Martin Faber-The Story of a Criminal by William Gilmore Simms

A week from this had not gone by, when, while under the hands of our village hair-dresser, I beheld a picture crowded among the hundred upon his walls, which filled me with astonishment, and awakened in my mind some moving apprehensions. I beheld the scene of my crime truly done to nature, and just by the little copse upon which the deed had been committed, stood a female form, pale and shadowy, and with a sufficient resemblance to Emily, to have been considered a portrait. You may guess my emotion. Having recovered from the first shock, I inquired, as if without the desire for an answer, where he got and who had painted it, and was told in reply that an old lady had brought it there for sale--the lady was unknown. Finding the price low--merely nominal, indeed, he had readily bought it; relying on the merits of the piece to insure it a ready sale. I affected to be pleased with it and paid him his price. Having secured it in possession, I examined it closely, and was confirmed in the opinion that the whole was copied from events in my own history. Beyond this I could perceive nothing farther. The preparation of the piece was a mystery, and I had not the courage to seek its developement. I cut up the tell-tale fabric with my knife, and witnessed its destruction, fragment by fragment, in the flames. Fool that I was, I did not dream that the artist had yet other copies. And so it was--another and another, to the number of three, appeared in the crowded shop of the hair-dresser. I was too sagacious, however, to purchase any more. I had begun to tremble! Still I had not the slightest suspicion of the author, and though my thoughts were restlessly employed upon the subject, they wandered to all persons and conjectured all things but the right. Still, daily, did Harding and myself pursue our rambles, and, each day, through his adroit ingenuity, yielded something more to the stock of that evidence which was to overwhelm me. By degrees, he had penetrated in all directions of that fatal wood; and, at length, our footsteps were bent, as in the most casual manner, up the steep sides of the rock, and over the very path, which, burdened with the dead body of Emily Andrews, I had once journeyed alone. My eyes were again riveted upon that fearful chasm--I heard the dead fall of her delicate form, as it struck from side to side in its passage down--I heard the clattering of the loosened stones which had accompanied and followed her; and, at length, the same subtle imagination which had revived all the circumstances vividly before one sense, arrayed her reanimated form as vividly before another. I saw her arise from the chasm, pale and ghastly as when I had seen her descend. For a moment the spell of terror fixed every faculty, and in that moment, the searching glance of my companion, had gathered much towards the formation of his testimony. He had followed the direction of my glance, and the chasm, half concealed in the umbrage, and not very obvious to the gaze, grew distinctly before him. I recovered from the trance which had for a time stupified me, and we returned to the village. In a few days more, and another scene, to me full of fearful meaning was in the shop of my hair-dresser. There was the rock--there the chasm, and just above, in a dim haze that made vague the expression and outline, but did not impair the features, stood the phantom person of Emily, as my imagination had borne it to my sight but a few days before. Who was it, that, with so much felicity, could embody my imaginings. I was thunderstruck, and, through the means of an agent, I secured this new accuser, and destroyed it in like manner with the former. But another self made its appearance, and, in despair, I gave up the hope of arresting, in this way, the progress of that inquiry, which, taking so equivocal a form, and pursuing a course so mysterious, was doubly terrible. But Harding, for he was the artist, did not alone content himself with probing the secrets of my soul, by exercising my fears and fancies. He privately took his way to the family of the murdered girl. He ascertained the day and date of her absence--he took careful note of our association--of the expectations that had been formed in their minds, not less than in the mind of Emily herself, from the attentions I had paid her; and though the true nature of our connexion had been totally unsuspected by the parents, our intimacy had been such as to warrant a belief, that, in the progress of events, something must necessarily grow out of it. He found that we had been almost in the daily habit of meeting, and in the very wood in which he had first perceived my terrors. He learned, that, in dragging the stream in its neighborhood, no traces had been found of the victim-- that a search, made shortly after she had been missing, and on the same day, throughout the country, for many miles, had been ineffectual. He was conscious that few places of concealment offered themselves in the circuit so examined, except in the cavity of rock to which his mind had already adverted; and, associating the ill disguised apprehension and horror which I had exhibited while upon it, he came to the rapid conclusion that the mystery was to be developed there. Yet how was he now to proceed? There was still something wanting to unite together the several links in the chain of testimony which he had so assiduously and singularly woven. The circumstances, though strong, were not at all conclusive against me; and, having succeeded so poorly in the first instance, and with the public prejudice so strongly against him, he might well dread the overthrow of his design, in the event of any premature and partial development. Though perfectly satisfied that the chasm contained the remains of the murdered girl, he was yet well convinced how little the mere development of the body would avail, unless with some identifying circumstance, fixing the crime upon me. Accordingly, he devoted himself busily to the task of tracing in the details of the mother, all the particulars of my intimacy with the daughter. In this scrutiny he happened upon, read carefully, and copied a single note having my initials, merely, but without date, which I had sent her, enclosing some ornaments for her person and engaging to meet her on some day in the ensuing week. The style of expression was guarded in the extreme, and indicated the feelings of one who esteemed the individual he addressed, with a respectful consideration, which though not love itself, might in time, become so. The absence of a date, alone, presented a difficulty, which was only overcome, by a single passage which the note contained. It spoke of pressing engagements for a term of some weeks which would so occupy the attention of the writer as to leave him no opportunity of seeing her for that period unless that which the note suggested was embraced. What engagements were there of so pressing a character upon me? Harding knew as well as myself the nature of my employments, and felt assured that the assertion was either false, or that the note had been written at the time, when my marriage arrangements had been made; the only circumstance he conceived likely to have been looked to in my mind, as calculated to interfere with the pursuit of any humbler object. This was conjectural, however, yet the conjecture furnished him with an additional clue which he suffered not to escape him. The old lady could say nothing as to the period when the note had been received-- but the jewels were shown him, and carefully noting down their kinds and qualities, he proceeded to the several shops of our village in which such articles were sold. He inspected all of corresponding description, and submitting those in question, he at length found out to whom and when they were sold. The dates were supplied, and were so far found to correspond with events, that it was indubitable that but four days after their purchase by myself, Emily Andrews had been lost to her family. The circumstances were now almost embodied in the estimation of the law; and assured, but still unprecipitate, Harding prepared calmly and quietly the whole narrative, and awaited impatiently the operation of looked for events, to unfold the entire history. And the time came!