FOOTNOTES:[B]As was asserted by her husband in his sworn examination.
[B]As was asserted by her husband in his sworn examination.
[B]As was asserted by her husband in his sworn examination.
The result of this attention can be best learned from the conversation I held with Mr. Gryce the next morning.
He came earlier than usual, but he found me up and stirring.
"Well," he cried, accosting me with a smile as I entered the parlor where he was seated, "it is all right this time, is it not? No trouble in identifying the gentleman who entered your neighbor's house last night at a quarter to twelve?"
Resolved to probe this man's mind to the bottom, I put on my sternest air.
"I had not expected any one to enter there so late last night," said I. "Mr. Van Burnam declared so positively at the inquest that he was the person we have been endeavoring to identify, that I did not suppose you would consider it necessary to bring him to the house for me to see."
"And so you were not in the window?"
"I did not say that; I am always where I have promised to be, Mr. Gryce."
"Well, then?" he inquired sharply.
I was purposely slow in answering him—I had all the longer time to search his face. But its calmness was impenetrable, and finally I declared:
"The man you brought with you last night—you were the person who accompanied him, were you not—wasnotthe man I saw alight there four nights ago."
He may have expected it; it may have been the very assertion he desired from me, but his manner showed displeasure, and the quick "How?" he uttered was sharp and peremptory.
"I do not ask who it was," I went on, with a quiet wave of my hand that immediately restored him to himself, "for I know you will not tell me. But what I do hope to know is the name of the man who entered that same house at just ten minutes after nine. He was one of the funeral guests, and he arrived in a carriage that was immediately preceded by a coach from which four persons alighted, two ladies and two gentlemen."
"I do not know the gentleman, ma'am," was the detective's half-surprised and half-amused retort. "I did not keep track of every guest that attended the funeral."
"Then you didn't do your work as well as I did mine," was my rather dry reply. "For I noted every one who went in; and that gentleman, whoever he was, was more like the person I have been trying to identify than any one I have seen enter there during my four midnight vigils."
Mr. Gryce smiled, uttered a short "Indeed!" and looked more than ever like a sphinx. I began quietly to hate him, under my calm exterior.
"Was Howard at his wife's funeral?" I asked.
"He was, ma'am."
"And did he come in a carriage?"
"He did, ma'am."
"Alone?"
"He thought he was alone; yes, ma'am."
"Then may it not have been he?"
"I can't say, ma'am."
Mr. Gryce was so obviously out of his element under this cross-examination that I could not suppress a smile even while I experienced a very lively indignation at his reticence. He may have seen me smile and he may not, for his eyes, as I have intimated, were always busy with some object entirely removed from the person he addressed; but at all events he rose, leaving me no alternative but to do the same.
"And so you didn't recognize the gentleman I brought to the neighboring house just before twelve o'clock," he quietly remarked, with a calm ignoring of my last question which was a trifle exasperating.
"No."
"Then, ma'am," he declared, with a quick change of manner, meant, I should judge, to put me in my proper place, "I do not think we can depend upon the accuracy of your memory;" and he made a motion as if to leave.
As I did not know whether his apparent disappointment was real or not, I let him move to the door without a reply. But once there I stopped him.
"Mr. Gryce," said I, "I don't know what you think about this matter, nor whether you even wish my opinion upon it. But I am going to express it, for all that.Ido not believe that Howard killed his wife with a hat-pin."
"No?" retorted the old gentleman, peering into his hat, with an ironical smile which that inoffensive article of attire had certainly not merited. "And why, MissButterworth, why? You must have substantial reasons for any opinion you would form."
"I have an intuition," I responded, "backed by certain reasons. The intuition won't impress you very deeply, but the reasons may not be without some weight, and I am going to confide them to you."
"Do," he entreated in a jocose manner which struck me as inappropriate, but which I was willing to overlook on account of his age and very fatherly manner.
"Well, then," said I, "this is one. If the crime was a premeditated one, if he hated his wife and felt it for his interest to have her out of the way, a man of Mr. Van Burnam's good sense would have chosen any other spot than his father's house to kill her in, knowing that her identity could not be hidden if once she was associated with the Van Burnam name. If, on the contrary, he took her there in good faith, and her death was the unexpected result of a quarrel between them, then the means employed would have been simpler. An angry man does not stop to perform a delicate surgical operation when moved to the point of murder, but uses his hands or his fists, just as Mr. Van Burnam himself suggested."
"Humph!" grunted the detective, staring very hard indeed into his hat.
"You must not think me this young man's friend," I went on, with a well meant desire to impress him with the impartiality of my attitude. "I never have spoken to him nor he to me, but I am the friend of justice, and I must declare that there was a note of surprise in the emotion he showed at sight of his wife's hat, that was far too natural to be assumed."
The detective failed to be impressed. I might haveexpected this, knowing his sex and the reliance such a man is apt to place upon his own powers.
"Acting, ma'am, acting!" was his laconic comment. "A very uncommon character, that of Mr. Howard Van Burnam. I do not think you do it full justice."
"Perhaps not, but see that you don't slight mine. I do not expect you to heed these suggestions any more than you did those I offered you in connection with Mrs. Boppert, the scrub-woman; but my conscience is eased by my communication, and that is much to a solitary woman like myself who is obliged to spend many a long hour alone with no other companion."
"Something has been accomplished, then, by this delay," he observed. Then, as if ashamed of this momentary display of irritation, he added in the genial tones more natural to him: "I don't blame you for your good opinion of this interesting, but by no means reliable, young man, Miss Butterworth. A woman's kind heart stands in the way of her proper judgment of criminals."
"You will not find its instincts fail even if you do its judgment."
His bow was as full of politeness as it was lacking in conviction.
"I hope you won't let your instincts lead you into any unnecessary detective work," he quietly suggested.
"That I cannot promise. If you arrest Howard Van Burnam for murder, I may be tempted to meddle with matters which don't concern me."
An amused smile broke through his simulated seriousness.
"Pray accept my congratulations, then, in advance,ma'am. My health has been such that I have long anticipated giving up my profession; but if I am to have such assistants as you in my work, I shall be inclined to remain in it some time longer."
"When a man as busy as you stops to indulge in sarcasm, he is in more or less good spirits. Such a condition, I am told, only prevails with detectives when they have come to a positive conclusion concerning the case they are engaged upon."
"I see you already understand the members of your future profession."
"As much as is necessary at this juncture," I retorted. Then seeing him about to repeat his bow, I added sharply: "You need not trouble yourself to show me too much politeness. If I meddle in this matter at all it will not be as your coadjutor, but as your rival."
"My rival?"
"Yes, your rival; and rivals are never good friends until one of them is hopelessly defeated."
"Miss Butterworth, I see myself already at your feet."
And with this sally and a short chuckle which did more than anything he had said towards settling me in my half-formed determination to do as I had threatened, he opened the door and quietly disappeared.
The verdict rendered by the Coroner's jury showed it to be a more discriminating set of men than I had calculated upon. It was murder inflicted by a hand unknown.
I was so gratified by this that I left the court-room in quite an agitated frame of mind, so agitated, indeed, that I walked through one door instead of another, and thus came unexpectedly upon a group formed almost exclusively of the Van Burnam family.
Starting back, for I dislike anything that looks like intrusion, especially when no great end is to be gained by it, I was about to retrace my steps when I felt two soft arms about my neck.
"Oh, Miss Butterworth, isn't it a mercy that this dreadful thing is over! I don't know when I have ever felt anything so keenly."
It was Isabella Van Burnam.
Startled, for the embraces bestowed on me are few, I gave a subdued sort of grunt, which nevertheless did not displease this young lady, for her arms tightened, and she murmured in my ear: "You dear old soul! I like yousomuch."
"We are going to be very good neighbors," cooed a still sweeter voice in my other ear. "Papa says wemust call on you soon." And Caroline's demure face looked around into mine in a manner some would have thought exceedingly bewitching.
"Thank you, pretty poppets!" I returned, freeing myself as speedily as possible from embraces the sincerity of which I felt open to question. "My house is always open to you." And with little ceremony, I walked steadily out and betook myself to the carriage awaiting me.
I looked upon this display of feeling as the mere gush of two over-excited young women, and was therefore somewhat astonished when I was interrupted in my afternoon nap by an announcement that the two Misses Van Burnam awaited me in the parlor.
Going down, I saw them standing there hand in hand and both as white as a sheet.
"O Miss Butterworth!" they cried, springing towards me, "Howard has been arrested, and we have no one to say a word of comfort to us."
"Arrested!" I repeated, greatly surprised, for I had not expected it to happen so soon, if it happened at all.
"Yes, and father is just about prostrated. Franklin, too, but he keeps up, while father has shut himself into his room and won't see anybody, not even us. O, I don't know how we are to bear it! Such a disgrace, and such a wicked, wicked shame! For Howard never had anything to do with his wife's death, had he, Miss Butterworth?"
"No," I returned, taking my ground at once, and vigorously, for I really believed what I said. "He is innocent of her death, and I would like the chance of proving it."
They evidently had not expected such an unqualifiedassertion from me, for they almost smothered me with kisses, and called metheir only friend! and indeed showed so much real feeling this time that I neither pushed them away nor tried to withdraw myself from their embraces.
When their emotions were a little exhausted I led them to a sofa and sat down before them. They were motherless girls, and my heart, if hard, is not made of adamant or entirely unsusceptible to the calls of pity and friendship.
"Girls," said I, "if you will be calm, I should like to ask you a few questions."
"Ask us anything," returned Isabella; "nobody has more right to our confidence than you."
This was another of their exaggerated expressions, but I was so anxious to hear what they had to tell, I let it pass. So instead of rebuking them, I asked where their brother had been arrested, and found it had been at his rooms and in presence of themselves and Franklin. So I inquired further and learned that, so far as they knew, nothing had been discovered beyond what had come out at the inquest except that Howard's trunks had been found packed, as if he had been making preparations for a journey when interrupted by the dreadful event which had put him into the hands of the police. As there was a certain significance in this, the girls seemed almost as much impressed by it as I was, but we did not discuss it long, for I suddenly changed my manner, and taking them both by the hand, asked if they could keep a secret.
"Secret?" they gasped.
"Yes, a secret. You are not the girls I should confide in ordinarily; but this trouble has sobered you."
"O, we can do anything," began Isabella; and "Only try us," murmured Caroline.
But knowing the volubility of the one and the weakness of the other, I shook my head at their promises, and merely tried to impress them with the fact that their brother's safety depended upon their discretion. At which they looked very determined for poppets, and squeezed my hands so tightly that I wished I had left off some of my rings before engaging in this interview.
When they were quiet again and ready to listen I told them my plans. They were surprised, of course, and wondered how I could do anything towards finding out the real murderer of their sister-in-law; but seeing how resolved I looked, changed their tone and avowed with much feeling their perfect confidence in me and in the success of anything I might undertake.
This was encouraging, and ignoring their momentary distrust, I proceeded to say:
"But for me to be successful in this matter, no one must know my interest in it. You must pay me no visits, give me no confidences, nor, if you can help it, mention my name beforeany one, not even before your father and brother. So much for precautionary measures, my dears; and now for the active ones. I have no curiosity, as I think you must see, but I shall have to ask you a few questions which under other circumstances would savor more or less of impertinence. Had your sister-in-law any special admirers among the other sex?"
"Oh," protested Caroline, shrinking back, while Isabella's eyes grew round as a frightened child's. "None that we ever heard of. She wasn't that kindof a woman, was she, Belle? It wasn't for any such reason papa didn't like her."
"No, no,thatwould have been too dreadful. It was her family we objected to, that's all."
"Well, well," I apologized, tapping their hands reassuringly, "I only asked—let me now say—from curiosity, though I have not a particle of that quality, I assure you."
"Did you think—did you have any idea—" faltered Caroline, "that——"
"Never mind," I interrupted. "You must let my words go in one ear and out of the other after you have answered them. I wish"—here I assumed a brisk air—"that I could go through your parlors again before every trace of the crime perpetrated there has been removed."
"Why, you can," replied Isabella.
"There is no one in them now," added Caroline, "Franklin went out just before we left."
At which I blandly rose, and following their leadership, soon found myself once again in the Van Burnam mansion.
My first glance upon re-entering the parlors was naturally directed towards the spot where the tragedy had taken place. The cabinet had been replaced and the shelves set back upon it; but the latter were empty, and neither on them nor on the adjacent mantel-piece did I see the clock. This set me thinking, and I made up my mind to have another look at that clock. By dint of judicious questions I found that it had been carried into the third room, where we soon found it lying on a shelf of the same closet where the hat had been discovered by Mr. Gryce. Franklin had put itthere, fearing that the sight of it might affect Howard, and from the fact that the hands stood as I had left them, I gathered that neither he nor any of the family had discovered that it was in running condition.
Assured of this, I astonished them by requesting to have it taken down and set up on the table, which they had no sooner done than it started to tick just as it had done under my hand a few nights before.
The girls, greatly startled, surveyed each other wonderingly.
"Why, it's going!" cried Caroline.
"Who could have wound it!" marvelled Isabella.
"Hark!" I cried. The clock had begun to strike.
It gave forth five clear notes.
"Well, it's a mystery!" Isabella exclaimed. Then seeing no astonishment in my face, she added: "Did you know about this, Miss Butterworth?"
"My dear girls," I hastened to say, with all the impressiveness characteristic of me in my more serious moments. "I do not expect you to ask me for any information I do not volunteer. This is hard, I know; but some day I will be perfectly frank with you. Are you willing to accept my aid on these terms?"
"O yes," they gasped, but they looked not a little disappointed.
"And now," said I, "leave the clock where it is, and when your brother comes home, show it to him, and say that having the curiosity to examine it you were surprised to find it going, and that you had left it there for him to see. He will be surprised also, and as a consequence will question first you and then the police to find out who wound it. If they acknowledge having done it, you must notify me at once, for that'swhat I want to know. Do you understand, Caroline? And, Isabella, do you feel that you can go through all this without dropping a word concerning me and my interest in this matter?"
Of course they answered yes, and of course it was with so much effusiveness that I was obliged to remind them that they must keep a check on their enthusiasm, and also to suggest that they should not come to my house or send me any notes, but simply a blank card, signifying: "No one knows who wound the clock."
"How delightfully mysterious!" cried Isabella. And with this girlish exclamation our talk in regard to the clock closed.
The next object that attracted our attention was a paper-covered novel I discovered on a side-table in the same room.
"Whose is this?" I asked.
"Not mine."
"Not mine."
"Yet it was published this summer," I remarked.
They stared at me astonished, and Isabella caught up the book. It was one of those summer publications intended mainly for railroad distribution, and while neither ragged nor soiled, bore evidence of having been read.
"Let me take it," said I.
Isabella at once passed it into my hands.
"Does your brother smoke?" I asked.
"Which brother?"
"Either of them."
"Franklin sometimes, but Howard, never. It disagrees with him, I believe."
"There is a faint odor of tobacco about these pages. Can it have been brought here by Franklin?"
"O no, he never reads novels, not such novels as this, at all events. He loses a lot of pleasure, we think."
I turned the pages over. The latter ones were so fresh I could almost put my finger on the spot where the reader had left off. Feeling like a bloodhound who has just run upon a trail, I returned the book to Caroline, with the injunction to put it away; adding, as I saw her air of hesitation: "If your brother Franklin misses it, it will show that he brought it here, and then I shall have no further interest in it." Which seemed to satisfy her, for she put it away at once on a high shelf.
Perceiving nothing else in these rooms of a suggestive character, I led the way into the hall. There I had a new idea.
"Which of you was the first to go through the rooms upstairs?" I inquired.
"Both of us," answered Isabella. "We came together. Why do you ask, Miss Butterworth?"
"I was wondering if you found everything in order there?"
"We did not notice anything wrong, did we, Caroline? Do you think that the—the person who committed that awful crime wentup-stairs? I couldn't sleep a wink if I thought so."
"Nor I," Caroline put in. "O, don't say that he went up-stairs, Miss Butterworth!"
"I do not know it," I rejoined.
"But you asked——"
"And I ask again. Wasn't there some little thingout of its usual place? I was up in your front chamber after water for a minute, but I didn't touch anything but the mug."
"We missed the mug, but—O Caroline, the pin-cushion! Do you suppose Miss Butterworth means the pin-cushion?"
I started. Did she refer to the one I had picked up from the floor and placed on a side-table?
"What about the pin-cushion?" I asked.
"O nothing, but we did not know what to make of its being on the table. You see, we had a little pin-cushion shaped like a tomato which always hung at the side of our bureau. It was tied to one of the brackets and was never taken off; Caroline having a fancy for it because it kept her favorite black pins out of the reach of the neighbor's children when they came here. Well, this cushion, this sacred cushion which none of us dared touch, was found by us on a little table by the door, with the ribbon hanging from it by which it had been tied to the bureau. Some one had pulled it off, and very roughly too, for the ribbon was all ragged and torn. But there is nothing in a little thing like that to interest you, is there, Miss Butterworth?"
"No," said I, not relating my part in the affair; "not if our neighbor's children were the marauders."
"But none of them came in for days before we left."
"Are there pins in the cushion?"
"When we found it, do you mean? No."
I did not remember seeing any, but one cannot always trust to one's memory.
"But you had left pins in it?"
"Possibly, I don't remember. Why should I remember such a thing as that?"
I thought to myself, "I would know whether I left pins on my pin-cushion or not," but every one is not as methodical as I am, more's the pity.
"Have you anywhere about you a pin like those you keep on that cushion?" I inquired of Caroline.
She felt at her belt and neck and shook her head.
"I may have upstairs," she replied.
"Then get me one." But before she could start, I pulled her back. "Did either of you sleep in that room last night?"
"No, we were going to," answered Isabella, "but afterwards Caroline took a freak to sleep in one of the rooms on the third floor. She said she wanted to get away from the parlors as far as possible."
"Then I should like a peep at the one overhead."
The wrenching of the pin-cushion from its place had given me an idea.
They looked at me wistfully as they turned to mount the stairs, but I did not enlighten them further. What would an idea be worth shared by them!
Their father undoubtedly lay in the back room, for they moved very softly around the head of the stairs, but once in front they let their tongues run loose again. I, who cared nothing for their babble when it contained no information, walked slowly about the room and finally stopped before the bed.
It had a fresh look, and I at once asked them if it had been lately made up. They assured me that it had not, saying that they always kept their beds spread during their absence, as they did so hate to enter a room disfigured by bare mattresses.
I could have read them a lecture on the niceties of housekeeping, but I refrained; instead of that I pointedto a little dent in the smooth surface of the bed nearest the door.
"Did either of you two make that?" I asked.
They shook their heads in amazement.
"What is there in that?" began Caroline; but I motioned her to bring me the little cushion, which she no sooner did than I laid it in the little dent, which it fitted to a nicety.
"You wonderful old thing!" exclaimed Caroline. "How ever did you think——"
But I stopped her enthusiasm with a look. I may be wonderful, but I am not old, and it is time they knew it.
"Mr.Gryceisold," said I; and lifting the cushion, I placed it on a perfectly smooth portion of the bed. "Now take it up," said I, when, lo! a second dent similar to the first.
"You see where that cushion has lain before being placed on the table," I remarked, and reminding Caroline of the pin I wanted, I took my leave and returned to my own house, leaving behind me two girls as much filled with astonishment as the giddiness of their pates would allow.
I felt that I had made an advance. It was a small one, no doubt, but it was an advance. It would not do to rest there, however, or to draw definite conclusions from what I had seen without further facts to guide me. Mrs. Boppert could supply these facts, or so I believed. Accordingly I decided to visit Mrs. Boppert.
Not knowing whether Mr. Gryce had thought it best to put a watch over my movements, but taking it for granted that it would be like him to do so, I made a couple of formal calls on the avenue before I started eastward. I had learned Mrs. Boppert's address before leaving home, but I did not ride directly to the tenement where she lived. I chose, instead, to get out at a little fancy store I saw in the neighborhood.
It was a curious place. I never saw so many or such variety of things in one small spot in my life, but I did not waste any time upon this quaint interior, but stepped immediately up to the good woman I saw leaning over the counter.
"Do you know a Mrs. Boppert who lives at 803?" I asked.
The woman's look was too quick and suspicious for denial; but she was about to attempt it, when I cut her short by saying:
"I wish to see Mrs. Boppert very much, but not in her own rooms. I will pay any one well who will assist me to five minutes' conversation with her in such a place, say, as that I see behind the glass door at the end of this very shop."
The woman, startled by so unexpected a proposition, drew back a step, and was about to shake her head, when I laid on the counter before her (shall I say how much? Yes, for it was not thrown away) a five-dollar bill, which she no sooner saw than she gave a gasp of delight.
"Will you give methat?" she cried.
For answer I pushed it towards her, but before her fingers could clutch it, I resolutely said:
"Mrs. Boppert must not know there is anybody waiting here to see her, or she will not come. I have no ill-will towards her, and mean her only good, but she's a timid sort of person, and——"
"I know she's timid," broke in the good woman, eagerly. "And she's had enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she's grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out after sundown. But I think I can get her here; and if you mean her no harm, why, ma'am——" Her fingers were on the bill, and charmed with the feel of it, she forgot to finish her sentence.
"Is there any one in the room back there?" I asked, anxious to recall her to herself.
"No, ma'am, no one at all. I am a poor widder, and not used to such company as you; but if you willsit down, I will make myself look more fit and have Mrs. Boppert over here in a minute." And calling to some one of the name of Susie to look after the shop, she led the way towards the glass door I have mentioned.
Relieved to find everything working so smoothly and determined to get the worth of my money out of Mrs. Boppert when I saw her, I followed the woman into the most crowded room I ever entered. The shop was nothing to it; there you could move without hitting anything; here you could not. There were tables against every wall, and chairs where there were no tables. Opposite me was a window-ledge filled with flowering plants, and at my right a grate and mantel-piece covered, that is the latter, with innumerable small articles which had evidently passed a long and forlorn probation on the shop shelves before being brought in here. While I was looking at them and marvelling at the small quantity of dust I found, the woman herself disappeared behind a stack of boxes, for which there was undoubtedly no room in the shop. Could she have gone for Mrs. Boppert already, or had she slipped into another room to hide the money which had come so unexpectedly into her hands?
I was not long left in doubt, for in another moment she returned with a flower-bedecked cap on her smooth gray head, that transformed her into a figure at once so complacent and so ridiculous that, had my nerves not been made of iron, I should certainly have betrayed my amusement. With it she had also put on her company manner, and what with the smiles she bestowed upon me and her perfect satisfaction with her own appearance, I had all I could do to hold my own andkeep her to the matter in hand. Finally she managed to take in my anxiety and her own duty, and saying that Mrs. Boppert could never refuse a cup of tea, offered to send her an invitation to supper. As this struck me favorably, I nodded, at which she cocked her head on one side and insinuatingly whispered:
"And would you pay for the tea, ma'am?"
I uttered an indignant "No!" which seemed to surprise her. Immediately becoming humble again, she replied it was no matter, that she had tea enough and that the shop would supply cakes and crackers; to all of which I responded with a look which awed her so completely that she almost dropped the dishes with which she was endeavoring to set one of the tables.
"She does so hate to talk about the murder that it will be a perfect godsend to her to drop into good company like this with no prying neighbors about. Shall I set a chair for you, ma'am?"
I declined the honor, saying that I would remain seated where I was, adding, as I saw her about to go:
"Let her walk straight in, and she will be in the middle of the room before she sees me. That will suit her and me too; for after she has once seen me, she won't be frightened.But you are not to listen at the door."
This I said with great severity, for I saw the woman was becoming very curious, and having said it, I waved her peremptorily away.
She didn't like it, but a thought of the five dollars comforted her. Casting one final look at the table, which was far from uninvitingly set, she slipped out and I was left to contemplate the dozen or so photographs that covered the walls. I found them so atrociousand their arrangement so distracting to my bump of order, which is of a pronounced character, that I finally shut my eyes on the whole scene, and in this attitude began to piece my thoughts together. But before I had proceeded far, steps were heard in the shop, and the next moment the door flew open and in popped Mrs. Boppert, with a face like a peony in full blossom. She stopped when she saw me and stared.
"Why, if it isn't the lady——"
"Hush! Shut the door. I have something very particular to say to you."
"O," she began, looking as if she wanted to back out. But I was too quick for her. I shut the door myself and, taking her by the arm, seated her in the corner.
"You don't show much gratitude," I remarked.
I did not know what she had to be grateful to me for, but she had so plainly intimated at our first interview that she regarded me as having done her some favor, that I was disposed to make what use of it I could, to gain her confidence.
"I know, ma'am, but if you could see how I've been harried, ma'am. It's the murder, and nothing but the murder all the time; and it was to get away from the talk about it that I came here, ma'am, and now it's you I see, and you'll be talking about it too, or why be in such a place as this, ma'am?"
"And what if I do talk about it? You know I'm your friend, or I never would have done you that good turn the morning we came upon the poor girl's body."
"I know, ma'am, and grateful I am for it, too; but I've never understood it, ma'am. Was it to save me from being blamed by the wicked police, or was it adream you had, and the gentleman had, for I've heard what he said at the inquest, and it's muddled my head till I don't know where I'm standing."
What I had said and what the gentleman had said! What did the poor thing mean? As I did not dare to show my ignorance, I merely shook my head.
"Never mind what caused us to speak as we did, as long as we helpedyou. And we did help you? The police never found out what you had to do with this woman's death, did they?"
"No, ma'am, O no, ma'am. When such a respectable lady as you said that you saw the young lady come into the house in the middle of the night, how was they to disbelieve it. They never asked me if I knew any different."
"No," said I, almost struck dumb by my success, but letting no hint of my complacency escape me. "And I did not mean they should. You are a decent woman, Mrs. Boppert, and should not be troubled."
"Thank you, ma'am. But how did you know she had come to the house before I left. Did you see her?"
I hate a lie as I do poison, but I had to exercise all my Christian principles not to tell one then.
"No," said I, "I didn't see her, but I don't always have to use my eyes to know what is going on in my neighbor's houses." Which is true enough, if it is somewhat humiliating to confess it.
"O ma'am, how smart you are, ma'am! I wish I had some smartness in me. But my husband had all that. He was a man—O what's that?"
"Nothing but the tea-caddy; I knocked it over with my elbow."
"How I do jump at everything! I'm afraid of my own shadow ever since I saw that poor thing lying under that heap of crockery."
"I don't wonder."
"She must have pulled those things over herself, don't you think so, ma'am? No one went in there to murder her. But how came she to have those clothes on. She was dressed quite different when I let her in. I say it's all a muddle, ma'am, and it will be a smart man as can explain it."
"Or a smart woman," I thought.
"Did I do wrong, ma'am? That's what plagues me. She begged so hard to come in, I didn't know how to shut the door on her. Besides her name was Van Burnam, or so she told me."
Here was a coil. Subduing my surprise, I remarked:
"If she asked you to let her in, I do not see how you could refuse her. Was it in the morning or late in the afternoon she came?"
"Don't you know, ma'am? I thought you knew all about it from the way you talked."
Had I been indiscreet? Could she not bear questioning? Eying her with some severity, I declared in a less familiar tone than any I had yet used:
"Nobody knows more about it than I do, but I do not know just the hour at which this lady came to the house. But I do not ask you to tell me if you do not want to."
"O ma'am," she humbly remonstrated, "I am sure I am willing to tell you everything. It was in the afternoon while I was doing the front basement floor."
"And she came to the basement door?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And asked to be let in?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Young Mrs. Van Burnam?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Dressed in a black and white plaid silk, and wearing a hat covered with flowers?"
"Yes, ma'am, or something like that. I know it was very bright and becoming."
"And why did she come to the basement door—a lady dressed like that?"
"Because she knew I couldn't open the front door; that I hadn't the key. O she talked beautiful, ma'am, and wasn't proud with me a bit. She made me let her stay in the house, and when I said it would be dark after a while and that I hadn't done nothing to the rooms upstairs, she laughed and said she didn't care, that she wasn't afraid of the dark and had just as lieve as not stay in the big house alone all night, for she had a book—Did you say anything, ma'am?"
"No, no, go on, she had a book."
"Which she could read till she got sleepy. I never thought anything would happen to her."
"Of course not, why should you? And so you let her into the house and left her there when you went out of it? Well, I don't wonder you were shocked to see her lying dead on the floor next morning."
"Awful, ma'am. I was afraid they would blame me for what had happened. But I didn't do nothing to make her die. I only let her stay in the house. Do you think they will do anything to me if they know it?"
"No," said I, trying to understand this woman's ignorant fears, "they don't punish such things.More's the pity!"—this in confidence to myself. "How could you know that a piece of furniture would fall on her before morning. Did you lock her in when you left the house?"
"Yes, ma'am. She told me to."
Then she was a prisoner.
Confounded by the mystery of the whole affair, I sat so still the woman looked up in wonder, and I saw I had better continue my questions.
"What reason did she give for wanting to stay in the house all night?"
"What reason, ma'am? I don't know. Something about her having to be there when Mr. Van Burnam came home. I didn't make it out, and I didn't try to. I was too busy wondering what she would have to eat."
"And what did she have?"
"I don't know, ma'am. She said she had something, but I didn't see it."
"Perhaps you were blinded by the money she gave you. She gave you some, of course?"
"O, not much, ma'am, not much. And I wouldn't have taken a cent if it had not seemed to make her so happy to give it. The pretty, pretty thing! A real lady, whatever they say about her!"
"And happy? You said she was happy, cheerful-looking, and pretty."
"O yes, ma'am;shedidn't know what was going to happen. I even heard her sing after she went up-stairs."
I wished that my ears had been attending to their duty that day, and I might have heard her sing too. But the walls between my house and that of the VanBurnams are very thick, as I have had occasion to observe more than once.
"Then she went up-stairs before you left?"
"To be sure, ma'am; what would she do in the kitchen?"
"And you didn't see her again?"
"No, ma'am; but I heard her walking around."
"In the parlors, you mean?"
"Yes, ma'am, in the parlors."
"You did not go up yourself?"
"No, ma'am, I had enough to do below."
"Didn't you go up when you went away?"
"No, ma'am; I didn't like to."
"When did you go?"
"At five, ma'am; I always go at five."
"How did you know it was five?"
"The kitchen clock told me; I wound it, ma'am and set it when the whistles blew at twelve."
"Was that the only clock you wound?"
"Only clock? Do you think I'd be going around the house winding any others?"
Her face showed such surprise, and her eyes met mine so frankly, that I was convinced she spoke the truth. Gratified—I don't know why,—I bestowed upon her my first smile, which seemed to affect her, for her face softened, and she looked at me quite eagerly for a minute before she said:
"You don't think so very bad of me, do you, ma'am?"
But I had been struck by a thought which made me for the moment oblivious to her question.Shehad wound the clock in the kitchen for her own uses, and why may not the lady above have wound the one inthe parlor for hers? Filled with this startling idea, I remarked:
"The young lady wore a watch, of course?"
But the suggestion passed unheeded. Mrs. Boppert was as much absorbed in her own thoughts as I was.
"Did young Mrs. Van Burnam wear a watch?" I persisted.
Mrs. Boppert's face remained a blank.
Provoked at her impassibility, I shook her with an angry hand, imperatively demanding:
"What are you thinking of? Why don't you answer my questions?"
She was herself again in an instant.
"O ma'am, I beg your pardon. I was wondering if you meant the parlor clock."
I calmed myself, looked severe to hide my more than eager interest, and sharply cried:
"Of course I mean the parlor clock. Did you wind it?"
"O no, no, no, I would as soon think of touching gold or silver. But the young lady did, I'm sure, ma'am, for I heard it strike when she was setting of it."
Ah! If my nature had not been an undemonstrative one, and if I had not been bred to a strong sense of social distinctions, I might have betrayed my satisfaction at this announcement in a way that would have made this homely German woman start. As it was I sat stock-still, and even made her think I had not heard her. Venturing to rousemea bit, she spoke again after a minute's silence.
"She might have been lonely, you know, ma'am; and the ticking of a clock is such company."
"Yes," I answered with more than my accustomed vivacity, for she jumped as if I had struck her. "You have hit the nail on the head, Mrs. Boppert, and are a much smarter woman than I thought. But when did she wind the clock?"
"At five o'clock, ma'am; just before I left the house."
"O, and did she know you were going?"
"I think so, ma'am, for I called up, just before I put on my bonnet, that it was five o'clock and that I was going."
"O, you did. And did she answer back?"
"Yes, ma'am. I heard her step in the hall and then her voice. She asked if I was sure it was five, and I told her yes, because I had set the kitchen clock at twelve. She didn't say any more, but just after that I heard the parlor clock begin to strike."
O, thought I, what cannot be got out of the most stupid and unwilling witness by patience and a judicious use of questions. To know that this clock was started after five o'clock, that is, after the hour at which the hands pointed when it fell, and that it was set correctly in starting, and so would give indisputable testimony of the hour when the shelves fell, were points of the greatest importance. I was so pleased I gave the woman another smile.
Instantly she cried:
"But you won't say anything about it, will you, ma'am? They might make me pay for all the things that were broke."
My smile this time was not one of encouragement simply. But it might have been anything for all effect it had on her. The intricacies of the affair had disturbedher poor brain again, and all her powers of mind were given up to lament.
"O," she bemoaned, "I wish I had never seen her! My head wouldn't ache so with the muddle of it. Why, ma'am, her husband said he came to the house at midnight with his wife! How could he when she was inside of it all the time. But then perhaps he said that, just as you did, to save me blame. But why should a gentleman like him do that?"
"It isn't worth while for you to bother your head about it," I expostulated. "It is enough thatmyhead aches over it."
I don't suppose she understood me or tried to. Her wits had been sorely tried and my rather severe questioning had not tended to clear them. At all events she went on in another moment as if I had not spoken:
"But what became of her pretty dress? I was never so astonished in my life as when I saw that dark skirt on her."
"She might have left her fine gown upstairs," I ventured, not wishing to go into the niceties of evidence with this woman.
"So she might, so she might, and that may have been her petticoat we saw." But in another moment she saw the impossibility of this, for she added: "But I saw her petticoat, and it was a brown silk one. She showed it when she lifted her skirt to get at her purse. I don't understand it, ma'am."
As her face by this time was almost purple, I thought it a mercy to close the interview; so I uttered some few words of a soothing and encouraging nature, and then seeing that something more tangible was necessary to restore her to any proper condition of spirits, Itook out my pocket-book and bestowed on her some of my loose silver.
This was something shecouldunderstand. She brightened immediately, and before she was well through her expressions of delight, I had quitted the room and in a few minutes later the shop.
I hope the two women had their cup of tea after that.
I was so excited when I entered my carriage that I rode all the way home with my bonnet askew and never knew it. When I reached my room and saw myself in the glass, I was shocked, and stole a glance at Lena, who was setting out my little tea-table, to see if she noticed what a ridiculous figure I cut. But she is discretion itself, and for a girl with two undeniable dimples in her cheeks, smiles seldom—at least when I am looking at her. She was not smiling now, and though, for the reason given above, this was not as comforting as it may appear, I chose not to worry myself any longer about such a trifle when I had matters of so much importance on my mind.
Taking off my bonnet, whose rakish appearance had given me such a shock, I sat down, and for half an hour neither moved nor spoke. I was thinking. A theory which had faintly suggested itself to me at the inquest was taking on body with these later developments. Two hats had been found on the scene of the tragedy, and two pairs of gloves, and now I had learned that there had been two women there, the one whom Mrs. Boppert had locked into the house on leaving it, and the one whom I had seen enter at midnight with Mr. Van Burnam. Which of the two had perished?We had been led to think, and Mr. Van Burnam had himself acknowledged, that it was his wife; but his wife had been dressed quite differently from the murdered woman, and was, as I soon began to see, much more likely to have been the assassin than the victim. Would you like to know my reasons for this extraordinary statement? If so, they are these:
I had always seen a woman's hand in this work, but having no reason to believe in the presence of any other woman on the scene of crime than the victim, I had put this suspicion aside as untenable. But now that I had found the second woman, I returned to it.
But how connect her with the murder? It seemed easy enough to do so if this other woman was her rival. We have heard of no rival, but she may have known of one, and this knowledge may have been at the bottom of her disagreement with her husband and the half-crazy determination she evinced to win his family over to her side. Let us say, then, that the second woman was Mrs. Van Burnam's rival. That he brought her there not knowing that his wife had effected an entrance into the house; brought her there after an afternoon spent at the Hotel D——, during which he had furnished her with a new outfit of less pronounced type, perhaps, than that she had previously worn. The use of the two carriages and the care they took to throw suspicion off their track, may have been part of a scheme of future elopement, for I had no idea they meant to remain in Mr. Van Burnam's house. For what purpose, then, did they go there? To meet Mrs. Van Burnam and kill her, that their way might be clearer for flight? No; I had rather think that they went to the house without a thought of whom they wouldencounter, and that only after they had entered the parlors did he realize that the two women he least wished to see together had been brought by his folly face to face.
The presence in the third room of Mrs. Van Burnam's hat, gloves, and novel seemed to argue that she had spent the evening in reading by the dining-room table, but whether this was so or not, the stopping of a carriage in front and the opening of the door by an accustomed hand undoubtedly assured her that either the old gentleman or some other member of the family had unexpectedly arrived. She was, therefore, in or near the parlor-door when they entered, and the shock of meeting her hated rival in company with her husband, under the very roof where she had hoped to lay the foundations of her future happiness, must have been great, if not maddening. Accusations, recriminations even, did not satisfy her. She wanted to kill; but she had no weapon. Suddenly her eyes fell on the hat-pin which her more self-possessed rival had drawn from her hat, possibly before their encounter, and she conceived a plan which seemed to promise her the very revenge she sought. How she carried it out; by what means she was enabled to approach her victim and inflict with such certainty the fatal stab which laid her enemy at her feet, can be left to the imagination. But that she, a woman, and not Howard, a man, drove this woman's weapon into the stranger's spine, I will yet prove, or lose all faith in my own intuitions.
But if this theory is true, how about the shelves that fell at daybreak, and how about her escape from the house without detection? A little thought will explain all that. The man, horrified, no doubt, at theresult of his imprudence, and execrating the crime to which it had led, left the house almost immediately. But the woman remained there, possibly because she had fainted, possibly because he would have nothing to do with her; and coming to herself, saw her victim's face staring up at her with an accusing beauty she found it impossible to meet. What should she do to escape it? Where should she go? She hated it so she could have trampled on it, but she restrained her passions till daybreak, when in one wild burst of fury and hatred she drew down the cabinet upon it, and then fled the scene of horror she had herself caused. This was at five, or, to be exact, three minutes before that hour, as shown by the clock she had carelessly set in her lighter moments.
She escaped by the front door, which her husband had mercifully forborne to lock; and she had not been discovered by the police, because her appearance did not tally with the description which had been given them. How did I know this? Remember the discoveries I had made in Miss Van Burnam's room, and allow them to assist you in understanding my conclusions.
Some one had gone into that room; some one who wanted pins; and keeping this fact before my eyes, I saw through the motive and actions of the escaping woman. She had on a dress separated at the waist, and finding, perhaps, a spot of blood on the skirt, she conceived the plan of covering it with her petticoat, which was also of silk and undoubtedly as well made as many women's dresses. But the skirt of the gown was longer than the petticoat and she was obliged to pin it up. Having no pins herself, and finding noneon the parlor floor, she went up-stairs to get some. The door at the head of the stairs was locked, but the front room was open, so she entered there. Groping her way to the bureau, for the place was very dark, she found a pin-cushion hanging from a bracket. Feeling it to be full of pins, and knowing that she could see nothing where she was, she tore it away and carried it towards the door. Here there was some light from the skylight over the stairs, so setting the cushion down on the bed, she pinned up the skirt of her gown.
When this was done she started away, brushing the cushion off the bed in her excitement, and fearing to be traced by her many-colored hat, or having no courage remaining for facing again the horror in the parlor, she slid out without one and went, God knows whither, in her terror and remorse.
So much for my theory; now for the facts standing in the way of its complete acceptance. They were two: the scar on the ankle of the dead girl, which was a peculiarity of Louise Van Burnam, and the mark of the rings on her fingers. But who had identified the scar? Her husband. No one else. And if the other woman had, by some strange freak of chance, a scar also on her left foot, then the otherwise unaccountable apathy he had shown at being told of this distinctive mark, as well as his temerity in afterwards taking it as a basis for his false identification, becomes equally consistent and natural; and as for the marks of the rings, it would be strange if such a woman did not wear rings and plenty of them.
Howard's conduct under examination and the contradiction between his first assertions and those that followed, all become clear in the light of this new theory.He had seen his wife kill a defenceless woman before his eyes, and whether influenced by his old affection for her or by his pride in her good name, he could not but be anxious to conceal her guilt even at the cost of his own truthfulness. As long then as circumstances permitted, he preserved his indifferent attitude, and denied that the dead woman was his wife. But when driven to the wall by the indisputable proof which was brought forth of his wife having been in the place of murder, he saw, or thought he did, that a continued denial on his part of Louise Van Burnam being the victim might lead sooner or later to the suspicion of her being the murderer, and influenced by this fear, took the sudden resolution of profiting by all the points which the two women had in common by acknowledging, what everybody had expected him to acknowledge from the first, that the woman at the Morgue was his wife. This would exonerate her, rid him of any apprehension he may have entertained of her ever returning to be a disgrace to him, and would (and perhaps this thought influenced him most, for who can understand such men or the passions that sway them) insure the object of his late devotion a decent burial in a Christian cemetery. To be sure, the risk he ran was great, but the emergency was great, and he may not have stopped to count the cost. At all events, the fact is certain that he perjured himself when he said that it was his wife he brought to the house from the Hotel D——, and if he perjured himself in this regard, he probably perjured himself in others, and his testimony is not at all to be relied upon.
Convinced though I was in my own mind that I had struck a truth which would bear the closest investigation,I was not satisfied to act upon it till I had put it to the test. The means I took to do this were daring, and quite in keeping with the whole desperate affair. They promised, however, a result important enough to make Mr. Gryce blush for the disdain with which he had met my threats of interference.