Mr. Gryce.

What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.

This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,

Was once thought honest.

Macbeth.

AN hour later, as Mr. Ferris was leaving the house in company with Dr. Tredwell, he felt himself stopped by a slight touch on his arm. Turning about he saw Hickory.

“Beg pardon, sirs,” said the detective, with a short bow, “but there’s a gentleman, in the library who would like to see you before you go.”

They at once turned to the room indicated. But at sight of its well-known features — its huge cases of books, its large centre-table profusely littered with papers, the burnt-out grate, the empty arm-chair — they paused, and it was with difficulty they could recover themselves sufficiently to enter. When they did, their first glance was toward the gentleman they saw standing in a distant window, apparently perusing a book.

“Who is it?” inquired Mr. Ferris of his companion.

“I cannot imagine,” returned the other.

Hearing voices, the gentleman advanced.

“Ah,” said he, “allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Gryce, of the New York Detective Service.”

“Mr. Gryce!” repeated the District Attorney, in astonishment.

The famous detective bowed. “I have come,” said he, “upon a summons received by me in Utica not six hours ago. It was sent by a subordinate of mine interested in the trial now going on before the court. Horace Byrd is his name. I hope he is well liked here and has your confidence.”

“Mr. Byrd is well enough liked,” rejoined Mr. Ferris, “but I gave him no orders to send for you. At what hour was the telegram dated?”

“At half-past eleven; immediately after the accident to Mr. Orcutt.”

“I see.”

“He probably felt himself inadequate to meet this new emergency. He is a young man, and the affair is certainly a complicated one.”

The District Attorney, who had been studying the countenance of the able detective before him, bowed courteously.

“I am not displeased to see you,” said he. “If you have been in the room above ——”

The other gravely bowed.

“You know probably of the outrageous accusation which has just been made against our best lawyer and most-esteemed citizen. It is but one of many which this same woman has made; and while it is to be regarded as the ravings of lunacy, still your character and ability may weigh much in lifting the opprobrium which any such accusation, however unfounded, is calculated to throw around the memory of my dying friend.”

“Sir,” returned Mr. Gryce, shifting his gaze uneasily from one small object to another in that dismal room, till all and every article it contained seemed to partake of his mysterious confidence, “this is a world of disappointment and deceit. Intellects we admired, hearts in which we trusted, turn out frequently to be the abodes of falsehood and violence. It is dreadful, but it is true.”

Mr. Ferris, struck aghast, looked at the detective with severe disapprobation.

“Is it possible,” he asked, “that you have allowed yourself to give any credence to the delirious utterances of a man suffering from a wound on the head, or to the frantic words of a woman who has already abused the ears of the court by a deliberate perjury?” While Dr. Tredwell, equally indignant and even more impatient, rapped with his knuckles on the table by which he stood, and cried:

“Pooh, pooh, the man cannot be such a fool!”

A solemn smile crossed the features of the detective.

“Many persons have listened to the aspersion you denounce. Active measures will be needed to prevent its going farther.”

“I have commanded silence,” said Dr. Tredwell. “Respect for Mr. Orcutt will cause my wishes to be obeyed.”

“Does Mr. Orcutt enjoy the universal respect of the town?”

“He does,” was the stern reply.

“It behooves us, then,” said Mr. Gryce, “to clear his memory from every doubt by a strict inquiry into his relations with the murdered woman.”

“They are known,” returned Mr. Ferris, with grim reserve. “They were such as any man might hold with the woman at whose house he finds it convenient to take his daily dinner. She was to him the provider of a good meal.”

Mr. Gryce’s eye travelled slowly toward Mr. Ferris’ shirt stud.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “do you forget that Mr. Orcutt was on the scene of murder some minutes before the rest of you arrived? Let the attention of people once be directed toward him as a suspicious party, and they will be likely to remember this fact.”

Astounded, both men drew back.

“What do you mean by that remark?” they asked.

“I mean,” said Mr. Gryce, “that Mr. Orcutt’s visit to Mrs. Clemmens’ house on the morning of the murder will be apt to be recalled by persons of a suspicious tendency as having given him an opportunity to commit the crime.”

“People are not such fools,” cried Dr. Tredwell; while Mr. Ferris, in a tone of mingled incredulity and anger, exclaimed:

“And do you, a reputable detective, and, as I have been told, a man of excellent judgment, presume to say that there could be found any one in this town, or even in this country, who could let his suspicions carry him so far as to hint that Mr. Orcutt struck this woman with his own hand in the minute or two that elapsed between his going into her house and his coming out again with tidings of her death?”

“Those who remember that he had been a participator in the lengthy discussion which had just taken place on the court-house steps as to how a man might commit a crime without laying himself open to the risk of detection, might — yes, sir.”

Mr. Ferris and the coroner, who, whatever their doubts or fears, had never for an instant seriously believed the dying words of Mr. Orcutt to be those of confession, gazed in consternation at the detective, and finally inquired:

“Do you realize what you are saying?”

Mr. Gryce drew a deep breath, and shifted his gaze to the next stud in Mr. Ferris’ shirt-front.

“I have never been accused of speaking lightly,” he remarked. Then, with quiet insistence, asked: “Where was Mrs. Clemmens believed to get the money she lived on?”

“It is not known,” rejoined the District Attorney.

“Yet she left a nice little sum behind her?”

“Five thousand dollars,” declared the coroner.

“Strange that, in a town like this, no one should know where it came from?” suggested the detective.

The two gentlemen were silent.

“It was a good deal to come from Mr. Orcutt in payment of a single meal a day!” continued Mr. Gryce.

“No one has ever supposed it did come from Mr. Orcutt,” remarked Mr. Ferris, with some severity.

“But does any one know it did not?” ventured the detective.

Dr. Tredwell and the District Attorney looked at each other, but did not reply.

“Gentlemen,” pursued Mr. Gryce, after a moment of quiet waiting, “this is without exception the most serious moment of my life. Never in the course of my experience — and that includes much — have I been placed in a more trying position than now. To allow one’s self to doubt, much less to question, the integrity of so eminent a man, seems to me only less dreadful than it does to you; yet, for all that, were I his friend, as I certainly am his admirer, I would say: ‘Sift this matter to the bottom; let us know if this great lawyer has any more in favor of his innocence than the other gentlemen who have been publicly accused of this crime.’”

“But,” protested Dr. Tredwell, seeing that the District Attorney was too much moved to speak, “you forget the evidences which underlay the accusation of these other gentlemen; also that of all the persons who, from the day the widow was struck till now, have been in any way associated with suspicion, Mr. Orcutt is the only one who could have had no earthly motive for injuring this humble woman, even if he were all he would have to be to first perform such a brutal deed and then carry out his hypocrisy to the point of using his skill as a criminal lawyer to defend another man falsely accused of the crime.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” sa............