The Chief Legatee

by Anna Katharine Green

  CHAPTER XIV

  A DETECTIVE'S WORK

  Morning.

  The living household was about its tasks for all the horror of the nightbefore, and the still unrelieved suspense as to the fate of one of itsmembers.

  The maid, who had sat on watch in the upper hall for so many hours theevening before, was again at her post, but this time with her eye fixedonly on one door, the door behind which slept the exhausted Anitra.Ransom's room was empty; he was in the sitting-room below, closeted withthe lawyer.

  Some one had been there before them. The tray of bottles and glasses hadbeen removed from the table, and in their place were to be seen a woman'sdamaged hat and a small tortoise-shell comb. Mr. Harper's hand was on theformer, which was wound about with a wet veil.

  "I think I recognize this," said he. "At least I have a distinctimpression of having seen it before."

  "It was picked up with the veil still on it near the entrance of thelane," explained Ransom.

  "Then there can be no doubt that it is the hat Miss Hazen wore duringher journey. She tossed it off the moment her foot touched the ground,and taking the shawl from her neck pulled it over her head instead. Youremember that she had no hat on when they brought her in."

  "I remember. This is Miss Hazen's hat without any doubt."

  The lawyer eyed the speaker with curious interest. There was something inhis tone that he did not understand.

  "And this?" he ventured, laying a respectful finger on the comb.

  "Found in the open field between the house and the mill-stream."

  "Do you recognize it?"

  "No. Georgian wore such combs, but I cannot absolutely say that this ishers."

  "I can. You see this little gold work at the top? Well, I have an eye forsuch things and I noticed this comb in her hair last night. There weretwo of them just alike."

  Instinctively the two men sat with their eyes fixed for a minute on thiscomb, then, equally instinctively, they both looked up and gazed at eachother long and hard. It was the lawyer who first spoke.

  "I think that we should have no further secrets between us," said he."Here is Mrs. Ransom's will. There is a name mentioned in it which I donot know. Perhaps you do." Here he laid the document on the table.

  Mr. Ransom eyed it but did not take it up. Instead, he drew a crumpledpaper from his own pocket and, handing it to the lawyer, said: "First,I should like you to read the letter which she left behind for me. Myfeelings as a husband would lead me to hold it as a sacred legacy fromall eyes but my own; but there is a mystery hidden in it, a mystery whichI must penetrate, and you are the only man who can assist me in doingso."

  The lawyer, lowering his eyes to hide their own suspicious glint, openedthe paper, and carefully read these lines:

  "Forgive. My troubles are too much for me. I'm going to a place of rest, the only place and the only rest possible to one in my position. I don't blame anybody. Least of all do I blame Anitra. It was not her fault that she was brought up rudely, or that she knows no restraint in love or in hate. Be kind to her for my sake, and if any one else claims her or offers to take her from you, resist them. I give her entirely to you. It's a more priceless gift than you think; much more priceless than the one which I take from you by my death. I could never have been happy with you; you could never have been happy with me. Fate stood between us; a darker and more inexorable fate than you, in your kindly experience of life, could imagine. Else, why do I plunge to my death with your ring on my finger and your love in my heart?

  "Georgian."

  "Ravings?" questioned Ransom hoarsely, as Mr. Harper's eyes rose again tohis face.

  "It would seem so," assented the lawyer. "Yet there is intelligence inall the lines. And the will--read the will. There is no lack ofintelligent purpose there; little as it accords with the feeling sheexhibits here for her sister. She leaves her nothing; and does not evenmention her name. Her personal belongings she bequeaths to you; but herrealty, which comprises the bulk of her property I believe, she divides,somewhat unequally I own, between you and a man named Auchincloss. Itis he I want to ask you about. Have you ever heard her speak of him?"

  "Josiah Auchincloss of St. Louis, Missouri," read Mr. Ransom. "No, thename is new to me. Didn't she tell you anything about him when she gaveyou her instructions?"

  "Not a word. She said, 'You will hear from him if ever this will ispublished. He has a right to the money and I entreat you to show yourrespect for me by seeing that he gets it without any unnecessarytrouble.' That was all she said or would say. Your wife was a woman ofpowerful character, Mr. Ransom. My little arts counted for nothing in anydifference of opinion between us."

  "Auchincloss!" repeated Ransom. "Another unknown quantity in the problemof my poor girl's life. What a tangle! Do you wonder that I am overcomeby it? Anitra--the so-called brother--and now this Auchincloss!"

  "Right, Ransom, I share your confusion."

  "Do you?" The words came very slowly, penetratingly. "Haven't you someidea--some strange, possibly half-formed notion or secret intuition whichmight afford some clew to this labyrinth? I have been told that lawyershave a knack of getting at the bottom of human conduct and affairs. Youhave had a wide experience; does it not suggest some answer to thisproblem which will harmonize all its discordant elements and make clearits various complications?"

  Mr. Harper shook his head, but there was a restrained excitement in hismanner which was not altogether the reflection of that which dominatedRansom, and the latter, observing it, leaned across the table till theirfaces almost touched.

  "Do you guess my thought?" he whispered. "Look at me and tell me if youguess my thought."

  The lawyer hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color,the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slowsmile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered ina barely audible murmur:

  "I think I do. I may be mad, but I think I do."

  The other sank back with a sigh charged with what the lawyer interpretedas relief. Mr. Harper reseated himself, and for a moment neither lookedat the other, and neither spoke; it would almost seem as if neitherbreathed. Then, as a bird, deceived by the silence, hopped to the windowsill and began its cheep, "cheep," Mr. Ransom broke the spell by sayingin low but studiously business-like tones:

  "Have you thought it worth while to study the ground under her window oranywhere else for footprints? It might not be amiss; what do you thinkabout it?"

  "Let us go," readily acquiesced the lawyer, rising to his feet with anhonest show of alacrity; "after which I must telegraph to New York. I wasexpected back to-day."

  "I know it; but your duties there will keep; these here cannot. Your handon the promise that you will respect my secret till--well, till I canassure you that my intuitions are devoid of any real basis."

  The lawyer's palm met his; then they started to go out; but before theyhad passed the door, Mr. Ransom came back, and lifting the comb from thetable he put it in his pocket. As he did this, his eye flashed sidewiseon the other. There were strange hints and presentiments in it whichbrought the color to the usually imperturbable lawyer's cheek.

  In going out they passed the office-door. A dozen men were hanging about,smoking and talking. Among them was a countryman who had just swallowed,open-mouthed, the story of the past night's tragedy. He was now speakingout his own mind concerning it, and this is what these two heard him sayas they went by:

  "Do you know what strikes me as mighty strange? That they should clearthat stone of the name of Anitra just in time to put Georgian's in itsplace. I call that peculiar, I do."

  The lawyer and the husband exchanged a glance.

  "Mrs. Ransom had a deep mind," the lawyer remarked, as the door slammedbehind them. "She apparently thought of everything."

  Ransom, directing a look down the street towards the factories and theroaring mill-stream, uttered a shuddering sigh.

  "They are still searching," said he. "But they wil
l never find her. Theywill never find her."

  The lawyer pulled him away.

  "That's because they search the water. We will search the land."

  "That's half water, too; but it cannot hide every clew. You have eyes forthe imperceptible; use them, Mr. Harper, use them."

  "I will; but this is a detective's work. Do not expect too much from me."

  "I expect nothing. I do not dare to. Let us tread very softly, that isall, and be careful to talk low, if we have anything to say."

  By this time they had rounded the corner of the house and entered anarrow walk, flagged with brick, which connected the space in frontwith the rear offices and garden. This walk ran close to the walls whichwere broken on this side by an ell projecting in the direction of themill-stream. It was from the roof of this ell that Anitra declaredGeorgian to have slipped and fallen.

  Their first care was to glance up at the roof. It was a sloping one andAnitra's story seemed credible enough when they noted how much easier itwould be to drop upon it from the little balcony overhead than totraverse the roof itself and reach the ground beneath without slipping.But as they looked longer, each face betrayed doubt. The descent from thebalcony was easy enough, but how about the passage from Georgian's windowto the balcony? This latter was confined to the one window, and wassurrounded by an ornamental balustrade, high enough to offer a decidedobstacle to the adventurous person endeavoring to leap upon it from theadjoining window-ledge. However, this leap, made in the dark and undercircumstances inducing the utmost recklessness, might look practicalenough from the window-ledge itself, and Mr. Harper, making a remark tothis effect, proposed that they should examine the ground rather than thehouse for evidences of Mrs. Ransom's slip and fall as related by Anitra.

  The only spot where they could hope to find such was in the one shortstretch--the width of the ell--underlying the edge of the sloping roof.But this spot was all flagged, as I have already said, and when theireyes strayed beyond it to the untilled fields, stretching between themand the great rock at the verge of the waterfall from which she wassupposed to have taken her fatal leap, it was to find them asunproductive of evidence as the brick walk itself. Not one pair of feetbut many had passed that way since early morning. The ground showed amass of impressions of all sizes and shapes, amid which it would havebeen impossible for them, without the necessary experience, to havefollowed up the flight of any one person. They had come to their tasktoo late.

  "Futile," decided the lawyer. "There is no use in our going that way."And he turned to look again at the ground in their immediate vicinity. Ashe did so, his eye lighted on the triangular spot where the ell met theside of the house under the kitchen windows. Here there was no flagging,the walk taking a diagonal course from the corner of the ell to thekitchen door.

  "What are those?" he asked, pointing to two oblong impressions brimmingwith water which disfigured the center of this small plot.

  "They look like footprints," ventured Ransom.

  "They are footprints," decided Mr. Harper as they stooped to examine themarks, "and the footprints of a person dropping from a height. Nothingelse explains their depth or general appearance."

  "Couldn't they be those of a person approaching the ell to converse withsome one above? I see others similar to these in the open place overthere beyond the kitchen door."

  "It is a trail. Let us follow it. It seems to lead anywhere but towardsthe waterfall. This is an important discovery, Mr. Ransom, and may leadto conclusions such as we might not otherwise have presumed to entertain,especially if we come upon an impression clear enough to point in whichdirection the person making it was going."

  "Here is what you want," Ransom assured him in a low and curiouslysmothered voice. He was evidently greatly excited by this result of theirinquiries, for all his apparent quiet and precise movements. "It's awoman's step, and that woman was going from the ell when she left thesetokens of her passage behind her. Going! and as you say not in thedirection of the waterfall."

  "Hush! I see some one at the kitchen window. Let us move warily and besure not to confound these prints with those of any other person. Itlooks as if a great many people had passed here."

  "Yes, this is the way to the chicken-coops and out-houses. But in theground beyond I think I see a single line of steps again,--small stepslike these. Where can they be leading? They are deep like those of aperson running."

  "And straggling, like those of a person running in the dark. See how theywaver from the direct line down there, turn, and almost come up againstthat wood-pile! Whose steps are these? Whose, Mr. Harper? Quick! I mustsee where they go. Our time will not be lost. The key to the labyrinth isin our hands."

  The lawyer was in the rear and the eyes of the other were fixed farahead. For this reason, perhaps, the former allowed himself a quiet shakeof the head, which might not have encouraged the other so very much, hadhe caught sight of it. They were now on the verge of the garden, or whatwould soon be a garden if these rains betokened spring. A path ran alongits edge and in this path the footsteps they were following lostthemselves; but they came upon them again among the hillocks of some oldpotato-hills beyond, and finally traced them quite across the gardenwaste to a fence, along which they ran, blundering from ploughed earth tospots of smoother ground, and so back again till they came upon an oldturn-stile!

  Passing through this, the two men stopped and looked about them. Theywere in a road ridged with grass and flanked by bushes. One end ran eastinto a wooded valley, the other debouched on the highway a few feet tothe right of the tavern.

  "The lane!" exclaimed Mr. Harper. "The lead towards the waterfall was afeint. It was in this direction she fled, and it is from this point thatsearch must be made for her."

  Ransom, greatly perturbed, for this possibility of secret flight openedvistas of as much mystery, if not of as much suffering, as her death inthe river, glanced at the sodden ground under their feet, and thus alongthe lane to where it lost itself from view among the trees.

  "No possible following of steps here," he declared. "A hundred peoplemust have come this way since early morning."

  "It's a short cut from the Ferry. They told me last night that itlessened the distance by fully a quarter of a mile."

  "The Ferry! Can she be there? Or in the woods, or on her way to someunknown place far out of our reach? The thought is maddening, Mr. Harper,and I feel as helpless as a child under it. Shall we get detectives fromthe county-seat, or start on the hunt ourselves? We might hear somethingfurther on to help us."

  "We might; but I should rather stay on the immediate scene at present.Ah, there comes a fellow in a cart who should be able to tell ussomething! Stand by and I'll accost him. You needn't show your face."

  Mr. Ransom turned aside. Mr. Harper waited till the slow-moving horse,dragging a heavily jogging wagon, came alongside, and he had caught theeye of the low-browed, broad-faced farmer boy who sat on a bag ofpotatoes and held the reins.

  "Good morning," said he. "Bad news this way. Any better at the Ferry, ordown east, as you call it?"

  "Eh?" was the lumbering, half-suspicious answer from the startled boy."I've heard naught down yonder, but that a gal threw herself over thewaterfall up here last night. Is that a fact, sir? I'm mighty curus toknow. My mother knew them Hazens; used to wash for 'em years ago. Shetold me to bring up these taters and larn all I could about it."

  "We don't know much more than that ourselves," was the smooth andcautious reply. "The lady certainly is missing, and she is supposed tohave drowned herself." Then, as he noted the fellow's eyes resting withsome curiosity on Mr. Ransom's well-clad, gentlemanly figure, addedgravely, and with a slight gesture towards the latter:

  "The lady's husband."

  The lad's jaw fell and he looked very sheepish.

  "Excuse me, misters, I didn't know," he managed to mutter, with a slashat his horse which was vainly endeavoring to pull the cart from the rutin which it had stuck. "I guess I'll go along to the hotel. I've a bag oftaters for Mrs. De
o."

  But the cart didn't budge and the lawyer had time to say:

  "Guess you didn't hear anything said about another lady I am interestedin. No talk down your way of a strange young woman seen anywhere on thehighway or about any of the houses between here and the Landing?"

  "Jerusha! I did hear a neighbor of mine say somethin' about a strangergal he saw this very mornin'. Met her down by Beardsley's. She was goin'through the mud on foot as lively as you please. Asked him the way to theFerry. He noticed her because she was pretty and spoke in such a niceway--just like a city gal," he said. "Is it any one from this hotel?"added the fellow with a wondering look. "If so, she walked a mile beforedaylight in mud up to her ankles. A girl of powerful grit that! with amighty good reason for catching the train."

  "Oh! there's an early train then?" asked the lawyer, ignoring the other'squestion with unmoved good-humor. "One, I mean, before the 10:50express?"

  "Yes, sir, or so I've heard. I never took it. Folks don't from here,except they're in an awful hurry. Will y'er say who the young woman is?Not--not--"

  "We don't know who she is," quietly objected the lawyer. "And you don'tknow who she is either," he severely added, holding the yawpingcountryman with his eye. "If you're the man I think you, you'll not talkabout her unless you're asked by the constable or some one you are boundto answer. And what's more, you'll earn a five-dollar bill by going backthe road you've come and bringing here, without any talk or fuss, the manyou were just telling us about. I want to have a talk with him, but Idon't want any one but you and him to know this. You can tell him it'sworth money, if he don't want to come. Do you understand?"

  "You bet," chuckled the grinning lad. "A five-dollar bill is mightyclearing to the mind, sir. But must I turn right back before going on tothe hotel and hearing the news?"

  "We'll help you turn the cart," grimly suggested Mr. Harper. "Get upthere, Dobbin, or whatever your name is. Here, Ransom, lend a hand!"

  There was nothing for the fellow to do but to accept the help proffered,and turn his cart. With one longing look towards the hotel he jerked atthe rein and shouted at the horse, which, after a few feeble efforts,pulled the cart about and started off again in the desired direction.

  "Sooner done, sooner paid," shouted the lawyer, as lad and cart wentjolting off. "Remember to ask for Lawyer Harper when you come back. Iwon't be far from the office."

  The fellow nodded; gave one grinning look back and whipped up his nag.The lawyer and Ransom eyed one another. "It's only a possibility,"emphasized the former. "Don't lay too much stress upon it."

  "Let us speak plainly," urged Ransom. "Mr. Harper, are you sure that youknow just what my thought is?"

  "The time has not come for discussing that question. Let us defer it.There is a fact to be settled first."

  "Whether the girl--"

  "No; this! Whether your wife could have jumped from her window to thebalcony, as Anitra said. It did not look feasible from below, but as Ithen remarked to you, our opinion may change when we consider it fromabove. Will you go up-stairs with me to your wife's room?"

  "I will go anywhere and do anything you please, so that we learn theexact truth. But spare me the curiosity of these people. The crowd onthis side is increasing."

  "We will go in by the kitchen door. Some one there will show us the wayup-stairs."

  And in this manner they entered; not escaping entirely all curious looks,for human nature is human nature, whether in the kitchen or parlor.

  In the hall above Mr. Ransom took the precedence. As they neared thefatal room he motioned the lawyer to wait till he could ascertain if MissHazen would be disturbed by their intrusion. The door, which had beenbroken in between the two rooms, could not have been put back verysecurely, and he dreaded incommoding her. He was gone but a minute.Almost as soon as the lawyer started to follow him, he could be seenbeckoning from poor Georgian's door.

  "Miss Hazen is asleep," whispered Ransom, as the other drew near. "We canlook about this room with impunity."

  They both entered and the lawyer crossed at once to the window.

  "Your wife could never have taken the leap ascribed to her by the womanyou call Anitra," he declared, after a minute's careful scrutiny of theconditions. "The balustrade of the adjoining balcony is not only in theway, but the distance is at least five feet from the extreme end of thiswindow-ledge. A woman accustomed to a life of adventure or to the featsof a gymnasium might do it, but not a lady of Mrs. Ransom's habits. Ifyour wife made her way from this room to the balcony outside her sister'swindow, she did it by means of the communicating door."

  "But the door was found locked on this side. There is the key in the locknow."

  "You are sure of this?"

  "I was the first one to call attention to it."

  "Then," began the lawyer judicially, but stopped as he noted the peculiareagerness of Ransom's expression, and turned his attention instead to theinterior of the room and the various articles belonging to Mrs. Ransomwhich were to be seen in it. "The dress your wife wore when she signedher will," he remarked, pointing to the light green gown hanging on theinside of the door by which they had entered.

  Ransom stepped up to it, but did not touch it. He could see her as shelooked in this gown in her memorable passage through the hall the eveningbefore, and, recalling her expression, wondered if they yet understoodthe nature of her purpose and the determination which gave it suchextraordinary vigor.

  Mr. Harper called his attention to two other articles of dress hanging inanother part of the room. These were her long gray rain-coat and the hatand veil she had worn on the train.

  "She went out bare-headed and in the plain serge dress in which shearrived," remarked Mr. Harper with a side glance at Ransom. "I wonder ifthe girl met on the highway was without hat and dressed in black serge."

  Ransom was silent.

  "Anitra's hat is below and here is Mrs. Ransom's. She who escaped fromthis house last night went out bare-headed," repeated the lawyer.

  Mr. Ransom, moving aside to avoid the probing of the other's eye, merelyremarked:

  "You noticed my wife's dress very particularly it seems. It was of serge,you say."

  "Yes. I am learned in stuffs. I remarked it when she got into the coach,possibly because I was struck by its simplicity and conventional make.There was no trimming on the bottom, only stitching. Her sister's wasjust like it. They had the look of being ready-made."

  "But Anitra had no rain-coat. I remember that her shoulders were wet whenshe came in from the lane."

  "No, she had no protection but her blouse, black like her dress. Ipresume that her hot blood resented every kind of wrap."

  Again that sidelong glance from his keen eye. "She wore a checked silkhandkerchief about her neck--the one she afterwards put over her head."

  "You were on the same train with my wife and sister-in-law," Ransom nowsaid. "Did you sit near them? Converse with them, that is, with Mrs.Ransom?"

  "I have no reason for deceiving you in that regard," replied Mr. Harper."I did not come up from New York on the same train they did. They musthave come up in the morning, for when I arrived at the place they callthe Ferry, I saw them standing on the hotel steps ready to step into thecoach. I spoke to Mrs. Ransom then, but only a word. My grip-sack hadbeen put under the driver's seat, and I saw that I was expected to ridewith him, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather. Mrs. Ransom sawit too and possibly my natural hesitation, for she turned to me after shehad seen her sister safely ensconced inside, and said something about herregret at having subjected me to such inconvenience, but did not offer tomake room for me in the body of the coach, though there was room enoughif the other had been the quiet lady she was herself. But she was not,and possibly this was Mrs. Ransom's excuse for her apparent lack ofconsideration for me. Before we reached the point where the lane cuts in,I became aware of some disturbance behind me, and when we really gotthere, I heard first the coach door opening, then your wife's voice,raised in entreaty to the driver, cal
ling on him to stop before hersister jumped out and hurt herself. 'She is deaf and very wild' was allthe explanation she gave after Miss Hazen had leaped into the wet roadand darted from sight into what looked to me, in the darkness, like atangled mass of bushes. Then she said something about her having hadhard work to keep her still till we got this far; but that she was sureshe would find her way to the hotel, and that we mustn't bother ourselvesabout it for she wasn't going to; Anitra and she had run this road toomany times when they were children. That is all I have to tell of myintercourse with these ladies prior to our appearance at the hotel. Ithink it right for me to clear the slate, Ransom. Who knows what we maywish to write upon it next?"

  A slight shiver on Ransom's part was the sole answer he gave to thisinnuendo; then both settled themselves to work, the eyes of eitherflashing hither and thither from one small object to another, in thisseemingly deserted room. In the momentary silence which followed, theeven breathing of the woman in the adjoining room could be distinctlyheard. It seemed to affect Mr. Ransom deeply, though he strove hard tomaintain the business-like attitude he had assumed from the beginningof this unofficial examination.

  "She has confided nothing more to you since your return from the riverbank?" suggested the lawyer.

  "No."

  The word came sharply, considering Mr. Ransom's usual manner. The lawyershowed surprise but no resentment, and turned his attention to the bagboth had noted lying open on two chairs.

  "Nothing equivocal here," he declared, after a moment's careful scrutinyof its remaining contents. "The only comment I should make in regard towhat I find here is that all the articles are less carefully chosen thanyou would expect from one of your wife's fondness for fine appointments."

  "They were collected in a hurry and possibly by telephone," returned theunhappy husband, after a shrinking glance into the bag. "The ones sheprovided in anticipation of her wedding are at the hotel in New York. Inthe trunks and bags there you will find articles as elegant as you couldwish." Here he turned to the dresser, and pointed to the various objectsgrouped upon it.

  "These show that she arranged herself with care for her meeting with youlast night. How did she appear at that interview? Natural?"

  "Hardly; she was much too excited. But I had no suspicion of what shewas cherishing in her mind. I thought her intentions whimsical, andendeavored to edge in a little advice, but she was in no mood to receiveit. Her mind was too full of what she intended to do.

  "Here's where she ate her supper," he added, picking up a morsel of crustfrom a table set against the wall. "And so this door was found fastenedon this side?" he proceeded, laying his hand on the broken lock.

  "It had to be burst open, you see."

  "And the window?"

  "Was up. The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wetwith the soaking it got."

  Mr. Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.

  "The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and thehouse in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen. Yet--"

  This _yet_ showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the firstphrase would show. But he added nothing to it; only stood listening,apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of thisloosely hanging door.

  As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr. Ransom, fixedupon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change ofmanner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the wayout:

  "Let us have a word or two in your own room. It is a principle of minenot to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keepsecret."

  Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on hiscompanion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effectof his own words. But being at heart a compassionate man, or possiblyunderstanding his new client much better than that client supposed, hehad turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed theconscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverishexpression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open featuresof this deeply grieved man.

  Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression,and by the time Mr. Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose onlyremained visible in either face.

  As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast aquick look behind him.

  "I observe," said he, "that you have a full and unobstructed view fromhere of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest iscentered. I presume you kept a strict watch on both last night. You letnothing escape you?"

  "Nothing that one could see from this room."

  With a thoughtful air, the lawyer swung to the door behind them. As itlatched, the face of Mr. Ransom sharpened. He even put out a hand andrested it on a table standing near, as if to support himself inanticipation of what the lawyer would say now that they were againcloseted together.

  Mr. Harper was not without his reasons for a corresponding agitation, buthe naturally controlled himself better, and it was with almost a judicialair that he made this long-expected but long-deferred suggestion:

  "You had better tell me now, and as explicitly as possible, just what isin your mind. It will prevent all misunderstanding between us, as well asany injudicious move on my part."

  Mr. Ransom hesitated, leaning hard on the table; then, with a suddenburst, he exclaimed:

  "It sounds like folly, and you may think that my troubles have driven memad. But I have a feeling here--a feeling without any reason or proof toback it--that the woman now sleeping off her exhaustion in Anitra's roomis the woman I courted and married--Georgian Hazen, now Georgian Ransom,my wife."

  "Good! I have made no mistake. That is my thought, too," responded thelawyer.