Seated at a distance, he watched with increasing interest the changes
which passed over his prisoner's handsome countenance. He noted the
calmness which now marked the features he had so lately seen writhing in
deepest agony, and wondered from what source the strength came which
enabled this young man to sit so stoically under the eyes of people from
whose regard, an hour before, he had shrunk with such apparent
suffering. Was it that courage comes with despair? Or was he too
absorbed in his own misery to note the shadow it cast about him? His
brooding brow and vacant eye spoke of a mind withdrawn from present
surroundings. Into what depths of remorse, who could say? Certainly not
this old detective, seasoned though he was by lifelong contact with
criminals, some of them of the same social standing and cultured aspect
as this young man.
At the station in Brooklyn he rejoined his prisoner, who scarcely looked
up as he approached. In another hour they were at Police Headquarters
and the serious questioning of Mr. Adams had begun.
He did not attempt to shirk it. Indeed, he seemed anxious to talk. He
had a burden on his mind, and longed to throw it off. But the burden was
not of the exact nature anticipated by the police. He did not
acknowledge having killed his brother, but confessed to having been the
incidental cause of that brother's death. The story he told was this:
"My name is Cadwalader, not Adams. My father, a Scotchman by birth, was
a naturalized citizen of Pennsylvania, having settled in a place called
Montgomery when a young married man. He had two children then, one of
whom died in early life; the other was my brother Felix, whose violent
death under the name of Adams you have called me here to explain. I am
the fruit of a later marriage, entered into by my father some years
after leaving Montgomery. When I was born he was living in Harrisburg,
but, as he left there shortly after I had reached my third year, I have
no remembrances connected with that city. Indeed, my recollections are
all of very different scenes than this country affords. My mother having
died while I was still an infant, I was sent very early in life to the
Old World, from which my father had originally come. When I returned,
which was not till this very year, I found my father dying, and my
brother a grown man with money--a great deal of money--which I had been
led to think he was ready to share with me. But after my father was laid
away, Felix" (with what effort he uttered that name!) "Felix came to New
York, and I was left to wander about without settled hopes or any
definite promise of means upon which to base a future or start a career.
While wandering, I came upon the town where my father had lived in early
youth, and, hunting up his old friends, I met in the house of one who
had come over from Scotland with my father a young lady" (how his voice
shook, and with what a poignant accent he uttered that beloved name) "in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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