The Clue

by Carolyn Wells

  Miss Morton had an imperious air, and instinctively the servants obeyed her.

  But Cicely Dupuy was not so ready to accept the dictum of a stranger. She stepped forward and, facing Miss Morton, said quietly, “Mrs. Markham is housekeeper, as well as Miss Van Norman’s chaperon. The servants are accustomed to take their orders from her.”

  Miss Morton returned Cicely’s direct gaze. “You see Mrs. Markham,” she said, pointing to the sofa, where that lady had entirely collapsed, and, with her head in a pillow, was shaking with convulsive sobs. “She is for the moment quite incapable of giving orders. As the oldest person present, and as a life-long friend of Mr. Richard Van Norman, I shall take the liberty of directing affairs in the present crisis.” Then, in a softer tone and with a glance toward Madeleine, Miss Morton continued, “I trust in view of the awfulness of the occasion you will give me your sympathy and co-operation, that we may work in harmony.”

  Cicely gave Miss Morton a curious glance that might have meant almost anything, but with a slight inclination of her head she said only, “Yes, madam.”

  Then Kitty French and Molly Gardner came downstairs and stood trembling on the threshold.

  “What is it?” whispered Kitty. “What’s the matter with Madeleine?”

  “Something dreadful has happened,” said Miss Morton, meeting them at the door. “I have telephoned for Doctor Hills and he will be here soon. Until then we can do nothing.”

  “But we can try to help Maddy,” exclaimed Kitty, starting toward the still figure by the table. “Oh, is she hurt? I thought she had fainted!”

  As the two girls saw the dread sight, Miss Gardner fainted herself, and Miss Morton bade Marie, who stood shivering in the hall, take care of her.

  Relieved at having something to do, Marie shook the girl and dashed water in her face until she regained consciousness, the others, meanwhile, paying little attention.

  Schuyler Carleton stood leaning against the doorpost, his eyes fixed on Madeleine’s tragic figure, while Kitty French, who had dropped into a chair, sat with her hands tightly clasped, also gazing at the sad picture.

  Although it seemed hours to those who awaited him, it was but a few moments before the doctor came.

  Doctor Hills was a clean-cut, alert-looking young man, and his quick eyes seemed to take in every detail of the scene at a glance.

  He went straight to the girl at the table and bent over her. Only the briefest examination was necessary before he said gently, “She is quite dead. She has been stabbed with this dagger. It entered a large blood vessel just over her heart, and she bled to death. Who killed her?”

  Even as he spoke his eye fell on the written paper which lay on the table. With one of his habitually quick gestures he snatched it up and read it to himself, while a look of great surprise dawned on his face. Immediately he read it aloud:

  I am wholly miserable, and unless the clouds lift I must end my life. I love S., but he does not love me.

  After he finished reading, Doctor Hills stood staring at the paper, and looked utterly perplexed.

  “I should have said it was not a suicide,” he declared, “but this message seems to indicate that it is. Is this written in Miss Van Norman’s hand?”

  Miss Morton, who stood at the doctor’s side, took the paper and scrutinized it.

  “It is,” she said. “Yes, certainly that is Miss Van Norman’s writing. I had a letter from her only a few days ago, and I recognize it perfectly.”

  “Let me see it,” said Mrs. Markham, in a determined, though rather timid way. “I am more

  familiar with Madeleine’s writing than a stranger can possibly be.”

  Miss Morton handed the paper to the housekeeper without a word, while the doctor, waiting, wondered why these two women seemed so out of sympathy with each other.

  “Yes, it is surely Madeleine’s writing,” agreed Mrs. Markham, her glasses dropping off as her eyes filled with tears.

  “Then I suppose she killed herself, poor girl,” said the doctor. “She must have been desperate, indeed, for it was a strong blow that drove the steel in so deeply. Who first discovered her here?”

  “I did,” said Schuyler Carleton, stepping forward. His face was almost as white as the dead girl’s, and he was scarcely able to make his voice heard. “I came in with a latch-key, and found her here, just as you see her now.”

  As Carleton spoke Cicely Dupuy stared at him with that curious expression that seemed to show something more than grief and horror. Her emotional bewilderment was not surprising in view of the awful situation, but her look was a strange one, and for some reason it greatly disconcerted the man.

  None of this escaped the notice of Doctor Hills. Looking straight at Carleton, but with a kindly expression replacing the stern look on his face, he went on:

  “And when you came in, was Miss Van Norman just as we see her now?”

  “Practically,” said Carleton. “I couldn’t believe her dead. And I tried to rouse her. Then I saw the dagger on the floor at her feet.”

  “On the floor?” interrupted Doctor Hills.

  “Yes,” replied Carleton, whose agitation was increasing, and who had sunk into a chair because of sheer inability to stand. “It was on the floor at her feet—right at her feet. I picked it up, and there was blood on it—there is blood on it—and I laid it on the table. And then I saw the paper—the paper that says she killed herself. And then—and then I turned on the lights and rang the servants’ bells, and Cicely—Miss Dupuy—came, and the others, and—that’s all.”

  Schuyler Carleton had with difficulty concluded his narration, and he sat clenching his hands and biting his lips as if at the very limit of his powers of endurance.

  Doctor Hills again glanced round the assembly in that quick way of his, and said:

  “Did any of you have reason to think Miss Van Norman had any thought of taking her own life?”

  For a moment no one spoke, and then Kitty French, who, in a despairing, miserable way, was huddled in the depths of a great arm-chair, said:

  “I have heard Madeleine say that some time she would kill herself with that horrid old dagger. I wish I had stolen it and buried it long ago!”

  Doctor Hills turned to Mrs. Markham. “Did you have any reason to fear this?” he inquired.

  “No,” she replied; “and I do not think Madeleine meant she would voluntarily use that dagger. She only meant she had a superstitious dread of the thing.”

  “Do you understand her reference to her own unhappiness in this bit of writing?” went on the doctor.

  “Yes, I think I do,” said Mrs. Markham in a low voice.

  “That is enough for the present,” said the doctor, as if to interrupt further confidences. “Although it is difficult to believe a stab of that nature could be self-inflicted, it is possible, and this communication seems to leave no room for doubt. Now, the law of New Jersey requires that in case of a death not by natural means the county physician shall be summoned, and further proceedings are entirely at his discretion. I shall therefore be obliged to send for Doctor Leonard before disturbing the body in any way. He will probably not arrive in less than an hour or so, and I would advise that you ladies retire. You can of course do nothing to help, and as I shall remain in charge, you may as well get what rest you can during the night.”

  “I thank you for your consideration, Doctor Hills,” said Mrs. Markham, who seemed to have recovered her calmness, “but I prefer to stay here. I could not rest after this awful shock, and I cannot stay away from Madeleine.”

  Kitty French and Molly Gardner, who, clasped in each other’s arms, were shivering with excitement and grief, begged to be allowed to stay, too, but Doctor Hills peremptorily ordered them to go to their rooms. Cicely Dupuy was allowed to stay, as in her position of social secretary she might know much of Madeleine’s private affairs. For the same reason Marie was
detained, while Doctor Hills asked her a few questions.

  Schuyler Carleton sat rigidly in his chair, as immovable as a statue. This man puzzled Doctor Hills. And yet it was surely shock enough almost to unhinge a man’s brain thus to find his intended bride the night before his wedding.

  But Carleton seemed absorbed in emotions other than those of grief. Though his face was impassive, his eyes darted about the room looking at one after another of the shocked and terrified group, returning always to the still figure at the table, and as quickly turning his gaze away, as if the sight were unbearable, as indeed it was.

  He seemed like a man stunned with the awfulness of the tragedy, and yet conscious of a care, a responsibility, which he could not shake off.

  If, inadvertently, his eyes met those of Miss Dupuy, he shifted his gaze immediately. If by chance he encountered Mrs. Markham’s sad glance, he turned away, unable to bear it. In a word, he was like a man at the limit of his endurance, and seemed veritably on the verge of collapse.

  IV

  SUICIDE OR—?

  MISS MORTON, ALSO, SEEMED to have distracting thoughts. She sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. Markham, then she jumped up suddenly and started for the door, only to turn about and resume her seat on the sofa. Here she sat for a few moments apparently in deep thought. Then she rose, and slowly stalked from the room and went upstairs.

  After a few moments, Marie, the French maid, also rose and silently left the room.

  Having concluded it was a case for the county physician, Doctor Hills apparently considered that his personal responsibility was at an end, and he sat quietly awaiting the coming of his colleague.

  After a time, Miss Morton returned, and again took her seat on the sofa. She looked excited and a little flurried, but strove to appear calm.

  It was a dreadful hour. Only rarely any one spoke, and though glances sometimes shot from the eyes of one to the eyes of another, each felt his gaze oftenest impelled toward that dread, beautiful figure by the table.

  At last Schuyler Carleton, with an evident effort, said suddenly, “Oughtn’t we to send for Tom Willard?”

  Mrs. Markham gave a start. “Of course we must,” she said. “Poor Tom! He must be told. Who will tell him?”

  “I will,” volunteered Miss Morton, and Doctor Hills looked up, amazed at her calm tone. This woman puzzled him, and he could not understand her continued attempts at authority in a household where she was a comparative stranger. And yet might it not be merely a kind consideration for those who were nearer and dearer to the principals of this awful tragedy?

  But even as he thought this over, Miss Morton had gone to the telephone, her heavy silk gown rustling as she crossed the room, and her every movement assertive of her own importance.

  Calling up the Mapleton Inn, she succeeded, after several attempts, in rousing some of its occupants, and finally was in communication with young Willard himself. She did not tell him of the tragedy, but only asked him to come over to the house at once, as something serious had happened, and returned to her seat with a murmured observation that Tom would arrive as soon as possible.

  Again the little group lapsed into silence. Cicely Dupuy was very nervous, and kept picking at her handkerchief, quite unconscious that she was ruining its delicate lace edge.

  Doctor Hills glanced furtively from one to another. Many things puzzled him, but most of all he was at a loss to understand the suicide of this beautiful girl on the very eve of her wedding.

  At last Tom Willard came.

  Miss Morton met him at the door, and took him into the drawing-room before he could turn toward the library.

  Schuyler Carleton’s frantic touches on various electric buttons had turned on all the lights in the drawing-room. As no one had noticed this, the great apartment had remained illuminated as if for a festivity, and the soft, bright lights fell on the floral bower and the elaborate decorations that had been arranged for the wedding day.

  “What is it?” asked Tom, his own face white with an impending sense of dread as he looked into Miss Morton’s eyes.

  As gently as possible, but in her own straightforward and inevitably somewhat abrupt way, Miss Morton told him.

  “I want to warn you,” she said, “to prepare for a shock, and I think it kinder to tell you the truth at once. Your cousin Madeleine—Miss Van Norman—has taken her own life.”

  “What?” Tom almost shouted the word, and his face showed an absolutely uncomprehending amazement.

  “She killed herself to-night,” Miss Morton went on, whose efforts were now directed toward making the young man understand, rather than towards sparing his feelings.

  But Tom could not seem to grasp it. “What do you mean?” he said, catching her by both arms. “Madeleine? Killed herself?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Morton, shaken out of her own calm by Tom’s excited voice. “In the library, after we had all gone to bed, she stabbed herself with that horrible paper-cutter thing. Did you know she was unhappy?”

  “Unhappy? No; why should she be? Tomorrow was to have been her wedding day!”

  “To-day,” corrected Miss Morton. “It is already the day on which our dear Madeleine was to have become a bride. And instead “Glancing around the brilliant room and at the bridal bower, Miss Morton’s composure gave way entirely, and she sobbed hysterically. At this Cicely Dupuy came across from the library. Putting her arm around Miss Morton, she led the sobbing woman away, and without a word to Tom Willard gave him a glance which seemed to say that he must look out for himself, for her duty was to attend Miss Morton.

  As the two women left the drawing-room Tom followed them. He walked slowly, and stared about as if uncertain where to go. He paused a moment midway in the room, and, stooping, picked up some small object from the carpet, which he put in his waistcoat pocket.

  A moment more and he had crossed the hall and stood at the library door, gazing at the scene which had already shocked and saddened the others.

  With a groan, as of utter anguish, Tom involuntarily put up one hand before his eyes.

  Then, pulling himself together with an effort, he seemed to dash away a tear, and walked into the room, saying almost harshly, “What does it mean?”

  Doctor Hills rose to meet him, and by way of a brief explanation he put into Tom’s hand the paper he had found on the table. Tom read the written message, and looked more stupefied than ever. With a sudden gesture he turned towards Schuyler Carleton and said in a low voice, “but you did love her, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” replied Carleton simply.

  “Why should she have thought you didn’t?” went on Tom, looking at the paper, and seeming to soliloquize rather than to address his question to any one else.

  As this was the first time that the “S.” in Madeleine’s note had been openly assumed to stand for Schuyler Carleton, there was a stir of excitement all round the room.

  “I don’t know,” said Carleton, but a dull, red flush spread over his white face and his voice trembled.

  “You don’t know!” said Tom, in cutting tones. “Man, you must know.”

  But no reply was made, and, dropping into a chair, Tom buried his face in both hands and remained thus for a long time.

  Tom Willard was a large, stout man, and possessed of the genial and merry demeanor which so often accompanies avoirdupois. Save for his occasional, though really rare, bursts of temper, Tom was always in joking and laughing mood.

  To see him thus in an agonized, speechless despair deeply affected Mrs. Markham. Tom had always been a favorite with her, and not even Madeleine had regretted more than she the estrangement between Richard Van Norman and his nephew. And even as Mrs. Markham looked at the bowed head of the great strong man she suddenly bethought herself for the first time that Tom was now heir to the Van Norman fortune.

  She wondered if he had himself yet realized it; and then she sc
olded herself for letting such thoughts intrude so unfittingly soon. And yet she well knew that it would not be in ordinary human nature long to ignore the fact of such a sudden change of fortunes. As she looked at Tom her glance strayed toward Mr. Carleton, and then the thought struck her that what Tom had gained this man had lost. For had Madeleine lived the Van Norman money would have been, in a way, at the disposal of her husband. The girl’s death then would make Tom a rich man, while Schuyler Carleton would remain poor. He had always been poor, or at least far from wealthy, and more than one gossip was of the opinion that he had wooed Miss Van Norman not entirely because of disinterested love for her.

  While Mrs. Markham was busy with these fast-following thoughts a voice in the doorway made her look up.

  A quiet, unimportant-looking man stood there, and was respectfully addressing Doctor Hills.

  “I’m Hunt, sir,” he said, “a plain-clothes man from headquarters.”

  The three men in the room gave a start of surprise, and each turned an inquiring look at the newcomer.

  “Who sent you? And what for?” asked Doctor Hills.

  “I’ve been here all night, sir. I’m on guard in the present room upstairs.”

  “I engaged him,” said Mrs. Markham. “Madeleine’s presents are very valuable, and although the jewels are still in the bank, the silver and other things upstairs are worth a large amount, and I thought best to have this man remain here during the night.”

  “A very wise precaution, Mrs. Markham,” said Doctor Hills; “and why did you leave your post, my man?”

  “The butler told me of what had happened, and I wondered if I might be of any service down here. I left the butler in charge of the room while I came down to inquire.”

  “Very thoughtful of you,” said Doctor Hills, with a nod of appreciation; “and while I hardly think so, we may have use for you before the night is over. I am expecting Doctor Leonard, the county physician, and until he comes I can do nothing. I am sure the room above is sufficiently guarded for the time being, so suppose you sit down here a few minutes and wait.”