"No; I have had no talk with her." Then, as I perceived him growing alarmed at my voice and manner, I drew him into Mrs. Belden's room and hastily inquired: "What did you mean this morning when you informed me you had seen this girl? that she was in a certain room where I might find her?"
"What I said."
"You have, then, been to her room?"
"No; I have only been on the outside of it. Seeing a light, I crawled up on to the ledge of the slanting roof last night while both you and Mrs. Belden were out, and, looking through the window, saw her moving round the room." He must have observed my countenance change, for he stopped. "What is to pay?" he cried.
I could restrain myself no longer. "Come," I said, "and see for yourself!" And, leading him to the little room I had just left, I pointed to the silent form lying within. "You told me I should find Hannah here; but you did not tell me I should find her in this condition."
"Great heaven!" he cried with a start: "not dead?"
"Yes," I said, "dead."
It seemed as if he could not realize it. "But it is impossible!" he returned. "She is in a heavy sleep, has taken a narcotic—"
"It is not sleep," I said, "or if it is, she will never wake. Look!" And, taking the hand once more in mine, I let it fall in its stone weight upon the bed.
The sight seemed to convince him. Calming down, he stood gazing at her with a very strange expression upon his face. Suddenly he moved and began quietly turning over the clothes that were lying on the floor.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "What are you looking for?"
"I am looking for the bit of paper from which I saw her take what I supposed to be a dose of medicine last night. Oh, here it is!" he cried, lifting a morsel of paper that, lying on the floor under the edge of the bed, had hitherto escaped his notice.
"Let me see!" I anxiously exclaimed.
He handed me the paper, on the inner surface of which I could dimly discern the traces of an impalpable white powder.
"This is important," I declared, carefully folding the paper together. "If there is enough of this powder remaining to show that the contents of this paper were poisonous, the manner and means of the girl's death are accounted for, and a case of deliberate suicide made evident."
"I am not so sure of that," he retorted. "If I am any judge of countenances, and I rather flatter myself I am, this girl had no more idea she was taking poison than I had. She looked not only bright but gay; and when she tipped up the paper, a smile of almost silly triumph crossed her face. If Mrs. Belden gave her that dose to take, telling her it was medicine—"
"That is something which yet remains to be learned; also whether the dose, as you call it, was poisonous or not. It may be she died of heart disease."
He simply shrugged his shoulders, and pointed first at the plate of breakfast left on the chair, and secondly at the broken-down door.
"Yes," I said, answering his look, "Mrs. Belden has been in here this morning, and Mrs. Belden locked the door when she went out; but that proves nothing beyond her belief in the girl's hearty condition."
"A belief which that white face on its tumbled pillow did not seem to shake?"
"Perhaps in her haste she may not have looked at the girl, but have set the dishes down without more than a casual glance in her direction?"
"I don't want to suspect anything wrong, but it is such a coincidence!"
This was touching me on a sore point, and I stepped back. "Well," said I, "there is no use in our standing here busying ourselves with conjectures. There is too much to be done. Come!" and I moved hurriedly towards the door.
"What are you going to do?" he asked. "Have you forgotten this is but an episode in the one great mystery we are sent here to unravel? If this girl has come to her death by some foul play, it is our business to find it out."
"That must be left for the coroner. It has now passed out of our hands."
"I know; but we can at least take full note of the room and everything in it before throwing the affair into the hands of strangers. Mr. Gryce will expect that much of us, I am sure."
"I have looked at the room. The whole is photographed on my mind. I am only afraid I can never forget it."
"And the body? Have you noticed its position? the lay of the bed-clothes around it? the lack there is of all signs of struggle or fear? the repose of the countenance? the easy fall of the hands?"
"Yes, yes; don't make me look at it any more."
"Then the clothes hanging on the wall? "—rapidly pointing out each object as he spoke. "Do you see? a calico dress, a shawl,—not the one in which she was believed to have run away, but an old black one, probably belonging to Mrs. Belden. Then this chest,"—opening it,—" containing a few underclothes marked,—let us see, ah, with the name of the lady of the house, but smaller than any she ever wore; made for Hannah, you observe, and marked with her own name to prevent suspicion. And then these other clothes lying on the floor, all new, all marked in the same way. Then this—Halloo! look here!" he suddenly cried.
Going over to where he stood I stooped down, when a wash-bowl half full of burned paper met my eye.
"I saw her bending over something in this corner, and could not think what it was. Can it be she is a suicide after all? She has evidently destroyed something here which she didn't wish any one to see."
"I do not know," I said. "I could almost hope so."
"Not a scrap, not a morsel left to show what it was; how unfortunate!"
"Mrs. Belden must solve this riddle," I cried.
"Mrs. Belden must solve the whole riddle," he replied; "the secret of the Leavenworth murder hangs upon it." Then, with a lingering look towards the mass of burned paper, "Who knows but what that was a confession?"
The conjecture seemed only too probable.
"Whatever it was," said I, "it is now ashes, and we have got to accept the fact and make the best of it."
"Yes," said he with a deep sigh; "that's so; but Mr. Gryce will never forgive me for it, never. He will say I ought to have known it was a suspicious circumstance for her to take a dose of medicine at the very moment detection stood at her back."
"But she did not know that; she did not see you."
"We don't know what she saw, nor what Mrs. Belden saw. Women are a mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted."
"Well, well," I said, "the end has not come yet; who knows what a talk with Mrs. Belden will bring out? And, by the way, she will be coming back soon, and I must be ready to meet her. Everything depends upon finding out, if I can, whether she is aware of this tragedy or not. It is just possible she knows nothing about it."
And, hurrying him from the room, I pulled the door to behind me, and led the way down-stairs.
"Now," said I, "there is one thing you must attend to at once. A telegram must be sent Mr. Gryce acquainting him with this unlooked-for occurrence."
"All right, sir," and Q started for the door.
"Wait one moment," said I. "I may not have another opportunity to mention it. Mrs. Belden received two letters from the postmaster yesterday; one in a large and one in a small envelope; if you could find out where they were postmarked—"
Q put his hand in his pocket. "I think I will not have to go far to find out where one of them came from. Good George, I have lost it!" And before I knew it, he had returned up-stairs.
That moment I heard the gate click.
—Taming of the Shrew.
"IT was all a hoax; nobody was ill; I have been imposed upon, meanly imposed upon!" And Mrs. Belden, flushed and panting, entered the room where I was, and proceeded to take off her bonnet; but whilst doing so paused, and suddenly exclaimed: "What is the matter? How you look at me! Has anything happened?"
"Something very serious has occurred," I replied; "you have been gone but a little while, but in that time a discovery has been made—" I purposely paused here that the suspense might elicit from her some betrayal; but, though she turned pale, she manifested less emotion than I expected, and I went on—"which is likely to produce very important consequences."
To my surprise she burst violently into tears. "I knew it, I knew it!" she murmured. "I always said it would be impossible to keep it secret if I let anybody into the house; she is so restless. But I forget," she suddenly said, with a frightened look; "you haven't told me what the discovery was. Perhaps it isn't what I thought; perhaps—"
I did not hesitate to interrupt her. "Mrs. Belden," I said, "I shall not try to mitigate the blow. A woman who, in the face of the most urgent call from law and justice, can receive into her house and harbor there a witness of such importance as Hannah, cannot stand in need of any great preparation for hearing that her efforts, have been too successful, that she has accomplished her design of suppressing valuable testimony, that law and justice are outraged, and that the innocent woman whom this girl's evidence might have saved stands for ever compromised in the eyes of the world, if not in those of the officers of the law."
Her eyes, which had never left me during this address, flashed wide with dismay.
"What do you mean?" she cried. "I have intended no wrong; I have only tried to save people. I—I—But who are you? What have you got to do with all this? What is it to you what I do or don't do? You said you were a lawyer. Can it be you are come from Mary Leavenworth to see how I am fulfilling her commands, and—"
"Mrs. Belden," I said, "it is of small importance now as to who I am, or for what purpose I am here. But that my words may have the more effect, I will say, that whereas I have not deceived you, either as to my name or position, it is true that I am the friend of the Misses Leavenworth, and that anything which is likely to affect them, is of interest to me. When, therefore, I say that Eleanore Leavenworth is irretrievably injured by this girl's death—"
"Death? What do you mean? Death!"
The burst was too natural, the tone too horror-stricken for me to doubt for another moment as to this woman's ignorance of the true state of affairs.
"Yes," I repeated, "the girl you have been hiding so long and so well is now beyond your control. Only her dead body remains, Mrs. Belden."
I shall never lose from my ears the shriek which she uttered, nor the wild, "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" with which she dashed from the room and rushed up-stairs.
Nor that after-scene when, in the presence of the dead, she stood wringing her hands and protesting, amid sobs of the sincerest grief and terror, that she knew nothing of it; that she had left the girl in the best of spirits the night before; that it was true she had locked her in, but this she always did when any one was in the house; and that if she died of any sudden attack, it must have been quietly, for she had heard no stir all night, though she had listened more than once, being naturally anxious lest the girl should make some disturbance that would arouse me.
"But you were in here this morning?" said I.
"Yes; but I didn't notice. I was in a hurry, and thought she was asleep; so I set the things down where she could get them and came right away, locking the door as usual."
"It is strange she should have died this night of all others. Was she ill yesterday?"
"No, sir; she was even brighter than common; more lively. I never thought of her being sick then or ever. If I had—"
"You never thought of her being sick?" a voice here interrupted. "Why, then, did you take such pains to give her a dose of medicine last night?" And Q entered from the room beyond.
"I didn't!" she protested, evidently under the supposition it was I who had spoken. "Did I, Hannah, did I, poor girl?" stroking the hand that lay in hers with what appeared to be genuine sorrow and regret.
"How came she by it, then? Where she did she get it if you didn't give it to her?"
This time she seemed to be aware that some one besides myself was talking to her, for, hurriedly rising, she looked at the man with a wondering stare, before replying.
"I don't know who you are, sir; but I can tell you this, the girl had no medicine,—took no dose; she wasn't sick last night that I know of."
"Yet I saw her swallow a powder."
"Saw her!—the world is crazy, or I am—saw her swallow a powder! How could you see her do that or anything else? Hasn't she been shut up in this room for twenty-four hours?"
"Yes; but with a window like that in the roof, it isn't so very difficult to see into the room, madam."
"Oh," she cried, shrinking, "I have a spy in the house, have I? But I deserve it; I kept her imprisoned in four close walls, and never came to look at her once all night. I don't complain; but what was it you say you saw her take? medicine? poison?"
"I didn't say poison."
"But you meant it. You think she has poisoned herself, and that I had a hand in it!"
"No," I hastened to remark, "he does not think you had a hand in it. He says he saw the girl herself swallow something which he believes to have been the occasion of her death, and only asks you now where she obtained it."