murder anybody–he hadn’t character enough; secondly,
if he could murder a person he wouldn’t select his doting benefactor
and nearest relative; thirdly, self-interest was in the way;
for while the uncle lived, Tom was sure of a free support and a
chance to get the destroyed will revived again, but with the
uncle gone, that chance was gone too. It was true the will had
really been revived, as was now discovered, but Tom could not
have been aware of it, or he would have spoken of it, in his
native talky, unsecretive way. Finally, Tom was in St. Louis
when the murder was done, and got the news out of the morning journals,
as was shown by his telegram to his aunt. These speculations were
umemphasized sensations rather than articulated thoughts,
for Wilson would have laughed at the idea of seriously
connecting Tom with the murder.
Wilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate–in fact,
about hopeless. For he argued that if a confederate was not found,
an enlightened Missouri jury would hang them; sure;
if a confederate was found, that would not improve the matter,
but simply furnish one more person for the sheriff to hang.
Nothing could save the twins but the discovery of a person who did the
murder on his sole personal account–an undertaking which had all
the aspect of the impossible. Still, the person who made the
fingerprints must be sought. The twins might have no case WITH them,
but they certainly would have none without him.
So Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing,
day and night, and arriving nowhere. Whenever he ran
across a girl or a woman he was not acquainted with, he got her
fingerprints, on one pretext or another; and they always cost him
a sigh when he got home, for they never tallied with the finger
marks on the knife handle.
As to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl,
and did not remember ever seeing a girl wearing a dress like the
one described by Wilson. He admitted that he did not always lock
his room, and that sometimes the servants forgot to lock the
house doors; still, in his opinion the girl must have made but
few visits or she would have been discovered. When Wilson tried
to connect her with the stealing raid, and thought she might have
been the old woman’ confederate, if not the very thief disguised
as an old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much interested,
and said he would keep a sharp eye out for this person or persons,
although he was afraid that she or they would be too smart to
venture again into a town where everybody would now be on the
watch for a good while to come.
Everybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and sorrowful,
and seemed to feel his great loss so deeply. He was playing a part,
but it was not all a part. The picture of his alleged uncle,
as he had last seen him, was before him in the dark pretty
frequently, when he was away, and called again in his dreams,
when he was asleep. He wouldn’t go into the room where the
tragedy had happened. This charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt, who
realized now, “as she had never done before,” she said, what a
sensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and how he adored
his poor uncle.
CHAPTER 20
The Murderer Chuckles
Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence
is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be
received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil,
sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she
did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the
pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth.
–Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
The weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins
but their counsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and the day of trial
came at last–the heaviest day in Wilson’s life; for with all his
tireless diligence he had discovered no sign or trace of the
missing confederate. “Confederate” was the term he had long ago