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The Filigree Ball

by Anna Katharine Green · English · Gutenberg #2371 · 510,502 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Filigree Ball

Author: Anna Katharine Green


        
Release date: October 1, 2000 [eBook #2371]
                Most recently updated: January 27, 2021

Language: English

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[Illustration]




The Filigree Ball

by Anna Katherine Green


Contents

 BOOK I. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM
 I. “THE MOORE HOUSE?”
 II. I ENTER
 III. I REMAIN
 IV. SIGNED, VERONICA
 V. MASTER AND DOG
 VI. GOSSIP
 VII. SLY WORK
 VIII. SLYER WORK
 IX. JINNY
 X. FRANCIS JEFFREY

 BOOK II. THE LAW AND ITS VICTIM
 XI. DETAILS
 XII. THRUST AND PARRY
 XIII. CHIEFLY THRUST
 XIV. “LET US HAVE TALLMAN!”
 XV. WHITE BOW AND PINK
 XVI. AN EGOTIST OF THE FIRST WATER
 XVII. A FRESH START
 XVIII. IN THE GRASS

 BOOK III. THE HOUSE OF DOOM
 XIX. IN TAMPA
 XX. “THE COLONEL’S OWN”
 XXI. THE HEART OF THE PUZZLE
 XXII. A THREAD IN HAND
 XXIII. WORDS IN THE NIGHT
 XXIV. TANTALIZING TACTICS
 XXV. “WHO WILL TELL THE MAN!”
 XXVI. RUDGE
 XXVII. “YOU HAVE COME!”




THE FILIGREE BALL




BOOK I
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM




I.
“THE MOORE HOUSE? ARE YOU SPEAKING OF THE MOORE HOUSE?”


For a detective whose talents, had not been recognized at headquarters,
I possessed an ambition which, fortunately for my standing with the
lieutenant of the precinct, had not yet been expressed in words. Though
I had small reason for expecting great things of myself, I had always
cherished the hope that if a big case came my way I should be found
able to do something with it something more, that is, than I had seen
accomplished by the police of the District of Columbia since I had had
the honor of being one of their number. Therefore, when I found myself
plunged, almost without my own volition, into the Jeffrey-Moore affair,
I believed that the opportunity had come whereby I might distinguish
myself.

It had complications, this Jeffrey-Moore affair; greater ones than the
public ever knew, keen as the interest in it ran both in and out of
Washington. This is why I propose to tell the story of this great
tragedy from my own standpoint, even if in so doing I risk the charge
of attempting to exploit my own connection with this celebrated case.
In its course I encountered as many disappointments as triumphs, and
brought out of the affair a heart as sore as it was satisfied; for I am
a lover of women and—

But I am keeping you from the story itself.

I was at the station-house the night Uncle David came in. He was always
called Uncle David, even by the urchins who followed him in the street;
so I am showing him no disrespect, gentleman though he is, by giving
him a title which as completely characterized him in those days, as did
his moody ways, his quaint attire and the persistence with which he
kept at his side his great mastiff, Rudge. I had long since heard of
the old gentleman as one of the most interesting residents of the
precinct. I had even seen him more than once on the avenue, but I had
never before been brought face to face with him, and consequently had
much too superficial a knowledge of his countenance to determine
offhand whether the uneasy light in his small gray eyes was natural to
them, or simply the result of present excitement. But when he began to
talk I detected an unmistakable tremor in his tones, and decided that
he was in a state of suppressed agitation; though he appeared to have
nothing more alarming to impart than the fact that he had seen a light
burning in some house presumably empty.

It was all so trivial that I gave him but scant attention till he let a
name fall which caused me to prick up my ears and even to put in a
word. “The Moore house,” he had said.

“The Moore house?” I repeated in amazement. “Are you speaking of the
Moore house?”

A thousand recollections came with the name.

“What other?” he grumbled, directing toward me a look as keen as it was
impatient. “Do you think that I would bother myself long about a house
I had no interest in, or drag Rudge from his warm rug to save some
ungrateful neighbor from a possible burglary? No, it is _my_ house
which some rogue has chosen to enter. That is,” he suavely corrected,
as he saw surprise in every eye, “the house which the law will give me,
if anything ever happens to that chit of a girl whom my brother left
behind him.”

Growling some words at the dog, who showed a decided inclination to lie
down where he was, the old man made for the door and in another moment
would have been in the street, if I had not stepped after him.

“You are a Moore and live in or near that old house?” I asked.

The surprise with which he met this question daunted me a little.

“How long have you been in Washington, I should like to ask?” was his
acrid retort.

“Oh, some five months.”

His good nature, or what passed for such in this irascible old man,
returned in an instant; and he curtly but not unkindly remarked:

“You haven’t learned much in that time.” Then, with a nod more
ceremonious than many another man’s bow, he added, with sudden dignity:
“I am of the elder branch and live in the cottage fronting the old
place. I am the only resident on the block. When you have lived here
longer you will know why that especial neighborhood is not a favorite
one with those who can not boast of the Moore blood. For the present,
let us attribute the bad name that it holds to—malaria.” And with a
significant hitch of his lean shoulders which set in undulating motion
every fold of the old-fashioned cloak he wore, he started again for the
door.

But my curiosity was by this time roused to fever heat. I knew more
about this house than he gave me credit for. No one who had read the
papers of late, much less a man connected with the police, could help
being well informed in all the details of its remarkable history. What
I had failed to know was his close relationship to the family whose
name for the last two weeks had been in every mouth.

“Wait!” I called out. “You say that you live opposite the Moore house.
You can then tell me—”

But he had no mind to stop for any gossip.

“It was all in the papers,” he called back. “Read them. But first be
sure to find out who has struck a light in the house that we all know
has not even a caretaker in it.”

It was good advice. My duty and my curiosity both led me to follow it.

Perhaps you have heard of the distinguishing feature of this house; if
so, you do not need my explanations. But if, for any reason, you are
ignorant of the facts which within a very short time have set a final
seal of horror upon this old, historic dwelling, then you will be glad
to read what has made and will continue to make the Moore house in
Washington one to be pointed at in daylight and shunned after dark, not
only by superstitious colored folk, but by all who are susceptible to
the most ordinary emotions of fear and dread.

It was standing when Washington was a village. It antedates the Capitol
and the White House. Built by a man of wealth, it bears to this day the
impress of the large ideas and quiet elegance of colonial times; but
the shadow which speedily fell across it made it a marked place even in
those early days. While it has always escaped the hackneyed epithet of
“haunted,” families that have moved in have as quickly moved out,
giving as their excuse that no happiness was to be found there and that
sleep was impossible under its roof. That there was some reason for
this lack of rest within walls which were not without their tragic
reminiscences, all must acknowledge. Death had often occurred there,
and while this fact can be stated in regard to most old houses, it is
not often that one can say, as in this case, that it was invariably
sudden and invariably of one character. A lifeless man, lying
outstretched on a certain hearthstone, might be found once in a house
and awaken no special comment; but when this same discovery has been
made twice, if not thrice, during the history of a single dwelling, one
might surely be pardoned a distrust of its seemingly home-like
appointments, and discern in its slowly darkening walls the presence of
an evil which if left to itself might perish in the natural decay of
the place, but which, if met and challenged, might strike again and
make another blot on its thrice-crimsoned hearthstone.

But these are old fables which I should hardly presume to mention, had
it not been for the recent occurrence which has recalled them to all
men’s minds and given to this long empty and slowly crumbling building
an importance which has spread its fame from one end of the country to
the other. I refer to the tragedy attending the wedding lately
celebrated there.

Veronica Moore, rich, pretty and wilful, had long cherished a strange
liking for this frowning old home of her ancestors, and, at the most
critical time of her life, conceived the idea of proving to herself and
to society at large that no real ban lay upon it save in the
imagination of the superstitious. So, being about to marry the choice
of her young heart, she caused this house to be opened for the wedding
ceremony; with what result, you know. Though the occasion was a joyous
one and accompanied by all that could give cheer to such a function, it
had not escaped the old-time shadow. One of the guests straying into
the room of ancient and unhallowed memory, the one room which had not
been thrown open to the crowd, had been found within five minutes of
the ceremony lying on its dolorous hearthstone, dead; and though the
bride was spared a knowledge of the dreadful fact till the holy words
were said, a panic had seized the guests and emptied the house as
suddenly and completely as though the plague had been discovered there.


This is why I hastened to follow Uncle David when he told me that all
was not right in this house of tragic memories.




II.
I ENTER


Though past seventy, Uncle David was a brisk walker, and on this night
in particular he sped along so fast that he was half-way down H Street
by the time I had turned the corner at New Hampshire Avenue.

His gaunt but not ungraceful figure, merged in that of the dog trotting
closely at his heels, was the only moving object in the dreary vista of
this the most desolate block in Washington. As I neared the building, I
was so impressed by the surrounding stillness that I was ready to vow
that the shadows were denser here than elsewhere and that the few gas
lamps, which flickered at intervals down the street, shone with a more
feeble ray than in any other equal length of street in Washington.

Meanwhile, the shadow of Uncle David had vanished from the pavement. He
had paused beside a fence which, hung with vines, surrounded and nearly
hid from sight the little cottage he had mentioned as the only house on
the block with the exception of the great Moore place; in other words,
his own home.

As I came abreast of him I heard him muttering, not to his dog as was
his custom, but to himself. In fact, the dog was not to be seen, and
this desertion on the part of his constant companion seemed to add to
his disturbance and affect him beyond all reason. I could distinguish
these words amongst the many he directed toward the unseen animal:

“You’re a knowing one, too knowing! You see that loosened shutter over
the way as plainly as I do; but you’re a coward to slink away from it.
I don’t. I face the thing, and what’s more, I’ll show you yet what I
think of a dog that can’t stand his ground and help his old master out
with some show of courage. Creaks, does it? Well, let it creak! I don’t
mind its creaking, glad as I should be to know whose hand—Halloo!
You’ve come, have you?” This to me. I had just stepped up to him.

“Yes, I’ve come. Now what is the matter with the Moore house?”

He must have expected the question, yet his answer was a long time
coming. His voice, too, sounded strained, and was pitched quite too
high to be natural. But he evidently did not expect me to show surprise
at his manner.

“Look at that window over there!” he cried at last. “That one with the
slightly open shutter! Watch and you will see that shutter move. There!
it creaked; didn’t you hear it?”

A growl—it was more like a moan—came from the porch behind us.
Instantly the old gentleman turned and with a gesture as fierce as it
was instinctive, shouted out:

“Be still there! If you haven’t the courage to face a blowing shutter,
keep your jaws shut and don’t let every fellow who happens along know
what a fool you are. I declare,” he maundered on, half to himself and
half to me, “that dog is getting old. He can’t be trusted any more. He
forsakes his master just when—” The rest was lost in his throat which
rattled with something more than impatient anger.

Meanwhile I had been attentively scrutinizing the house thus pointedly
brought to my notice.

I had seen it many times before, but, as it happened, had never stopped
to look at it when the huge trees surrounding it were shrouded in
darkness. The black hollow of its disused portal looked out from
shadows which acquired some of their somberness from the tragic
memories connected with its empty void.

Its aspect was scarcely reassuring. Not that superstition lent its
terrors to the lonely scene, but that through the blank panes of the
window, alternately appearing and disappearing from view as the shutter
pointed out by Uncle David blew to and fro in the wind, I saw, or was
persuaded that I saw, a beam of light which argued an unknown presence
within walls which had so lately been declared unfit for any man’s
habitation.

“You are right,” I now remarked to the uneasy figure at my side. “Some
one is prowling through the house yonder. Can it possibly be Mrs.
Jeffrey or her husband?”

“At night and with no gas in the house? Hardly.”

The words were natural, but the voice was not. Neither was his manner
quite suited to the occasion. Giving him another sly glance, and
marking how uneasily he edged away from me in the darkness, I cried out
more cheerily than he possibly expected:

“I will summon another officer and we three will just slip across and
investigate.”

“Not I!” was his violent rejoinder, as he swung open a gate concealed
in the vines behind him. “The Jeffreys would resent my intrusion if
they ever happened to hear of it.”

“Indeed!” I laughed, sounding my whistle; then, soberly enough, for I
was more than a little struck by the oddity of his behavior and thought
him as well worth investigation as the house in which he showed such an
interest: “You shouldn’t let that count. Come and see what’s up in the
house you are so ready to call yours.”

But he only drew farther into the shade.

“I have no business over there,” he objected. “Veronica and I have
never been on good terms. I was not even invited to her wedding though
I live within a stone’s throw of the door. No; I have done my duty in
calling attention to that light, and whether it’s the bull’s-eye of a
burglar—perhaps you don’t know that there are rare treasures on the
book shelves of the great library—or whether it is the fantastic
illumination which frightens fool-folks and some fool-dogs, I’m done
with it and done with you, too, for tonight.”

As he said this, he mounted to his door and disappeared under the
vines, hanging like a shroud over the front of the house. In another
moment the rich peal of an organ sounded from within, followed by the
prolonged howling of Rudge, who, either from a too keen appreciation of
his master’s music or in utter disapproval of it,—no one, I believe,
has ever been able to make out which,—was accustomed to add this
undesirable accompaniment to every strain from the old man’s hand. The
playing did not cease because of these outrageous discords. On the
contrary, it increased in force and volume, causing Rudge’s expression
of pain or pleasure to increase also. The result can be imagined. As I
listened to the intolerable howls of the dog cutting clean through the
exquisite harmonies of his master, I wondered if the shadows cast by
the frowning structure of the great Moore house were alone to blame for
Uncle David’s lack of neighbors.

Meantime, Hibbard, who was the first to hear my signal, came running
down the block. As he joined me, the light, or what we chose to call a
light, appeared again in the window toward which my attention had been
directed.

“Some one’s in the Moore house!” I declared, in as matter of-fact tones
as I could command.

Hibbard is a big fellow, the biggest fellow on the force, and so far as
my own experience with him had gone, as stolid and imperturbable as the
best of us. But after a quick glance at the towering walls of the
lonely building, he showed decided embarrassment and seemed in no haste
to cross the street.

With difficulty I concealed my disgust.

“Come,” I cried, stepping down from the curb, “let’s go over and
investigate. The property is valuable, the furnishings handsome, and
there is no end of costly books on the library shelves. You have
matches and a revolver?”

He nodded, quietly showing me first the one, then the other; then with
a sheepish air which he endeavored to carry of with a laugh, he cried:

“Have you use for ’em? If so, I’m quite willing to part with ’em for a
half-hour.”

I was more than amazed at this evidence of weakness in one I had always
considered as tough and impenetrable as flint rock. Thrusting back the
hand with which he had half drawn into view the weapon I had mentioned,
I put on my sternest sir and led the way across the street. As I did
so, tossed back the words:

“We may come upon a gang. You do not wish me to face some half-dozen
men alone?”

“You won’t find any half-dozen men there,” was his muttered reply.
Nevertheless he followed me, though with less spirit than I liked,
considering that my own manner was in a measure assumed and that I was
not without sympathy—well, let me, say, for a dog who preferred howling
a dismal accompaniment to his master’s music, to keeping open watch
over a neighborhood dominated by the unhallowed structure I now propose
to enter.

The house is too well known for me to attempt a minute description of
it. The illustrations which have appeared in all the papers have
already acquainted the general public with its simple facade and rows
upon rows of shuttered windows. Even the great square porch with its
bench for negro attendants has been photographed for the million. Those
who have seen the picture in which the wedding-guests are shown flying
from its yawning doorway, will not be especially interested in the
quiet, almost solemn aspect it presented as I passed up the low steps
and laid my hand upon the knob of the old-fashioned front door.

Not that I expected to win an entrance thereby, but because it is my
nature to approach everything in a common-sense way. Conceive then my
astonishment when at the first touch the door yielded. It was not even
latched.

“So! so!” thought I. “This is no fool’s job; some one _is_ in the
house.”

I had provided myself with an ordinary pocket-lantern, and, when I had
convinced Hibbard that I fully meant to enter the house and discover
for myself who had taken advantage of the popular prejudice against it
to make a secret refuge or rendezvous of its decayed old rooms, I took
out this lantern and held it in readiness.

“We may strike a hornets’ nest,” I explained to Hibbard, whose feet
seemed very heavy even for a man of his size. “But I’m going in and so
are you. Only, let me suggest that we first take off our shoes. We can
hide them in these bushes.”

“I always catch cold when I walk barefooted,” mumbled my brave
companion; but receiving no reply he drew off his shoes and dropped
them beside mine in the cluster of stark bushes which figure so
prominently in the illustrations that I have just mentioned. Then he
took out his revolver, and cocking it, stood waiting, while I gave a
cautious push to the door.

Darkness! silence!

Rather had I confronted a light and heard some noise, even if it had
been the ominous click to which eve are so well accustomed. Hibbard
seemed to share my feelings, though from an entirely different cause.

“Pistols and lanterns are no good here,” he grumbled. “What we want at
this blessed minute is a priest with a sprinkling of holy water; and I
for one—”

He was actually sliding off.

With a smothered oath I drew him back.

“See here!” I cried, “you’re not a babe in arms. Come on or— Well, what
now?”

He had clenched my arm and was pointing to the door which was slowly
swaying to behind us.

“Notice that,” he whispered. “No key in the lock! Men use keys but—”

My patience could stand no more. With a shake I rid myself of his
clutch, muttering:

“There, go! You’re too much of a fool for me. I’m in for it alone.” And
in proof of my determination, I turned the slide of the lantern and
flashed the light through the house.

The effect was ghostly; but while the fellow at my side breathed hard
he did not take advantage of my words to make his escape, as I half
expected him to. Perhaps, like myself, he was fascinated by the dreary
spectacle of long shadowy walls and an equally shadowy staircase
emerging from a darkness which a minute before had seemed impenetrable.
Perhaps he was simply ashamed. At all events he stood his ground,
scrutinizing with rolling eyes that portion of the hall where two
columns, with gilded Corinthian capitals, marked the door of the room
which no man entered without purpose or passed without dread. Doubtless
he was thinking of that which had so frequently been carried out
between those columns. I know that I was; and when, in the sudden draft
made by the open door, some open draperies hanging near those columns
blew out with a sudden swoop and shiver, I was not at all astonished to
see him lose what little courage had remained in him. The truth is, I
was startled myself, but I was able to hide the fact and to whisper
back to him, fiercely:

“Don’t be an idiot. That curtain hides nothing worse than some sneaking
political refugee or a gang of counterfeiters.”

“Maybe. I’d just like to put my hand on Upson and—”

“Hush!”

I had just heard something.

For a moment we stood breathless, but as the sound was not repeated I
concluded that it was the creaking of that far-away shutter. Certainly
there was nothing moving near us.

“Shall we go upstairs?” whispered Hibbard.

“Not till we have made sure that all is right down here”

A door stood slightly ajar on our left.

Pushing it open, we looked in. A well furnished parlor was before us.

“Here’s where the wedding took place,” remarked Hibbard, straining his
head over my shoulder.

There were signs of this wedding on every side. Walls and ceilings had
been hung with garlands, and these still clung to the mantelpiece and
over and around the various doorways. Torn-off branches and the
remnants of old bouquets, dropped from the hands of flying guests,
littered the carpet, adding to the general confusion of overturned
chairs and tables. Everywhere were evidences of the haste with which
the place had been vacated as well as the superstitious dread which had
prevented it being re-entered for the commonplace purpose of cleaning.
Even the piano had not been shut, and under it lay some scattered
sheets of music which had been left where they fell, to the probable
loss of some poor musician. The clock occupying the center of the
mantelpiece alone gave evidence of life. It had been wound for the
wedding and had not yet run down. Its tick-tick came faint enough,
however, through the darkness, as if it too had lost heart and would
soon lapse into the deadly quiet of its ghostly surroundings.

“It’s—it’s funeral-like,” chattered Hibbard.

He was right; I felt as if I were shutting the lid of a coffin when I
finally closed the door.

Our next steps took us into the rear where we found little to detain
us, and then, with a certain dread fully justified by the event, we
made for the door defined by the two Corinthian columns.

It was ajar like the rest, and, call me coward or call me fool—I have
called Hibbard both, you will remember—I found that it cost me an
effort to lay my hand on its mahogany panels. Danger, if danger there
was, lurked here; and while I had never known myself to quail before
any ordinary antagonist, I, like others of my kind, have no especial
fondness for unseen and mysterious perils.

Hibbard, who up to this point had followed me almost too closely, now
accorded me all the room that was necessary. It was with a sense of
entering alone upon the scene that I finally thrust wide the door and
crossed the threshold of this redoubtable room where, but two short
weeks before, a fresh victim had been added to the list of those who
had by some unheard-of, unimaginable means found their death within its
recesses.

My first glance showed me little save the ponderous outlines of an old
settle, which jutted from the corner of the fireplace half way out into
the room. As it was seemingly from this seat that the men, who at
various times had been found lying here, had fallen to their doom, a
thrill passed over me as I noted its unwieldy bulk and the deep shadow
it threw on the ancient and dishonored hearthstone. To escape the
ghastly memories it evoked and also to satisfy myself that the room was
really as empty as it seemed, I took another step forward. This caused
the light from the lantern I carried to spread beyond the point on
which it had hitherto been so effectively concentrated; but the result
was to emphasize rather than detract from the extreme desolation of the
great room. The settle was a fixture, as I afterwards found, and was
almost the only article of furniture to be seen on the wide expanse of
uncarpeted floor. There was a table or two in hiding somewhere amid the
shadows at the other end from where I stood, and possibly some kind of
stool or settee; but the general impression made upon me was that of a
completely dismantled place given over to moth and rust.

I do not include the walls. They were not bare like the floor, but
covered with books from floor to ceiling. These books were not the
books of today; they had stood so long in their places unnoted and
untouched, that they had acquired the color of fungus, and smelt— Well,
there is no use adding to the picture. Every one knows the spirit of
sickening desolation pervading rooms which have been shut up for an
indefinite length of time from air and sunshine.

The elegance of the heavily stuccoed ceiling, admitted to be one of the
finest specimens of its kind in Washington, as well as the richness of
the carvings ornamenting the mantel of Italian marble rising above the
accursed hearthstone, only served to make more evident the extreme
neglect into which the rest of the room had sunk. Being anything but
anxious to subject myself further to its unhappy influence and quite
convinced that the place was indeed as empty as it looked, I turned to
leave, when my eyes fell upon something so unexpected and so
extraordinary, seen as it was under the influence of the old tragedies
with which my mind was necessarily full, that I paused, balked in my
advance, and well-nigh uncertain whether I looked upon a real thing or
on some strange and terrible fantasy of my aroused imagination.

A form lay before me, outstretched on that portion of the floor which
had hitherto been hidden from me by the half-open door—a woman’s form,
which even in that first casual look impressed itself upon me as one of
aerial delicacy and extreme refinement; and this form lay as only the
dead lie; _the dead!_ And I had been looking at the hearthstone for
just such a picture! No, not just such a picture, for this woman lay
face uppermost, and, on the floor beside her was blood.

A hand had plucked my sleeve. It was Hibbard’s. Startled by my
immobility and silence, he had stepped in with quaking members,
expecting he hardly knew what. But no sooner did his eyes fall on the
prostrate form which held me spellbound, than an unforeseen change took
place in him. What had unnerved me, restored him to full
self-possession. Death in this shape was familiar to him. He had no
fear of blood. He did not show surprise at encountering it, but only at
the effect it appeared to produce on me.

“Shot!” was his laconic comment as he bent over the prostrate body.
“Shot through the heart! She must have died before she fell.”

Shot!

That was a new experience for this room. No wound had ever before
disfigured those who had fallen here, nor had any of the previous
victims been found lying on any other spot than the one over which that
huge settle kept guard. As these thoughts crossed my mind, I
instinctively glanced again toward the fireplace for what I almost
refused to believe lay outstretched at my feet. When nothing more
appeared there than that old seat of sinister memory, I experienced a
thrill which poorly prepared me for the cry which I now heard raised by
Hibbard.

“Look here! What do you make of this?”

He was pointing to what, upon closer inspection, proved to be a strip
of white satin ribbon running from one of the delicate wrists of the
girl before us to the handle of a pistol which had fallen not far away
from her side. “It looks as if the pistol was attached to her. That is
something new in my experience. What do you think it means?”

Alas! there was but one thing it could mean. The shot to which she had
succumbed had been delivered by herself. This fair and delicate
creature was a suicide.

But suicide in this place! How could we account for that? Had the story
of this room’s ill-acquired fame acted hypnotically on her, or had she
stumbled upon the open door in front and been glad of any refuge where
her misery might find a solitary termination? Closely scanning her
upturned face, I sought an answer to this question, and while thus
seeking received a fresh shock which I did not hesitate to communicate
to my now none-too-sensitive companion.

“Look at these features,” I cried. “I seem to know them, do you?”

He growled out a dissent, but stooped at my bidding and gave the
pitiful young face a pro longed stare. When he looked up again it was
with a puzzled contraction of his eyebrows.

“I’ve certainly seen it somewhere,” he hesitatingly admitted, edging
slowly away toward the door. “Perhaps in the papers. Isn’t she like—?”

“Like!” I interrupted, “it is Veronica Moore _herself;_ the owner of
this house and she who was married here two weeks since to Mr. Jeffrey.
Evidently her reason was unseated by the tragedy which threw so deep a
gloom over her wedding.”




III.
I REMAIN


Not for an instant did I doubt the correctness of this identification.
All the pictures I had seen of this well-known society belle had been
marked by an individuality of expression which fixed her face in the
memory and which I now saw repeated in the lifeless features before me.

Greatly startled by the discovery, but quite convinced that this was
but the dreadful sequel of an already sufficiently dark tragedy, I
proceeded to take such steps as are common in these cases. Having sent
the too-willing Hibbard to notify headquarters, I was on the point of
making a memorandum of such details as seemed important, when my
lantern suddenly went out, leaving me in total darkness.

This was far from pleasant, but the effect it produced upon my mind was
not without its result. For no sooner did I find myself alone and in
the unrelieved darkness of this grave-like room, than I became
convinced that no woman, however frenzied, would make her plunge into
an unknown existence from the midst of a darkness only too suggestive
of the tomb to which she was hastening. It was not in nature, not in
woman’s nature, at all events. Either she had committed the final act
before such daylight as could filter through the shutters of this
closed-up room had quite disappeared,—an hypothesis instantly destroyed
by the warmth which still lingered in certain portions of her body,—or
else the light which had been burning when she pulled the fatal trigger
had since been carried elsewhere or extinguished.

Recalling the uncertain gleams which we had seen flashing from one of
the upper windows, I was inclined to give some credence to the former
theory, but was disposed to be fair to both. So after relighting my
lamp, I turned on one of the gas cocks of the massive chandelier over
my head and applied a match. The result was just what I anticipated; no
gas in the pipes. A meter had not been put in for the wedding. This the
papers had repeatedly stated in dwelling upon the garish effect of the
daylight on the elaborate costumes worn by the ladies. Candles had not
even been provided—ah, candles! What, then, was it that I saw
glittering on a small table at the other end of the room? Surely a
candlestick, or rather an old-fashioned candelabrum with a half-burned
candle in one of its sockets. Hastily crossing to it, I felt of the
candlewick. It was quite stiff and hard. But not considering this a
satisfactory proof that it had not been lately burning—the tip of a
wick soon dries after the flame is blown out—I took out my penknife and
attacked the wick at what might be called its root; whereupon I found
that where the threads had been protected by the wax they were
comparatively soft and penetrable. The conclusion was obvious. True to
my instinct in this matter the woman had not lifted her weapon in
darkness; this candle had been burning. But here my thoughts received a
fresh shock. If burning, then by whom had it since been blown out? Not
by her; her wound was too fatally sure for that. The steps taken
between the table where the candelabrum stood and the place where she
lay, were taken, if taken at all by her, before that shot was fired.
Some one else—some one whose breath still lingered in the air about
me—had extinguished this candle-flame after she fell, and the death I
looked down upon was not a suicide, _but a murder!_

The excitement which this discovery caused to tingle through my every
nerve had its birth in the ambitious feeling referred to in the opening
paragraph of this narrative. I believed that my long-sought-for
opportunity had come; that with the start given me by the conviction
just stated, I should be enabled to collect such clues and establish
such facts as would lead to the acceptance of this new theory instead
of the apparent one of suicide embraced by Hibbard and about to be
promulgated at police headquarters. If so, what a triumph would be
mine; and what a debt I should owe to the crabbed old gentleman whose
seemingly fantastic fears had first drawn me to this place!

Realizing the value of the opportunity afforded me by the few minutes I
was likely to spend alone on this scene of crime, I proceeded to my
task with that directness and method which I had always promised myself
should characterize my first success in detective work.

First, then, for another look at the fair young victim herself! What a
line of misery on the brow! What dark hollows disfiguring cheeks
otherwise as delicate as the petals of a rose! An interesting, if not
absolutely beautiful face, it told me something I could hardly put into
words; so that it was like leaving a fascinating but unsolved mystery
when I finally turned from it to study the hands, each of which
presented a separate problem. That offered by the right wrist you
already know—the long white ribbon connecting it with the discharged
pistol. But the secret concealed by the left, while less startling, was
perhaps fully as significant. All the rings were gone, even the wedding
ring which had been placed there such a short time before. Had she been
robbed? There were no signs of violence visible nor even such
disturbances as usually follow despoliation by a criminal’s hand. The
boa of delicate black net which encircled her neck rose fresh and
intact to her chin; nor did the heavy folds of her rich broadcloth gown
betray that any disturbance had taken place in her figure after its
fall. If a jewel had flashed at her throat, or earrings adorned her
ears, they had been removed by a careful, if not a loving, hand. But I
was rather inclined to think that she had entered upon the scene of her
death without ornaments,—such severe simplicity marked her whole
attire. Her hat, which was as plain and also as elegant as the rest of
her clothing, lay near her on the floor. It had been taken off and
thrown down, manifestly by an impatient hand. That this hand was her
own was evident from a small but very significant fact. The pin which
had held it to her hair had been thrust again into the hat. No hand but
hers would have taken this precaution. A man would have flung it aside
just as he would have flung the hat.

Question:

Did this argue a natural expectation on her part of resuming her hat?
Or was the action the result of an unconscious habit?

Having thus noted all that was possible concerning her without
infringing on the rights of the coroner, I next proceeded to cast about
for clues to the identity of the person whom I considered responsible
for the extinguished candle. But here a great disappointment awaited
me. I could find nothing expressive of a second person’s presence save
a pile of cigar ashes scattered near the legs of a common kitchen chair
which stood face to face with the book shelves in that part of the room
where the candelabrum rested on a small table. But these ashes looked
old, nor could I detect any evidence of tobacco smoke in the general
mustiness pervading the place. Was the man who died here a fortnight
since accountable for these ashes? If so, his unfinished cigar must be
within sight. Should I search for it? No, for this would take me to the
hearth and that was quite too deadly a place to be heedlessly
approached.

Besides, I was not yet finished with the spot where I then stood. If I
could gather nothing satisfactory from the ashes, perhaps I could from
the chair or the shelves before which it had been placed. Some one with
an interest in books had sat there; some one who expected to spend
sufficient time over these old tomes to feel the need of a chair. Had
this interest been a general one or had it centered in a particular
volume? I ran my eye over the shelves within reach, possibly with an
idea of settling this question, and though my knowledge of books is
limited I could see that these were what one might call rarities. Some
of them contained specimens of black letter, all moldy and smothered in
dust; in others I saw dates of publication which placed them among
volumes dear to a collector’s heart. But none of them, so far as I
could see, gave any evidence of having been lately handled; and anxious
to waste no time on puerile details, I hastily quitted my chair, and
was proceeding to turn my attention elsewhere, when I noticed on an
upper shelf, a book projecting slightly beyond the others. Instantly my
foot was on the chair and the book in my hand. Did I find it of
interest? Yes, but not on account of its contents, for they were pure
Greek to me; but because it lacked the dust on its upper edge which had
marked every other volume I had handled. This, then, was what had
attracted the unknown to these shelves, this—let me see if I can
remember its title—Disquisition upon Old Coastlines. Pshaw! I was
wasting my time. What had such a dry compendium as this to do with the
body lying in its blood a few steps behind me, or with the hand which
had put out the candle upon this dreadful deed? Nothing. I replaced the
book, but not so hastily as to push it one inch beyond the position in
which I found it. For, if it had a tale to tell, then was it my
business to leave that tale to be read by those who understood books
better than I did.

My next move was toward the little table holding the candelabrum with
the glittering pendants. This table was one of a nest standing against
a near-by wall. Investigation proved that it had been lifted from the
others and brought to its present position within a very short space of
time. For the dust lying thick on its top was almost entirely lacking
from the one which had been nested under it. Neither had the
candelabrum been standing there long, dust being found under as well as
around it. Had her hand brought it there? Hardly, if it came from the
top of the mantel toward which I now turned in my course of
investigation.

I have already mentioned this mantel more than once. This I could
hardly avoid, since in and about it lay the heart of the mystery for
which the room was remarkable. But though I have thus freely spoken of
it, and though it was not absent from my thoughts for a moment, I had
not ventured to approach it beyond a certain safe radius. Now, in
looking to see if I might not lessen this radius, I experienced that
sudden and overwhelming interest in its every feature which attaches to
all objects peculiarly associated with danger.

I even took a step toward it, holding up my lamp so that a stray ray
struck the faded surface of an old engraving hanging over the
fireplace.

It was the well-known one—in Washington at least—of Benjamin Franklin
at the Court of France; interesting no doubt in a general way, but
scarcely calculated to hold the eye at so critical an instant. Neither
did the shelf below call for more than momentary attention, for it was
absolutely bare. So was the time-worn, if not blood-stained hearth,
save for the impenetrable shadow cast over it by the huge bulk of the
great settle standing at its edge.

I have already described the impression made on me at my first entrance
by this ancient and characteristic article of furniture.

It was intensified now as my eye ran over the clumsy carving which
added to the discomfort of its high straight back and as I smelt the
smell of its moldy and possibly mouse-haunted cushions. A crawling
sense of dread took the place of my first instinctive repugnance; not
because superstition had as yet laid its grip upon me, although the
place, the hour and the near and veritable presence of death were
enough to rouse the imagination past the bounds of the actual, but
because of a discovery I had made—a discovery which emphasized the
tradition that all who had been found dead under the mantel had fallen
as if from the end of this monstrous and patriarchal bench. Do you ask
what this discovery was? It can be told in a word. This one end and
only this end had been made comfortable for the sitter. For a space
scarcely wide enough for one, the seat and back at this special point
had been upholstered with leather, fastened to the wood with heavy
wrought nails. The remaining portion stretched out bare, hard and
inexpressibly forbidding to one who sought ease there, or even a moment
of casual rest. The natural inference was that the owner of this quaint
piece of furniture had been a very selfish man who thought only of his
own comfort. But might he not have had some other reason for his
apparent niggardliness? As I asked myself this question and noted how
the long and embracing arm which guarded this cushioned retreat was
flattened on top for the convenient holding of decanter and glass,
feelings to which I can give no name and which I had fondly believed
myself proof against, began to take the place of judgment and reason.
Before I realized the nature of my own impulse or to what it was
driving me, I found myself moving slowly and steadily toward this
formidable seat, under an irresistible desire to fling myself down upon
these old cushions and—

But here the creaking of some far-off shutter—possibly the one I had
seen swaying from the opposite side of the street—recalled me to the
duties of the hour, and, remembering that my investigations were but
half completed and that I might be interrupted any moment by detectives
from headquarters, I broke from the accursed charm, which horrified me
the moment I escaped it, and quitting the room by a door at the farther
end, sought to find in some of the adjacent rooms the definite traces I
had failed to discover on this, the actual scene of the crime.

It was a dismal search, revealing at every turn the almost maddened
haste with which the house had been abandoned. The dining-room
especially roused feelings which were far from pleasant. The table,
evidently set for the wedding breakfast, had been denuded in such
breathless hurry that the food had been tossed from the dishes and now
lay in moldering heaps on the floor. The wedding cake, which some one
had dropped, possibly in the effort to save it, had been stepped on;
and broken glass, crumpled napery and withered flowers made all the
corners unsightly and rendered stepping over the unwholesome floors at
once disgusting and dangerous. The pantries opening out of this room
were in no better case. Shrinking from the sights and smells I found
there, I passed out into the kitchen and so on by a close and narrow
passage to the negro quarters clustered in the rear.

Here I made a discovery. One of the windows in this long disused
portion of the house was not only unlocked but partly open. But as I
came upon no marks showing that this outlet had been used by the
escaping murderer, I made my way back to the front of the house and
thus to the stairs communicating with the upper floor.

It was on the rug lying at the foot of these stairs that I came upon
the first of a dozen or more burned matches which lay in a distinct
trail up the staircase and along the floors of the upper halls. As
these matches were all burned as short as fingers could hold them, it
was evident that they had been used to light the steps of some one
seeking refuge above, possibly in the very room where we had seen the
light which had first drawn us to this house. How then? Should I
proceed or await the coming of the “boys” before pushing in upon a
possible murderer? I decided to proceed, fascinated, I think, by the
nicety of the trail which lay before me.

But when, after a careful following in the steps of him who had so
lately preceded me, I came upon a tightly closed door at the end of
aside passage, I own that I stopped a moment before lifting hand to it.
So much may lie behind a tightly closed door! But my hesitation, if
hesitation it was, lasted but a moment. My natural impatience and the
promptings of my vanity overcame the dictates of my judgment, and,
reckless of consequences, perhaps disdainful of them, I soon had the
knob in my grasp. I gave a slight push to the door and, on seeing a
crack of light leap into life along the jamb, pushed the door wider and
wider till the whole room stood revealed.

The instantaneous banging of a shutter in one of its windows proved the
room to be the very one which we had seen lighted from below. Otherwise
all was still; nor was I able to detect, in my first hurried glance,
any other token of human presence than a candle sputtering in its own
grease at the bottom of a tumbler placed on one corner of an
old-fashioned dressing table. This, the one touch of incongruity in a
room otherwise rich if not stately in its appointments, was loud in its
suggestion of some hidden presence given to expedients and reckless of
consequences; but of this presence nothing was to be seen.

Not satisfied with this short survey,—a survey which had given me the
impression of a spacious old-fashioned chamber, fully furnished but
breathing of the by-gone rather than of the present—and resolved to
know the worst, or, rather, to dare the worst and be done with it, I
strode straight into the center of the room and cast about me quickly a
comprehensive glance which spared nothing, not even the shadows lurking
in the corners. But no low-lying figure started up from those corners,
nor did any crouching head rise into sight from beyond the leaves of
the big screen behind which I was careful to look.

Greatly reassured, and indeed quite convinced that wherever the
criminal lurked at that moment he was not in the same room with me, I
turned my attention to my surroundings, which had many points of
interest. Foremost among these was the big four-poster which occupied a
large space at my right. I had never seen its like in use before, and I
was greatly attracted by its size and the air of mystery imparted to it
by its closely drawn curtains of faded brocade. In fact, this bed,
whether from its appearance or some occult influence inherent in it,
had a fascination for me. I hesitated to approach it, yet could not
forbear surveying it long and earnestly. Could it be possible that
those curtains concealed some one in hiding behind them? Strange to say
I did not feel quite ready to lay hand on them and see.

A dressing table laden with woman’s fixings and various articles of the
toilet, all of an unexpected value and richness, occupied the space
between the two windows; and on the floor, immediately in front of a
high mahogany mantel, there lay, amid a number of empty boxes, an
overturned chair. This chair and the conjectures its position awakened
led me to look up at the mantel with which it seemed to be in some way
connected, and thus I became aware of a wan old drawing hanging on the
wall above it. Why this picture, which was a totally uninteresting
sketch of a simpering girl face, should have held my eye after the
first glance, I can not say even now. It had no beauty even of the
sentimental kind and very little, if any, meaning. Its lines, weak at
the best, were nearly obliterated and in some places quite faded out.
Yet I not only paused to look at it, but in looking at it forgot myself
and well-nigh my errand. Yet there was no apparent reason for the spell
it exerted over me, nor could I account in any way for the really
superstitious dread which from this moment seized me, making my head
move slowly round with shrinking backward looks as that swaying shutter
creaked or some of the fitful noises, which grow out of silence in
answer to our inner expectancy, drew my attention or appalled my sense.

To all appearance there was less here than below to affect a man’s
courage. No inanimate body with the mark of the slayer upon it lent
horror to these walls; yet sensations which I had easily overcome in
the library below clung with strange insistence to me here, making it
an effort for me to move, and giving to the unexpected reflection of my
own image in the mirror I chanced to pass, a power to shock my nerves
which has never been repeated in my experience.

It may seem both unnecessary and out of character for a man of my
calling to acknowledge these chance sensations, but only by doing so
can I account for the minutes which elapsed before I summoned
sufficient self-possession to draw aside the closed curtains of the bed
and take the quick look inside which my present doubtful position
demanded. But once I had broken the spell and taken the look just
mentioned, I found my manhood return and with it my old ardor for
clues. The bed held no gaping, chattering criminal; yet was it not
quite empty. Something lay there, and this something, while commonplace
in itself, was enough out of keeping with the place and hour to rouse
my interest and awaken my conjectures. It was a lady’s wrap so rich in
quality and of such a festive appearance that it was astonishing to
find it lying in a neglected state in this crumbling old house. Though
I know little of the cost of women’s garments, I do know the value of
lace, and this garment was covered with it.

Interesting as was this find, it was followed by one still more so.
Nestled in the folds of the cloak, lay the withered remains of what
could only have been the bridal bouquet. Unsightly now and scentless,
it was once a beautiful specimen of the florist’s art. As I noted how
the main bunch of roses and lilies was connected by long satin ribbons
to the lesser clusters which hung from it, I recalled with conceivable
horror the use to which a similar ribbon had been put in the room
below. In the shudder called up by this coincidence I forgot to
speculate how a bouquet carried by the bride could have found its way
back to this upstairs room when, as all accounts agree, she had fled
from the parlor below without speaking or staying foot the moment she
was told of the catastrophe which had taken place in the library. That
her wrap should be lying here was not strange, but that the wedding
bouquet—

That it really was the wedding bouquet and that this was the room in
which the bride had dressed for the ceremony was apparent to the most
casual observer. But it became an established fact when in my further
course about the room I chanced on a handkerchief with the name
Veronica embroidered in one corner.

This handkerchief had an interest apart from the name on it. It was of
dainty texture and quite in keeping, so far as value went, with the
other belongings of its fastidious owner. But it was not clean. Indeed
it was strangely soiled, and this soil was of a nature I did not
readily understand. A woman would doubtless have comprehended
immediately the cause of the brown streaks I found on it, but it took
me several minutes to realize that this bit of cambric, delicate as a
cobweb, had been used to remove dust. To remove dust! Dust from what?
From the mantel-shelf probably, upon one end of which I found it. But
no! one look along the polished boards convinced me that whatever else
had been dusted in this room this shelf had not. The accumulation of
days, if not of months, was visible from one end to the other of its
unrelieved surface save where the handkerchief had lain, and—the
greatest discovery yet—where five clear spots just to the left of the
center showed where some man’s finger-tips had rested. Nothing but the
pressure of fingertips could have caused just the appearance presented
by these spots. By scrutinizing them closely I could even tell where
the thumb had rested, and at once foresaw the possibility of
determining by means of these marks both the size and shape of the hand
which had left behind it so neat and unmistakable a clue.

Wonderful! but what did it all mean? Why should a man rest his
finger-tips on this out-of-the-way shelf? Had he done so in an effort
to balance himself for a look up the chimney? No; for then the marks
made by his fingers would have extended to the edge of the shelf,
whereas these were in the middle of it. Their shape, too, was round,
not oblong; hence, the pressure had come from above and—ah! I had it,
these impressions in the dust of the shelf were just such as would be
made by a person steadying himself for a close look at the old picture.
And this accounted also for the overturned chair, and for the
handkerchief used as a duster. Some one’s interest in this picture had
been greater than mine; some one who was either very near-sighted or
whose temperament was such that only the closest inspection would
satisfy an aroused curiosity.

This gave me an idea, or rather impressed upon me the necessity of
preserving the outline of these tell-tale marks while they were still
plain to the eye. Taking out my penknife, I lightly ran the point of my
sharpest blade around each separate impression till I had fixed them
for all time in the well worn varnish of the mahogany.

This done, my thoughts recurred to the question already raised. What
was there in this old picture to arouse such curiosity in one bent on
evil if not fresh from a hideous crime? I have said before that the
picture as a picture was worthless, a mere faded sketch fit only for
lumbering up some old garret. Then wherein lay its charm,—a charm which
I myself had felt, though not to this extent? It was useless to
conjecture. A fresh difficulty had been added to my task by this
puzzling discovery, but difficulties only increased my interest. It was
with an odd feeling of elation that, in a further examination of this
room, I came upon two additional facts equally odd and irreconcilable.

One was the presence of a penknife with the file blade open, on a small
table under the window marked by the loosened shutter. Scattered about
it were some filings which shone as the light from my lantern fell upon
them, but which were so fine as to call for a magnifying-glass to make
them out. The other was in connection with a closet not far from the
great bed. It was an empty closet so far as the hooks went and the two
great drawers which I found standing half open at its back; but in the
middle of the floor lay an overturned candelabrum similar to the one
below, but with its prisms scattered and its one candle crushed and
battered out of all shape on the blackened boards. If upset while
alight, the foot which had stamped upon it in a wild endeavor to put
out the flames had been a frenzied one. Now, by whom had this frenzy
been shown, and when? Within the hour? I could detect no smell of
smoke. At some former time, then? say on the day of the bridal?

Glancing from the broken candle at my feet to the one giving its last
sputter in the tumbler on the dressing table, I owned myself perplexed.

Surely, no ordinary explanation fitted these extraordinary and
seemingly contradictory circumstances.




IV.
SIGNED, VERONICA


I am in some ways hypersensitive. Among my other weaknesses I have a
wholesome dread of ridicule, and this is probably why I failed to press
my theory on the captain when he appeared, and even forbore to mention
the various small matters which had so attracted my attention. If he
and the experienced men who came with him saw suicide and nothing but
suicide in this lamentable shooting of a bride of two weeks, then it
was not for me to suggest a deeper crime, especially as one of the
latter eyed me with open scorn when I proposed to accompany them
upstairs into the room where the light had been seen burning. No, I
would keep my discoveries to myself or, at least, forbear to mention
them till I found the captain alone, asking nothing at this juncture
but permission to remain in the house till Mr. Jeffrey arrived.

I had been told that an officer had gone for this gentleman, and when I
heard the sound of wheels in front I made a rush for the door, in my
anxiety to catch a glimpse of him. But it was a woman who alighted.

As this woman was in a state of great agitation, one of the men
hastened down to offer his arm. As she took it, I asked Hibbard, who
had suddenly reappeared upon the scene, who she was.

He said that she was probably the sister of the woman who lay inside.
Upon which I remembered that this lady, under the name of Miss
Tuttle—she was but half-sister to Miss Moore—had been repeatedly
mentioned by the reporters, in the accounts of the wedding before
mentioned, as a person of superior attainments and magnificent beauty.

This did not take from my interest, and flinging decorum to the winds,
I approached as near as possible to the threshold which she must soon
cross. As I did so I was astonished to hear the strains of Uncle
David’s organ still pealing from the opposite side of the way. This at
a moment so serious and while matters of apparent consequence were
taking place in the house to which he had himself directed the
attention of the police, struck me as carrying stoicism to the extreme.
Not very favorably impressed by this display of open if not insulting
indifference on the part of the sole remaining Moore,—an indifference
which did not appear quite natural even in a man of his morbid
eccentricity,—I resolved to know more of this old man and, above all,
to make myself fully acquainted with the exact relations which had
existed between him and his unhappy niece.

Meanwhile Miss Tuttle had stepped within the circle of light cast by
our lanterns.

I have never seen a finer woman, nor one whose features displayed a
more heart-rending emotion. This called for respect, and I, for one,
endeavored to show it by withdrawing into the background. But I soon
stepped forward again. My desire to understand her was too great, the
impression made by her bearing too complex, to be passed over lightly
by one on the lookout for a key to the remarkable tragedy before us.

Meanwhile her lips had opened with the cry:

“My sister! Where is my sister?”

The captain made a hurried movement toward the rear and then with the
laudable intention, doubtless, of preparing her for the ghastly sight
which awaited her, returned and opened a way for her into the
drawing-room. But she was not to be turned aside from her course.
Passing him by, she made directly for the library which she entered
with a bound. Struck by her daring, we all crowded up behind her, and,
curious brutes that we were, grouped ourselves in a semicircle about
the doorway as she faltered toward her sister’s outstretched form and
fell on her knees beside it. Her involuntary shriek and the fierce
recoil she made as her eyes fell on the long white ribbon trailing over
the floor from her sister’s wrist, struck me as voicing the utmost
horror of which the human soul is capable. It was as though her very
soul were pierced. Something in the fact itself, something in the
appearance of this snowy ribbon tied to the scarce whiter wrist, seemed
to pluck at the very root of her being; and when her glance, in
traveling its length, lighted on the death dealing weapon at its end,
she cringed in such apparent anguish that we looked to see her fall in
a swoon or break out into delirium. We were correspondingly startled
when she suddenly burst forth with this word of stern command:

“Untie that knot! Why do you leave that dreadful thing fast to her?
Untie it, I say, it is killing me; I can not bear the sight.” And from
trembling she passed to shuddering till her whole body shook
convulsively.

The captain, with much consideration, drew back the hand he had
impulsively stretched toward the ribbon.

“No, no,” he protested; “we can not do that; we can do nothing till the
coroner comes. It is necessary that he should see her just as she was
found. Besides, Mr. Jeffrey has a right to the same privilege. We
expect him any moment.”

The beautiful head of the woman before us shook involuntarily, but her
lips made no protest. I doubt if she possessed the power of speech at
that moment. A change, subtle, but quite perceptible, had taken place
in her emotions at mention of her sister’s husband, and, though she
exerted herself to remain calm, the effort seemed too much for her
strength. Anxious to hide this evidence of weakness, she rose
impetuously; and then we saw how tall she was, how the long lines of
her cloak became her, and what a glorious creature she was altogether.

“It will kill him,” she groaned in a deep inward voice. Then, with a
certain forced haste and in a tone of surprise which to my ear had not
quite a natural ring, she called aloud on her who could no longer
either listen or answer:

“Oh, Veronica, Veronica! What cause had you for death? And why do we
find you lying here in a spot you so feared and detested?”

“Don’t you know?” insinuated the captain, with a mild persuasiveness,
such as he was seldom heard to use. “Do you mean that you can not
account for your sister’s violent end, you, who have lived with her—or
so I have been told—ever since her marriage with Mr. Jeffrey?”

“Yes.”

Keen and clear the word rang out, fierce in its keenness and almost too
clear to be in keeping with the half choked tones with which she added:
“I know that she was not happy, that she never has been happy since the
shadow which this room suggests fell upon her marriage. But how could I
so much as dream that her dread of the past or her fear of the future
would drive her to suicide, and in this place of all places! Had I done
so—had I imagined in the least degree that she was affected to this
extent—do you think that I would have left her for one instant alone?
None of us knew that she contemplated death. She had no appearance of
it; she laughed when I—”

What had she been about to say? The captain seemed to wonder, and after
waiting in vain for the completion of her sentence, he quietly
suggested:

“You have not finished what you had to say, Miss Tuttle.”

She started and seemed to come back from some remote region of thought
into which she had wandered. “I don’t know—I forget,” she stammered,
with a heart-broken sigh. “Poor Veronica! Wretched Veronica! How shall
I ever tell _him!_ How, how, can we ever prepare _him!_”

The captain took advantage of this reference to Mr. Jeffrey to ask
where that gentleman was. The young lady did not seem eager to reply,
but when pressed, answered, though somewhat mechanically, that it was
impossible for her to say; Mr. Jeffrey had many friends with any one of
whom he might be enjoying a social evening.

“But it is far past midnight now,” remarked the captain. “Is he in the
habit of remaining out late?”

“Sometimes,” she faintly admitted. “Two or three times since his
marriage he has been out till one.”

Were there other causes for the young bride’s evident disappointment
and misery besides the one intimated? There certainly was some excuse
for thinking so.

Possibly some one of as may have shown his doubts in this regard, for
the woman before us suddenly broke forth with this vehement assertion:

“Mr. Jeffrey was a loving husband to my sister. A _very_ loving
husband,” she emphasized. Then, growing desperately pale, she added, “I
have never known a better man,” and stopped.

Some hidden anguish in this cry, some self-consciousness in this pause,
suggested to me a possibility which I was glad to see ignored by the
captain in his next question.

“When did you see your sister last?” he asked. “Were you at home when
she left her husband’s house?”

“Alas!” she murmured. Then seeing that a more direct answer was
expected of her, she added with as little appearance of effort as
possible: “I _was_ at home and I heard her go out. But I had no idea
that it was for any purpose other than to join some social gathering.”

“Dressed this way?”

The captain pointed to the floor and her eyes followed. Certainly Mrs.
Jeffrey was not appareled for an evening company. As Miss Tuttle
realized the trap into which she had been betrayed, her words rushed
forth and tripped each other up.

“I did not notice. She often wore black—it became her. My sister was
eccentric.”

Worse, worse than useless. Some slips can not be explained away. Miss
Tuttle seemed to realize that this was one of them, for she paused
abruptly, with the words half finished on her tongue. Yet her attitude
commanded respect, and I for one was ready to accord it to her.

Certainly, such a woman was not to be seen every day, and if her
replies lacked candor, there was a nobility in her presence which gave
the lie to any doubt. At least, that was the effect she produced on me.
Whether or not her interrogator shared my feeling I could not so
readily determine, for his attention as well as mine was suddenly
diverted by the cry which now escaped her lips.

“Her watch! Where is her watch? It is gone! I saw it on her breast and
it’s gone. It hung just—just where—”

“Wait!” cried one of the men who had been peering about the floor. “Is
this it?”

He held aloft a small object blazing with jewels.

“Yes,” she gasped, trying to take it.

But the officer gave it to the captain instead.

“It must have slipped from her as she fell,” remarked the latter, after
a cursory examination of the glittering trinket. “The pin by which she
attached it to her dress must have been insecurely fastened.” Then
quickly and with a sharp look at Miss Tuttle: “Do you know if this was
considered an accurate timepiece?”

“Yes. Why do you ask? Is it—”

“Look!” He held it up with the face toward us. The hands stood at
thirteen minutes past seven. “The hour and the moment when it struck
the floor,” he declared. “And consequently the hour and the moment when
Mrs. Jeffrey fell,” finished Durbin.

Miss Tuttle said nothing, only gasped.

“Valuable evidence,” quoth the captain, putting the watch in his
pocket. Then, with a kind look at her, called forth by the sight of her
misery:

“Does this hour agree with the time of her leaving the house?”

“I can not say. I think so. It was some time before or after seven. I
don’t remember the exact minute.”

“It would take fifteen for her to walk here. Did she walk?”

“I do not know. I didn’t see her leave. My room is at the back of the
house.”

“You can say if she left alone or in the company of her husband?”

“Mr. Jeffrey was not with her?”

“Was Mr. Jeffrey in the house?”

“He was not.”

This last negative was faintly spoken.

The captain noticed this and ventured upon interrogating her further.

“How long had he been gone?”

Her lips parted; she was deeply agitated; but when she spoke it was
coldly and with studied precision.

“Mr. Jeffrey was not at home tonight at all. He has not been in all
day.”

“Not at home? Did his wife know that he was going to dine out?”

“She said nothing about it.”

The captain cut short his questions and in another moment I understood
why. A gentleman was standing in the doorway, whose face once seen, was
enough to stop the words on any man’s lips. Miss Tuttle saw this
gentleman almost as quickly as we did and sank with an involuntary moan
to her knees.

It was Francis Jeffrey come to look upon his dead bride.

I have been present at many tragic scenes and have beheld men under
almost every aspect of grief, terror and remorse; but there was
something in the face of this man at this dreadful moment that was
quite new to me, and, as I judge, equally new to the other hardy
officials about me. To be sure he was a gentleman and a very high-bred
one at that; and it is but seldom we have to do with any of his ilk.

Breathlessly we awaited his first words.

Not that he showed frenzy or made any display of the grief or surprise
natural to the occasion. On the contrary, he was the quietest person
present, and among all the emotions his white face mirrored I saw no
signs of what might be called sorrow. Yet his appearance was one to
wring the heart and rouse the most contradictory conjectures as to just
what chord in his evidently highly strung nature throbbed most acutely
to the horror and astonishment of this appalling end of so short a
married life.

His eye, which was fixed on the prostrate body of his bride, did not
yield up its secret. When he moved and came to where she lay and caught
his first sight of the ribbon and the pistol attached to it, the most
experienced among us were baffled as to the nature of his feelings and
thoughts. One thing alone was patent to all. He had no wish to touch
this woman whom he had so lately sworn to cherish. His eyes devoured
her, he shuddered and strove several times to speak, and though
kneeling by her side, he did not reach forth his hand nor did he let a
tear fall on the appealing features so pathetically turned upward as if
to meet his look.

Suddenly he leaped to his feet.

“Must she stay here?” he demanded, looking about for the person most in
authority.

The captain answered by a question:

“How do you account for her being here at all? What explanation have
you, as her husband, to give for this strange suicide of your wife?”

For reply, Mr. Jeffrey, who was an exceptionally handsome man, drew
forth a small slip of crumpled paper, which he immediately handed over
to the speaker.

“Let her own words explain,” said he. “I found this scrap of writing in
our upstairs room when I returned home tonight. She must have written
it just before—before—”

A smothered groan filled up the break, but it did not come from his
lips, which were fixed and set, but from those of the woman who
crouched amongst us. Did he catch this expression of sorrow from one
whose presence he as yet had given no token of recognizing? He did not
seem to. His eye was on the captain, who was slowly reading, by the
light of a lantern held in a detective’s hand, the almost illegible
words which Mr. Jeffrey had just said were his wife’s last
communication.

Will they seem as pathetic to the eye as they did to the ear in that
room of awesome memories and present death?

“I find that I do not love you as I thought I did. I can not live,
knowing this to be so. I pray God that you may forgive me.


VERONICA”


A gasp from the figure in the corner; then silence. We were glad to
hear the captain’s voice again.

“A woman’s heart is a great mystery,” he remarked, with a short glance
at Mr. Jeffrey.

It was a sentiment we could all echo; for he, to whom she had alluded
in these few lines as one she could not love, was a man whom most women
would consider the embodiment of all that was admirable and attractive.

That one woman so regarded him was apparent to all. If ever the heart
spoke in a human face, it spoke in that of Miss Tuttle as she watched
her sister’s husband struggling for composure above the prostrate form
of her who but a few hours previous had been the envy of all the
fashionable young women in Washington. I found it hard to fix my
attention on the next question, interesting and valuable as every small
detail was likely to prove in case my theory of this crime should ever
come to be looked on as the true one.

“How came you to search here for the wife who had written you this
vague and far from satisfactory farewell? I see no hint in these lines
of the place where she intended to take her life.”

“No! no!” Even this strong man shrank from this idea and showed a very
natural recoil as his glances flew about the ill-omened room and
finally rested on the fireside over which so repellent a mystery hung
in impenetrable shadow. “She said nothing of her intentions; nothing!
But the man who came for me told me where she was to be found. He was
waiting at the door of my house. He had been on a search for me up and
down the town. We met on the stoop.”

The captain accepted this explanation without cavil. I was glad he did.
But to me the affair showed inconsistencies which I secretly felt it to
be my especial duty to unravel.




V.
MASTER AND DOG


No further opportunity was afforded me that night for studying the
three leading characters in the remarkable drama I saw unfolding before
me. A task was assigned me by the captain which took me from the house,
and I missed the next scene—the arrival of the coroner. But I repaid
myself for this loss in a way I thought justified by the importance of
my own theory and the evident necessity there was of collecting each
and every point of evidence which could give coloring to the charge, in
the event of this crime coming to be looked on at headquarters as one
of murder.

Observing that a light was still burning in Uncle David’s domicile, I
crossed to his door and rang the bell. I was answered by the deep and
prolonged howl of a dog, soon cut short by his master’s amiable
greeting. This latter was a surprise to me. I had heard so often of Mr.
Moore’s churlishness as a host that I had expected some rebuff. But I
encountered no such tokens of hostility. His brow was smooth and his
smile cheerfully condescending. Indeed, he appeared anxious to have me
enter, and cast an indulgent look at Rudge, whose irrepressible joy at
this break in the monotony of his existence was tinged with a very
evident dread of offending his master. Interested anew, I followed this
man of contradictory impulses into the room toward which he led me.

The time has now come for a more careful description of this peculiar
man. Mr. Moore was tall and of that refined spareness of shape which
suggests the scholar. Yet he had not the scholar’s eye. On the
contrary, his regard was quick, if not alert, and while it did not
convey actual malice or ill-will, it roused in the spectator an
uncomfortable feeling, not altogether easy to analyze. He wore his iron
gray locks quite long, and to this distinguishing idiosyncrasy, as well
as to his invariable custom of taking his dog with him wherever he
went, was due the interest always shown in him by street urchins. On
account of his whimsicalities, he had acquired the epithet of Uncle
David among them, despite his aristocratic connections and his
gentlemanlike bearing. His clothes formed no exception to the general
air of individuality which marked him. They were of different cut from
those of other men, and in this as in many other ways he was a law to
himself; notably so in the following instance: He kept one day of the
year religiously, and kept it always in the same way. Long years
before, he had been blessed with a wife who both understood and loved
him. He had never forgotten this fact, and once a year, presumably on
the anniversary of her death, it was his custom to go to the cemetery
where she lay and to spend the whole day under the shadow of the stone
he had raised to her memory. No matter what the weather, no matter what
the condition of his own health, he was always to be seen in this spot,
at the hour of seven, leaning against the shaft on which his wife’s
name was written, eating his supper in the company of his dog. It was a
custom he had never omitted. So well known was it to the boys and
certain other curious individuals in the neighborhood that he never
lacked an audience, though woe betide the daring foot that presumed to
invade the precincts of the lot he called his, or the venturesome voice
which offered to raise itself in gibe or jeer. He had but to cast a
glance at Rudge and an avenging rush scattered the crowd in a
twinkling. But he seldom had occasion to resort to this extreme measure
for preserving the peace and quiet of his solemn watch. As a rule he
was allowed to eat his meal undisturbed, and to pass out unmolested
even by ridicule, though his teeth might still be busy over some final
tidbit. Often the great tears might be seen hanging undried upon his
withered cheeks.

So much for one oddity which may stand as a sample of many others.

One glance at the room into which he ushered me showed why he cherished
so marked a dislike for visitors. It was bare to the point of
discomfort, and had it not been for a certain quaintness in the shape
of the few articles to be seen there, I should have experienced a
decided feeling of repulsion, so pronounced was the contrast between
this poverty-stricken interior and the polished bearing of its owner.
He, I am sure, could have shown no more elevated manners if he had been
doing the honors of a palace. The organ, with the marks of home
construction upon it, was the only object visible which spoke of luxury
or even comfort.

But enough of these possibly uninteresting details. I did not dwell on
them myself, except in a vague way and while waiting for him to open
the conversation. This he did as soon as he saw that I had no intention
of speaking first.

“And did you find any one in the old house?” he asked.

Keeping him well under my eye, I replied with intentional brusqueness:

“She has gone there once too often!”

The stare he gave me was that of an actor who feels that some
expression of surprise is expected from him.

“She?” he repeated. “Whom can you possibly mean by she?”

The surprise I expressed at this bold attempt at ingenuousness was
better simulated than his, I hope.

“You don’t know!” I exclaimed. “Can you live directly opposite a place
of such remarkable associations and not interest yourself in who goes
in and out of its deserted doors?”

“I don’t sit in my front window,” he peevishly returned.

I let my eye roam toward a chair standing suspiciously near the very
window he had designated.

“But you saw the light?” I suggested.

“I saw that from the door-step when I went out to give Rudge his usual
five minutes’ breathing spell on the stoop. But you have not answered
my question; whom do you mean by _she?_”

“Veronica Jeffrey,” I replied. “She who was Veronica Moore. She has
visited this haunted house of hers for the last time.”

“Last time!” Either he could not or would not understand me.

“What has happened to my niece?” he cried, rising with an energy that
displaced the great dog and sent him, with hanging head and trailing
tail, to his own special sleeping-place under the table. “Has she run
upon a ghost in those dismal apartments? You interest me greatly. I did
not think she would ever have the pluck to visit this house again after
what happened at her wedding.”

“She has had the pluck,” I assured him; “and what is more, she has had
enough of it not only to reenter the house, but to reenter it alone. At
least, such is the present inference. Had you been blessed with more
curiosity and made more frequent use of the chair so conveniently
placed for viewing the opposite house, you might have been in a
position to correct this inference. It would help the police materially
to know positively that she had no companion in her fatal visit.”

“Fatal?” he repeated, running his finger inside his neckband, which
suddenly seemed to have grown too tight for comfort. “Can it be that my
niece has been frightened to death in that old place? You alarm me.”

He did not look alarmed, but then he was not of an impressible nature.
Yet he was of the same human clay as the rest of us, and, if he knew no
more of this occurrence than he tried to make out, could not be
altogether impervious to what I had to say next.

“You have a right to be alarmed,” I assented. “She was not frightened
to death, yet is she lying dead on the library floor.” Then, with a
glance at the windows about me, I added lightly: “I take it that a
pistol-shot delivered over there could not be heard in this room.”

He sank rather melodramatically into his seat, yet his face and form
did not lose that sudden assumption of dignity which I had observed in
him ever since my entrance into the house.

“I am overwhelmed by this news,” he remarked. “She has shot herself?
Why?”

“I did not say that she had shot _herself_,” I carefully repeated. “Yet
the facts point that way and Mr. Jeffrey accepts the suicide theory
without question.”

“Ah, Mr. Jeffrey is there!”

“Most certainly; he was sent for at once.”

“And Miss Tuttle? She came with him of course?”

“She came, but not with him. She is very fond of her sister.”

“I must go over at once,” he cried, leaping again to his feet and
looking about for his hat. “It is my duty to make them feel at home; in
short, to—to put the house at their disposal.” Here he found his hat
and placed it on his head. “The property is mine now, you know,” he
politely explained, turning, with a keen light in his gray eye, full
upon me and overwhelming me with the grand air of a man who has come
unexpectedly into his own. “Mrs. Jeffrey’s father was my younger
brother—the story is an old and long one—and the property, which in all
justice should have been divided between us, went entirely to him. But
he was a good fellow in the main and saw the injustice of his father’s
will as clearly as I did, and years ago made one on his own account
bequeathing me the whole estate in case he left no issue, or that issue
died. Veronica was his only child; Veronica has died; therefore the old
house is mine and all that goes with it, _all that goes with it_.”

There was the miser’s gloating in this repetition of a phrase
sufficiently expressive in itself, or rather the gloating of a man who
sees himself suddenly rich after a life of poverty. There was likewise
a callousness as regarded his niece’s surprising death which I
considered myself to have some excuse for noticing.

“You accept her death very calmly,” I remarked. “Probably you knew her
to be possessed of an erratic mind.”

He was about to bestow an admonitory kick on his dog, who had been
indiscreet enough to rise at his master’s first move, but his foot
stopped in mid air, in his anxiety to concentrate all his attention on
his answer.

“I am a man of few sentimentalities,” he coldly averred. “I have loved
but one person in my whole life. Why then should I be expected to mourn
over a niece who did not care enough for me to invite me to her
wedding? It would be an affectation unworthy the man who has at last
come to fill his rightful position in this community as the owner of
the great Moore estate. For great it shall be,” he emphatically
continued. “In three years you will not know the house over yonder.
Despite its fancied ghosts and death-dealing fireplace, it will stand A
Number One in Washington. I, David Moore, promise you this; and I am
not a man to utter fatuous prophecies. But I must be missed over
there.” Here he gave the mastiff the long delayed kick. “Rudge, stay
here! The vestibule opposite is icy. Besides, your howls are not wanted
in those old walls tonight even if you would go with me, which I doubt.
He has never been willing to cross to that side of the street,” the old
gentleman went on to complain, with his first show of irritation. “But
he’ll have to overcome that prejudice soon, even if I have to tear up
the old hearthstone and reconstruct the walls. I can’t live without
Rudge, and I will not live in any other place than in the old home of
my ancestors.”

I was by this time following him out.

“You have failed to answer the suggestion I made you a minute since,” I
hazarded. “Will you pardon me if I put it now as a question? Your
niece, Mrs. Jeffrey, seemed to have everything in the world to make her
happy, yet she took her life. Was there a taint of insanity in her
blood, or was her nature so impulsive that her astonishing death in so
revolting a place should awaken in you so little wonder?”

A gleam of what had made him more or less feared by the very urchins
who dogged his steps and made sport of him at a respectful distance
shot from his eye as he glowered back at me from the open door. But he
hastily suppressed this sign of displeasure and replied with the
faintest tinge of sarcasm:

“There! you are expecting from me feelings which belong to youth or to
men of much more heart than understanding. I tell you that I have no
feelings. My niece may have developed insanity or she may simply have
drunk her cup of pleasure dry at twenty-two and come to its dregs
prematurely. I do not know and I do not care. What concerns me is that
the responsibility of a large fortune has fallen upon me most
unexpectedly and that I have pride enough to wish to show myself
capable of sustaining the burden. Besides, they may be tempted to do
some mischief to the walls or floors over there. The police respect no
man’s property. But I am determined they shall respect mine. No
rippings up or tearings down will I allow unless I stand by to
supervise the job. I am master of the old homestead now and I mean to
show it.” And with a last glance at the dog, who uttered the most
mournful of protests in reply, he shut the front door and betook
himself to the other side of the street.

As I noticed his assured bearing as he disappeared within the
forbidding portal which, according to his own story, had for so long a
time been shut against him, I asked myself if the candle which I had
noticed lying on his mantel-shelf was of the same make and size as
those I had found in my late investigations in the house he was then
entering.




VI.
GOSSIP


Next morning the city was in a blaze of excitement. All the burning
questions of the hour—the rapid mobilization of the army and the
prospect of a speedy advance on Cuba—were forgotten in the one
engrossing topic of young Mrs. Jeffrey’s death and the awful
circumstances surrounding it. Nothing else was in any one’s mouth and
but little else in any one’s heart. Her youth, her prominence, her
union with a man of such marked attractions as Mr. Jeffrey, the tragedy
connected with her marriage, thrown now into shadow by the still more
poignant tragedy which had so suddenly terminated her own life, gave to
the affair an interest which for those first twenty-four hours did not
call for any further heightening by a premature suggestion of murder.

Though I was the hero of the hour and, as such, subjected to an
infinite number of questions, I followed the lead of my superiors in
this regard and carefully refrained from advancing any theories beyond
the obvious one of suicide. The moment for self-exploitation was not
ripe; I did not stand high enough in the confidence of the major, or, I
may say, of the lieutenant of my own precinct, to risk the triumph I
anticipated ultimately by a premature expression of opinion.

I had an enemy at headquarters; or, rather, one of the men there had
always appeared peculiarly interested in showing me up in the worst
light. The name of this man was Durbin, and it was he who had uttered
something like a slighting remark when on that first night I endeavored
to call the captain’s attention to some of the small matters which had
offered themselves to me in the light of clues. Perhaps it was the
prospect of surprising him some day which made me so wary now as well
as so alert to fill my mind with all known facts concerning the
Jeffreys. One of my first acts was to turn over the files of the Star
and reread the following account of the great wedding. As it is a
sensational description of a sensational event, I shall make no apology
for the headlines which startled all Washington the night they
appeared.

“STARTLING TERMINATION OF THE JEFFREY-MOORE WEDDING.


THE TRADITIONAL DOOM FOLLOWS THE OPENING OF THE OLD HOUSE ON WAVERLEY
AVENUE.


ONE OF THE GUESTS FOUND LYING DEAD ON THE LIBRARY HEARTHSTONE.


LETTERS IN HIS POCKET SHOW HIM TO HAVE BEEN ONE W. PFEIFFER OF DENVER.


NO INTERRUPTION TO THE CEREMONY FOLLOWS THIS GHASTLY DISCOVERY, BUT THE
GUESTS FLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS AS SOON AS THE NUPTIAL KNOT IS TIED.


“The festivities attendant upon the wedding of Miss Veronica Moore to
Mr. Francis Jeffrey of this city met with a startling check today. As
most of our readers know, the long-closed house on Waverley Avenue,
which for nearly a century has been in possession of the bride’s
family, was opened for the occasion at the express wish of the bride.
For a week the preparations for this great function have been going on.
When at an early hour this morning a line of carriages drew up in front
of the historic mansion and the bridal party entered under its once
gloomy but now seemingly triumphant portal, the crowds, which blocked
the street from curb to curb, testified to the interest felt by the
citizens of Washington in this daring attempt to brave the traditions
which have marked this house out as solitary, and by a scene of joyous
festivity make the past forgotten and restore again to usefulness the
decayed grandeurs of an earlier time. As Miss Moore is one of
Washington’s most charming women, and as this romantic effort naturally
lent an extraordinary interest to the ceremony of her marriage, a large
number of our representative people assembled to witness it, and by
high noon the scene was one of unusual brilliancy.

“Halls which had moldered away in an unbroken silence for years echoed
again with laughter and palpitated to the choicest strains of the
Marine Band. All doors were open save those of the library—an exception
which added a pleasing excitement to the occasion—and when by chance
some of the more youthful guests were caught peering behind the two
Corinthian pillars guarding these forbidden precincts the memories thus
evoked were momentary and the shadow soon passed.

“The wedding had been set for high noon, and as the clock in the
drawing-room struck the hour every head was craned to catch the first
glimpse of the bride coming down the old-fashioned staircase. But five
minutes, ten minutes, a half-hour, passed without this expectation
being gratified. The crowd above and below was growing restless, when
suddenly a cry was heard from beyond the gilded pillars framing the
library door, and a young lady was seen rushing from the forbidden
quarter, trembling with dismay and white with horror. It was Miss
Abbott of Stratford Circle, who in the interim of waiting had allowed
her curiosity to master her dread, and by one peep into the room, which
seemed to exercise over her the fascination of a Bluebeard’s chamber,
discovered the outstretched form of a man lying senseless and
apparently dead on the edge of the hearthstone. The terror which
instantly spread amongst the guests shows the hold which superstition
has upon all classes of humanity. Happily, however, an unseemly panic
was averted, by the necessity which all felt of preserving some sort of
composure till the ceremony for which they had assembled had been
performed. For simultaneously with this discovery of death in the
library there had come from above the sound of the approaching bridal
procession, and cries were hushed, and beating hearts restrained, as
Miss Moore’s charming face and exquisite figure appeared between the
rows of flowering plants with which the staircase was lined. No need
for the murmur to go about, ‘Spare the bride! Let nothing but cheer
surround her till she is Jeffrey’s wife!’ The look of joy which
irradiated her countenance, and gave a fairy-like aspect to her whole
exquisite person would have deterred the most careless and
self-centered person there from casting a shadow across her pathway one
minute sooner than necessity demanded. The richness of the ancestral
veil which covered her features and the natural timidity which prevents
a bride from lifting her eyes from the floor she traverses saved her
from observing the strange looks by which her presence was hailed. She
was consequently enabled to go through the ceremony in happy
unconsciousness of the forced restraint which held that surging mass
together.

“But the bridesmaids were not so happy. Miss Tuttle especially held
herself upright simply by the exercise of her will; and though
resplendent in beauty, suffered so much in her anxiety for the bride
that it was a matter of small surprise when she fainted at the
conclusion of the ceremony.

“Mr. Jeffrey showed more composure, but the inward excitement under
which he was laboring made him trip more than once in his responses, as
many there noted whose minds were not fixed too strongly on flight.

“Only Doctor Auchincloss was quite himself, and by means of the
solemnity with which he invested his words kept the hubbub down, which
was already making itself heard on the outskirts of the crowd. But even
his influence did not prevail beyond the moment devoted to the
benediction. Once the sacred words were said, such a stampede followed
that the bride showed much alarm, and it was left for Mr. Jeffrey to
explain to her the cause of this astonishing conduct on the part of her
guests. She bore the disclosure well, all things considered, and once
she was fully assured that the unhappy man whose sudden death had thus
interrupted the festivities was an intruder upon the scene, and quite
unknown, not only to herself but to her newly-made husband, she
brightened perceptibly, though, like every one around her, she seemed
anxious to leave the house, and, indeed, did so as soon as Miss
Tuttle’s condition warranted it.

“The fact that the bride went through the ceremony without her bridal
bouquet is looked upon by many as an unfavorable omen. In her anxiety
not to impose any longer upon the patience of her guests, she had
descended without it.

“As to the deceased, but little is known of him. Letters found on his
person prove his name to be W. Pfeiffer, and his residence Denver. His
presence in Miss Moore’s house at a time so inopportune is unexplained.
No such name is on the list of wedding guests, nor was he recognized as
one of Miss Moore’s friends either by Mr. Jeffrey or by such of her
relatives and acquaintances as had the courage to enter the library to
see him.

“With the exception of the discolored mark on his temple, showing where
his head had come in contact with the hearthstone, his body presents an
appearance of natural robustness, which makes his sudden end seem all
the more shocking.

“His name has been found registered at the National Hotel.”

Turning over the files, I next came upon the following despatch from
Denver:

“The sudden death in Washington of Wallace Pfeiffer, one of our best
known and most respected citizens, is deeply deplored by all who knew
him and his unfortunate mother. He is the last of her three sons, all
of whom have died within the year. The demise of Wallace leaves her
entirely unprovided for. It was not known here that Mr. Pfeiffer
intended to visit Washington. He was supposed to go in quite the
opposite direction, having said to more than one that he had business
in San Francisco. His intrusion into the house of Miss Moore during the
celebration of a marriage in which he could have taken no personal
interest is explained in the following manner by such as knew his
mental peculiarities: Though a merchant by trade and latterly a miner
in the Klondike, he had great interest in the occult and was a strong
believer in all kinds of supernatural manifestations. He may have heard
of the unhappy reputation attaching to the Moore house in Washington
and, fascinated by the mystery involved, embraced the opportunity
afforded by open doors and the general confusion incident to so large a
gathering to enter the interesting old place and investigate for
himself the fatal library. The fact of his having been found secluded
in this very room, at a moment when every other person in the house was
pushing forward to see the bride, lends color to this supposition; and
his sudden death under circumstances tending to rouse the imagination
shows the extreme sensitiveness of his nature.

“He will be buried here.”

The next paragraph was short. Fresher events were already crowding this
three-days-old wonder to the wall.

“Verdict in the case of Wallace Pfeiffer, found lying dead on the
hearthstone of the old Moore house library.

“Concussion of the brain, preceded by mental shock or heart failure.

“The body went on to Denver today.”

And below, separated by the narrowest of spaces:

“Mr. and Mrs. Francis Jeffrey have decided to give up their wedding
tour and spend their honeymoon in Washington. They will occupy the
Ransome house on K Street.”

The last paragraph brought me back to the question then troubling my
mind. Was it in the household of this newly married pair and in the
possible secret passions underlying their union that one should look
for the cause of the murderous crime I secretly imagined to be hidden
behind this seeming suicide? Or were these parties innocent and old
David Moore the one motive power in precipitating a tragedy, the result
of which had been to enrich him and impoverish them? Certainly, a most
serious and important question, and one which any man might be pardoned
for attempting to answer, especially if that man was a young detective
lamenting his obscurity and dreaming of a recognition which would yield
him fame and the wherewithal to marry a certain clever but mischievous
little minx of whom you are destined to hear more.

But how was that same young detective, hampered as he was, and held in
thrall by a fear of ridicule and a total lack of record, to get the
chance to push an inquiry requiring opportunities which could only come
by special favor? This was what I continually asked myself, and always
without result.

True, I might approach the captain or the major with my story of the
tell-tale marks I had discovered in the dust covering the southwest
chamber mantel-shelf, and, if fortunate enough to find that these had
been passed over by the other detectives, seek to gain a hearing
thereby and secure for myself the privileges I so earnestly desired.
But my egotism was such that I wished to be sure of the hand which had
made these marks before I parted with a secret which, once told, would
make or mar me. Yet to obtain the slight concession of an interview
with any of the principals connected with this crime would be difficult
without the aid of one or both of my superiors. Even to enter the house
again where but a few hours before I had made myself so thoroughly at
home would require a certain amount of pluck; for Durbin had been
installed there, and Durbin was a watch-dog whose bite as well as his
bark I regarded with considerable respect. Yet into that house I must
sooner or later go, if only to determine whether or not I had been
alone in my recognition of certain clues pointing plainly toward
murder. Should I trust my lucky star and remain for the nonce
quiescent? This seemed a wise suggestion and I decided to adopt it,
comforting myself with the thought that if after a day or two of modest
waiting I failed in obtaining what I wished, I could then appeal to the
lieutenant of my own precinct. He, I had sometimes felt assured, did
not regard me with an altogether unfavorable eye.

Meantime I spent all my available time in loitering around newspaper
offices and picking up such stray bits of gossip as were offered. As no
question had yet been raised of any more serious crime than suicide,
these mostly related to the idiosyncrasies of the Moore family and the
solitary position into which Miss Tuttle had been plunged by this
sudden death of her only relative. As this beautiful and distinguished
young woman had been and still was a great belle in her special circle,
her present homeless, if not penniless, position led to many surmises.
Would she marry, and, if so, to which of the many wealthy or prominent
men who had openly courted her would she accord her hand? In the
present egotistic state of my mind I secretly flattered myself that I
was right in concluding that she would say yes to no man’s entreaty
till a certain newly-made widower’s year of mourning had expired.

But this opinion received something of a check when in a quiet talk
with a reporter I learned that it was openly stated by those who had
courage to speak that the tie which had certainly existed at one time
between Mr. Jeffrey and the handsome Miss Tuttle had been entirely of
her own weaving, and that the person of Veronica Moore, rather than the
large income she commanded, had been the attractive power which had led
him away from the older sister. This seemed improbable; for the charms
of the poor little bride were not to be compared with those of her
maturer sister. Yet, as we all know, there are other attractions than
those offered by beauty. I have since heard it broadly stated that the
peculiar twitch of the lip observable in all the Moores had proved an
irresistible charm in the unfortunate Veronica, making her a radiant
image when she laughed. This was by no means a rare occurrence, so they
said, before the fancy took her to be married in the ill-starred home
of her ancestors.

The few lines of attempted explanation which she had left behind for
her husband seemed to impose on no one. To those who knew the young
couple well it was an open proof of her insanity; to those who knew
them slightly, as well as to the public at large, it was a woman’s way
of expressing the disappointment she felt in her husband.

That I might the more readily determine which of these two theories had
the firmest basis in fact, I took advantage of an afternoon off and
slipped away to Alexandria, where, I had been told, Mr. Jeffrey had
courted his bride. I wanted a taste of local gossip, you see, and I got
it. The air was fully charged with it, and being careful not to rouse
antagonism by announcing myself a detective, I readily picked up many
small facts. Brought into shape and arranged in the form of a
narrative, the result was as follows:

John Judson Moore, the father of Veronica, had fewer oddities than the
other members of this eccentric family. It was thought, however, that
he had shown some strain of the peculiar independence of his race when,
in selecting a wife, he let his choice fall on a widow who was not only
encumbered with a child, but who was generally regarded as the plainest
woman in Virginia—he who might have had the pick of Southern beauty.
But when in the course of time this despised woman proved to be the
possessor of those virtues and social graces which eminently fitted her
to conduct the large establishment of which she had been made mistress,
he was forgiven his lack of taste. Little more was said of his
peculiarities until, his wife having died and his child proved weakly,
he made the will in his brother’s favor which has since given that
gentleman such deep satisfaction.

Why this proceeding should have been so displeasing to their friends
report says not; but that it was so, is evident from the fact that
great rejoicing took place on all sides when Veronica suddenly
developed into a healthy child and the probability of David Moore’s
inheriting the coveted estate decreased to a minimum. It was not a long
rejoicing, however, for John Judson followed his wife to the grave
before Veronica had reached her tenth year, leaving her and her
half-sister, Cora, to the guardianship of a crabbed old bachelor who
had been his father’s lawyer. This lawyer was morose and peevish, but
he was never positively unkind. For two years the sisters seemed happy
enough when, suddenly and somewhat peremptorily, they were separated,
Veronica being sent to a western school, where she remained, seemingly
without a single visit east, till she was seventeen. During this long
absence Miss Tuttle resided in Washington, developing under masters
into an accomplished woman. Veronica’s guardian, severe in his
treatment of the youthful owner of the large fortune of which he had
been made sole executor, was unexpectedly generous to the penniless
sister, hoping, perhaps, in his close, peevish old heart, that the
charms and acquired graces of this lovely woman would soon win for her
a husband in the brilliant set in which she naturally found herself.

But Cora Tuttle was not easy to please, and the first men of Washington
came and went before her eyes without awakening in her any special
interest till she met Francis Jeffrey, who stole her heart with a look.

Those who remember her that winter say that under his influence she
developed from a handsome woman into a lovely one. Yet no engagement
was announced, and society was wondering what held Francis Jeffrey back
from so great a prize, when Veronica Moore came home, and the question
was forever answered.

Veronica was now nearly eighteen, and during her absence had blossomed
into womanhood. She was not as beautiful as her sister, but she had a
bright and pleasing expression with enough spice in her temperament to
rob her girlish features of insipidity and make her conversation witty,
if not brilliant. Yet when Francis Jeffrey turned his attentions from
Miss Tuttle and fixed them without reserve, or seeming shame, upon this
pretty butterfly, but one term could be found to characterize the
proceeding, and that was, fortune hunting. Of small but settled income,
he had hitherto shown a certain contentment with his condition
calculated to inspire respect and make his attentions to Miss Tuttle
seem both consistent and appropriate. But no sooner did Veronica’s
bright eyes appear than he fell at the young heiress’ feet and pressed
his suit so close and fast that in two months they were engaged and at
the end of the half-year, married—with the disastrous consequences just
made known.

So much for the general gossip of the town. Now for the special.

A certain gentleman, whom it is unnecessary to name, had been present
at one critical instant in the lives of these three persons. He was not
a scandalmonger, and if everything had gone on happily, if Veronica had
lived and Cora settled down into matrimony, he would never have
mentioned what he heard and saw one night in the great drawing-room of
a hotel in Atlantic City.

It was at the time when the engagement was first announced between
Jeffrey and the young heiress. This and his previous attentions to Cora
had made much talk, both in Washington and elsewhere, and there were
not lacking those who had openly twitted him for his seeming
inconstancy. This had been over the cups of course, and Jeffrey had
borne it well enough from his so-called friends and intimates. But
when, on a certain evening in the parlor of one of the large hotels in
Atlantic City, a fellow whom nobody knew and nobody liked accused him
of knowing on which side his bread was buttered, and that certainly it
was not on the side of beauty and superior attainments, Jeffrey got
angry. Heedless of who might be within hearing, he spoke up very
plainly in these words: “You are all of a kind, rank money-worshipers
and self-seeker, or you would not be so ready to see greed in my
admiration for Miss Moore. Disagreeable as I find it to air my
sentiments in this public manner, yet since you provoke me to it, I
will say once and for all, that I am deeply in love with Miss Moore,
and that it is for this reason only I am going to marry her. Were she
the penniless girl her sister is, and Miss Tuttle the proud possessor
of the wealth which, in your eyes, confers such distinction upon Miss
Moore, you would still see me at the latter’s feet, and at hers only.
Miss Tuttle’s charms are not potent enough to hold the heart which has
once been fixed by her sister’s smile.”

This was pointed enough, certainly, but when at the conclusion of his
words a tall figure rose from a near corner and Cora Tuttle passed the
amazed group with a bow, I dare warrant that not one of the men
composing it but wished himself a hundred miles away.

Jeffrey himself was chagrined, and made a move to follow the woman he
had so publicly scorned, but the look she cast back at him was one to
remember, and he hesitated. What was there left for him to say, or even
to do? The avowal had been made in all its bald frankness and nothing
could alter it. As for her, she behaved beautifully, and by no word or
look, so far as the world knew, ever showed that her woman’s pride, if
not her heart, had been cut to the quick, by the one man she adored.

With this incident filling my mind, I returned to Washington. I had
acquainted myself with the open facts of this family’s history; but
what of its inner life? Who knew it? Did any one? Even the man who
confided to me the _contretemps_ in the hotel parlor could not be sure
what underlay Mr. Jeffrey’s warm advocacy of the woman he had elected
to marry. He could not even be certain that he had really understood
the feeling shown by Cora Tuttle when she heard the man, who had once
lavished attentions on her, express in this public manner a preference
for her sister. A woman has great aptness in concealing a mortal hurt,
and, from what I had seen of this one, I thought it highly improbable
that all was quiet in her passionate breast because she had turned an
impassive front to the world.

I was becoming confused in the maze of my own imaginings. To escape the
results of this confusion, I determined to drop theory and confine
myself to facts.

And thus passed the first few days succeeding the tragic discovery in
the Moore house.




VII.
SLY WORK


The next morning my duty led me directly in the way of that little
friend of mine whom I have already mentioned. It is strange how often
my duty did lead me in her way.

She is a demure little creature, with wits as bright as her eyes, which
is saying a great deal; and while, in the course of our long
friendship, I had admired without making use of the special abilities I
saw in her, I felt that the time had now come when they might prove of
inestimable value to me.

Greeting her with pardonable abruptness, I expressed my wishes in these
possibly alarming words:

“Jinny, you can do something for me. Find out—I know you can, and that,
too, without arousing suspicion or compromising either of us—where Mr.
Moore, of Waverley Avenue, buys his groceries, and when you have done
that, whether or not he has lately resupplied himself with candles.”

The surprise which she showed had a touch of naivete in it which was
very encouraging.

“Mr. Moore?” she cried, “the uncle of her who—who—”

“The very same,” I responded, and waited for her questions without
adding a single word in way of explanation.

She gave me a look—oh, what a look! It was as encouraging to the
detective as it was welcome to the lover; after which she nodded, once
in doubt, once in question and once in frank and laughing consent, and
darted off.

I thanked Providence for such a self-contained little aide-de-camp and
proceeded on my way, in a state of great self-satisfaction.

An hour later I came upon her again. It is really extraordinary how
frequently the paths of some people cross.

“Well?” I asked.

“Mr. Moore deals with Simpkins, just two blocks away from his house;
and only a week ago he bought some candles there.”

I rewarded her with a smile which summoned into view the most
exasperating of dimples.

“You had better patronize Simpkins yourself for a little while,” I
suggested; and by the arch glance with which my words were received, I
perceived that my meaning was fully understood.

Experiencing from this moment an increased confidence, not only in the
powers of my little friend, but in the line of investigation thus
happily established, I cast about for means of settling the one great
question which was a necessary preliminary to all future action:
Whether the marks detected by me in the dust of the mantel in the
southwest chamber had been made by the hand of him who had lately felt
the need of candles, albeit his house appeared to be fully lighted by
gas?

The subterfuge by which, notwithstanding my many disadvantages, I was
finally enabled to obtain unmistakable answer to this query was the
fruit of much hard thought. Perhaps I was too proud of it. Perhaps I
should have mistrusted myself more from the start. But I was a great
egotist in those days, and reckoned quite above their inherent worth
any bright ideas which I could safely call my own.

The point aimed at was this: to obtain without Moore’s knowledge an
accurate impression of his finger-tips.

The task presented difficulties, but these served duly to increase my
ardor.

Confiding to the lieutenant of the precinct my great interest in the
mysterious house with whose suggestive interior I had made myself
acquainted under such tragic circumstances, I asked him as a personal
favor to obtain for me an opportunity of spending another night there.

He was evidently surprised by the request, not cherishing, as I
suppose, any great longings himself in this direction; but recognizing
that for some reason I set great store on this questionable
privilege,—I do not think that he suspected in the least what that
reason was,—and being, as I have intimated, favorably disposed to me,
he exerted himself to such good effect that I was formally detailed to
assist in keeping watch over the premises that very night.

I think that it was at this point I began to reckon on the success
which, after many failures and some mischances, was yet to reward my
efforts.

As I prepared to enter the old house at nightfall, I allowed myself one
short glance across the way to see if my approach had been observed by
the man whose secret, if secret he had, I was laying plans to surprise.
I was met by a sight I had not expected. Pausing on the pavement in
front of me stood a handsome elderly gentleman whose appearance was so
fashionable and thoroughly up to date, that I should have failed to
recognize him if my glance had not taken in at the same instant the
figure of Rudge crouching obstinately on the edge of the curb where he
had evidently posted himself in distinct refusal to come any farther.
In vain his master,—for the well-dressed man before me was no less a
personage than the whilom butt of all the boys between the Capitol and
the Treasury building,—signaled and commanded him to cross to his side;
nothing could induce the mastiff to budge from that quarter of the
street where he felt himself safe.

Mr. Moore, glorying in the prospect of unlimited wealth, presented a
startling contrast in more ways than one to the poverty-stricken old
man whose curious garb and lonely habits had made him an object of
ridicule to half the town. I own that I was half amused and half awed
by the condescending bow with which he greeted my offhand nod and the
affable way in which he remarked:

“You are making use of your prerogatives as a member of the police, I
see.”

The words came as easily from his lips as if his practice in affability
had been of the very longest.

“I wonder how the old place enjoys its present distinction,” he went
on, running his eye over the dilapidated walls under which we stood,
with very evident pride in their vast proportions and the air of gloomy
grandeur which signalized them. “If it partakes in the slightest degree
of the feelings of its owner, I can vouch for its impatience at the
free use which is made of its time-worn rooms and halls. Are these
intrusions necessary? Now that Mrs. Jeffrey’s body has been removed, do
you feel that the scene of her demise need hold the attention of the
police any longer?”

“That is a question to put to the superintendent and not to me,” was my
deprecatory reply. “The major has issued no orders for the watch to be
taken off, so we men have no choice. I am sorry if it offends you.
Doubtless a few days will end the matter and the keys will be given
into your hand. I suppose you are anxious to move in?”

He cast a glance behind him at his dog, gave a whistle which passed
unheeded, and replied with dignity, if but little heart:

“When a man has passed his seventh decade he is not apt to be so
patient with delay as when he has a prospect of many years before him.
I am anxious to enter my own house, yes; I have much to do there.”

I came very near asking him what, but feared to seem too familiar, in
case he was the cold but upright man he would fain appear, and too
interested and inquiring if he were the whited sepulcher I secretly
considered him. So with a nod a trifle more pronounced than if I had
been unaffected by either hypothesis, I remounted the steps, carelessly
remarking:

“I’ll see you again after taking a turn through the house. If I
discover anything—ghost marks or human marks which might be of interest
to you—I’ll let you know.”

Something like a growl answered me. But whether it came from master or
dog, I did not stop to inquire. I had serious work before me; very
serious, considering that it was to be done on my own responsibility
and without the knowledge of my superiors. But I was sustained by the
thought that no whisper of murder had as yet been heard abroad or at
headquarters, and that consequently I was interfering in no great case;
merely trying to formulate one.

It was necessary, for the success of my plan, that some time should
elapse before I reapproached Mr. Moore. I therefore kept my word to him
and satisfied my own curiosity by taking a fresh tour through the
house. Naturally, in doing this, I visited the library. Here all was
dark. The faint twilight still illuminating the streets failed to
penetrate here. I was obliged to light my lantern.

My first glance was toward the fireplace. Venturesome hands had been
there. Not only had the fender been drawn out and the grate set aside,
but the huge settle had been wrenched free from the mantel and dragged
into the center of the room. Rather pleased at this change, for with
all my apparent bravado I did not enjoy too close a proximity to the
cruel hearthstone, I stopped to give this settle a thorough
investigation. The result was disappointing. To all appearance—and I
did not spare it the experiment of many a thump and knock—it was a
perfectly innocuous piece of furniture, clumsy of build, but solid and
absolutely devoid of anything that could explain the tragedies which
had occurred so near it. I even sat down on its musty old cushion and
shut my eyes, but was unrewarded by alarming visions, or disturbance of
any sort. Nor did the floor where it had stood yield any better results
to the inquiring eye. Nothing was to be seen there but the marks left
by the removal of its base from the blackened boards.

Disgusted with myself, if not with this object of my present
disappointment, I left that portion of the room in which it stood and
crossed to where I had found the little table on the night of Mrs.
Jeffrey’s death. It was no longer there. It had been set back against
the wall where it properly belonged, and the candelabrum removed. Nor
was the kitchen chair any longer to be seen near the book shelves. This
fact, small as it was, caused me an instant of chagrin. I had intended
to look again at the book which I had examined with such unsatisfactory
results the time before. A glance showed me that this book had been
pushed back level with the others; but I remembered its title, and, had
the means of reaching it been at hand, I should certainly have stolen
another peep at it.

Upstairs I found the same signs of police interference. The shutter had
been fastened in the southwest room, and the bouquet and wrap taken
away from the bed. The handkerchief, also, was missing from the mantel
where I had left it, and when I opened the closet door, it was to find
the floor bare and the second candelabrum and candle removed.

“All gone,” thought I; “each and every clue.”

But I was mistaken. In another moment I came upon the minute filings I
had before observed scattered over a small stand. Concluding from this
that they had been passed over by Durbin and his associates as
valueless, I swept them, together with the dust in which they lay, into
an old envelope I happily found in my pocket. Then I crossed to the
mantel and made a close inspection of its now empty shelf. The
scratches which I had made there were visible enough, but the
impressions for which they stood had vanished in the handling which
everything in the house had undergone. Regarding with great
thankfulness the result of my own foresight, I made haste to leave the
room. I then proceeded to take my first steps in the ticklish
experiment by which I hoped to determine whether Uncle David had had
any share in the fatal business which had rendered the two rooms I had
just visited so memorable.

First, satisfying myself by a peep through the front drawing-room
window that he was positively at watch behind the vines, I went
directly to the kitchen, procured a chair and carried it into the
library, where I put it to a use that, to an onlooker’s eye, would have
appeared very peculiar. Planting it squarely on the hearthstone,—not
without some secret perturbation as to what the results might be to
myself,—I mounted it and took down the engraving which I have already
described as hanging over this mantelpiece.

Setting it on end against one of the jambs of the fireplace, I mounted
the chair once more and carefully sifted over the high shelf the
contents of a little package which I had brought with me for this
purpose.

Then, leaving the chair where it was, I betook myself out of the front
door, ostentatiously stopping to lock it and to put the key in my
pocket.

Crossing immediately to Mr. Moore’s side of the street, I encountered
him as I had expected to do, at his own gateway.

“Well, what now?” he inquired, with the same exaggerated courtesy I had
noticed in him on a previous occasion. “You have the air of a man
bringing news. Has anything fresh happened in the old house?”

I assumed a frankness which seemed to impose on him.

“Do you know,” I sententiously informed him, “I have a wonderful
interest in that old hearthstone; or rather in the seemingly innocent
engraving hanging over it, of Benjamin Franklin at the Court of France.
I tell you frankly that I had no idea of what would be found behind the
picture.”

I saw, by his quick look, that I had stirred up a hornets’ nest. This
was just what I had calculated to do.

“Behind it!” he repeated. “There is nothing behind it.”

I laughed, shrugged my shoulders, and backed slowly toward the door.

“Of course, you should know,” I retorted, with some condescension.
Then, as if struck by a sudden remembrance: “Oh, by the way, have you
been told that there is a window on that lower floor which does not
stay fastened? I speak of it that you may have it repaired as soon as
the police vacate. It’s the last one in the hall leading to the negro
quarters. If you shake it hard enough, the catch falls back and any one
can raise it even from the outside.”

“I will see to it,” he replied, dropping his eyes, possibly to hide
their curious twinkle. “But what do you mean about finding something in
the wall behind that old picture? I’ve never heard—”

But though he spoke quickly and shouted the last words after me at the
top of his voice, I was by this time too far away to respond save by a
dubious smile and a semi-patronizing wave of the hand. Not until I was
nearly out of earshot did I venture to shout back the following words:

“I’ll be back in an hour. If anything happens—if the boys annoy you, or
any one attempts to enter the old house, telephone to the station or
summon the officer at the corner. I don’t believe any harm will come
from leaving the place to itself for a while.” Then I walked around the
block.

When I arrived in front again it was quite dark. So was the house; but
there was light in the library. I felt assured that I should find Uncle
David there, and I did. When, after a noiseless entrance and a careful
advance through the hall, I threw open the door beyond the gilded
pillars, it was to see the tall figure of this old man mounted upon the
chair I had left there, peering up at the nail from which I had so
lately lifted the picture. He started as I presented myself and almost
fell from the chair. But the careless laugh I uttered assured him of
the little importance I placed upon this evidence of his daring and
unappeasable curiosity, and he confronted me with an enviable air of
dignity; whereupon I managed to say:

“Really, Mr. Moore, I’m glad to see you here. It is quite natural for
you to wish to learn by any means in your power what that picture
concealed. I came back, because I suddenly remembered that I had
forgotten to rehang it.”

Involuntarily he glanced again at the wall overhead, which was as bare
as his hand, save for the nail he had already examined.

“It has concealed nothing,” he retorted. “You can see yourself that the
wall is bare and that it rings as sound as any chimneypiece ever made.”
Here he struck it heavily with his fist. “What did you imagine that you
had found?”

I smiled, shrugged my shoulders in tantalizing repetition of my former
action upon a like occasion and then answered brusquely:

“I did not come back to betray police secrets, but to restore this
picture to its place. Or perhaps you prefer to have it down rather than
up? It isn’t much of an ornament.”

He scrutinized me darkly from over his shoulder, a wary gleam showing
itself in his shrewd old eyes; and the idea crossed me that the moment
might possess more significance than appeared. But I did not step
backward, nor give evidence in any way that I had even thought of
danger. I simply laid my hand on the picture and looked up at him for
orders.

He promptly signified that he wished it hung, adding as I hesitated
these words: “The pictures in this house are supposed to stay on the
walls where they belong. There is a traditional superstition against
removing them.”

I immediately lifted the print from the floor. No doubt he had me at a
disadvantage, if evil was in his heart, and my position on the hearth
was as dangerous as previous events had proved it to be. But it would
not do to show the white feather at a moment when his fate, if not my
own, hung in the balance; so motioning him to step down, I put foot on
the chair and raised the picture aloft to hang it. As I did so, he
moved over to the huge settle of his ancestors, and, crossing his arms
over its back, surveyed me with a smile I rather imagined than saw.

Suddenly, as I strained to put the cord over the nail he called out:

“Look out! you’ll fall.”

If he had intended to give me a start in payment for my previous rebuff
he did not succeed; for my nerves had grown steady and my arm firm at
the glimpse I had caught of the shelf below me. The fine brown powder I
had scattered there had been displaced in five distinct spots, and not
by my fingers. I had preferred to risk the loss of my balance, rather
than rest my hand on the shelf, but he had taken no such precaution.
The clue I so anxiously desired and for which I had so recklessly
worked, was obtained.

But when half an hour later I found an opportunity of measuring these
marks and comparing them with those upstairs, I did not enjoy the full
triumph I had promised myself. For the two impressions utterly failed
to coincide, thus proving that whoever the person was who had been in
this house with Mrs. Jeffrey on the evening she died, it was not her
uncle David.




VIII.
SLYER WOES


Let me repeat. The person who had left the marks of his presence in the
upper chamber of the Moore house was not the man popularly known as
Uncle David. Who, then, had it been? But one name suggested itself to
me,—Mr. Jeffrey.

It was not so easy for me to reach this man as it had been for me to
reach his singular and unimaginative uncle. In the first place, his
door had been closed to every one since his wife’s death. Neither
friends nor strangers could gain admittance there unless they came
vested with authority from the coroner. And this, even if I could
manage to obtain it, would not answer in my case. What I had to say and
do would better follow a chance encounter. But no chance encounter with
this gentleman seemed likely to fall to my lot, and finally I swallowed
my pride and asked another favor of the lieutenant. Would he see that I
was given an opportunity for carrying some message, or of doing some
errand which would lead to my having an interview with Mr. Jeffrey? If
he would, I stood ready to promise that my curiosity should stop at
this point and that I would cease to make a nuisance of myself.

I think he suspected me by this time; but he made no remark, and in a
day or so I was summoned to carry a note to the house in K Street.

Mrs. Jeffrey’s funeral had taken place the day before and the house
looked deserted. But my summons speedily brought a neat-looking, but
very nervous maid to the door, whose eyes took on an unmistakable
expression of resistance when I announced my errand and asked to see
Mr. Jeffrey. The expression would not have struck me as peculiar if she
had raised any objection to the interview I had solicited. But she did
not. Her fear and antipathy, consequently, sprang from some other
source than her interest in the man most threatened by my visit. Was
it—could it be, on her own account? Recalling what I had heard
whispered about the station concerning a maid of the Jeffreys who
always seemed on the point of saying something which never really left
her lips, I stopped her as she was about to slip upstairs and quietly
asked:

“Are you Loretta?”

The way she turned, the way she looked at me as she gave me a short
affirmative, and then quickly proceeded on her way, convinced me that
my colleagues were right as to her being a woman who had some cause for
dreading police interference. I instantly made up my mind that here was
a mine to be worked and that I knew just the demure little soul best
equipped to act the part of miner.

In a moment she came back, and I had a chance to note again her pretty
but expressionless features, among which the restless eyes alone
bespoke character or decision.

“Mr. Jeffrey is in the back room upstairs,” she announced. “He says for
you to come up.”

“Is it the room Mrs. Jeffrey used to occupy?” I asked with open
curiosity, as I passed her.

An involuntary shudder proved that she was not without feeling. So did
the quick disclaimer:

“No, no! Those rooms are closed. He occupies the one Miss Tuttle had
before she went away.”

“Oh, then, Miss Tuttle is gone?”

Loretta disdained to answer. She had already said enough to cause her
to bite her lip as she disappeared down the basement stair. Decidedly
the boys were right. An uneasy feeling followed any conversation with
this girl. Yet, while there was slyness in her manner, there was a
certain frank honesty visible in it too, which caused me to think that
if she could ever be made to speak, her evidence could be relied on.

Mr. Jeffrey was sitting with his back to the door when I entered, but
turned as I spoke his name and held out his hand for the note I
carried. I had no expectation of his remembering me as one of the men
who had stood about that night in the Moore house, and I was not
disappointed. To him I was merely a messenger, or common policeman; and
he consequently paid me no attention, while I bestowed upon him the
most concentrated scrutiny of my whole life. Till now I had seen him
only in half lights, or under circumstances precluding my getting a
very accurate idea of him as a man and a gentleman. Now he sat with the
broad daylight on his face, and I had every opportunity for noting both
his features and expression. He was of a distinguished type; but the
cloud enshrouding him was as heavy as any I had ever seen darkening
about a man of his position and character. His manner, fettered though
it was by gloomy thoughts, was not just the manner I had expected to
encounter.

He had a large, clear eye, but the veil which hid the brightness of his
regard was misty with suspicion, not with tears. He appeared to shrink
from observation, and shifted uneasily as long as I stood in front of
him, though he said nothing and did not lift his eyes from the letter
he was perusing till he heard me step back to the door I had purposely
left open and softly close it. Then he glanced up, with a keen, if not
an alarmed look, which seemed an exaggerated one for the occasion,—that
is, if he had no secret to keep.

“Do you suffer so from drafts?” he asked, rising in a way which in
itself was a dismissal.

I smiled an amused denial, then with the simple directness I thought
most likely to win me his confidence, entered straight upon my business
in these plain words:

“Pardon me, Mr. Jeffrey, I have something to say which is not exactly
fitted for the ears of servants.” Then, as he pushed his chair suddenly
back, I added reassuringly: “It is not a police matter, sir, but an
entirely personal one. It may strike you as important, and it may not.
Mr. Jeffrey, I was the man who made the unhappy discovery in the Moore
mansion, which has plunged this house into mourning.”

This announcement startled him and produced a visible change in his
manner. His eyes flew first to one door and then to another, as if it
were he who feared intrusion now.

“I beg your pardon for speaking on so painful a topic,” I went on, as
soon as I saw he was ready to listen to me. “My excuse is that I came
upon a little thing that same night which I have not thought of
sufficient importance to mention to any one else, but which it may
interest you to hear about.”

Here I took from a book I held, a piece of blotting-paper. It was white
on one side and blue on the other. The white side I had thickly
chalked, though this was not apparent. Laying down this piece of
blotting-paper, chalked side up, on the end of a large table near which
we were standing, I took out an envelope from my pocket, and, shaking
it gently to and fro, remarked:

“In an upper room of the Moore house—you remember the southwest
chamber, sir?”

Ah! didn’t he! There was no misdoubting the quick emotion—the shrinking
and the alarm with which he heard this room mentioned.

“It was in that room that I found these.”

Tipping up the envelope, I scattered over the face of the blotter a few
of the glistening particles I had collected from the place mentioned.

He bent over them, astonished. Then, as was natural, brushed them
together in a heap with the tips of his fingers, and leaned to look
again, just as I breathed a heavy sigh which scattered them far and
wide.

Instinctively, he withdrew his hand; whereupon I embraced the
opportunity of turning the blotter over, uttering meanwhile the most
profuse apologies. Then, as if anxious not to repeat my misadventure, I
let the blotter lie where it was, and pouring out the few remaining
particles into my palm, I held them toward the light in such a way that
he was compelled to lean across the table in order to see them.
Naturally, for I had planned the distance well, his finger-tips, white
with the chalk he had unconsciously handled, touched the blue surface
of the blotter now lying uppermost and left their marks there.

I could have shouted in my elation at the success of this risky
maneuver, but managed to suppress my emotion, and to stand quite still
while he took a good look at the filings. They seemed to have great and
unusual interest for him and it was with no ordinary emotion that he
finally asked:

“What do you make out of these, and why do you bring them here?”

My answer was written under his hand; but this it was far from my
policy to impart. So putting on my friendliest air, I returned, with
suitable respect:

“I don’t know what to make of them. They look like gold; but that is
for you to decide. Do you want them, sir?”

“No,” he replied, starting erect and withdrawing his hand from the
blotter. “It’s but a trifle, not worth our attention. But I thank you
just the same for bringing it to my notice.”

And again his manner became a plain dismissal.

This time I accepted it as such without question. Carelessly restoring
the piece of blotting-paper to the book from which I had taken it, I
made a bow and withdrew toward the door. He seemed to be thinking, and
the deep furrows which I am sure had been lacking from his brow a week
previous, became startlingly visible. Finally he observed:

“Mrs. Jeffrey was not in her right mind when she so unhappily took her
life. I see now that the change in her dates back to her wedding day,
consequently any little peculiarity she may have shown at that time is
not to be wondered at.”

“Certainly not,” I boldly ventured; “if such peculiarities were shown
after the fright given her by the catastrophe which took place in the
library.”

His eyes, which were fixed on mine, flashed, and his hands closed
convulsively.

“We will not consider the subject,” he muttered, reseating himself in
the chair from which he had risen.

I bowed again and went out. I did not dwell on the interview in my own
mind nor did I allow myself to draw any conclusions from it, till I had
carried the blotter into the southwest chamber of the Moore house and
carefully compared the impressions made on it with the marks I had
scratched on the surface of the mantel-shelf. This I did by laying the
one over the other, after having made holes where his finger-tips had
touched the blotter.

The holes in the blotter and the marks outlined upon the shelf
coincided exactly.




IX.
JINNY


I have already mentioned the man whom I secretly looked upon as
standing between me and all preferment. He was a good-looking fellow,
but he wore a natural sneer which for some reason I felt to be always
directed toward myself. This sneer grew pronounced about this time, and
that was the reason, no doubt, why I continued to work as long as I did
in secret. I dreaded the open laugh of this man, a laugh which always
seemed hovering on his lips and which was only held in restraint by the
awe we all felt of the major.

Notwithstanding, I made one slight move. Encountering the
deputy-coroner, I ventured to ask if he was quite satisfied with the
evidence collected in the Jeffrey case.

His surprise did not prevent him from asking my reasons for this
question.

I replied to this effect:

“Because I have a little friend, winsome enough and subtle enough to
worm the truth out of the devil. I hear that the girl Loretta is
suspected of knowing more about this unfortunate tragedy than she is
willing to impart. If you wish this little friend of mine to talk to
her, I will see that she does so and does so with effect.”

The deputy-coroner looked interested.

“Whom do you mean by ‘little friend’ and what is her name?”

“I will send her to you.”

And I did.

The next day I was standing on the corner of Vermont Avenue when I saw
Jinny advancing from the house in K Street. She was chipper, and she
was smiling in a way which made me say to myself:

“It is fortunate that Durbin is not here.”

For Jinny’s one weakness is her lack of power to hide the satisfaction
she takes in any detective work that comes her way. I had told her of
this and had more than once tried to impress upon her that her smile
was a complete give-away, but I noticed that if she kept it from her
lips, it forced its way out of her eyes, and if she kept it out of her
eyes, it beamed like an inner radiance from her whole face. So I gave
up the task of making her perfect and let her go on smiling, glad that
she had such frequent cause for it.

This morning her smile had a touch of pride in it as well as of
delight, and noting this, I remarked:

“You have made Loretta talk.”

Her head went up and a demure dimple appeared in her cheek.

“What did she say?” I urged. “What has she been keeping back?”

“You will have to ask the coroner. My orders were strict to bring the
results of my interview immediately to him.”

“Does that include Durbin?”

“Does it include you?”

“I am afraid not.”

“You are right; but why shouldn’t it include you?”

“What do you mean, Jinny?”

“Why do you keep your own counsel so long? You have ideas about this
crime, I know. Why not mention them?”

“Jinny!”

“A word to the wise is sufficient;” she laughed and turned her pretty
face toward the coroner’s once. But she was a woman and could not help
glancing back, and, meeting my dubious look, she broke into an arch
smile and naively added this remark: “Loretta is a busybody ashamed of
her own curiosity. So much there can be no harm in telling you. When
one’s knowledge has been gained by lingering behind doors and peeping
through cracks, one is not so ready to say what one has seen and heard.
Loretta is in that box, and being more than a little scared of the
police, was glad to let her anxiety and her fears overflow into a
sympathizing ear. Won’t she be surprised when she is called up some
fine day by the coroner! I wonder if she will blame _me_ for it?”

“She will never think of doing so,” I basely assured my little friend,
with an appreciative glance at her sparkling eye and dimpled cheek.

The arch little creature started to move off again. As she did so, she
cried: “Be good, and don’t let Durbin cut in on you;” but stopped for
the second time when half across the street, and when, obedient to her
look, I hastily rejoined her, she whispered demurely: “Oh, I forgot to
tell you something that I heard this morning, and which nobody but
yourself has any right to know. I was following your commands and
buying groceries at Simpkins’, when just as I was coming out with my
arms full, I heard old Mr. Simpkins mention Mr. Jeffrey’s name and with
such interest that I naturally wanted to hear what he had to say.
Having no real excuse for staying, I poked my finger into a bag of
sugar I was carrying, till the sugar ran out and I had to wait till it
was put up again. This did not take long, but it took long enough for
me to hear the old grocer say that he knew Mr. Jeffrey, and that that
gentleman had come into his shop only a day or two before his wife’s
death, to buy—_candles!_”

The archness with which this was said, together with the fact itself,
made me her slave forever. As her small figure faded from sight down
the avenue, I decided to take her advice and follow up whatever
communication she had to make to the coroner by a confession of my own
suspicions and what they had led me into. If he laughed—well, I could
stand it. It was not the coroner’s laugh, nor even the major’s, that I
feared; it was Durbin’s.




X.
FRANCIS JEFFREY


Jinny had not been gone an hour from the coroner’s office when an
opportunity was afforded for me to approach that gentleman myself.

With few apologies and no preamble, I immediately entered upon my story
which I made as concise and as much to the point as possible. I did not
expect praise from him, but I did look for some slight show of
astonishment at the nature of my news. I was therefore greatly
disappointed, when, after a moment’s quiet consideration, he carelessly
remarked:

“Very good! very good! The one point you make is excellent and may
prove of use to us. We had reached the same conclusion, but by another
road. You ask, ‘Who blew out the candle?’ We, ‘Who tied the pistol to
Mrs. Jeffrey’s arm?’ It could not have been tied by herself. Who was
her accessory then? Ah, you didn’t think of that.”

I flushed as if a pail of hot water had been dashed suddenly over me.
He was right. The conclusion he spoke of had failed to strike me. Why?
It was a perfectly obvious one, as obvious as that the candle had been
blown out by another breath than hers; yet, absorbed in my own train of
thought, I had completely overlooked it. The coroner observing my
embarrassment, smiled, and my humiliation was complete or would have
been had Durbin been there, but fortunately he was not.

“I am a fool,” I cried. “I thought I had discovered something. I might
have known that there were keener minds than mine in this office—”

“Easy! easy!” was the good-natured interruption. “You have done well.
If I did not think so, I would not keep you here a minute. As it is, I
am disposed to let you see that in a case like this, one man must not
expect to monopolize all the honors. This matter of the bow of ribbon
would strike any old and experienced official. I only wonder that we
have not seen it openly discussed in the papers.”

Taking a box from his desk, he opened it and held it out toward me. A
coil of white ribbon surmounted by a crisp and dainty bow met my eyes.

“You recognize it?” he asked.

Indeed I did.

“It was cut from her wrist by my deputy. Miss Tuttle wished him to
untie it, but he preferred to leave the bow intact. Now lift it out.
Careful, man, don’t soil it; you will see why in a minute.”

As I held the ribbon up, he pointed to some spots on its fresh white
surface. “Do you see those?” he asked. “Those are dust-marks, and they
were made as truly by some one’s fingers, as the impressions you noted
on the mantel-shelf in the upper chamber. This pistol was tied to her
wrist after the deed; possibly by that same hand.”

It was my own conclusion but it did not sound as welcome to me from his
lips as I had expected. Either my nature is narrow, or my inordinate
jealousy lays me open to the most astonishing inconsistencies; for no
sooner had he spoken these words than I experienced a sudden revulsion
against my own theory and the suspicions which it threw upon the man
whom an hour before I was eager to proclaim a criminal.

But Coroner Z. gave me no chance for making such a fool of myself.
Rescuing the ribbon from my hands, which no doubt were running a little
too freely over its snowy surface, he smiled with the indulgence proper
from such a man to a novice like myself, and observed quite frankly:

“You will consider these observations as confidential. You know how to
hold your tongue; that you have proved. Hold it then a little longer.
The case is not yet ripe. Mr. Jeffrey is a man of high standing, with a
hitherto unblemished reputation. It won’t do, my boy, to throw the
doubt of so hideous a crime upon so fine a gentleman without ample
reason. That no such mistake may be made and that he may have every
opportunity for clearing himself, I am going to have a confidential
talk with him. Do you want to be present?”

I flushed again; but this time from extreme satisfaction.

“I am obliged for your confidence,” said I; then, with a burst of
courage born of his good nature, I inquired with due respect if my
little friend had answered his expectations. “Was she as clever as I
said?” I asked.

“Your little friend is a trump,” was his blunt reply. “With what we
have learned through her and now through you, we can approach Mr.
Jeffrey to some purpose. It appears that, before leaving the house on
that Tuesday morning, he had an interview with his wife which ought in
some way to account for this tragedy. Perhaps he will tell us about it,
and perhaps he will explain how he came to wander through the Moore
house while his wife lay dying below. At all events we will give him
the opportunity to do so and, if possible, to clear up mysteries which
provoke the worst kind of conjecture. It is time. The ideas advanced by
the papers foster superstition; and superstition is the devil. Go and
tell my man out there that I am going to K Street. You may say ‘we’ if
you like,” he added with a humor more welcome to me than any serious
concession.

Did I feel set up by this? Rather.

Mr. Jeffrey was expecting us. This was evident from his first look,
though the attempt he made at surprise was instantaneous and very well
feigned. Indeed, I think he was in a constant state of apprehension
during these days and that no inroad of the police would have
astonished him. But expectation does not preclude dread; indeed it
tends to foster it, and dread was in his heart. This he had no power to
conceal.

“To what am I indebted for this second visit from you?” he asked of
Coroner Z., with an admirable presence of mind. “Are you not yet
satisfied with what we have been able to tell you of my poor wife’s
unhappy end?”

“We are not,” was the plain response. “There are some things you have
not attempted to explain, Mr. Jeffrey. For instance, why you went to
the Moore house previous to your being called there by the death of
your wife.”

It was a shot that told; an arrow which found its mark. Mr. Jeffrey
flushed, then turned pale, rallied and again lost himself in a maze of
conflicting emotions from which he only emerged to say:

“How do you know that I was there? Have I said so; or do those old
walls babble in their sleep?”

“Old walls have been known to do this,” was the grave reply. “Whether
they had anything to say in this case is at present quite immaterial.
That you were where I charge you with being is evident from your own
manner. May I then ask if you have anything to say about this visit.
When a person has died under such peculiar circumstances as Mrs.
Jeffrey, everything bearing upon the case is of interest to the
coroner.”

I was sorry he added that last sentence; sorry that he felt obliged to
qualify his action by anything savoring of apology; for the time spent
in its utterance afforded his agitated hearer an opportunity not only
of collecting himself but of preparing an answer for which he would not
have been ready an instant before.

“Mrs. Jeffrey’s death was a strange one,” her husband admitted with
tardy self-control. “I find myself as much at a loss to understand it
as you do, and am therefore quite ready to answer the question you have
so openly broached. Not that my answer has any bearing upon the point
you wish to make, but because it is your due and my pleasure. I did
visit the Moore house, as I certainly had every right to do. The
property was my wife’s, and it was for my interest to learn, if I
could, the secret of its many crimes.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Jeffrey looked quickly up. “You think that an odd thing for me to
do?”

“At night. Yes.”

“Night is the time for such work. I did not care to be seen pottering
around there in daylight.”

“No? Yet it would have been so much easier. You would not have had to
buy candles or carry a pistol or—”

“I did not carry a pistol. The only pistol carried there was the one
with which my demented wife chose to take her life. I do not understand
this allusion.”

“It grew out of a misunderstanding of the situation, Mr. Jeffrey;
excuse me if I supposed you would be likely to provide yourself with
some means of defense in venturing alone upon the scene of so many
mysterious deaths.”

“I took no precaution.”

“And needed none, I suppose.”

“And needed none.”

“When was this visit paid, Mr. Jeffrey? Before or after your wife
pulled the trigger which ended her life? You need not hesitate to
answer.”

“I do not.” The elegant gentleman before us had acquired a certain
fierceness. “Why should I? Certainly, you don’t think that I was there
at the same time she was. It was not on the same night, even. So much
the walls should have told you and probably did, or my wife’s uncle,
Mr. David Moore. Was he not your informant?”

“No; Mr. Moore has failed to call our attention to this fact. Did you
meet Mr. Moore during the course of your visit to a neighborhood over
which he seems to hold absolute sway?”

“Not to my knowledge. But his house is directly opposite, and as he has
little to do but amuse himself with what he can see from his front
window, I concluded that he might have observed me going in.”

“You entered by the front door, then?”

“How else?”

“And on what night?”

Mr. Jeffrey made an effort. These questions were visibly harassing him.

“The night before the one—the one which ended all my earthly
happiness,” he added in a low voice.

Coroner Z. cast a glance at me. I remembered the lack of dust on the
nest of little tables from which the upper one had been drawn forward
to hold the candelabrum, and gently shook my head. The coroner’s
eyebrows went up, but none of his disbelief crept into his voice as he
made this additional statement.

“The night on which you failed to return to your own house.”

Instantly Mr. Jeffrey betrayed by a nervous action, which was quite
involuntary, that his outward calm was slowly giving way under a fire
of questions for which he had no ready reply.

“It was odd, your not going home that night,” the coroner coldly
pursued. “The misunderstanding you had with your wife immediately after
breakfast must have been a very serious one; more serious than you have
hitherto acknowledged.”

“I had rather not discuss the subject,” protested Mr. Jeffrey. Then as
if he suddenly recognized the official character of his interlocutor,
he hastily added: “Unless you positively request me to do so; in which
case I must.”

“I am afraid that I must insist upon it,” returned the other. “You will
find that it will be insisted upon at the inquest, and if you do not
wish to subject yourself to much unnecessary unpleasantness, you had
better make clear to us today the cause of that special quarrel which
to all intents and purposes led to your wife’s death.”

“I will try to do so,” returned Mr. Jeffrey, rising and pacing the room
in his intense restlessness. “We did have some words; her conduct the
night before had not pleased me. I am naturally jealous, vilely
jealous, and I thought she was a little frivolous at the German
ambassador’s ball. But I had no idea she would take my sharp speeches
so much to heart. I had no idea that she would care so much or that I
should care so much. A little jealousy is certainly pardonable in a
bridegroom, and if her mind had not already been upset, she would have
remembered how I loved her and hopefully waited for a reconciliation.”

“You did love your wife, then? It was you and not she who had a right
to be jealous? I have heard the contrary stated. It is a matter of
public gossip that you loved another woman previous to your
acquaintance with Miss Moore; a woman whom your wife regarded with
sisterly affection and subsequently took into her new home.”

“Miss Tuttle?” Mr. Jeffrey stopped in his walk to fling out this
ejaculation. “I admire and respect Miss Tuttle,” he went on to declare,
“but I never loved her. Not as I did my wife,” he finished, but with a
certain hard accent, apparent enough to a sensitive ear.

“Pardon me; it is as difficult for me to put these questions as it is
for you to hear them. Were you and Miss Tuttle ever engaged?”

I started. This was a question which half of Washington had been asking
itself for the last three months.

Would Mr. Jeffrey answer it? or, remembering that these questions were
rather friendly than official, refuse to satisfy a curiosity which he
might well consider intrusive? The set aspect of his features promised
little in the way of information, and we were both surprised when a
moment later he responded with a grim emphasis hardly to be expected
from one of his impulsive temperament:

“Unhappily, no. My attentions never went so far.”

Instantly the coroner pounced on the one weak word which Mr. Jeffrey
had let fall.

“Unhappily?” he repeated. “Why do you say, _unhappily?_”

Mr. Jeffrey flushed and seemed to come out of some dream.

“Did I say unhappily?” he inquired. “Well, I repeat it; Miss Tuttle
would never have given me any cause for jealousy.”

The coroner bowed and for the present dropped her name out of the
conversation.

“You speak again of the jealousy aroused in you by your wife’s
impetuosities. Was this increased or diminished by the tone of the few
lines she left behind her?”

The response was long in coming. It was hard for this man to lie. The
struggle he made at it was pitiful. As I noted what it cost him, I
began to have new and curious thoughts concerning him and the whole
matter under discussion.

“I shall never overcome the remorse roused in me by those few lines,”
he finally rejoined. “She showed a consideration for me—”

“What!”

The coroner’s exclamation showed all the surprise he felt. Mr. Jeffrey
tottered under it, then grew slowly pale as if only through our amazed
looks he had come to realize the charge of inconsistency to which he
had laid himself open.

“I mean—” he endeavored to explain, “that Mrs. Jeffrey showed an
unexpected tenderness toward me by taking all the blame of our
misunderstanding upon herself. It was generous of her and will do much
toward making my memory of her a gentle one.”

He was forgetting himself again. Indeed, his manner and attempted
explanations were full of contradictions. To emphasize this fact
Coroner Z. exclaimed,

“I should think so! She paid a heavy penalty for her professed lack of
love. You believe that her mind was unseated?”

“Does not her action show it?”

“Unseated by the mishap occurring at her marriage?”

“Yes.”

“You really think that?”

“Yes.”

“By anything that passed between you?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask you to tell us what passed between you on this point?”

“Yes.”

He had uttered the monosyllable so often it seemed to come
unconsciously from his lips. But he recognized almost as soon as we did
that it was not a natural reply to the last question, and, making a
gesture of apology, he added, with the same monotony of tone which had
characterized these replies:

“She spoke of her strange guest’s unaccountable death more than once,
and whenever she did so, it was with an unnatural excitement and in an
unbalanced way. This was so noticeable to us all that the subject
presently was tabooed amongst us; but though she henceforth spared us
all allusion to it, she continued to talk about the house itself and of
the previous deaths which had occurred there till we were forced to
forbid that topic also. She was never really herself after crossing the
threshold of this desolate house to be married. The shadow which lurks
within its walls fell at that instant upon her life. May God have
mercy—”

The prayer remained unfinished. His head which had fallen on his breast
sank lower.

He presented the aspect of one who is quite done with life, even its
sorrows.

But men in the position of Coroner Z. can not afford to be
compassionate. Everything the bereaved man said deepened the impression
that he was acting a part. To make sure that this was really so, the
coroner, with just the slightest touch of sarcasm, quietly observed:

“And to ease your wife’s mind—the wife you were so deeply angered
with—you visited this house, and, at an hour which you should have
spent in reconciliation with her, went through its ancient rooms in the
hope—of what?”

Mr. Jeffrey could not answer. The words which came from his lips were
mere ejaculations.

“I was restless—mad—I found this adventure diverting. I had no real
purpose in mind.”

“Not when you looked at the old picture?”

“The old picture? What old picture?”

“The old picture in the southwest chamber. You took a look at that,
didn’t you? Got up on a chair on purpose to do so?”

Mr. Jeffrey winced. But he made a direct reply.

“Yes, I gave a look at that old picture; got up, as you say, on a chair
to do so. Wasn’t that the freak of an idle man, wandering, he hardly
knows why, from room to room in an old and deserted house?”

His tormentor did not answer. Probably his mind was on his next line of
inquiry. But Mr. Jeffrey did not take his silence with the calmness he
had shown prior to the last attack. As no word came from his unwelcome
guest, he paused in his rapid pacing and, casting aside with one
impulsive gesture his hitherto imperfectly held restraint, he cried out
sharply:

“Why do you ask me these questions in tones of such suspicion? Is it
not plain enough that my wife took her own life under a misapprehension
of my state of mind toward her, that you should feel it necessary to
rake up these personal matters, which, however interesting to the world
at large, are of a painful nature to me?”

“Mr. Jeffrey,” retorted the other, with a sudden grave assumption of
dignity not without its effect in a case of such serious import, “we do
nothing without purpose. We ask these questions and show this interest
because the charge of suicide which has hitherto been made against your
wife is not entirely sustained by the facts. At least she was not alone
when she took her life. Some one was in the house with her.”

It was startling to observe the effect of this declaration upon him.

“Impossible!” he cried out in a protest as forcible as it was agonized.
“You are playing with my misery. She could have had no one there; she
would not. There is not a man living before whom she would have fired
that deadly shot; unless it was myself,—unless it was my own wretched,
miserable self.”

The remorseful whisper in which those final words were uttered carried
them to my heart, which for some strange and unaccountable reason had
been gradually turning toward this man. But my less easily affected
companion, seeing his opportunity and possibly considering that it was
this gentleman’s right to know in what a doubtful light he stood before
the law, remarked with as light a touch of irony as was possible:

“You should know better than we in whose presence she would choose to
die—if she did so choose. Also who would be likely to tie the pistol to
her wrist and blow out the candle when the dreadful deed was over.”

The laugh which seemed to be the only means of violent expression
remaining to this miserable man was kept down by some amazing thought
which seemed to paralyze him. Without making any attempt to refute a
suggestion that fell just short of a personal accusation, he sank down
in the first chair he came to and became, as it were, lost in the
vision of that ghastly ribbon-tying and the solitary blowing out of the
candle upon this scene of mournful death. Then with a struggling sense
of having heard something which called for answer, he rose blindly to
his feet and managed to let fall these words:

“You are mistaken—no one was there, or if any one was—it was not I.
There is a man in this city who can prove it.”


But when Mr. Jeffrey was asked to give the name of this man, he showed
confusion and presently was obliged to admit that he could neither
recall his name nor remember anything about him, but that he was some
one whom he knew well, and who knew him well. He affirmed that the two
had met and spoken near Soldiers’ Home shortly after the sun went down,
and that the man would be sure to remember this meeting if we could
only find him.

As Soldiers’ Home was several miles from the Moore house and quite out
of the way of all his accustomed haunts, Coroner Z. asked him how he
came to be there. He replied that he had just come from Rock Creek
Cemetery. That he had been in a wretched state of mind all day, and
possibly being influenced by what he had heard of the yearly vigils Mr.
Moore was in the habit of keeping there, had taken a notion to stroll
among the graves, in search of the rest and peace of mind he had failed
to find in his aimless walks about the city. At least, that was the way
he chose to account for the meeting he mentioned. Falling into reverie
again, he seemed to be trying to recall the name which at this moment
was of such importance to him. But it was without avail, as he
presently acknowledged.

“I can not remember who it was. My brain is whirling, and I can
recollect nothing but that this man and myself left the cemetery
together on the night mentioned, just as the gate was being closed. As
it closes at sundown, the hour can be fixed to a minute. It was
somewhere near seven, I believe; near enough, I am sure, for it to have
been impossible for me to be at the Moore house at the time my unhappy
wife is supposed to have taken her life. There is no doubt about your
believing this?” he demanded with sudden haughtiness, as, rising to his
feet, he confronted us in all the pride of his exceptionally handsome
person.

“We wish to believe it,” assented the coroner, rising in his turn.
“That our belief may become certainty, will you let us know, the
instant you recall the name of the man you talked with at the cemetery
gate? His testimony, far more than any word of yours, will settle this
question which otherwise may prove a vexed one.”

Mr. Jeffrey’s hand went up to his head. Was he acting a part or did he
really forget just what it was for his own best welfare to remember? If
he had forgotten, it argued that he was in a state of greater
disturbance on that night than would naturally be occasioned by a mere
lover’s quarrel with his wife.

Did the same thought strike my companion? I can not say; I can only
give you his next words.

“You have said that your wife would not be likely to end her life in
presence of any one but yourself. Yet you must see that some one was
with her. How do you propose to reconcile your assertions with a fact
so undeniable?”

“I can not reconcile them. It would madden me to try. If I thought any
one was with her at that moment—”

“Well?”

Mr. Jeffrey’s eyes fell; and a startling change passed over him. But
before either of us could make out just what this change betokened he
recovered his aspect of fixed melancholy and quietly remarked:

“It is dreadful to think of her standing there alone, aiming a pistol
at her young, passionate heart; but it is worse to picture her doing
this under the gaze of unsympathizing eyes. I can not and will not so
picture her. You have been misled by appearances or what in police
parlance is called a clue.”

Evidently he did not mean to admit the possibility of the pistol having
been fired by any other hand than her own. This the coroner noted.
Bowing with the respect he showed every man before a jury had decided
upon his guilt, he turned toward the door out of which I had already
hurried.

“We hope to hear from you in the morning,” he called back
significantly, as he stepped down the stairs.

Mr. Jeffrey did not answer; he was having his first struggle with the
new and terrible prospect awaiting him at the approaching inquest.




BOOK II
THE LAW AND ITS VICTIM




XI.
DETAILS


The days of my obscurity were over. Henceforth, I was regarded as a
decided factor in this case—a case which from this time on, assumed
another aspect both at headquarters and in the minds of people at
large. The reporters, whom we had hitherto managed to hold in check,
now overflowed both the coroner’s office and police headquarters, and
articles appeared in all the daily papers with just enough suggestion
in them to fire the public mind and make me, for one, anticipate an
immediate word from Mr. Jeffrey calculated to establish the alibi he
had failed to make out on the day we talked with him. But no such word
came. His memory still played him false, and no alternative was left
but to pursue the official inquiry in the line suggested by the
interview just recounted.

No proceeding in which I had ever been engaged interested me as did
this inquest. In the first place, the spectators were of a very
different character from the ordinary. As I wormed myself along to the
seat accorded to such witnesses as myself, I brushed by men of the very
highest station and a few of the lowest; and bent my head more than
once in response to the inquiring gaze of some fashionable lady who
never before, I warrant, had found herself in such a scene. By the time
I reached my place all the others were seated and the coroner rapped
for order.

I was first to take the stand. What I said has already been fully
amplified in the foregoing pages. Of course, my evidence was confined
to facts, but some of these facts were new to most of the persons
there. It was evident that a considerable effect was produced by them,
not only on the spectators, but upon the witnesses themselves. For
instance, it was the first time that the marks on the mantel-shelf had
been heard of outside the major’s office, or the story so told as to
make it evident that Mrs. Jeffrey could not have been alone in the
house at the time of her death.

A photograph had been taken of those marks, and my identification of
this photograph closed my testimony.

As I returned to my seat I stole a look toward a certain corner where,
with face bent down upon his hand, Francis Jeffrey sat between Uncle
David and the heavily-veiled figure of Miss Tuttle. Had there dawned
upon him as my testimony was given any suspicion of the trick by which
he had been proved responsible for those marks? It was impossible to
tell. From the way Miss Tuttle’s head was turned toward him, one might
judge him to be laboring under an emotion of no ordinary character,
though he sat like a statue and hardly seemed to realize how many eyes
were at that moment riveted upon his face.

I was followed by other detectives who had been present at the time and
who corroborated my statement as to the appearance of this unhappy
woman and the way the pistol had been tied to her arm. Then the doctor
who had acted under the coroner was called. After a long and no doubt
learned description of the bullet wound which had ended the life of
this unhappy lady,—a wound which he insisted, with a marked display of
learning, must have made that end instantaneous or at least too
immediate for her to move foot or hand after it,—he was asked if the
body showed any other mark of violence.

To this he replied

“There was a minute wound at the base of one of her fingers, the one
which is popularly called the wedding finger.”

This statement made all the women present start with renewed interest;
nor was it altogether without point for the men, especially when the
doctor went on to say:

“The hands were entirely without rings. As Mrs. Jeffrey had been
married with a ring, I noticed their absence.”

“Was this wound which you characterize as minute a recent one?”

“It had bled a little. It was an abrasion such as would be made if the
ring she usually wore there had been drawn off with a jerk. That was
the impression I received from its appearance. I do not state that it
was so made.”

A little thrill which went over the audience at the picture this evoked
communicated itself to Miss Tuttle, who trembled violently. It even
produced a slight display of emotion in Mr. Jeffrey, whose hand shook
where he pressed it against his forehead. But neither uttered a sound,
nor looked up when the next witness was summoned.

This witness proved to be Loretta, who, on hearing her name called,
evinced great reluctance to come forward. But after two or three words
uttered in her ear by the friendly Jinny, who had been given a seat
next her, she stepped into the place assigned her with a suddenly
assumed air of great boldness, which sat upon her with scant grace. She
had need of all the boldness at her command, for the eyes of all in the
room were fixed on her, with the exception of the two persons most
interested in her testimony. Scrutiny of any kind did not appear to be
acceptable to her, if one could read the trepidation visible in the
short, quick upheavals of the broad collar which covered her uneasy
breast. Was this shrinking on her part due to natural timidity, or had
she failings to avow which, while not vitiating her testimony, would
certainly cause her shame in the presence of so many men and women? I
was not able to decide this question immediately; for after the coroner
had elicited her name and the position she held in Mr. Jeffrey’s
household he asked whether her duties took her into Mrs. Jeffrey’s
room; upon her replying that they did, he further inquired if she knew
Mrs. Jeffrey’s rings, and could say whether they were all to be found
on that lady’s toilet-table after the police came in with news of her
death. The answer was decisive. They were all there, her rings and all
the other ornaments she was in the daily habit of wearing, with the
exception of her watch. That was not there.

“Did you take up those rings?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you see any one else take them up?”

“No, sir; not till the officer did so.”

“Very well, Loretta, sit down again till we hear what Durbin has to say
about these rings.”

And then the man I hated came forward, and though I shrank from
acknowledging it even to myself, I could but observe how strong and
quiet and self-possessed he seemed and how decisive was his testimony.
But it was equally brief. He had taken up the rings and he had looked
at them; and on one, the wedding-ring, he had detected a slight stain
of blood. He had called Mr. Jeffrey’s attention to it, but that
gentleman had made no comment. This remark had the effect of
concentrating general attention upon Mr. Jeffrey. But he seemed quite
oblivious of it; his attitude remained unchanged, and only from the
quick stretching out and withdrawal of Miss Tuttle’s hand could it be
seen that anything had been said calculated to touch or arouse this
man. The coroner cast an uneasy glance in his direction; then he
motioned Durbin aside and recalled Loretta.

And now I began to be sorry for the girl. It is hard to have one’s
weaknesses exposed, especially if one is more foolish than wicked. But
there was no way of letting this girl off without sacrificing certain
necessary points, and the coroner went relentlessly to work.

“How long have you been in this house?”

“Three weeks. Ever since Mrs. Jeffrey’s wedding day, sir.”

“Were you there when she first came as a bride from the Moore house?”

“I was, sir.”

“And saw her then for the first time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did she look and act that first day?”

“I thought her the gayest bride I had ever seen, then I thought her the
saddest, and then I did not know what to think. She was so merry one
minute and so frightened the next, so full of talk when she came
running up the steps and so struck with silence the minute she got into
the parlor, that I set her down as a queer one till some one whispered
in my ear that she was suffering from a dreadful shock; that ill-luck
had attended her marriage and much more about what had happened from
time to time at the Moore house.”

“And you believed what was told you?”

“Believed?”

“Believed it well enough to keep a watch on your young mistress to see
if she were happy or not?”

“Oh, sir!”

“It was but natural,” the coroner suavely observed. “Every one felt
interested in this marriage. You watched her of course. Now what was
the result? Did you consider her well and happy?”

The girl’s voice sank and she cast a glance at her master which he did
not lift his head to meet.

“I did not think her happy. She laughed and sang and was always in and
out of the rooms like a butterfly, but she did not wear a happy look,
except now and then when she was seated with Mr. Jeffrey alone. Then I
have seen her flush in a way to make the heart ache; it was such a
contrast, sir, to other times when she was by herself or—”

“Or what?”

“Or just with her sister, sir.”

The defiance with which this was said added point to what otherwise
might have been an unimportant admission. Those who had already
scrutinized Miss Tuttle with the curiosity of an ill-defined suspicion
now scrutinized her with a more palpable one, and those who had
hitherto seen nothing in this heavily-veiled woman but the bereaved
sister of an irresponsible suicide allowed their looks to dwell
piercingly on that concealing veil, as if they would be glad to
penetrate its folds and read in those beautiful features the meaning of
an allusion uttered with such a sting in the tone.

“You refer to Miss Tuttle?” observed the coroner.

“Mrs. Jeffrey’s sister? Yes, sir.” The menace was gone from the voice
now, but no one could forget that it had been there.

“Miss Tuttle lived in the house with her sister, did she not?”

“Yes, sir; till that sister died and was buried; then she went away.”

The coroner did not pursue this topic, preferring to return to the
former one.

“So you say that Mrs. Jeffrey showed uneasiness ever since her wedding
day. Can you give me any instance of this; mention, I mean, any
conversations overheard by you which would show us just what you mean?”

“I don’t like to repeat things I hear. But if you say that I must, I
can remember once passing Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey in the hall, just as he
was saying: ‘You take it too much to heart! I expected a happy
honeymoon. Somehow, we have failed—’ That was all I heard, sir. But
what made me remember his words was that she was dressed for some
afternoon reception and looked so charming and so—and so, as if she
ought to be happier.”

“Just so. Now, when was this? How long before her death?”

“Oh, a week or so. It was very soon after the wedding day.”

“And did matters seem to improve after that? Did she appear any better
satisfied or more composed?”

“I think she endeavored to. But there was something on her mind,
something which she tried to laugh off; something that annoyed Mr.
Jeffrey and worried Miss Tuttle; something which caused a cloud in the
house, for all the dances and dinners and goings and comings. I am
sorry to speak of it, but it was so.”

“Something that showed an unsettled mind?”

“Almost. The glitter in her eye was not natural; neither was the way
she looked at her sister and sometimes at her husband.”

“Did she talk much about the catastrophe which attended her wedding?
Did her mind seem to run on that?”

“Incessantly at first; but afterward not so much. I think Mr. Jeffrey
frowned on that subject.”

“Did he ever frown on her?”

“No, sir—not—not when they were alone or with no one by but me. He
seemed to love her then very much.”

“What do you mean by that, Loretta; that he lost patience with her when
other people were present—Miss Tuttle, for instance?”

“Yes, sir. He used to change very much when—when—when Miss Tuttle came
into the room.”

“Change toward his wife?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“He grew more distant, much more distant; got up quite fretfully from
his seat, if he were sitting beside her, and took up some book or
paper.”

“And Miss Tuttle?”

“She never seemed to notice but—”

“But—?”

“She did not come in very often after this had happened once or twice;
I mean into the room upstairs where they used to sit.”

“Loretta, I regret to put this question, but after your replies I owe
it to the jury, if not to the parties themselves, to make Miss Tuttle’s
position in this household thoroughly understood. Do you think she was
a welcome visitor in this house?”

The girl pursed up her lips, glanced at the lady and gentleman whose
feelings she was supposed to pass comment on, and seemed to lose heart.
Then, as they failed to respond to her look of appeal, she strove to
get the better of her sense of shame and, with a somewhat injured air,
replied:

“I can only repeat what I once heard said about this by Mr. Jeffrey
himself. Miss Tuttle had just left the diningroom and Mrs. Jeffrey was
standing in one of her black moods, with her hand on the top of her
chair, ready to go but forgetting to do so. I was there, but neither of
them noticed me; he was staring at her, and she was looking down.
Neither seemed at ease. Suddenly he spoke and asked, ‘Why must Cora
remain with us?’ She started and her look grew strange and frightened.
‘Because I want her to,’ she cried. ‘I can not live without Cora.”’

These words, so different from what we were expecting, caused a
sensation in the room and consequently a stir. As the noise of shifting
feet and moving heads began to be heard in all directions, Miss
Tuttle’s head drooped a little, but Francis Jeffrey did not betray any
sign of feeling or even of attention. The coroner, embarrassed,
perhaps, by this exhibition of silent misery so near him, hesitated a
little before he put his next question. Loretta, on the contrary, had
gathered courage with every word she spoke and now looked ready for
anything.

“It was Mrs. Jeffrey, then, who clung most determinedly to her sister?”
the coroner finally suggested.

“I have told you what she said.”

“Yet these sisters spent but little time together?”

“Very little; as little as two persons could who lived together in one
house.”

This statement, which seemed such a contradiction to her former one,
increased the interest; and much disappointment was covertly shown when
the coroner veered off from this topic and brusquely inquired “Did you
ever know Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey to have any open rupture?”

The answer was a decided one.

“Yes. On Tuesday morning preceding her death they had a long and angry
talk in their own room, after which Mrs. Jeffrey made no further effort
to conceal her wretchedness. Indeed, one may say she began to die from
that hour.”

Mrs. Jeffrey’s death had occurred on Wednesday evening.

“Let us hear what you have to say about this quarrel and what happened
after it.”

The girl, with a renewed flush, cast a deprecatory look at the mass of
faces before her, and, meeting on all sides but one look of intense and
growing interest, drew up her neat figure with a relieved air and began
a story which I will proceed to transcribe for you in the fewest
possible words.

Tuesday morning’s breakfast had been a silent one. There had been a
ball the night before at some great place on Massachusetts Avenue; but
no one spoke of it. Miss Tuttle made some remark about a friend she had
met there, but as no one listened to her, she soon stopped and in a
little while left the table. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey sat on, but neither
said anything. Finally Mr. Jeffrey rose and, speaking in a voice hardly
recognizable, remarked that he had something to say to her, and led the
way to their room. Mrs. Jeffrey looked frightened as she followed him;
so frightened that it was evident that something very serious had
occurred or was about to occur between them. As nothing of this kind
had ever happened before, Loretta could not help waiting about till Mr.
Jeffrey reappeared; and when he did so and she saw no signs of relief
in his face or manner, she watched, with the silly interest of a girl
who had nothing else to occupy her mind, to see if he would leave the
house in such a mood, and without making peace with his young bride. To
her surprise, he did not go out at the usual time, but went to Miss
Tuttle’s room, where for a full half-hour he remained closeted with his
sister-in-law, talking in excited and unnatural tones. Then he went
back for a few minutes to where he had left his wife, in her own
boudoir. But he could not have had much to say to her this time, for he
presently came out again and ran hastily downstairs and out, almost
without stopping to catch up his hat.

As it was Mary’s business, and not the witness’, to make Mrs. Jeffrey’s
bed in the morning, Loretta could think of no excuse for approaching
her mistress’ room at this moment; but later, when letters came,
followed by various messages and some visitors, she went more than a
dozen times to Mrs. Jeffrey’s door. She was not admitted, nor were her
appeals answered, except by a sharp “Go away!”

Nor was Miss Tuttle received any better, though she tried more than
once to see her sister, especially as night came on and the hour
approached for Mr. Jeffrey’s return. Mrs. Jeffrey was simply determined
to remain alone; and when dinner time arrived, and no Mr. Jeffrey, she
could be induced to open her door only wide enough to take in the cup
of tea which Miss Tuttle insisted upon sending her.

The witness here confessed that she had been very much excited by these
unusual proceedings and by the effect which they seemed to have on the
lady just mentioned; so she was ready to notice that Mrs. Jeffrey’s
hand shook like that of an old and palsied woman when she reached out
for the tray.

Gladly would Loretta have caught one glimpse of her face, but it was
hidden by the door; nor did Mrs. Jeffrey answer a single one of her
questions. She simply closed her door and kept it so till toward
midnight, when Miss Tuttle, coming into the hall, ordered the house to
be closed for the night. Then the long-shut door softly swung open, but
before any one could reach it, it was again pulled to and locked.

The next day brought no relief. Miss Tuttle, who had changed greatly
during this unhappy day and night, succeeded no better than before in
getting access to her sister, nor could Loretta gain the least word
from her mistress till toward the latter part of the afternoon, when
that lady, ringing her bell, gave her first order.

“A substantial dinner,” she cried; and when Loretta, greatly relieved,
brought up the required meal she was astonished to find the door open
and herself bidden to enter. The sight which met her eyes staggered
her. From one end of the room to the other were signs of great nervous
unrest and of terrible suffering. The chairs were pushed into corners
as if the wretched bride had tramped the floor in an agony of
excitement. Curtains were torn and the piano-cover was hanging half on
and half off the open upright, as if she had clutched at it to keep
herself from falling. On the floor beneath lay several pieces of broken
china,—vases of whose value Mrs. Jeffrey had often spoken, but which,
jerked off with the cover, had been left where they fell; while
immediately in front of the fireplace lay one of the rugs tossed into a
heap, as if she had rolled in it on the floor or used it to smother her
cries of pain or anger.

So much for the state in which the witness found the boudoir. The
adjoining bed-room was not in much better case, though it was evident
that the bed itself had not been lain in since it was made up the day
before at breakfast time. By this token Mrs. Jeffrey had not slept the
night before, or if she had laid her head anywhere it had been on the
rug already spoken of.

These signs of extreme mental suffering, so much more extreme than any
Loretta had ever before witnessed, frightened her so that the tray
shook in her hand as she set it down on the table among the countless
objects Mrs. Jeffrey always had about her. The noise seemed to startle
her mistress, who had walked to the window after opening the door, for
she wheeled impetuously about and Loretta saw her face. It was as if a
blight had passed over it. Once gay and animated beyond the power of
any one to describe, it had become in twenty-four hours a ghost’s face,
with the glare of some awful resolve on it. Or so it would appear from
the way Loretta described it. But such girls do not always see
correctly, and perhaps all that can be safely stated is that Mrs.
Jeffrey was unnaturally pale and had lost her butterfly-like way of
incessant movement.

Loretta, who was evidently accustomed to seeing her mistress arrayed in
brilliant colors and much begemmed, laid great stress on the fact that,
though it was on the verge of evening and she was evidently going out,
she was dressed in black cloth and without even a diamond or a flower
to relieve its severe simplicity. Her hair, too, which was always her
pride, was piled in a careless mass upon her head as if she had tried
to arrange it herself and had forgotten what she was doing while her
fingers were but half through their work. There was a cloak lying on a
chair near which she was standing, and she held a hat in her hand; but
Loretta saw no gloves. As the maid’s glance and that of her mistress
crossed, Mrs. Jeffrey spoke, and the effort she made in doing so
naturally frightened the girl still more. “I am going out,” were her
words. “I may not be home till late—What are you looking at?”

Loretta declared that the words took her by surprise and that she did
not know what to say, but managed to cover up her embarrassment by
intimating that if her mistress would let her touch up her hair a bit
she would make her look more natural.

At this suggestion, Mrs. Jeffrey cast a glance in the glass and
impetuously declared, “It doesn’t matter.” But she seemed to think
better of it the next minute; for, throwing herself in a chair, she
bade the girl to bring a comb, and sat quiet enough, though evidently
in a great tremor of haste and impatience, while Loretta combed her
hair and put it up in the old way.

But the old way was not as becoming as usual, and Loretta was wondering
if she ought to call in Miss Tuttle, when Mrs. Jeffrey jumped to her
feet and went over to the table and began to eat with the feverish
haste of one who forces himself to take food in spite of hurry and
distaste.

This was the moment for Loretta to leave the room; but she did not know
how to do so. She felt herself fixed to the spot and stood watching
Mrs. Jeffrey till that lady, suddenly becoming conscious of the girl’s
presence, turned, and in the midst of the moans which broke
unconsciously from her lips, said with a pitiable effort at her old
manner:

“Go away, Loretta; I am ill; have been ill for two days. I don’t like
people to look at me like that!” Then, as the girl shrank back, added
in a breaking voice: “When Mr. Jeffrey comes home—” and said no more
for several minutes, during which she clutched her throat with both
hands and struggled with herself till she got her voice back and found
herself able to repeat: “When Mr. Jeffrey comes,—if he does come,—tell
him that I was right about the way that novel ended. Remember that you
are to say to him the moment you see him that I was right about the
novel, and that he is to look and see if it did not end as I said it
would. And Loretta—” here she rose and approached the speaker with a
sweet, appealing look which brought tears to the impressionable girl’s
eyes, “don’t go gossiping about me downstairs. I sha’n’t be sick long.
I am going to be better soon, very soon. By the time you see me here
again I shall be quite like my old self. Forget how—how”—and Loretta
said she seemed to have difficulty in finding the right word here—“how
childish I have been.”

Of course Loretta promised, but she is not sure that she would have had
the courage to keep all this to herself if she had not heard Mrs.
Jeffrey stop in Miss Tuttle’s room on her way out. That relieved her,
and enabled her to go downstairs to her own supper with more appetite
than she had thought ever to have again. Alas! it was the last good
meal she was able to eat for days. In three hours afterward a man came
from the station house with the news of Mrs. Jeffrey’s suicide in the
horrible old house in which she had been married only two weeks before.

As this had been a continuous narrative and concisely told, the coroner
had not interrupted her. When at this point a little gasp escaped Miss
Tuttle and a groan broke from Francis Jeffrey’s hitherto sealed lips,
the feelings of the whole assemblage seemed to find utterance. A young
wife’s misery culminating in death on the very spot where she had been
so lately married! What could be more thrilling, or appeal more closely
to the general heart of humanity? But the cause of that misery! This
was what every one present was eager to have explained. This is what we
now expected the coroner to bring out. But instead of continuing on the
line he had opened up, he proceeded to ask:

“Where were you when this officer brought the news you mention?”

“In the hall, sir. I opened the door for him.”

“And to whom did he first mention his errand?”

“To Miss Tuttle. She had come in just before him and was standing at
the foot of the stairs.”

“What! Was Miss Tuttle out that evening?”

“Yes; she went out very soon after Mrs. Jeffrey left. When she came in
she said that she had been around the block, but she must have gone
around it more than once, for she was absent two hours.”

“Did you let her in?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And she said she had been around the block?”

“Yes, sir”

“Did she say anything else?”

“She asked if Mr. Jeffrey had come in”

“Anything else?”

“Then if Mrs. Jeffrey had returned.”

“To both of which questions you answered—”

“A plain ‘No.’”

“Now tell us about the officer.”

“He rang the bell almost immediately after she did. Thinking she would
want to slip upstairs before I admitted any one, I waited a minute for
her to go, but she did not do so, and when the officer stepped in she—”

“Well!”

“She shrieked.”

“What! before he spoke?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Just at sight of him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he wear his badge in plain view?”

“Yes, on his breast.”

“So that you knew him to be a police officer?”

“Yes.”

“And Miss Tuttle shrieked at seeing a police officer?”

“Yes, and sprang forward.”

“Did she say anything?”

“Not then.”

“What did she do?”

“Waited for him to speak.”

“Which he did?”

“At once, and very brutally. He asked if she was Mrs. Jeffrey’s sister,
and when she nodded and gasped ‘Yes,’ he blurted out that Mrs. Jeffrey
was dead; that he had just come from the old house in Waverley Avenue,
where she had just been found.”

“And Miss Tuttle?”

“Didn’t know what to say; just hid her face. She was leaning against
the newel-post, so it was easy for her to do so. I remember that the
man stared at her for taking it so quietly and asking no questions.”

“And did she speak at all?”

“Oh, yes, afterwards. Her face was wrapped in the folds of her cloak,
but I heard her whisper, as if to herself: ‘No! no! That old hearth is
not a lodestone. She can not have fallen there.’ And then she looked up
quite wildly and cried: ‘There is something more! Something which you
have not told me.’ ‘She shot herself, if that’s what you mean.’ Miss
Tuttle’s arms went straight up over her head. It was awful to see her.
‘Shot herself?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, Veronica, Veronica!’ ‘With a pistol,’
he went on—I suppose he was going to say, ‘tied to her wrist,’ but he
never got it out, for Miss Tuttle, at the word ‘pistol’ clapped her
hands to her ears and for a moment looked quite distracted, so that he
thought better of worrying her any more and only demanded to know if
Mr. Jeffrey kept any such weapon. Miss Tuttle’s face grew very strange
at this. ‘Mr. Jeffrey! was he there?’ she asked. The man looked
surprised. ‘They are searching for Mr. Jeffrey,’ he replied. ‘Isn’t he
here?’ ‘No,’ came both from her lips and mine. The man acted very
impertinently. ‘You haven’t told me whether a pistol was kept here or
not,’ said he. Miss Tuttle tried to compose herself, but I saw that I
should have to speak if any one did, so I told him that Mr. Jeffrey did
have a pistol, which he kept in one of his bureau drawers. But when the
officer wanted Miss Tuttle to go up and see if it was there, she shook
her head and made for the front door, saying that she must be taken
directly to her sister.”

“And did no one go up? Was no attempt made to see if the pistol was or
was not in the drawer?”

“Yes; the officer went up with me. I pointed out the place where it was
kept, and he rummaged all through it, but found no pistol. I didn’t
expect him to—” Here the witness paused and bit her lip, adding
confusedly: “Mrs. Jeffrey had taken it, you see.”

The jurors, who sat very much in the shadow, had up to this point
attracted but little attention. But now they began to make their
presence felt, perhaps because the break in the witness’ words had been
accompanied by a sly look at Jinny. Possibly warned by this that
something lay back of this hitherto timid witness’ sudden volubility,
one of them now spoke up.

“In what room did you say this pistol was kept?”

“In Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey’s bed-room, sir; the room opening out of the
sitting-room where Mrs. Jeffrey had kept herself shut up all day.”

“Does this bed-room of which you speak communicate with the hall as
well as with the sitting room?”

“No, sir; it is the defect of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey often
spoke of it as a great annoyance. You had to pass through the little
boudoir in order to reach it.”

The juryman sank back, evidently satisfied with her replies, but we who
marked the visible excitement with which the witness had answered this
seemingly unimportant question, wondered what special interest
surrounded that room and the pistol to warrant the heightened color
with which the girl answered this new interlocutor. We were not
destined to know at this time, for the coroner, when he spoke again,
pursued a different subject.

“How long was this before Mr. Jeffrey came in.”

“Only a few minutes. I was terribly frightened at being left there
alone and was on my way to ask one of the other girls to come up and
stay with me, when I heard his key in the lock and came back. He had
entered the house and was standing near the door talking to an officer,
who had evidently come in with him. It was a different officer from the
one who had gone away with Miss Tuttle. Mr. Jeffrey was saying, ‘What’s
that? My wife hurt!’ ‘Dead, sir!’ blurted out the man. I had expected
to see Mr. Jeffrey terribly shocked, but not in so awful a way. It
really frightened me to see him and I turned to run, but found that I
couldn’t and that I had to stand still and look whether I wanted to or
not. Yet he didn’t say a word or ask a question.”

“What did he do, Loretta?”

“I can not say; he was on his knees and was white—Oh, how white! Yet he
looked up when the man described how and where Mrs. Jeffrey, had been
found and even turned toward me when I said something about his wife
having left a message for him when she went out. This message, which I
almost hesitated to give after the awful news of her death, was about
the ending of some story, as you remember, and it seemed heartless to
speak of it at a moment like this, but as she had told me to, I didn’t
dare to disobey her. So, with the man listening to my every word, and
Mr. Jeffrey looking as if he would fall to the ground before I could
finish, I repeated her words to him and was surprised enough when he
suddenly started upright and went flying upstairs. But I was more
surprised yet when, at the top of the first flight, he stopped and,
looking over the balustrade, asked in a very strange voice where Miss
Tuttle was. For he seemed just then to want her more than anything else
in the world and looked beaten and wild when I told him that she was
already gone to Waverley Avenue. But he recovered himself before the
man could draw near enough to see his face, and rushed into the
sitting-room above and shut the door behind him, leaving the officer
and me standing down by the front door. As I didn’t know what to say to
a man like him, and he didn’t know what to say to me, the time seemed
long, but it couldn’t have been very many minutes before Mr. Jeffrey
came back with a slip of paper in his hand and a very much relieved
look on his face. ‘The deed was premeditated,’ he cried. ‘My
unfortunate wife has

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