a deep, weary sigh, and leaned his
head back into the corner of the cell.

When Royal glanced his way a few minutes
later, he saw that Jim had closed his eyes, slumped down in the
corner still huddled in his wet overcoat. He looked very young and
limp and hopeless—as if he had given up all idea of resistance.
Sharp creases multiplied around the corners of the sheriff’s eyes
as he speculated on why this might be. Because he could see no way
out—or because he knew there was no way out?

Half an hour passed, in which neither broke
the silence, and Tom Hall had not yet appeared. Rain tapped on the
roof of the jail, and when a little blew in onto the floor, Royal
got up and closed the door. He spent a minute over the stove,
muttering and shoving at the feeble, refractory spark left in the
coals. Then he stumped back to the cells. Jim had his eyes open
now, staring up at the low-burning lamp outside the bars. Royal
thumped the heel of his boot against the bottom of one of the bars
as if in routine test of its security. It rattled more than he
expected and he frowned at it.

“Matter of form, Jim,” he said, looking at
the floor.

“Sure, I know,” said Jim distantly. He gave a
faint smile. “Don’t worry…I’ll be out of your hair soon
enough.”

Sheriff Royal uttered a rather ogreish laugh
down in his throat, and stalked back to the desk. He sat down,
straightened out a half-crushed newspaper and started to read. He
glanced at the clock. Not long now before Hall would be here, the
matter of bail taken care of, and he could put out the lights,
extinguish the fire in the stove, shut up the jail for the night
and go home.

But time went on and no Tom Hall came.

* * *

Mrs. Meade sat reading by the lamp in her
room. At this hour the house was quiet; with the curtains drawn
against the dark and the storm the small room was a snug,
warmly-lit refuge. Thunder rumbled outside—a high, distant thunder
passing over the valley; it was only a swift-moving rainstorm that
would be gone by morning. And then, in the murmuring lull that
followed the thunder, a knock came at the door.

Mrs. Meade laid aside her book and rose, a
touch of puzzlement in her face over who it might be. Most of her
fellow-boarders retired early. She opened the door. Frances Ruskin
stood there, her long coat streaked with rain, a damp shawl that
had slid partly back off her hair twisted around her shoulders, and
a look of gripping, clutching misery in her white face.

“Jim has been arrested,” she said.

“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Meade, not knowing
what else to say.

Frances came past her into the room, and as
Mrs. Meade shut the door she sat down stiffly on the edge of the
bed, as if it was pain even to move. She looked up at Mrs. Meade
with a strange intensity in her eyes. “Mrs. Meade, what if I
confessed? What if I told them I did it?”

Mrs. Meade looked shocked. “Oh, my dear, no.
Why, they might believe you.”

Frances broke down with a suddenness and
completeness that startled Mrs. Meade, into shuddering
half-hysterical tears. She turned and wilted across the bed, her
face buried in the quilt, weeping deep, choking sobs that shook her
whole body. Mrs. Meade took a step closer and stared down at the
girl, her mind circling with new thoughts. She had greatly
underestimated—had not realized what she now saw to be the truth:
that Frances Ruskin was deeply, passionately in love with Jim
Cambert, perhaps more than she had let even him see.

Mrs. Meade moved quietly but decisively, and
sat down beside Frances on the bed. She leaned over, putting her
arms comfortingly around the girl, and stroked the damp tangled
strands of hair back from her forehead. She hushed and soothed her
until the girl’s sobs gradually quieted, and she lay still with her
cheek against the tear-stained quilt.

“If they hang him,” Frances moaned, “I’m so
afraid. No one will
listen
…I don’t believe Jim shot him. But
who else
could
have? If he’s innocent, and they hang him—Oh,
I think I’m going mad.” She pressed trembling fingertips against
her hot temples.

“Hush,” said Mrs. Meade, helping her to sit
up, and unwinding the wet shawl. “You mustn’t go and make yourself
ill like this, or then where would we be? Now, then.”

She drew the raincoat from Frances’ shoulders
and coaxed her arms out of the sleeves; and then gathered the girl
into her arms, pillowing Frances’ head against her shoulder. “Now,”
said Mrs. Meade, “Mr. Hall told me that the case against Jim was
not a very strong one, so very likely you have no cause to
worry.”

“But they can’t simply let it go—a murder
like this,” said Frances, the words struggling through fresh tears.
“And Jim will go mad not knowing the truth about who shot his
grandfather. How could we ever live like that?”

“My dear girl, you mustn’t go borrowing
trouble,” said Mrs. Meade with almost a laugh. “When Jim’s name has
been cleared, and you have him safe again, you’ll feel much better.
I can almost guarantee that.”

Frances drew a trembling sigh, and then
sniffed. There was silence for a moment, a comforting silence, with
Mrs. Meade’s motherly arms around her. “You don’t know how good
this feels,” said Frances, her voice muffled, “to be able to come
to you this way—just to have a good cry out. I’ve been so used to
being the—the sensible one—the one who everyone else leaned on—for
so long. Always the one who kept her head…and never cried…and
listened to everyone else’s confidences.” She gave a very faint
shaky laugh. “But so many times I’ve wanted a mother to put her
arms around me…and a shoulder of my own to cry on…”

Mrs. Meade’s arms tightened instinctively
about her. She looked away across the top of Frances’ rumpled brown
head, at the lamplight on the closed curtains. Perhaps she did
know…perhaps she had heard enough confidences, and provided a
shoulder for enough bewildered heads, watched enough joys and
perplexities unfold from her own peculiar vantage-point, and come
back enough times to a snug, quiet, solitary room at night, to know
what Frances spoke of.

She said, “Is that the way you feel about
Jim?”

Frances lifted her head. “What way?”

“That you were the one to be leaned on—that
your role was one of ‘mothering’ and guiding him.”

Frances sat up, slowly, her hand on the
quilt, and wiped the traces of tears from her face with her other
hand as she reflected. “No,” she said. “I—I’ve never felt that way.
With Jim I never felt I had to be anything but myself. I didn’t
have to pretend anything. He was the first person who really made
me feel that way.”

She looked at Mrs. Meade. “All I knew was
that I was going to be happy. I never even thought of the
difference in age between us until—”

“Until Major Cambert suggested it.”

Frances nodded.

“But now you worry,” Mrs. Meade went on, in a
voice that was soft, but had an inexorable something in it that
drew out the truth. “You worry that the Major was right—that Jim
wasn’t old enough to know his own mind; that his love would not
last. You might have made him happy if you had married
straightaway, but after a year of waiting…?”