Taylor, who was lending me the superficial attention of a preoccupied man, smiled frankly at the utterance of this name. “Of course, she had nothing to do with such a debasing piece of business,” he observed.
“Of course not,” I repeated. “Nor does it seem likely that Miss Dawes could have been concerned in it. Yet my detective told me that she was the next person who went into the parlor.”
“I do not know Miss Dawes so well,” remarked Taylor, carelessly.
“But I do,” said I; “and I would as soon suspect my sister of a dishonorable act as this noble, self-sacrificing woman.”
“The third person?” suggested Taylor.
I got up and crossed the floor. When my back was to him, I said, quietly—“was Mrs. Walworth.”
The silence that followed was very painful. I did not care to break it, and he, doubtless, found himself unable to do so. It must have been five minutes before either of us spoke; then he suddenly cried:
“Where is that detective, as you call him? I want to see him.”
“Let me see him for you,” said I. “I should hardly wish Sudley, discreet as I consider him, to know you had any interest in this affair.”
Taylor rose and came to where I stood.
“You believe,” said he, “that she, the woman I am about to marry, is the one who wrote you that infamous letter?”
I faced him quite frankly. “I do not feel ready to acknowledge that,” I replied. “One of those three women took my letter out from the Bible, where I placed it; which of them wrote the lines that provoked it I do not dare conjecture. You say it was not Mrs. Couldock, I say it was not Miss Dawes, but—”
He broke in upon me impetuously.
“Have you the letter?” he asked.
I had, and showed it to him.
“It is not Helen’s handwriting,” he said.
“Nor is it that of Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes.”
He looked at me for a moment in a wild sort of way.
“You think she got someone to write it for her?” he cried. “Helen! my Helen! But it is not so; it cannot be so. Why, Huntley, to have sent such a letter as that over the name of an innocent young girl, who, but for the happy chance of meeting you as she did might never have had the opportunity of righting herself in your estimation, argues a cold and calculating selfishness closely allied to depravity. And my Helen is an angel—or so I have always thought her.”
The depth to which his voice sank in the last sentence showed that for all his seeming confidence he was not without his doubts.
I began to feel very uncomfortable, and not knowing what consolation to offer, I ventured upon the suggestion that he should see Mrs. Walworth and frankly ask her whether she had been to the hotel on Main Street on such a day, and if so, if she had seen a letter addressed to Miss N—— lying on the table of the small parlor. His answer showed how much his confidence in her had been shaken.
“A woman who, for the sake of paying some unworthy debt or of gratifying some whim of feminine vanity, could make use of a young girl’s signature to obtain money, would not hesitate at any denial. She would not even blench at my questions.”
He was right.
“I must be convinced in some other way,” he went on. “Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes do not either of them possess any more truthful or ingenuous countenance than she does, and though it seems madness to suspect such women—”
“Wait,” I broke in. “Let us be sure of all the facts before we go on. You lie down here and close your eyes; now pull the rug up so. I will have Sudley in and question him. If you do not turn towards the light he will not know who you are.”
Taylor followed my suggestion, and in a few moments Sudley stood before me. I opened upon him quite carelessly.
“Sudley,” said I, throwing down the newspaper I had been ostensibly reading, “you remember that little business you did for me in Main Street last month? Something I’ve been reading made me think of it again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you never had a conviction yourself as to which of the three ladies you saw go into the parlor took the letter I left hid in the Bible?”
“No, sir. You see I could not. All of them are well known in society here and all of them belong to the most respectable families. I wouldn’t dare to choose between them, sir.”
“Certainly not,” I rejoined, “unless you have some good reason for doing so, such as having been able to account for the visits of two of the ladies to the hotel, and not of the third.”
“They all had a good pretext for being there. Mrs. Couldock gave her card to the boy before going into the parlor, and left as soon as he returned with word that the lady she called to see was not in. Miss Dawes gave no card, but asked for a Miss Terhune, I think, and did not remain a moment after she was informed that that lady had left the hotel.”
“And Mrs. Walworth?”
“She came in from the street adjusting her veil, and upon looking around for a mirror was directed to the parlor, into which she at once stepped. She remained there but a moment, and when she came out passed directly into the street.”
These words disconcerted me; the mirror was just over the table in the small room, but I managed to remark nonchalantly:
“Could you not tell whether any of these three ladies opened the Bible?”
“Not without seeming intrusive.”
I sighed and dismissed the man. When he was gone I approached Taylor.
“He can give us no assistance,” I cried.
My friend was already on his feet, looking very miserable.
“I know of only one thing to do,” he remarked. “Tomorrow I shall call upon Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes, and entreat them to tell me if, for any reason, they undertook to deliver a letter mysteriously left in the Bible of the —— Hotel one day last month. They may have been deputed to do so, and be quite willing to acknowledge it.”
“And Mrs. Walworth? Will you not ask her the same question?”
He shook his head and turned away.
“Very well,” said I to myself, “then I will.”
Accordingly the next day I called upon Mrs. Walworth.
Taking her by the hand, I gently forced her to stand for a moment where the light from the one window fell full upon her face. I said:
“You must pardon my intrusion upon you at a time when you are naturally so busy, but there is something you can do for me that will rid me of a great anxiety. You remember being in —— Hotel one morning last month?”
She was looking quietly up at me, her lips parted, her eyes smiling and expectant, but at the mention of that hotel I thought—and yet I may have been mistaken—that a slight change took place in her expression, if it was only that the glance grew more gentle and the smile more marked.
But her voice when she answered was the same as that with which she had uttered her greeting.
“I do not remember,” she replied, “yet I may have been there; I go to so many places. Why do you ask?” she inquired.
“Because if you were there on that morning—and I have been told you were—you may be able to solve a question that is greatly perplexing me.”
Still the same gentle, inquiring look on her face; only now there was a little furrow of wonder or interest between the eyes.
“I had business in that hotel on that morning,” I continued. “I had left a letter for a young friend of mine in the Bible that lies on the small table of the inner parlor, and as she never received it I have been driven into making all kinds of inquiries in the hope of finding some explanation of the fact. As you were there at the time you may have seen something that would aid me. Is it not possible, Mrs. Walworth?”
Her smile, which had faded, reappeared. On the lips which Taylor so much admired a little pout became visible, and she looked quite enchanting.
“I do not even remember being at that hotel at all,” she protested. “Did Mr. Taylor say I was there?” she inquired, with just that added look of exqu
isite näivete which the utterance of a lover’s name should call up on the face of a prospective bride.
“No,” I answered gravely; “Mr. Taylor, unhappily, was not with you that morning.” She looked startled.
“Unhappily,” she repeated. “What do you mean by that word?” And she drew back looking very much displeased.
I had expected this, and so was not thrown off my guard.
“I mean,” I proceeded calmly, “that if you had had such a companion with you on that morning I should now be able to put my questions to him, instead of taking your time and interrupting your affairs by my importunities.”
“You will tell me just what you mean,” said she, earnestly.
I was equally emphatic in my reply. “That is only just. You ought to know why I trouble you with this matter. It is because this letter of which I speak was taken from its hiding-place by someone who went into the hotel parlor between the hours of 10:30 and 12 o’clock, and as to my certain knowledge only three persons crossed its threshold on that especial morning at that especial time, I naturally appeal to each of them in turn for an answer to the problem that is troubling me. You know Miss N——. Seeing by accident a letter addressed to her lying in a Bible in a strange hotel, you might have thought it your duty to take it out and carry it to her. If you did and if you lost it—”
“But I didn’t,” she interrupted, warmly. “I know nothing about any such letter, and if you had not declared so positively that I was in that hotel on that especial day I should be tempted to deny that too, for I have no recollection of going there last month.”
“Not for the purpose of rearranging a veil that had been blown off?”
“Oh!” she said, but as one who recalls a forgotten fact, not as one who is tripped up in an evasion.
I began to think her innocent, and lost some of the gloom which had been oppressing me.
“You remember now?” said I.
“Oh, yes, I remember that.”
Her manner so completely declared that her acknowledgments stopped there, I saw it would be useless to venture further. If she were innocent she could not tell more, if she were guilty she would not; so, feeling that the inclination of my belief was in favor of the former hypothesis, I again took her hand, and said:
“I see that you can give me no help. I am sorry, for the whole happiness of a man, and perhaps that of a woman also, depends upon the discovery as to who took the letter from out the Bible where I had hidden it on that unfortunate morning.” And, making her another low bow, I was about to take my departure, when she grasped me impulsively by the arm.
“What man?” she whispered; and in a lower tone still, “What woman?”
I turned and looked at her. “Great heaven!” thought I, “can such a face hide a selfish and intriguing heart?” and in a flash I summoned up in comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs. Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew not what to think.
“You do not mean yourself?” she continued, as she met my look of distress.
“No,” I returned; “happily for me my welfare is not bound up in the honor of any woman.” And leaving that shaft to work its way into her heart, if that heart were vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and less decided than when I entered.
For her manner had been absolutely that of a woman surprised by insinuations she was too innocent to rate at their real importance. And yet, if she did not take away that letter, who did? Mrs. Couldock? Impossible. Miss Dawes? The thought was untenable, even for an instant. I waited in great depression of spirits for the call I knew Taylor would not fail to make that evening.
When he came I saw what the result of my revelations was likely to be as plainly as I see it now. He had conversed frankly with Mrs. Couldock and with Miss Dawes, and was perfectly convinced as to the utter ignorance of them both in regard to the whole affair. In consequence, Mrs. Walworth was guilty in his estimation, and being held guilty could be no wife for him, much as he had loved her, and urgent as may have been the cause for her act.
“But,” said I, in some horror of the consequences of an interference for which I was almost ready to blame myself now, “Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes could have done no more than deny all knowledge of this letter. Now Mrs. Walworth does that, and—”
“You have seen her? You have asked her—”
“Yes, I have seen her, and I have asked her, and not an eyelash drooped as she affirmed a complete ignorance of the whole affair.”
Taylor’s head fell.
“I told you how that would be,” he murmured at last. “I cannot feel that it is any proof of her innocence. Or rather,” he added, “I should always have my doubts.”
“And Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes?”
“Ah!” he cried, rising and turning away; “there is no question of marriage between either of them and myself.”
I was therefore not astonished when the week went by and no announcement of his wedding appeared. But I was troubled and am troubled still, for if mistakes are made in criminal courts, and the innocent sometimes, through the sheer force of circumstantial evidence, are made to suffer for the guilty, might it not be that in this little question of morals Mrs. Walworth has been wronged, and that when I played the part of arbitrator in her fate, I only succeeded in separating two hearts whose right it was to be made happy?
It is impossible to tell, nor is time likely to solve the riddle. Must I then forever blame myself, or did I only do in this matter what any honest man would have done in my place? Answer me, someone, for I do not find my lonely bachelor life in any wise brightened by the doubt, and would be grateful to any one who would relieve me of it.
THE AMETHYST BOX
CHAPTER I
THE FLASK WHICH HELD BUT A DROP
It was the night before the wedding. Though Sinclair, and not myself, was the happy man, I had my own causes for excitement, and, finding the heat of the billiard-room insupportable, I sought the veranda for a solitary smoke in sight of the ocean and a full moon.
I was in a condition of rapturous, if unreasoning, delight. That afternoon a little hand had lingered in mine for just an instant longer than the circumstances of the moment strictly required, and small as the favor may seem to those who do not know Dorothy Camerden, to me, who realized fully both her delicacy and pride, it was a sign that my long, if secret, devotion was about to be rewarded and that at last I was free to cherish hopes whose alternative had once bid fair to wreck the happiness of my life.
I was reveling in the felicity of these anticipations and contrasting this hour of ardent hope with others of whose dissatisfaction and gloom I was yet mindful, when a sudden shadow fell across the broad band of light issuing from the library window, and Sinclair stepped out.
He had the appearance of being disturbed; very much disturbed, I thought, for a man on the point of marrying the woman for whom he professed to entertain the one profound passion of his life; but remembering his frequent causes of annoyance—causes quite apart from his bride and her personal attributes—I kept on placidly smoking till I felt his hand on my shoulder and turned to see that the moment was a serious one.
“I have something to say to you,” he whispered. “Come where we shall run less risk of being disturbed.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, facing him with curiosity, if not with alarm. “I never saw you look like this before. Has the old lady taken this last minute to—”
“Hush!” he prayed, emphasizing the word with a curt gesture not to be mistaken. “The little room over the west porch is empty just now. Follow me there.”
With a sigh for the cigar I had so lately lighted I tossed it into the bushes and sauntered in after him. I thought I understood his trouble. The prospective bride was young—a mere slip of a girl, indeed—bright, beautiful and proud, yet with odd little restraints in her manner and language, due probably to her peculiar bringing up and the surprise, not yet overcome, of finding herself, afte
r an isolated, if not despised, childhood, the idol of society and the recipient of general homage. The fault was not with her. But she had for guardian (alas! my dear girl had the same) an aunt who was a gorgon. This aunt must have been making herself disagreeable to the prospective bridegroom, and he, being quick to take offense, quicker than myself, it was said, had probably retorted in a way to make things unpleasant. As he was a guest in the house, he and all the other members of the bridal party—(Mrs. Armstrong having insisted upon opening her magnificent Newport villa for this wedding and its attendant festivities), the matter might well look black to him. Yet I did not feel disposed to take much interest in it, even though his case might be mine some day, with all its accompanying drawbacks.
But, once confronted with Sinclair in the well-lighted room above, I perceived that I had better drop all selfish regrets and give my full attention to what he had to say. For his eye, which had flashed with an unusual light at dinner, was clouded now, and his manner, when he strove to speak, betrayed a nervousness I had considered foreign to his nature ever since the day I had seen him rein in his horse so calmly on the extreme edge of a precipice where a fall would have meant certain death not only to himself, but also to the two riders who unwittingly were pressing closely behind him.
“Walter,” he faltered, “something has happened, something dreadful, something unprecedented! You may think me a fool—God knows I would be glad to be proved so, but this thing has frightened me. I—” He paused and pulled himself together. “I will tell you about it, then you can judge for yourself. I am in no condition to do so. I wonder if you will be when you hear—”
“Don’t beat about the bush. Speak up! What’s the matter?”
He gave me an odd look full of gloom, a look I felt the force of, though I could not interpret it; then coming closer, though there was no one within hearing, possibly no one any nearer than the drawing-room below, he whispered in my ear:
“I have lost a little vial of the deadliest drug ever compounded; a Venetian curiosity which I was foolish enough to take out and show the ladies, because the little box which holds it is such an exquisite example of jewelers’ work. There’s death in its taste, almost in its smell; and it’s out of my hands and—”
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 91
