Twenty minutes later, Thornton Carey was at Helen Griswold's door, which was opened to him as usual by the faithful Jim, to whose astonishment Mr. Carey addressed to him, instead of his ordinary inquiry as to the condition of Mrs. Griswold, the abrupt question, 'Have any newspapers come today?'
'They have come, sir,' said Jim; 'have got them here.'
'Has Mrs. Griswold seen them?'
'No, sir; no paper has been taken up to her room these two days. There is no more news of Mr. Griswold, is there? They haven't caught those villains?'
'Good heavens, no; if they had I should want her to see the papers, not to have them kept from her. Give me that one out of your hand, Jim'--it was also a copy of theHerald--'and go up-stairs at once, see if Mrs. Griswold is up, and say I beg her most particularly to see me.'
Jim obeyed with alacrity, and Thornton Carey followed him closely up the long staircase, halting only in the corridor which led to Helen's room. It was her voice that replied to Jim's knock, bidding him come in, and he heard her say, in reply to the servant's inquiry, 'Mr. Carey? I thought it was understood he would not require to see me to-day. Something new must have happened. Show him in at once.'
Helen met him almost at the door, and immediately accosted him. 'What have you come to tell me, Thornton? Do not be afraid; my child is saved,' she laid her hand upon the snow-white curtains of the bassinet in which the infant was sleeping as she spoke, 'and my husband is gone. Fate can hardly harm me sorely any more. Come in and tell me at once.'
Thornton followed her into the room, and noticed that Mrs. Jenkins was busy at the dressing-table with some little matters of the child's toilet. Helen had been up early, was fully dressed, and about to breakfast in her dressing-room. She looked better than on the previous day, and before Thornton answered her eager questions, he insisted upon knowing what sort of night she had passed, and whether she had taken a proper quantity of food.
These questions he put to Mrs. Jenkins, who answered both satisfactorily. 'Come, come,' said Helen, interrupting and remonstrating, 'you have something to say. Again I ask you tell me at once--what is it? Does Mr. Warren refuse to assist us, even when he is not asked by me? Is he so false to his friendship with Alston, or does he carry his resentment into refusing to aid in punishing his murderer?'
She seated herself on a small sofa by the fireplace, and pointed to the chair near her, which Thornton Carey took. As they were now placed, she faced the dressing-table at which Mrs. Jenkins was engaged, the child's cradle was on her right hand, the chair occupied by Thornton Carey on her left.
Mrs. Jenkins paused slightly in her occupation, and asked, 'Shall I leave the room?'
'Certainly not,' replied Helen. 'I have no secrets from you.'
'Pray do not go, Mrs. Jenkins,' said Thornton earnestly: he infinitely dreaded the effect of the news he had come to tell Helen Griswold, and eagerly caught at the chance of that efficient person's presence in. case she should be quite overcome by it. 'The fact is, my dear Helen,' he went on, glancing at Mrs. Jenkins, and by a stealthy gesture of his hand drawing her attention to what he was about to say, and her vigilance for Helen, 'an unexpected obstacle to our thorough investigation of Griswold's affairs has arisen. It comes, as you have divined so quickly, from Chicago.'
At the mention of the word Mrs. Jenkins started irrepressibly, came a step or two forward, holding some toilet article unconsciously in her hand, and in evident undisguised suspense upon Thornton Carey's words.
'The newspapers too,' he went on, 'contain intelligence of an accident upon the railway between New York and Chicago. We had no reason to suppose that Trenton Warren had left Chicago, or was either at New York or in the vicinity at any time within several weeks, but it may have been so, and his absence from Chicago would account otherwise than as you accounted for it, for his having returned no answer to our first telegram. Whatever may have been the cause, there is no doubt that he was in the train to which this serious accident occurred last night on his way from New York to Chicago. I regret to tell you that the accident was a very serious one, and that among the list of passengers killed is the name of Trenton Warren.
'This is another blow for you, my dear Helen,' he continued, as she sank back in her chair, and clasped her hands.
But at that instant Mrs. Jenkins sprang towards him with a piercing scream and crying out, 'No, no! for me--for me!' fell down senseless at Helen's feet.
It was Thornton Carey who darted forward, and kneeling by Mrs. Jenkins's prostrate form, endeavoured, in the helpless manner which all men employ under similar circumstances, to restore animation by raising her head and chafing her hands; for Helen, overcome by the suddenness of the nurse's attack, at first sat motionless in her chair. After a moment all her womanly readiness and sympathy returned to her, and having summoned Annette to her aid, they lifted Mrs. Jenkins on to an adjacent sofa and busied themselves in their work of restoration. Not that the French waiting-maid was of much use as an assistant; she seemed to think that the seizure of Mrs. Jenkins, on whose clear-headedness and promptness of action the whole household had been for the last few days reliant, was the climax to the family misfortune; and she wrung her hands and beat her breast andMon Dieu'd in a manner which, under other circumstances, would have been extremely irritating. But Helen was busily engaged in gently bathing the sufferer's head with eau de Cologne, and paid no attention to the waiting-maid's lamentations; while Thornton Carey, who had a keen sense of delicacy, had retired to the window, where, while apparently gazing with great interest into the street, he was drumming with his fingers on the glass, and endeavouring to-arrive at an elucidation of the scene which had just passed before his eyes.
'For me--for me!' this strange woman had cried out just before she sank upon the floor; her meaning, taken with the context of what had passed before, being that the death of Trenton Warren, which had just been announced, was as a blow, not to Helen, but to her. Who was she, this mysterious woman, who had of late assumed so important a position in the household, from whom, as Helen herself allowed, she had received so much affectionate assistance, and in whom she seemed so thoroughly to confide? She had even been, to a certain extent, admitted into the secret of their hopes and fears and their method of procedure in attempting to detect poor Alston's assassins; Helen had vouched for her fidelity, and, notwithstanding the sympathy of all the household, had declared that in this nurse alone could she place reliance. What had been her antecedents? It was as likely as not that Helen, in her trusting girlish way, had taken the woman without any proper references, simply because her face or manner pleased her, and had suffered herself to be beguiled by an assumed sympathy and a smooth tongue. Who could the woman be, and what could be her motive for introducing herself into that quiet home? That she knew Warren was clear--she herself had made it clear by this recent betrayal of her feelings. What could Trenton be to her that she should fall senseless at the news of his death? In the position which Warren occupied with regard to the murdered man, Helen's friends were more deeply interested in him than in any other person in the world; and now he was dead, and here was this woman, usually so calm and collected, unable to refrain from showing signs of violent grief at the news. Could it be possible--and Thornton Carey's cheeks tingled at the mere thought--that this woman had been some former mistress of Warren's, and that he had taken advantage of his intimacy with Griswold to obtain for her a comfortable place in his friend's household? No. Thornton Carey knew little of Warren, but all that he heard of him went to contradict such an idea; a man so generally represented as cold, impassive, and even more immersed in the accumulated cares of business than Griswold himself; there must be some other explanation of the mystery, but what it was Thornton Carey could not at the moment attempt to define. He began to find himself wishing that he had brought Bryan Duval with him to the house; for that gentleman's ready acuteness had made a great impression on Thornton Carey's mind, and he felt half inclined to start off at once and lay before his friend this newest phase in the mystery which they were endeavouring jointly to penetrate. It was absolutely necessary that some explanation should be given, and he thought he would say as much to Helen, whom he saw crossing the room to speak to him.
'She's a little better now,' murmured Helen, as she approached; 'she has regained her consciousness, but her heart is still beating wildly, and she has once or twice made an effort to speak, though her physical strength seems scarcely sufficient to admit of her doing so. What an extremely sudden seizure, was it not?'
'So sudden and so extraordinary, my dear Helen,' said Thornton Carey impressively, 'that I am eagerly desirous of having it accounted for; and even at the risk of somewhat tasking this woman's strength, I shall ask her to explain it as soon as possible.'
'You imagine, then, as I do,' said Helen, 'that it was her hearing the news of the accident which has happened to Mr. Warren that caused her to faint?'
'That and nothing else,' said Carey bluntly. 'Had you any idea that she was acquainted with Warren? Has she ever mentioned his name, or referred to him in any way? More than that, can you recollect whether she has ever shown any emotion when his name has been alluded to in her presence?'
'I had no idea that she was even aware of his existence,' said Helen. 'She came to me since poor Alston's departure, and in this house, at least, I am certain she has never set eyes upon Mr. Warren.'
'It is essential for the purposes of our investigation that we should know exactly what her relations with Warren are or were; and under your approval I purpose asking her a few questions.'
'You will not be hard upon her, Thornton?' said Helen, looking up at him. 'You will remember that the woman is poor and ill, and has already suffered a good deal from the loss of her own child--you will think of these things when you speak to her, I am sure?'
'You may rely upon my discretion,' said Thornton Carey. 'I only want to come at the truth, and I will evolve that in the gentlest manner possible.'
'Mrs. Jenkins is better,' said Annette, crossing the room from the side of the couch where she had been standing, 'and would wish to speak to madame.'
'Now is your opportunity, Thornton,' whispered Helen to him. 'Come with me.'
Mrs. Jenkins, who had raised herself to a sitting posture on the couch, was perfectly pale; there was a tremulous motion in her lips and a nervous wandering of her hands, which showed that she had not yet got over the recent shock; but she did her utmost to nerve herself as Mrs. Griswold approached her, and her eyes, as they rested on her benefactress, had a soft and imploring expression.
'Annette tells me you are better, nurse, and that you want to speak to me,' said Helen, laying a kind light touch upon the patient's arm. 'You, however, scarcely yet seem to be yourself, and if there is anything in what you have to say calculated to excite you, perhaps it would be better to defer it until you are a little stronger.'
'What I have to say, dear madam,' said Mrs. Jenkins, in a low and feeble voice, 'ought, in the interests of truth and justice, to be told at once; the longer it is kept to myself the longer I shall feel myself guilty of gross deception to you, who have been so kind and good to me.'
'Deception, nurse?'
'Deception, I am afraid, it must be called, dear madam; not that I have myself actually deceived you, or that I would allow anybody connected with me to do so; but that certain things have been going on in which you were to some extent interested with which I was acquainted, and which I have kept from your knowledge.'
'I am perfectly certain,' said Helen, in her calm sweet voice, 'that you have knowingly done me no harm; I am perfectly certain, from the attention and devotion which you have shown to me since you have been in this house, that if you could have stood between me and harm's way, you would have done so. If; however, there is anything on your mind which it will render you easier to get rid of, if you think to clear your conscience by telling us--for this gentleman, Mr. Carey, is entirely in my confidence--anything which you think it behoves me to know, speak at once.'
'You are right in saying that there is nothing I would not do to shield you from harm, dear madam,' said Mrs. Jenkins, touching Helen's hand with her wan lips. 'The intrigue in which I was passively mixed up was arranged before I entered your house, and it is only within the last few minutes--when I fainted, in fact--it flashed upon me that the affair could possibly have any connection with your present dreadful sorrow.'
At these words Thornton Carey started, and bent forward his head to listen more attentively.
'Well, when you first engaged me to come to you,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'you took for granted that I was respectable all through, and I hadn't courage enough to avow the truth. I ought to have said who and what my husband was and where he was then living. I should, but that he--but that I--but that there had been something against him. Not that he was not loving and good to me, and always had been, understand that, but he got into trouble when he was a young man, and the memory of that seems to have stuck to him, and respectable people were consequently unwilling to give him employment, and he was thus forced to do what he could, often what he hated, to gain a bare subsistence.
'The knowledge of this sin of his early youth,' she continued, 'was not confined to me. I shared it with his only brother, a man exactly resembling him in size, feature, and complexion, but who has risen in the world, while my poor Ephraim has sunk, and who made use of the knowledge of the cloud hanging over Ephraim's head to employ him as his agent in all kinds of dirty work in which he did not choose himself to appear. My husband was known as Ephraim Jenkins, but his brother of whom I speak, who has wrought upon us all this woe, and through whom indirectly, if all I believe is true, I am now a widow indeed, is called Trenton Warren.'
'Trenton Warren!' cried Carey.
Helen said no word, but sat with her eyes distended and fixed upon the speaker.
'Trenton Warren,' repeated Mrs. Jenkins; 'the man whom you now suppose to be dead, but who, I fear, has been left for the commission of still further crime, being, as I know him to be, the wickedest man on the face of the earth. Listen. Some months ago now, Trenton Warren sent for Ephraim, my husband, who was always at his brother's beck and call, and had to do whatever he was told; this time he was desired not to go to his brother's office as usual, but to name some place where Warren was not likely to be recognised. They met, and Warren developed his scheme to Ephraim, not then or by word of mouth, but in a letter of instructions which he handed to him, and told him to read afterwards. The main point in these instructions was this. I have told you that the two brothers were exactly alike, so much so that it was impossible for those who knew them best to distinguish between them. I don't suppose it had often been much noticed, for Trenton Warren was always well-dressed, and my poor Ephraim was scarcely ever out of rags; but Warren knew of the likeness, and admitted it, and determined to use it to serve his purpose; and the main point of the instructions was this: that Ephraim was to personate his brother; that he was to have plenty of money and live like a gentleman, and, in fact, to pass himself off as Trenton Warren down at Chicago.'
'At Chicago!' cried Thornton Carey, springing up from his chair, Helen still preserving a stony silence.
'Stay,' said Mrs. Jenkins, lifting her hand in supplication; 'stay and hear me out. It was wicked, I know, but what were we to do, we were near starving then? And besides, Trenton Warren knew the hold that he had over Ephraim, and would have exercised it had there been the slightest attempt to thwart him. What his motive for this duplicity may have been, I know not, except that, being a motive of Trenton Warren's, it was sure to be a bad one.'
'It was your husband, then, who was at Chicago, and not Trenton Warren?' said Thornton Carey. 'The information which I received at his office as to his being at Chicago was, then, false?'
'As to his being at Chicago, certainly, said Mrs. Jenkins; for part of the time at least he has been in England, and not in Chicago, for my poor Ephraim told me so.'
'In England!' cried Helen, speaking for the first time.
'Yes, dear madam; my poor Ephraim was here yesterday; he had come up from Chicago in great trouble, in consequence of not having heard from his brother, and also fearing that the telegram which Mr. Carey addressed to Mr. Warren was really meant for him, and imagining that I was ill; and I had a long talk with him here in this very house; and I told him that come what might he must break with this horrible connection, and assert himself, and turn over a new leaf; and live like an honest man in the future. He said, at first, it was impossible; but I told him we should find friends to help us; above all, you, my dear madam, who have been so kind to me. And then he seemed to be convinced, and he told me he would do all I asked him, and he left me with the intention of becoming a reformed man; and now he is dead--for I am sure it was he who was killed on the railway, and not Trenton Warren--he is dead, and I shall never see him more.'
While Mrs. Jenkins was concluding this speech, Helen had been writing with a pencil on a slip of paper. As the poor woman finished speaking she burst into a flood of tears, and seemed so thoroughly overcome that Helen judged it better that Thornton Carey should leave the room; and Helen motioned him to do so. As he passed by her, she placed in his hand the paper on which she had been writing. Immediately on gaining the library he opened it, and read these words: 'As sure as God is in heaven, Trenton Warren is the man who has murdered my husband.'
Thornton Carey read the paper, but made no comment on its contents. His mind was too full to find any utterance just then; he too, as he had listened to Mrs. Jenkins's narrative, had become impressed with the idea that Trenton Warren might in some way be mixed up with the terrible matter to the discovery of which he had pledged himself. But he was a man; and one, moreover, with a calm judicial mind, accustomed to weigh matters with deliberation, and not to leap hastily at conclusions. He passed out of the room, and out of the house; he thought it better not to allow himself the chance of any farther discussion of the subject with Helen until he had fully thought it out by himself. That was Thornton Carey's great secret of work; he held that there was no problem so knotty that it could not finally be 'thought out' if due time were given to the process. Education and circumstances had made him self-reliant; and he believed that in most instances more could be done by his own unaided wits, when duly applied to the solution of a difficulty, than by a discussion with others, in which the proposition of various schemes would tend to divert the mind from the due consideration of any explanation, no matter how striking or original.
Out of the house he went, then, and on descending the stoop, instead of going down town as usual, he turned sharply to his left, and walked away up Fifth-avenue at a swinging pace. Just at that time of day the avenue was alive with people, some in search of pleasure, some in search of health, who had come out to enjoy the soft mild weather, and on foot and on horseback, in buggies, coupés, and open carriages were making their way to Central Park. Scarcely one of these persons but was attracted by the tall slight figure of the young man, who hurried along with seven-league stride among them, but not of them, evidently enwrapt in his own cogitation. The valetudinarians envied his free step and the ease with which he carried himself; the pleasure-seekers made their little jokes to each other about him as a philosopher, a student, an eccentric, perhaps a madman. Thornton Carey heard none of their remarks, and if he had, he would not have heeded them. He did not see the people who whirled by him in carriages; he was scarcely aware of the presence of those whose coat-sleeves he brushed in his onward flight. While the human hive was still buzzing around him, he could not give himself up to the luxury of untrammelled thought; with all this whirling of wheels and clacking of horses' hoofs sounding in his ears, he could not concentrate his mind upon working out the problem which he had set himself. When once he found himself within the limits of the Central Park, he turned rapidly out of the fashionable promenade, and striking across a green expanse, dived into a shrubbery, the narrow path through which was entirely deserted; and there, unseen and alone, Thornton Carey, walking up and down, commenced his self-appointed task of 'thinking it out.'
Could it be possible, in the exercise of that woman's instinct which, without any possibility of explanation, without any apparent rhyme or reason, is so often exactly correct, that Helen Griswold had hit upon the truth when she stated that Trenton Warren was the murderer of her husband? He, Thornton Carey, must allow that some faint suspicion had been engendered in his mind as Mrs. Jenkins's narrative proceeded; but now was the time for him to sift and winnow the evidence which it contained, and to come to his own straightforward conclusion. In the first place, was the woman speaking the truth? He thought that might be clearly answered in the affirmative. She was under obligations to Helen, of whom she professed to be very fond, to whom indeed she had previously shown a certain amount of fidelity and devotion, and there was an air of veracity about her which, to him, was convincing. The facts which she narrated she had received from her husband; and then the question arose, was he to be believed? This was plainly a very different matter. According to his wife's own showing, he had been early in life mixed up in some dishonest transactions, the memory of which clung to him in after years, and prevented his getting respectable employment. Would not such a man, tabooed, disgraced, kept down by his own brother, in order that he might use him for an instrument in his dirty work--would not such a man be likely to tell lies for his own advantage? Granted; but what advantage had he in this instance? He and his wife were one; she was his confidante; she knew the power which his brother held over him; why then should he attempt to deceive her in the way in which that power was exercised? No; upon a clear review of all the circumstances, Thornton Carey was compelled to admit that the story told by Mrs. Jenkins was probably true, and that while Jenkins was personating him at Chicago, Trenton Warren had gone to London.
He would have been in England, then, at the time of the murder: so far, that was in favour of Helen's hypothesis. It agreed, too, with the idea proclaimed with so much earnestness by Bryan Duval, that the necessity for the crime had originated in New York and not in England. The question of motive was, however, above all others, the one which would require to be clearly and calmly examined, and Bryan Duval, with his leanings towards the picturesque and the dramatic, was, Thornton Carey thought, hardly the man to decide upon it. If Warren had taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him by Alston Griswold to pillage his friend to any considerable extent, if he, on his own account, had been engaged in any schemes or speculations in direct opposition to those in which he was ostensibly in partnership with Griswold, then there would have been some slight reason, some shadow of pretext for imagining that it would have been to his advantage to silence his friend and prevent his own exposure. But that Warren, a business man, and not a bravo, would risk the vast penalty accruing to the crime of murder for the sake of accomplishing such a result--a phase of civilisation by no means uncommon in New York commercial circles--was what Thornton Carey could not and would not believe. Still the mystery of Warren's being in London at the time when even those in his employ believed him to be in Chicago, and the fact of his having induced his brother to personate him in the latter place, in order to throw all inquiries off the scent, was so suspicious, that Carey deemed it right at once to make Bryan Duval acquainted with Mrs. Jenkins's story, and with the result of his deliberations thereon. So he came out of the shrubbery far less eager and impetuous than he had entered it, and walked down at a quiet pace to the Fifth-avenue Hotel.
On entering Mr. Duval's room, he found that gentleman lying at full length upon the sofa, wrapped in a gorgeous blue-silk dressing-gown faced with red, and his feet encased in Turkish slippers. It was Mr. Duval's habit to indulge in an hour's siesta before going down to his theatrical duties, and Thornton Carey was afraid that he had interrupted the popular favourite while thus refreshing himself; but Mr. Duval, hearing the door open, raised his head, and seeing who was there, called to his friend to come in.
'Sit down,' he said, 'and smoke a quiet cigar. I was not asleep; I have been reading that diary of poor Mrs. Griswold's all day, and I had just laid it down and shut my eyes to reflect upon two or three points which struck me as curious. I find,' continued Mr. Duval, slightly stretching himself, 'that to close the eyes conduces very much to reflection, and is occasionally anything but disagreeable.'
'I have been engaged nearly all day in consideration of the same subject,' said Carey, 'and I came to see if you had a few moments to devote to its discussion with me.'
'A few moments, my dear fellow!' said Bryan, raising himself up on his elbow to look at the clock, 'a couple of hours! The enlightened citizens of this great republic do not expect to see their cultivated entertainer before nearly eight o'clock--it is now little more than five--so that I shall have ample time to hear you talk, to interpose maybe a few humble suggestions, and to get down to the theatre with the greatest ease. Proceed now; I am all attention.'
Thus encouraged, Thornton Carey began the narration of the day's experiences. When he began to describe his arrival at Mrs. Griswold's, it was obvious to him that the great actor, notwithstanding his professions of interest, was scarcely so attentive, or indeed so wide awake, as he might have been; he kept up indeed a continuous refrain of 'Hum!' and 'Ah!' and 'Dear me!' but his eyes were closed, perhaps for the advantage of deeper thinking, his lower jaw relapsed, and a soothing sound issued from his nose. When, however, Thornton came to relate the accident which had happened to the train, and the death of the supposed Trenton Warren, his companion roused in an instant. As he proceeded to describe the terror which had seized Mrs. Jenkins, the exclamation which she had uttered, and the fainting fit which had ensued, Bryan's interest grew more and more intense. He sat upright upon the sofa, leaning eagerly forward and drinking in every word; and at length, when Thornton Carey had come to the end of Mrs. Jenkins's confession, and had revealed the message which Helen had given him on the slip of paper, to the effect that Trenton Warren was the murderer of her husband, Bryan Duval brought his hand down heavily on the table, and cried in a hoarse voice, 'By God, she's right!'
'You think so?' said Thornton Carey. 'All the time the woman was speaking I was haunted by an idea that such might be the case, and when I read Mrs. Griswold's avowal of her strong impression I was almost convinced; but I have been walking about in the Central Park ever since, arguing the question out with myself, and I am fain to confess that I am now strongly sceptical about it.'
'For what reason?' asked Duval.
'The absence of motive,' said Thornton Carey. 'Suppose Trenton Warren had taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him by Griswold, had used his knowledge of and power over their joint business affairs heavily to pillage his friend, he had opportunities during Griswold's absence of twisting accounts and destroying evidence, and would never have gone to the extent of murder for the sake of concealing his dishonesty.'
'You are right,' said Bryan Duval. 'From all I have heard of Mr. Warren, he would know far too much for that; but even he is human, I suppose, and I think I can supply another motive by which most of us are liable to be actuated, and which in this instance, if I am right, has been all-powerful.'
'And what is that?' asked Carey.
'Combination of offended vanity and a desire for vengeance,' said Bryan. 'When you came in, I told you that during the day I had been engaged in reading Mrs. Griswold's journal, and that I had laid myself down on the sofa the better to reflect over certain passages which had struck me. This was the case just now, though you thought I was going to sleep. Up to the time of your arrival I had not discovered the meaning of those passages, but what you have said has given me the clue.'
'You think so?' asked Carey.
'I am sure of it,' said Bryan Duval. 'But you shall judge for yourself. I have read this diary through with the greatest attention, and have marked certain portions of it for reference. It seems that it was commenced at Alston Griswold's request; he intended that it should be a record of all the events of her daily life, and should be sent to him from time to time in lieu of ordinary letters. And that,' said Mr. Duval, looking up, 'shows what a strange fellow he was and what confidence he had in his wife. The idea of expecting any woman to tell you all that she has been doing, much more all that she has been thinking! Mrs. Griswold seems to have been a kind of pattern wife, for there is certainly no one else of my acquaintance whom I should have thought capable of strictly following such a behest.'
'Mrs. Griswold,' said Carey, 'would obey her husband to the letter.'
'Exactly,' said Duval. 'Now let us get back to the journal. You will observe in this first marked passage that her idea of writing a journal is that he may "follow her life from day to day, through all the familiar hours of it, so that he may cheat himself out of the idea of separation," and a little farther on she writes: "So I begin it thus, in an irregular and unskilful fashion, no doubt, but with the utmost sincerity of intention to write in it everything which can interest him." I have read these passages to you to show how simple and single-minded the woman was when she commenced her task; how fully she intended that every thought of her heart, every prompting impulse should be laid bare to the loved one far away. I will read you farther passages now, which will show you how the idea had to be given up; how certain experiences in her life were written indeed, but not for submission to her husband's eye; and how the entries for his perusal are mere domestic details about the baby, the nurse, and the doctor, omitting any reference to the one great event in her life which had happened since her husband's departure.'
'Do you mean to say that this book shows any duplicity of Mrs. Griswold's?' asked Carey earnestly.
'Not the least in the world,' said Bryan Duval. 'God forbid for an instant that I should be supposed to hint such a thing of so estimable a lady. It was out of love and regard for her husband that she had to keep back certain facts from his knowledge, as you shall now hear. My next quotation, as you will see, is taken later in the book.
"With all the relief which the absence of Alston's friend has given me, there is a great pang of pain for Alston himself, and a horrid sense of a barrier of concealment between us."'
'She alludes here to Alston's friend. You see farther on she speaks more plainly:
"I have allowed so many days to elapse before I force myself into commencing this self-communing, in sheer uncertainty of what my line of duty is; and though I am now tolerably clearly convinced that neither now nor ever must I reveal to Alston what has passed, the conviction invests my task of writing to him with great pain and difficulty. Somehow we seem to be doubly parted; first by distance, then by a secret. How shall I bear to see him take up his relations with Warren just where he dropped them, and to know, as I do know, how his confidence is betrayed?"
'There you see for the first time comes out the man! There is then a passage to say she does not think that Warren has been false to her husband in their business relations; but mark the next passage:
"It would do my husband such harm in every way to know what has occurred; his own frankness and loyalty of nature could hardly withstand so great a shock; the world would be changed for him. No, he shall never know it; I will trust to the chapter of accidents, or rather, I should say, to the beneficence of Providence, to preserve us harmless from his false friend."'
'Good God!' cried Carey, starting up, 'this scoundrel must have made love to Helen! Is not that how you interpret it?'
'Exactly,' said Bryan Duval; 'and immediately after Griswold's departure; but he must have met his match in Mrs. Griswold. By the context, it would seem that she must have insisted upon his never setting foot in her house again, and that he thereupon agreed to go, as he told her, to Chicago, as this passage would seem to insinuate:
"How cleverly, how skilfully this man has carried out this sudden and complete change of all his plans; how reasonably he seems to have accounted for leaving New York; no one seems surprised, and I am quite certain not the slightest shade of suspicion that his departure is of any consequence to me has presented itself to the mind of any of our common acquaintance, though the close tie between him and Alston is perfectly well known."'
'The existence of that tie between them would have called public attention to the fact that there was no intimacy between Warren and his partner's wife, no acquaintance even, it would be imagined, if he was forbidden calling at the house; and it was no doubt this that suggested to him the advisability of going to Chicago.'
'Probably,' said Duval. 'By the way, if we had had any doubt as to whether this ruffian had dared to pay his addresses to Mrs. Griswold, we should find it solved in this passage:
"I believe the love of a man like Warren is half passion, half hatred, and that the hatred swallows up the passion when it is effectually checked. Whence that notion has come to me I know not; but it has come, and with it a fear of this man's hatred, greater, if possible, than my horror of his love."'
'There is no doubt of it now,' said Thornton Carey, rising and pacing the room with set teeth and clenched hands, 'nor have I a doubt that he murdered poor Alston. He is doubly a villain, and I have a double motive for revenge.'
'What is to be done we will consult farther to-morrow morning,' said Duval. 'I must be off to the theatre now; but I entirely agree with all you say.'
At this moment a boy brought a note to Thornton Carey, which he opened and read.
'It is from Mrs. Griswold,' he said. 'That poor woman, the nurse, has been to the scene of the accident, and recognised the dead body, supposed to be that of Trenton Warren, as her husband.'
The evening papers had full details of the accident, which were eagerly discussed and speculated upon; Trenton Warren was a man of such mark in New York society, that the news of his death created more than an average amount of interest. Not that the news that he was dead was received without question; Warren was considered far too smart a man to allow himself to be gotten rid of in any unexpected manner; and while one set of his friends maintained that some swindler had endeavoured with dishonest intent to personate the great speculator, others averred that it was merely a case of accidental though extraordinary resemblance; while the third party, consisting of those who had found themselves mixed up in opposition schemes, believed that Warren was really dead, and that Providence had thus rid them of a dangerous enemy.
The next morning, Bryan Duval, attired in the gorgeous dressing-gown, was sipping his coffee, when Thornton Carey, with somewhat of a worn look on his usually bright face, entered the room.
'You will think me an unconscionable bore,' he said, 'but I am so haunted by this painful subject that I can think of nothing else, and I have only you to turn to for assistance and advice.'
'My dear sir,' replied Bryan Duval, looking up at him from under his very effective eyebrows, 'you cannot do me a greater favour than to interest me in the great drama of life; a study which has for me the strongest and purest charm; a study the results of which I endeavour to make manifest in those works which the public on both sides of the Atlantic is pleased to approve of. Have you any farther news--you look pale and anxious, my dear sir, as though you had been worried by some farther complication?'
'I have no farther news, and there are no farther complications that I know of,' replied Carey, 'and my paleness is probably occasioned by the fact of my having laid awake nearly all night thinking over those which already existed. That woman's confession yesterday, and the information which we received from the perusal of Mrs. Griswold's diary, prove to me incontestably that Helen is right in fixing the suspicion of her husband's murder on Warren by supplying the motive for his crime.'
'I am entirely of your opinion,' said Bryan. 'The scoundrel had made love to Mrs. Griswold, and, afraid that she would communicate his baseness to her husband on his return, made away with him; the incident is not at all unnatural, or rather I should say is perfectly dramatic. I have used it more than once in the course of my career, and never knew it fail to bring down the house.'
'I guess we shall find that he was influenced by other motives as well,' said Carey. 'After I left you last night, I went carefully through a portion of Griswold's papers, and by what I could glean from them, I have little doubt that the poor fellow has been mercilessly robbed by his trusted friend. It would be most important if we could learn fuller particulars of Griswold's method of life while in England; you have furnished us with most valuable information, but of course yours was but a casual acquaintance with him. If we could only get at some of those who were there mixed up with him in his business transactions, it might materially assist us.'
'I have been thinking of that also,' said Bryan Duval, 'and it appears to me that our first step should be to try and find out what has become of a certain Mr. Dolby, an American gentleman whom you may or may not have heard mentioned by Miss Montressor. He was in England immediately before the day of the murder, but I think spoke of returning to America very soon.'
'There would be no difficulty in ascertaining his whereabouts, I should imagine,' said Carey, 'from Miss Montressor herself.'
'Well,' said Bryan Duval, speaking slowly, 'that is a matter in which we must proceed with a good deal of delicacy. There were, I imagine, certain relations between Mr. Dolby and our dear friend Clara which you, in your virtuous and secluded life, my dear sir, probably know very little about, which nevertheless do exist in this wicked world, and, so far as my experience goes, have great weight in the conduct of its affairs. This being the case, in conversation with Miss Montressor we must handle the subject very gingerly; for Clara, though a flirt and a coquette, is thoroughly staunch and loyal, and nothing could induce her to betray her friend.'
'To betray him?' said Carey.
'I use the word advisedly,' said Bryan. 'I have certain reasons in my own mind concerning Mr. Dolby, and if they are correct--However, we will go and see Miss Montressor, and you may leave the manipulation of the subject to me. You will at once see the key-note I strike, and then you can join in in the same strain.'
They found Miss Montressor in one of the drawing-rooms, and happily found her alone. She was standing at the window, looking down on the gay crowd thronging Union-square, and reflecting with much self-complacency that to most members of that crowd her name was known, and that to many she was an object of admiration. How lucky it was, she thought, that Bryan Duval's attention had been directed towards her, and that she had come out to America, instead of wearing away her life in the dull level of London theatricals! Now the success which she had made in New York would be recognised in London (she had taken care to have all her best notices regularly inserted in the great London theatrical journal, theHaresfoot), and on her return she would take up an undeniably leading position, and defy all the intriguing efforts of Patty Calvert or Theresa Columbus for supremacy.
In the midst of this agreeable reverie she felt a light touch on her elbow, and on looking round she saw Thornton Carey and Bryan Duval close by her side.
'We want you to give us ten minutes' talk, my dear Clara,' said the latter, leading her to a chair, while he and his friend seated themselves close by her; 'we want a little information from you to assist us in getting up evidence in this police investigation, which, as you know, is now being made.'
'Still upon that dreadful subject,' said Miss Montressor with a sigh, but really delighted to be made of some importance; she had been long enough with Bryan Duval to perceive the advantages of extensive advertisements, no matter in what way--'still upon that dreadful subject of poor Mr. Griswold's murder?'
'Still,' said Bryan. 'You see the poor fellow talked more freely with you than any one else, and as his life in England is a blank to the police, they want to hear as much about it as possible. It is very important that they should know with whom he associated while in London, and I want you to tell us whether he ever named to you any American friends whom he had ever met over there.'
'Never,' said Miss Montressor, 'save when talking about his wife and his home-life. He was what may be called a reserved man, and I never heard him mention the names of any friends either in America or England.'
'Of course,' said Bryan Duval, who had been playing with his watch-chain, but as he put the question raised his keen eyes and looked her steadily in the face--'of course Griswold, or Foster as he called himself, was well acquainted with your friend Mr. Dolby?'
'O dear no,' said Miss Montressor promptly; 'Mr. Dolby particularly avoided him.'
'Avoided him!' cried Carey.
'Not merely that; but desired me never to mention his name to Mr. Foster, or indeed to any American. He said that his business interests required that his presence in England should not be known.'
The two men exchanged glances.
'It would be of the utmost service to us in this painful business,' said Bryan Duval to Miss Montressor, 'if we could be placed in communication with Mr. Dolby. Your own intelligence, which I have never hitherto known to be at fault, my dear Clara,' he added gallantly, 'and which has come out very strong and clear indeed all through these investigations, will show you at once that we must not let any circumstance, however apparently trivial, slip, or any indication, however faint, escape us.'
Miss Montressor, whose ready appreciation of a compliment was not to be influenced by any external circumstances, however serious, replied at once that she thoroughly understood that point in the case, and assuming a becoming gravity of demeanour, offered herself for cross-examination concerning Mr. Dolby. She made, however, one mental reservation, on which she resolved she would act with unflinching determination; it was that she would not betray, in the course of that cross-examination, however tortuous and severe it might be, the secret of her former relations with Mr. Dolby. And as she made this mental reservation, Bryan Duval knew she was making it, and didnotsmile at her simplicity in supposing he was likely to put any question to her of the kind. For though Bryan Duval had no personal acquaintance with Mr. Dolby, he knew all about Miss Montressor, and could have astonished that lady not a little if he had thought proper to treat her to a biographical sketch of herself. The same thing might have been said of a good many persons in Miss Montressor's profession; they would have been considerably surprised if he had revealed to them his intimate acquaintance with their history.
Miss Montressor accordingly gave a somewhat garbled and embellished account of her relations with Mr. Dolby, and though Bryan could plainly see that Thornton Carey was more puzzled than enlightened by her story, and that he was very anxious to get her to be more explicit and direct, he checked him in every attempt to give expression to such puzzlement and anxiety by a series of looks which said, 'Leave her to me, I know how to manage her,' much too plainly for contradiction. Bryan Duval had early in their acquaintance impressed Thornton, as he impressed everybody, with a sense of his great and versatile ability, but equally with a sense that he liked to do things exactly his own way, and had an unmistakable conviction that that way was the best. So when Miss Montressor rambled, and Bryan Duval merely beamed upon her, Carey submitted, and was presently rewarded by a peculiarly intelligent glance from the actor, who was playing so admirably the unaccustomed part of examining counsel, which unmistakably bespoke Carey's vigilant attention, and indicated his own belief that a point was being made. And yet Miss Montressor had only said:
'I don't think Mr. Dolby was at all a sociable sort of person; he never seemed to care about going anywhere, and he had a most special dislike to being introduced to strangers.'
'And that was the reason why you never extended the advantage and pleasure of his acquaintance to me, eh, Clara?' asked Duval slyly; and it was at this point of the interrogatory that he gave to Thornton Carey the before-mentioned intelligent look. 'That was all right, of course, as he was such a morose fellow, and you could not help yourself--otherwise, your new friends ought to have been made known to your old.'
'Ah, but you weren't such an old friend then as you are now!' said Miss Montressor ingenuously; 'and I am quite sure he would have objected most strenuously to my having introduced him to you.'
'Indeed! and why? Why should the general taboo have been made particular in the case of your most devoted? Was Mr. Dolby of a jealous turn?'
'Nonsense!' said Miss Montressor, becoming very much confused on finding that she was entangling herself in her explanation. 'How can you ask such foolish questions? Of course not; but he had some strong objection to be acquainted with actors.'
'Not extending to actresses, eh?' said Duval, whose care it now was to get her to commit and confuse herself as much as possible.
'Don't be absurd, and do let me go on, if you want me to tell you anything. I was going to say he had some peculiar objection to be acquainted with actors, because he thought they would be injurious to the serious and solid business connection he wanted to form in London. He never told me what his business was, and I'm sure I never wanted to know. All business is a bore until it comes to spending the money, and I hate hearing about it; so I never bothered him on that score. He once told me that as Mr. Foster was also a man of business, he might be possibly mixed up with some transactions which would clash with his own.'
'Did he say that?' asked Thornton Carey eagerly.
'Certainly,' said Miss Montressor; 'I recollect the expression.'
'Now, Clara, pull your wits together, and answer this question clearly--Did Mr. Dolby ever allude in any way to Foster's wife?'
'Only in this way. At this same interview he asked me if Mr. Foster were married; and when I told him "yes," and that he was always raving about his wife, Dolby sneered, and said he hated men who aired their domestic affairs before the world.'
'Was that the last time you saw him?'
'The very last. He took the precaution of calling himself Dolby when he came to see me,'. continued Miss Montressor, floundering more and more: of which fact Bryan Duval looked, this time, profoundly unconscious.
'The precaution!' he repeated; 'why the precaution? Was not Dolby his real name?'
'I really cannot tell you--I only know it was not the name he went by in society, at his lodgings and so forth, for there he was known as Mr. Dunn.'
'Did he tell you so?'
'Ye-yes, he did. I had occasion to write to him a few times, just a trifling note now and then, and he told me I must not address him as Mr. Dolby, but as Mr. Dunn.'
Duval and Carey exchanged glances, and now listened to and watched her with the deepest attention. This piece of information was of the utmost importance, as pointing to something at least equivocal in the character and position of the man who bore so strange a resemblance to that other man whose fate was interwoven with that of Helen Griswold's murdered husband.
'Did, you not think that rather odd?'
'Well, no, I didn't. I suppose I am too, much accustomed to people having more names than one to think it at all remarkable. But I quite understood him that he was obliged to be very careful, because he was mixed up in business with a lot of puritans, who would be sure to think he was neglecting his work and going to the bad if they ever found out that he amused himself like other people. And that was one reason, I think, why he was so particularly anxious not to be brought in contact with Mr. Foster, because he would be sure to meet him under another name, and it would be suspicious and unpleasant.'
'You are quite clear that he was especially desirous that Mr. Foster should not know anything about him?'
'I am perfectly clear on that point;' and Miss Montressor's vivid memory recalled every particular of the last interview between herself and Mr. Dolby, shaking her head the while with an emphasis confirmatory of her words.
'That is an exceedingly important point,' said Bryan Duval, 'because you see, my dear Clara, it is plain that Mr. Dolby must have known something previously concerning Mr. Foster and the nature and purport of his business in London, otherwise he would not have so regarded the probabilities of their meeting as to make it indispensable that he should keep out of his way when passing as Mr. Dolby; and it is just this presumable knowledge of poor Griswold's business that makes Mr. Dolby of so much importance to us in the unravelling of this story, since we cannot get hold of any one who really does know enough about it to be able to suggest a possible motive for his murder.'
'I quite understand all that,' replied Miss Montressor, 'and I have told you everything that can possibly throw any light upon it. Stay, there's just one thing more. I called at his lodgings in Queen-street, Mayfair, once--only once--it was after the last time I saw him, and I inquired for him by the name of Dunn; but he had left, and gone, the woman of the house thought--believed, I ought to say--to America.'
'You and he had quarrelled, Clara, and you expected to find him there, you sly puss!'
'Perhaps so,' she answered, with a coquettish toss of her head; 'but he didn't show up, you see; and I know nothing more about him.'
'I hope you care as little as you know?'
'You may make your mind quite easy on that score. My heart is not fragile, and when it is broken, it will not be by Mr. Dolby.'
'That's right, Clara, or by "the likes of him," as we make the Irishry say in our Emerald Isle pieces. And now I'm sure you must be awfully tired of all thisinterrogatoire, in which you have acquitted yourself nobly, though your last little bit of information makes it plain that Mr. Dolby, or Mr. Dunn, came out to America before we came, and can therefore throw no light upon the murder of poor Griswold.'
'I don't see that,' said Thornton Carey; 'if we could find him here in New York, he could tell us what he knew of Griswold's secret business in London, and inthatlies the germ of the murder.'
'You think so, do you, my young friend? But then you are young, and your knowledge of men and cities is a good deal limited.' This was Bryan Duval's mental comment on Thornton Carey's remarks. His spoken reply was more respectful, though vague. He merely said:
'Of course, of course. But we need not detain Miss Montressor any longer. You have some shopping to do, I know;' and he gallantly conducted the lady to the door, after she had taken leave of Thornton Carey in a most gracious and engaging manner. Then he returned to Thornton, his manner entirely changed, his face lighted with a glow of success, his eyes sparkling, and a hardly subdued excitement all over him.
'She has done it,' he said; 'she has unconsciously given us the clue. And now she must be put aside, clean out of the whole business.'
'What do you propose doing now?' asked Carey.
'I propose devoting a few hours to work,' said Bryan. 'I have a collaborateur whom I have kept waiting all the morning, and whose claims I can no longer put off.'
'I am exceedingly sorry that I should have detained you,' said Carey. 'Pray explain to the gentleman that the affair was of the utmost importance, or I would not have--'
'There is no gentleman to explain to,' interrupted Bryan, with a smile. 'My collaborateur is here,' he said, taking up a book of French plays which lay upon his table. 'Messrs. Scribe, Dumas, Macquet, and other French gentlemen, are good enough to work with me. Some foolish people call it translation. I call it collaboration--a much prettier word, and one which better expresses the process. And what are you going to do?'
'I am going to see Mrs. Griswold.'
'Do you propose to tell her that the result of our inquiries so far is that she was right in the communication she made to you--that Warren murdered her husband?'
'I do,' said Carey. 'I do not see how it can be avoided.'
'Then I don't envy you your task,' said Bryan. 'You will have to tell her about our perusal of her journal, and our discovery that that scoundrel made love to her. You will have to give his dread of her informing her husband on his return as the motive for the murder.'
'I think I can save myself that pain and Mrs. Griswold that humiliation,' said Thornton Carey. 'I told you, I think, in the early part of our conversation that in my search through Griswold's private papers I had lighted upon what I imagined to be traces of large defalcations on Warren's part. These will require farther investigation; but I am now in possession of the fact that Warren's pecuniary position was not what was always imagined, and that he was heavily indebted to his partner, no one else being cognisant of the fact. This will be sufficient explanation to Mrs. Griswold, though I have little doubt that amongst the reasons which impelled the wretch, the other motive was the strongest.'
'That certainly seems to afford a way of escape,' said Bryan, 'and I wish you well through your mission. Let us meet to-night or to-morrow.'
He then left the room, and Thornton Carey fell into a deep and serious fit of meditation, with the direct results of which, except in so far as Miss Montressor's share in this story is involved, we have no immediate concern.
Before they parted, Bryan Duval and Thornton Carey reduced Miss Montressor's statement to writing, and on the same evening Thornton took the document to Helen, and read it to her, confiding to her in detail the conclusions at which Bryan Duval and himself had arrived, and the plan of action which they had determined upon, subject, of course, to her approval and concurrence. Helen listened in the sad and heavy silence which had succeeded to her first vehement and agonising grief, and thoroughly approved of the project.
In the mean time Bryan Duval had had a brief talk with Miss Montressor at the theatre. She had had a reception of unabated warmth, and was in high good-humour, so that she took Bryan Duval's advice that she should not seek to see poor Mrs. Griswold again just at present, as her health and nerves were exceedingly shaken, and the most perfect quiet was indispensable to her, with entire equanimity. Miss Montressor was quite sincere in her regard for Helen, and was truly sorry for her; but she was a little tired of the murder and the melancholy now that the excitement had worn off, and was not sorry to give herself up with a sanctioned engrossment to the glories of starhood.