His face, as he approached, was a study.
“Well, well, well,” he exclaimed, as we met at the gate; “this is a pretty how-dye-do, I must say. Hannah dead, eh? and everything turned topsy-turvy! Humph, and what do you think of Mary Leavenworth now?”
It would therefore seem natural, in the conversation which followed his introduction into the house and installment in Mrs. Belden’s parlor, that I should begin my narration by showing him Hannah’s confession; but it was not so. Whether it was that I felt anxious to have him go through the same alternations of hope and fear it had been my lot to experience since I came to R——; or whether, in the depravity of human nature, there lingered within me sufficient resentment for the persistent disregard he had always paid to my suspicions of Henry Clavering to make it a matter of moment to me to spring this knowledge upon him just at the instant his own convictions seemed to have reached the point of absolute certainty, I cannot say. Enough that it was not till I had given him a full account of every other matter connected with my stay in this house; not till I saw his eye beaming, and his lip quivering with the excitement incident upon the perusal of the letter from Mary, found in Mrs. Belden’s pocket; not, indeed, until I became assured from such expressions as “Tremendous! The deepest game of the season! Nothing like it since the Lafarge affair!” that in another moment he would be uttering some theory or belief that once heard would forever stand like a barrier between us, did I allow myself to hand him the letter I had taken from under the dead body of Hannah.
I shall never forget his expression as he received it; “Good heavens!” cried he, “what’s this?”
“A dying confession of the girl Hannah. I found it lying in her bed when I went up, a half-hour ago, to take a second look at her.”
Opening it, he glanced over it with an incredulous air that speedily, however, turned to one of the utmost astonishment, as he hastily perused it, and then stood turning it over and over in his hand, examining it.
“A remarkable piece of evidence,” I observed, not without a certain feeling of triumph; “quite changes the aspect of affairs!”
“Think so?” he sharply retorted; then, whilst I stood staring at him in amazement, his manner was so different from what I expected, looked up and said: “You tell me that you found this in her bed. Whereabouts in her bed?”
“Under the body of the girl herself,” I returned. “I saw one corner of it protruding from beneath her shoulders, and drew it out.”
He came and stood before me. “Was it folded or open, when you first looked at it?”
“Folded; fastened up in this envelope,” showing it to him.
He took it, looked at it for a moment, and went on with his questions.
“This envelope has a very crumpled appearance, as well as the letter itself. Were they so when you found them?”
“Yes, not only so, but doubled up as you see.”
“Doubled up? You are sure of that? Folded, sealed, and then doubled up as if her body had rolled across it while alive?”
“Yes.”
“No trickery about it? No look as if the thing had been insinuated there since her death?”
“Not at all. I should rather say that to every appearance she held it in her hand when she lay down, but turning over, dropped it and then laid upon it.”
Mr. Gryce’s eyes, which had been very bright, ominously clouded; evidently he had been disappointed in my answers, paying the letter down, he stood musing, but suddenly lifted it again, scrutinized the edges of the paper on which it was written, and, darting me a quick look, vanished with it into the shade of the window curtain. His manner was so peculiar, I involuntarily rose to follow; but he waved me back, saying:
“Amuse yourself with that box on the table, which you had such an ado over; see if it contains all we have a right to expect to find in it. I want to be by myself for a moment.”
Subduing my astonishment, I proceeded to comply with his request, but scarcely had I lifted the lid of the box before me when he came hurrying back, flung the letter down on the table with an air of the greatest excitement, and cried:
“Did I say there had never been anything like it since the Lafarge affair? I tell you there has never been anything like it in any affair. It is the rummest case on record! Mr. Raymond,” and his eyes, in his excitement, actually met mine for the first time in my experience of him, “prepare yourself for a disappointment. This pretended confession of Hannah’s is a fraud!”
“A fraud?”
“Yes; fraud, forgery, what you will; the girl never wrote it.”
Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. “How do you know that?” I cried.
Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. “Look at it,” said he; “examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you notice in regard to it?”
“Why, the first thing that strikes me, is that the words are printed, instead of written; something which might be expected from this girl, according to all accounts.”
“Well?”
“That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary paper—”
“Ordinary paper?”
“Yes.”
“That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality.”
“Of course.”
“But is it?”
“Why, yes; I should say so.”
“Look at the lines.”
“What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page; evidently the scissors have been used here.”
“In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of commercial note?”
“Yes.”
“And is that all you see?”
“All but the words.”
“Don’t you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming down?”
“No, unless you mean the manufacturer’s stamp in the corner.” Mr. Gryce’s glance took meaning. “But I don’t see why the loss of that should be deemed a matter of any importance.”
“Don’t you? Not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived of all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper from which it was taken?”
“No.”
“Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don’t you see that, as Hannah could have had no motive for concealing where the paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this sheet must have been prepared by someone else?”
“No,” said I; “I cannot say that I see all that.”
“Can’t! Well then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about to commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished, in her confession, to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from which the sheet was taken, on which she wrote it?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue.”
“But—”
“Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr. Raymond, and tell me what you gather from it.”
“Why,” said I, after complying, “that the girl, worn out with constant apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with herself, and that Henry Clavering—”
“Henry Clavering?”
The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. “Yes,” said I.
“Ah, I didn’t know that Mr. Clavering’s name was mentioned there; excuse me.”
“His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so strikingly in accordance—”
Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. “Does it not seem a little surprising to you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she knew by name?”
I started; it was unnatural surely.
“You believe Mrs. Belden’s story, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a year ago?”
“I do.”
“Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with Mr. Clavering and with his na
me?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Then why didn’t she use it? If her intention was, as she here professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she could have at once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is the work, not of a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the role of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden, according to you, maintains that Hannah told her, upon entering the house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she declares it to have been the work of Black Mustache.”
“I know; but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?”
“Yes,” said he; “yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person. But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words from this Mrs. Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle the whole matter!”
“A few words from Mrs. Belden,” I repeated. “I have had thousands from her today, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the beginning.”
“You have had,” said he, “but I have not. Fetch her in, Mr. Raymond.”
I rose. “One thing,” said I, “before I go. What if Hannah had found the sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any thought of the suspicions it would occasion!”
“Ah!” said he, “that is just what we are going to find out.”
Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there alone for something, she knew not what.
I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first. Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity. Anything was better than suspense.
Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as she upon the good opinion of others.
“Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable event has occurred,” he exclaimed, partly rising in his enthusiasm to greet her. “May I request you to sit,” he asked; “if a stranger may be allowed to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her own house.”
“It does not seem like my own house any longer,” said she, but in a sad, rather than an aggressive tone; so much had his genial way imposed upon her. “Little better than a prisoner here, go and come, keep silence or speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an unhappy creature, whom I took in for the most unselfish of motives, has chanced to die in my house!”
“Just so!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce; “it is very unjust. But perhaps we can right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This sudden death ought to be easily explained. You say you had no poison in the house?”
“No, sir.”
“And that the girl never went out?”
“Never, sir.”
“And that no one has ever been here to see her?”
“No one, sir.”
“So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had wished?”
“No, sir.”
“Unless,” he added suavely, “she had it with her when she came here?”
“That couldn’t have been, sir. She brought no baggage; and as for her pocket, I know everything there was in it, for I looked.”
“And what did you find there?”
“Some money in bills, more than you would have expected such a girl to have, some loose pennies, and a common handkerchief.”
“Well, then, it is proved the girl didn’t die of poison, there being none in the house.”
He said this in so convinced a tone she was deceived.
“That is just what I have been telling Mr. Raymond,” giving me a triumphant look.
“Must have been heart disease,” he went on, “You say she was well yesterday?”
“Yes, sir; or seemed so.”
“Though not cheerful?”
“I did not say that; she was, sir, very.”
“What, ma’am, this girl?” giving me a look. “I don’t understand that. I should think her anxiety about those she had left behind her in the city would have been enough to keep her from being very cheerful.”
“So you would,” returned Mrs. Belden; “but it wasn’t so. On the contrary, she never seemed to worry about them at all.”
“What! not about Miss Eleanore, who, according to the papers, stands in so cruel a position before the world? But perhaps she didn’t know anything about that—Miss Leavenworth’s position, I mean?”
“Yes, she did, for I told her. I was so astonished I could not keep it to myself. You see, I had always considered Eleanore as one above reproach, and it so shocked me to see her name mentioned in the newspaper in such a connection, that I went to Hannah and read the article aloud, and watched her face to see how she took it.”
“And how did she?”
“I can’t say. She looked as if she didn’t understand; asked me why I read such things to her, and told me she didn’t want to hear any more; that I had promised not to trouble her about this murder, and that if I continued to do so she wouldn’t listen.”
“Humph! and what else?”
“Nothing else. She put her hand over her ears and frowned in such a sullen way I left the room.”
“That was when?”
“About three weeks ago.”
“She has, however, mentioned the subject since?”
“No, sir; not once.”
“What! not asked what they were going to do with her mistress?”
“No, sir.”
“She has shown, however, that something was preying on her mind—fear, remorse, or anxiety?”
“No, sir; on the contrary, she has oftener appeared like one secretly elated.”
“But,” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, with another sidelong look at me, “that was very strange and unnatural. I cannot account for it.”
“Nor I, sir. I used to try to explain it by thinking her sensibilities had been blunted, or that she was too ignorant to comprehend the seriousness of what had happened; but as I learned to know her better, I gradually changed my mind. There was too much method in her gayety for that. I could not help seeing she had some future before her for which she was preparing herself. As, for instance, she asked me one day if I thought she could learn to play on the piano. And I finally came to the conclusion she had been promised money if she kept the secret intrusted to her, and was so pleased with the prospect that she forgot the dreadful past, and all connected with it. At all events, that was the only explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and then stealing over her face when she didn’t know I was looking.”
Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that moment, I warrant.
“It was all this,” continued Mrs. Belden, “which made her death such a shock to me. I couldn’t believe that so cheerful and healthy a creature could die like that, all in one night, without anybody knowing anything about it. But—”
“Wait one moment,” Mr. Gryce here broke in. “You speak of her endeavors to improve herself. What do you mean by that?”
“Her desire to learn things she didn’t know; as, for instance, to write and read writing. She could only clumsily print when she came here.”
I thought Mr. Gryce would take a piece out of my arm, he griped it so.
“When she came here! Do you mean to say that since she has been with you she has learned to write?”
“Yes, sir; I used to set her copies and—”
“Where are these copies?” broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to its most professional tone. “And where are her attem
pts at writing? I’d like to see some of them. Can’t you get them for us?”
“I don’t know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as soon as they had answered their purpose. I didn’t like to have such things lying around. But I will go see.”
“Do,” said he; “and I will go with you. I want to take a look at things upstairs, any way.” And, heedless of his rheumatic feet, he rose and prepared to accompany her.
“This is getting very intense,” I whispered, as he passed me.
The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian Mephistopheles.
Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.
“The writing-paper of the household,” observed Mr. Gryce; “every scrap and half-sheet which could be found. But, before you examine it, look at this.” And he held out a sheet of bluish foolscap, on which were written some dozen imitations of that time-worn copy, “BE GOOD AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY”; with an occasional “Beauty soon fades,” and “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”
“What do you think of that?”
“Very neat and very legible.”
“That is Hannah’s latest. The only specimens of her writing to be found. Not much like some scrawls we have seen, eh?”
“No.”
“Mrs. Belden says this girl has known how to write as good as this for more than a week. Took great pride in it, and was continually talking about how smart she was.” Leaning over, he whispered in my ear, “This thing you have in your hand must have been scrawled some time ago, if she did it.” Then aloud: “But let us look at the paper she used to write on.”
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 269
