The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 02: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and CiviliansBierce, Ambrose
History
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 02: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
Bierce, Ambrose
Horror tales, American; Paranormal fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; War stories, American
At about three o'clock one autumn morning Officer No. 13 of the
Sacramento police saw a man stealthily leaving the rear entrance of a
gentleman's residence and promptly arrested him. The man--who wore a
slouch hat and shaggy overcoat--offered the policeman one hundred, then
five hundred, then one thousand dollars to be released. As he had less
than the first mentioned sum on his person the officer treated his
proposal with virtuous contempt. Before reaching the station the
prisoner agreed to give him a check for ten thousand dollars and remain
ironed in the willows along the river bank until it should be paid. As
this only provoked new derision he would say no more, merely giving an
obviously fictitious name. When he was searched at the station nothing
of value was found on him but a miniature portrait of Mrs. Barwell--the
lady of the house at which he was caught. The case was set with costly
diamonds; and something in the quality of the man's linen sent a pang of
unavailing regret through the severely incorruptible bosom of Officer
No. 13. There was nothing about the prisoner's clothing nor person to
identify him and he was booked for burglary under the name that he had
given, the honorable name of John K. Smith. The K. was an inspiration
upon which, doubtless, he greatly prided himself.
In the mean time the mysterious disappearance of John Hardshaw was
agitating the gossips of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, and was even
mentioned in one of the newspapers. It did not occur to the lady whom
that journal considerately described as his "widow," to look for him in
the city prison at Sacramento--a town which he was not known ever to
have visited. As John K. Smith he was arraigned and, waiving
examination, committed for trial.
About two weeks before the trial, Mrs. Hardshaw, accidentally learning
that her husband was held in Sacramento under an assumed name on a
charge of burglary, hastened to that city without daring to mention the
matter to any one and presented herself at the prison, asking for an
interview with her husband, John K. Smith. Haggard and ill with anxiety,
wearing a plain traveling wrap which covered her from neck to foot, and
in which she had passed the night on the steamboat, too anxious to
sleep, she hardly showed for what she was, but her manner pleaded for
her more strongly than anything that she chose to say in evidence of her
right to admittance. She was permitted to see him alone.
What occurred during that distressing interview has never transpired;
but later events prove that Hardshaw had found means to subdue her will
to his own. She left the prison, a broken-hearted woman, refusing to
answer a single question, and returning to her desolate home renewed, in
a half-hearted way, her inquiries for her missing husband. A week later
she was herself missing: she had "gone back to the States"--nobody knew
any more than that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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