The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack

by Anna Katharine Green

  “At noon I returned to the hotel, passed immediately to the small parlor, and looked into the Bible. The letter was gone. Coming out of the room, I was at once joined by my detective.

  “‘Has the letter been taken?’ he eagerly inquired.

  “I nodded.

  “His brows wrinkled and he looked both troubled and perplexed.

  “‘I don’t understand it,’ he remarked, ‘I’ve seen every one who has gone into that room since you left it, but I do not know now any more than before who took the letter. You see,’ he continued, as I looked at him sharply, ‘I had to remain out here. If I had gone even into the large room the Bible would not have been disturbed nor the letter either, so in the hope of knowing the rogue at sight, I strolled about this hall and kept my eye constantly on that door, but—’

  “He looked embarrassed and stopped.

  “‘You say the letter is gone?’ he suggested, after a moment.

  “‘Yes,’ I returned.

  “He shook his head. ‘Nobody went into that room or came out of it,’ he went on, ‘whom you would have wished me to follow. I should have thought myself losing time if I had taken one step after any one of them.’

  “‘But who did go into that room?’ I urged, impatient at his perplexity.

  “‘Only three persons this morning,’ he returned. ‘You know them all.’ And he mentioned first Mrs. Couldock.”

  Taylor, who was lending me the superficial attention of a pre-occupied 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 either. 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 dare 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 from out 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 your meeting her as you 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 blanch 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 toward 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 had 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 good pretexts 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 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 but 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.”

  CHAPTER II.

  Accordingly, the next day I called upon Mrs. Walworth. She lived, as I already knew, in a small and unpretentious house just on the verge of our most fashionable quarter. But there was great taste displayed in the furnishing of that house, and I was not at all surprised to see evidences here and there of a poverty which the general effect tended to make you forget. I was fortunate enough to find her in, and still more fortunate to find her alone, but my courage fell as I confronted her, for she has one of those appealing
faces that equally interest and baffle you, making you feel that unless your errand be one of peace and comfort, you had better not confront so tremulous a mouth and so tender a hazel eye. But I had steeled myself against too much sympathy when I entered her presence, so barely pausing to make my most ingratiating bow, I took her by the hand, and gently forcing 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 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 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 exquisite naïveté 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 question to him, instead of taking up your time and interrupting your affairs by my importunities.”

  She lost her look of anger and acquired one of doubt. Did she survey me so closely because she was anxious to know if I had compromised her in the eyes of her intended husband? Or was her expression merely that natural to innocence equally startled and perplexed? I could not determine.

  “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 half past ten and twelve, and 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 think 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 was 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 which I knew Taylor would not fail to make me 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 causes 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 I 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 letter 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.

  AGATHA WEBB [Part 1]

  THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND, PROFESSOR A. V. DICEY, OF OXFORD, ENGLAND

  BOOK I: THE PURPLE ORCHID

  CHAPTER I

  A CRY ON THE HILL

  The dance was over. From the great house on the hill the guests had all departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed out through the ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint streak of early dawn became visible in the east. One of them, a lank, plain-featured young man of ungainly aspect but penetrating eye, called the attention of the others to it.

  “Look!” said he; “there is the daylight! This has been a gay night for Sutherlandtown.”

  “Too gay,” muttered another, starting aside as the slight figure of a young man coming from the house behind them rushed hastily by. “Why, who’s that?”

  As they one and all had recognised the person thus alluded to, no one answered till he had dashed out of the gate and disappeared in the woods on the other side of the road. Then they all spoke at once.

  “It’s Mr. Frederick!”

  “He seems in a desperate hurry.”

  “He trod on my toes.”

  “Did you hear the words he was muttering as he went by?”

  As only the last question was calculated to rouse any interest, it alone received attention.

  “No; what were they? I heard him say something, but I failed to catch the words.”

  “He wasn’t talking to you, or to me either, for that matter; but I have ears that can hear an eye wink. He said: ‘Thank God, this night of horror is over!’ Think of that! After such a dance and such a spread, he calls the night horrible and thanks God that it is over. I thought he was the very man to enjoy this kind of thing.”