Chapter III: Book I: The Shadow (2)

This was the proper moment for me to leave, or rather it would have been had it not been for the communication in my pocket which remained to be delivered. To go without fulfilling my duty in this regard or at least without stating to the coroner that I held in charge a paper of so much importance, seemed an improper if not criminal proceeding, while to speak, and thus give up to public perusal an enclosure upon the right delivery of which the dying man laid such stress, struck me as an equal breach of trust only to be justified by my total inability to carry out the wish of the deceased as expressed to me in his last intelligible appeal.

That this inability was an assured fact I was not yet convinced. An idea had come to me in the last few minutes which, if properly acted upon, might open a way for me out of this dilemma. But before making use of it I felt it necessary to know more of this family and the ties which bound them. To gain this knowledge was, therefore, of not only great but immediate importance; and where could I hope to gain it so soon or so well as here.

I consequently lingered, and the young medical friend of George, having for some reason shown the same disregard as myself to the open hint thrown out by the coroner, we drew together near the front door, and fell immediately into conversation. As he seemed on fire to speak, I left it for him to make the opening remark.

"Fine girl!" he exclaimed. "Very fond of her uncle. Used to help him with his correspondence. I hate to see women faint. Though I have been in practice now two years I have never got used to it."

Anxious as I was to understand the very relationship he hinted at, it was so obnoxious to me to discuss Miss Meredith with this man whom I had first seen in a condition little calculated to prejudice me in his favour, that somewhat inconsistently, I own, I turned the conversation upon Mr. Gillespie.

"Mr. Gillespie was then a very busy man," I observed. "I judged so from the look of his den or study. Overwork often drives men to suicide."

The glance this called out from the now thoroughly sobered young doctor was a sharp one.

"Yes," he acquiesced; but it was an acquiescence which, from the tone in which it was uttered, had a most suspicious ring.

My position had now become an embarrassing one. I looked around for the coroner, and saw him talking earnestly with the old and enfeebled butler, who seemed ready to sink with distress. At the same instant, the rattling of two keys could be heard in their several locks. The dining-room was being closed against intrusion, and it was to the coroner the keys were brought.

Miss Meredith, who had been carried into an adjoining room, was slowly recovering. This was evident from the countenance and attitude of Alfred Gillespie, who stood half in and half out of the room, with his eyes fixed upon her face. This left the hall clear, and, as my companion chose to preserve silence, I presently could hear the story the old butler was endeavouring to relate.

"I was waiting on the table as usual, sir, and it was my hand which uncorked the bottle and set it down before Mr. Gillespie. The young gentlemen had nothing to do with that bottle; they did not even touch it, for none of them seemed inclined to drink. Mr. George said he had a headache, and Mr. Leighton, well, he makes a point of not touching port; while Mr. Alfred gave no excuse; simply waved it away when I passed it, so that the old gentleman drank alone. He didn't seem to feel quite happy, sir, and that was why Miss Meredith got so excited. She never could bear to see her uncle displeased with her cousins."

"And where is that bottle of port and the glass out of which Mr. Gillespie drank at the table?"

"O, sir, you must excuse me, sir, but--but--I drank what was left in that bottle. I often do when there is only a little left. Master didn't mind. He often said, if he was in the mood to remember me, 'You may finish that, Hewson,' and though he did not say it to-night, I made so bold as to remember the times he had. You see I have lived for twenty years in the family. I was a young man when Mr. Gillespie took me into his service first, and we had become used to each other's ways. As for the glass, that was washed, sir, long ago. He was well enough up to nine o'clock, you see, sir."

"Or until after he had taken the sherry?"

"Yes, sir."

"Which you also brought him?"

"No, sir; I took it out of the buffet, sir; but it was Mr. Leighton who carried it into the den. He rang for me from the dining-room, and when I came up he asked for his father's bottle of sherry, and I gave it to him. Then I went downstairs again."

"And _that_ bottle has not been found?"

"I have not seen it, sir. Perhaps someone else has. It was not a full one. He had had a glass or two out of it before."

"You have not said where the glass came from, from which Mr. Gillespie drank the sherry?"

"From the buffet also. We always keep a supply in one of the lower cupboards, sir."

"Did you take it out?"

"I think so, sir."

"Did you take the first one you came to and hand it directly to Mr. Leighton?"

"I believe so."

"Was the room light or dark? Could you see plainly where to lay your hand, or did you have to feel about for a glass?"

"I don't remember it as being any too light. There was only one gas-jet turned on, and the room is a big one. But I saw the glasses plainly enough. I know just where to find them, you see, sir."

"Very good. Then you probably noticed whether the one you took out was clean."

"They are always clean. I wear my spectacles when I wash them." The old butler seemed quite indignant.

"Yes, yes; then you have to wear spectacles?"

"When I wipe the glasses? Yes, sir."

The coroner pushed the matter no further. I think he feared it would seem like an attempt to fix the guilt on Leighton. Besides, he had no time to do so, for at this moment Miss Meredith appeared on the threshold of the room into which she had been carried, and, pausing there, stood looking up and down the hall with an ardent and disquieted gaze which Alfred, who had started aside at her approach, tried in vain to draw upon himself.

"Claire? Where is Claire?" she asked. "I want to put her to bed."

"Here she is," answered Leighton, coming from the drawing-room with the child fast asleep on his shoulder. "Take her, Hope, and be careful not to wake her. Better lay her down as she is than have her frightened again."

Hope held out her arms. I was startled at her aspect. "Miss Meredith is not able as yet to carry the child upstairs," spoke up the doctor; but the child was already nestled against her breast.

"I can carry her," she assured him, drawing her head back as the father stooped to kiss the child.

"Are you sure?" asked Alfred.

"Quite." Her arms had closed spasmodically over the child.

"Let me go with you," he prayed. But catching the coroner's eye, he quickly added, "that is, if you feel the need of any assistance."

Apparently she did not, for next minute I saw her faltering figure proceeding up alone, while the scowl which had begun to form on George's forehead had smoothed out, and only Alfred showed discomfiture.

The next minute the coroner had concentrated the attention of us all by saying gravely to the three young men before him:

"You, as sons of Mr. Gillespie, will surely see the justice of my making an immediate attempt to find out how and when your father took the poison, which, to all appearance, has ended his invaluable life." Then, as no one replied, he added quietly:

"A bottle is missing; the bottle of sherry from which he drank a glass since supper. Will you grant me leave to search the house till I find it? So little time has passed, it must assuredly be somewhere within reach."

"I can tell you where it is," rejoined one of the brothers. "I wanted a drink. I had friends upstairs, and I came down and carried off the first bottle I saw. You will find it in my room above. We all drank our share, so there can have been no harm in it."

It was George who spoke, and I now saw why his lips had moved when this bottle was first mentioned.

The coroner showed relief, yet made a movement singularly like a signal towards the rear hall which I had supposed vacant since the servants had been sent out of it. That he was speaking in the meantime did not detract from the suggestiveness of the gesture.

"You and your friends drank of it?" he repeated. "Very good. That settles one doubt." And he waited, or appeared to wait, for some event connected, as I felt sure, with the step we all could now hear moving in that hall.

Suddenly these steps grew louder, and a young man, evidently as much of a stranger to the occupants of the house as to myself, approached from the servants' staircase with a bottle in his hand.

Quietly the coroner took it, quietly he held it up before the last speaker, without attempting to explain or to apologise in any way for the presence of the man of whom he had just made such dramatic use.

"Is this the bottle you mean?"

That young gentleman nodded.

The coroner held the bottle up to the light. Only a few drops remained in it. These he both smelled and tasted.

"You are right," said he, "the contents of this bottle seem pure." And he handed it back to the man, who immediately carried it out of sight.

Leighton looked as if he would like to demand who this fellow was, but he did not. Indeed it seemed hardly necessary. His confident manner, his alert eye which took us all in at a glance, satisfied us that the event we had all dreaded had transpired, and that a detective had entered the house.

Noticing, but not heeding, the effect which this unwelcome intruder had produced upon the proud trio he held under his eye, Dr. Frisbie proceeded with the questions naturally called forth by the acknowledgment made by George.

"You were on this floor, then, previous to your father's death, possibly previous to his taking the draught which has so unfortunately ended his life?"

"I was on this floor an hour or so ago; yes, sir."

"Did you see your father or anyone else at that time?"

"No. To tell you the truth, I was a little ashamed of my errand. It was early in the evening for the social glass, so I just took the bottle off the buffet and went back."

"And the glasses?"

"Oh, I always have enough of them in my room."

The coroner's hand went in characteristic action to his chin. Evidently he found his position difficult.

"No poison in this bottle," he declared. "None in the one your old butler drained, and, so far as we are able to judge, none in the phial of chloral found standing on the study mantelpiece! Yet your father died from taking prussic acid. Cannot one of you assist me in saying how this came about? It will save us unnecessary trouble and the house some scandal."

It was an appeal which the sons of Mr. Gillespie could little afford to ignore. Yet while each and all of them paled under the searching gaze which accompanied it, none of them spoke till the silence becoming unendurable, Leighton made an extraordinary effort and remarked:

"My father was a proud man. If he chose--I say, if he chose to end his troubles in this unfortunate way, he would plan to leave behind him no sign of an act calculated to bring such opprobrium upon his household. He would have acted under the hope that his death would be taken as the result of his late sickness. That is doubtless why you fail to find the phial from which the poison was poured."

"Hum! Yes! I see. Your father had troubles, then?"

The answer was unexpected.

"My father had three sons, none of whom gave him unalloyed comfort. Is not this true, George? Is not this true, Alfred?"

Startled by the sudden appeal which, coming as it did from a man of great personal pride, produced an effect thrilling to the spectators as well as to the men addressed, the brothers flushed deeply, but ventured upon no protest.

"You and father have always been on good enough terms," growled George, with an attempt at fairness which gained point from the dogged air with which it was given.

This brought a shadow over the face which a moment before had shone with something like lofty feeling.

"I cannot forget that we quarrelled an hour before he died," murmured Leighton, moving off with an air of great depression.

Meantime I had taken a resolution. Advancing from the remote end of the hall where I had been standing with their young medical friend, I spoke up firmly, calmly, but with decision:

"Gentlemen, I have been waiting to see what my duty was. I have reason to think, notwithstanding my position as a stranger among you, that the clue to your father's strange act is to be found in my hands. Will you allow me, before explaining myself further, to request your answer to a single question?"

The surprise which this evoked, was shared by the coroner, who probably thought he had exhausted my testimony at our first interview.

"It is a question which will strike you as strange and out of place at a time so serious. But I pray you to show your confidence in me by giving me a straightforward reply. Was Mr. Gillespie a man of dramatic instincts? Had he any special powers of mimicry, or, if I may speak plainly, had he what you might call marked facial expression?"

In the astonishment this called out I saw no dissent.

"Father was a man of talent," Alfred grudgingly allowed. "I have often heard Claire laugh at his stories, which she said were like little plays. But this is a peculiar if not inappropriate question to put to us at a time of such distress, Mr. Outhwaite."

"So I forewarned you," I rejoined, turning to the coroner. "Dr. Frisbie, I must throw myself upon your clemency. When I entered this house in response to an appeal from Mr. Gillespie's grandchild, I found that gentleman labouring under great mental as well as physical distress. He was anxious, more than anxious, to have some special wish carried out; and being tongue-tied, found great difficulty in indicating what this was. But after many efforts, he made me understand that I was to take from him a paper which he held in his clenched hand; and when I had done so, that I was to enclose it, folded as it was, in one of the envelopes lying on the table before us. Not seeing any reason then for non-compliance with his wishes, I accomplished this under his eye, and then asked him for the name and address of the person for whom this communication was intended; but by this time his faculties had failed to such an extent, he could not pronounce the name. He could only ejaculate: 'To no one else--only to--to--' Alas! he could not finish the sentence. But, gentlemen, while waiting here I have been enabled to complete in my own mind this final attempt at speech on the part of your father. Anxious to make no mistake (for the impression made by his dying adjuration not to deliver this letter into the wrong hands, was no ordinary one), I have not allowed myself to be moved by any hurried or inconsiderate impulse, to part with this communication even to those whose claims upon it might be considered paramount to those of a mere stranger like myself. But since seeing Miss Meredith, above all since hearing you address her by her name of Hope, I cannot help feeling justified in believing that this final communication from Mr. Gillespie's hand was meant for her. For when in my perplexity I pressed him to give me some sign by which I could make out whether it was intended for his doctor, his lawyer, or his household, he roused and his face showed an elevated look which I now feel compelled to regard as a dramatic attempt to express in action the name he could no longer utter. Gentlemen, I have described his action. What name among those you are accustomed to speak best fits it?"

"Hope," was the simultaneous reply.

"So I have presumed to think." And turning to Dr. Frisbie, I added: "I have been told that this young lady was in her uncle's confidence. Will you allow me to deliver this envelope to Miss Meredith, in accordance with the injunction I firmly believe myself to have received from Mr. Gillespie?"

There was a silence during which no movement was made. Then the coroner replied:

"Yes, if it is done in my presence."

I turned again to the young gentlemen.

"Commiserate my position and send for Miss Meredith," I prayed. "I feel bound to place this in her hands myself. If I make a mistake in thus interpreting the look given me by your father, it will at least be made under your eye and from unquestionable motives. With my limited knowledge of the family, I know of no one who has a better claim to this communication than she. Do you?"

None of them attempted a reply.

Dr. Bennett had already gone up for Miss Meredith.

VI

A HAPPY INSPIRATION

While waiting for this young lady, I surveyed the three Gillespies with a more critical attention than I had hitherto had the opportunity of giving them. As a result, George struck me as being the most candid, Leighton the most intellectual, and Alfred the most turbulent and ungovernable in his loves and animosities. All were under the same mental tension and in all I beheld evidence of deep humiliation and distrust, but this similarity of feeling did not draw them together even outwardly, but rather seemed to provoke a self-concentration which kept them widely apart. As I looked longer, Leighton impressed himself upon me as an interesting study--possibly because he was difficult to understand; Alfred as a good lover but dangerous hater; and George as the best of good fellows when his rights were not assailed or his kindly disposition imposed upon. None of them seemed to take any interest in _me_. To them I was simply a connecting link between their dead father and the letter I held in charge for Miss Meredith.

Meanwhile the coroner showed but one anxiety, and that was for the lady's speedy appearance and the consequent reading of the letter upon which all minds were fixed.

She came sooner than we expected. As her soft footfall descended the stairs a visible change took place in us all. Drooping figures started erect and furrowed brows grew smooth. Some of us even assumed that appearance of reserve which men unconsciously take on when their deeper feelings are stirred. Only Leighton acted in a perfectly natural manner; consequently it was in his direction her frightened glances flew when she realised that she had been summoned for some definite purpose.

"I don't know what more you can want of me to-night," she protested in a tone little short of a frightened gasp. "I am hardly fit to talk. But the doctor said I must come down. Why couldn't you have left me with Claire?"

"Because, dear Hope, this gentleman you see here, and who, as you know, was with my father when he died, says he has a letter, or some communication from your uncle, which he is sure was meant for your eye only. Do you think my father would be likely to leave you such a message? Have you any reason for expecting his last thoughts would be for you, rather than for his sons? Answer; we are quite prepared to hear you say Yes."

She had been trying to steady herself without laying hold of his arm. But she found this impossible. With an expression of deepest anguish she caught at his wrist, and then facing us, murmured in failing tones:

"He might. I have helped him lately a great deal with his letter-writing. Must I read it _here_?"

In this last question and her manner of uttering it there was an appeal which almost took the form of prayer. But it failed to produce any effect upon the coroner, favourably as he seemed disposed to regard her. With some bluntness, I had almost said harshness, he answered her with a peremptory:

"Yes, miss, _here_."

She was not prepared for this refusal, and her eyes, full of entreaty, flashed from one face to another till they settled again on the coroner.

"I cannot," she protested. "Spare me! I do not seem to have full use of my faculties. My head swims--I cannot see--let me take it to the light over there--I am a nervous girl."

She had gradually drawn herself away from Leighton. The envelope which had been given her was trembling in her hand, and her eyes, wandering from George to Alfred, seemed to pray for some encouragement they were powerless to give. "I ought to be allowed the right to read the last words of one so dearly loved without feeling myself under the eyes of--of strangers," she finally declared with a certain pitiful access of hauteur certainly not natural to one of her manifestly generous temperament.

Was the shaft meant for me? I did not think so, but, in recognition of the hint conveyed, I stepped back and had almost reached the door when I heard the coroner say:

"If the words you find there have reference solely to your own interests, Miss Meredith, you will be allowed to read them in privacy. But if they refer in any way to the interests of the man who wrote it, you will yourself desire to read his words aloud, as the manner and meaning of his death is a mystery which you as well as all the other members of his household must desire to see immediately cleared up."

"Open it!" she cried, thrusting it into the hands of the physician, who by this time had rejoined the group. "And may God----"

She did not finish. The sacred name seemed to act as a restraint upon the passion in whose cause it had been invoked. With her back to them all she waited for the doctor to read the lines to which she seemed to attach so apprehensive an interest.

It was impossible for me to leave at a moment so critical. Watching the doctor, I saw him draw out the paper I had so carefully enclosed in an envelope, and after looking at it, turn it over and over in such astonishment and perplexity that we all caught the alarm and crowded about him for explanation. Alas, it was a simple one! The paper concerning which I had endured so many qualms of conscience, and from the reading of which the young girl had shrunk with every appearance of intolerable dread, proved upon opening it to be an absolutely blank one.

There was not upon its smooth surface so much as the faintest trace of words.

VII

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN BY THE NEWEL-POST

"This is surprising. Do you understand this, Miss Meredith? There is nothing written here. The sheet is perfectly blank."

She turned, stared, and laughed convulsively.

"Blank, do you say? What a fuss about nothing! No words, no words at all? Let me see. I certainly expected you to find some final message in it."

What a change of manner! The moment before she had confronted us, a silent agonised woman; now her words rattled forth with such feverish volubility we scarcely knew her. The coroner, not noticing, or purposely blind to the relief she showed, handed her the slip without a word. The brothers had all drawn off, and for the first time began to whisper among themselves. As for myself, I did not know what to do or think. My position, if anything, had changed for the worse. I seemed to have played some trick. I wanted to beg her pardon and theirs, and seeing her finally let the paper fall to the floor with an incredulous shake of the head, I began to stammer out some words of explanation, which sounded weak enough under the tension of suppressed excitement called forth in every breast by this unexpected incident.

"I feel--I am persuaded--you will not give me credit either for good sense or for the sincerity of my desire to be of service to you," I made out to say. "I certainly thought from Mr. Gillespie's actions, above all from the expressions which accompanied them, that he had entrusted me with a communication of no little importance, and that this communication was meant for Miss Meredith."

To my chagrin, my plea went unheeded: she was too absorbed in hiding her own satisfaction at the turn affairs had taken, and her cousins in deciding to what extent their position had been improved by the discovery of a blank sheet of paper where all had expected to find words, and very important words, too. Consequently it fell to Dr. Bennett to answer me.

"No one can doubt your intentions, Mr. Outhwaite. Miss Meredith will be the first to acknowledge her indebtedness to you when she comes to herself. You have fulfilled your commission according to the dictates of your own conscience. That you have failed to effect all you hoped for is not your fault. As a lawyer you will rate the matter at its worth, and as a man of heart excuse the exaggerated effect it has to all appearance produced upon those about you."

It was a palpable dismissal, and I took it for such, or would have if Miss Meredith, whose attention the word lawyer had seemingly caught, had not honoured me with a look which held me rooted to the spot.

"Wait!" she cried, "I want to speak to that young man. Do not let him go yet." And advancing, she stood before me in an attitude at once womanly and confiding.

"Come back, Hope!" I heard uttered in the peremptory tones of him they called Leighton.

But though the spasm which passed over her face denoted what it cost her to disobey the voice of so near a relative, she stood her ground.

"I need a friend," she said to me. "Someone who will stand by me and support me in a task I may find myself too weak to accomplish unaided. I cannot have recourse to my cousins. They are too closely connected with the sorrows brought upon us all by this event. Besides, I find it easier to depend on a stranger,--one who does not care for me, as Dr. Bennett does; a lawyer, too; I may need a lawyer--sir, will you aid me with your counsels? I should find it hard to come upon another man of such evident sincerity as yourself."

"Hope! Hope!"

Entreaty had now become command; Leighton even took a step towards her. She faltered, but managed to murmur:

"You will not go till I have seen you again. You will not!"

"I will not," I rejoined, putting down the hat I had caught up.

The next minute she, as well as myself, perceived why she had been thus peremptorily called back.

The group around the newel-post had changed. A large, elderly man, with a world of experience in his time-worn but kindly visage, was standing in the place occupied by the coroner a moment before. He was bowing in the direction of Miss Meredith, and he held some half-dozen letters in his hand.

As her eyes fell on these letters he regarded her with an encouraging smile, and said:

"I am Detective Gryce, miss. I ask pardon for disturbing you, and I don't want you to lay too much stress upon my presence here or upon the few questions I have to put on behalf of the coroner who has just been called to the telephone. A few explanations are all I want, and some of these you are in a position to give me. You have been in the habit of using the typewriter for your uncle, I am told."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you use it for the writing of these five letters found upon his desk?"

"Yes, sir."

"To-night?"

"Yes, sir."

"At what hour?"

"Between dinner time and half-past eight."

This was the first time she had acknowledged having seen her uncle after dinner.

"So you were with him until half-past eight?"

"Yes, or thereabouts."

"And left him in the enjoyment of his usual health?"

"To all appearance, yes."

"Before or after your cousin Leighton came into the study?"

"Before."

"Why did you leave? Was Mr. Gillespie through with his work for the night?"

"I don't know; I don't think so, but I was tired, and he begged me to go upstairs."

"In his usual manner?"

"Yes."

"Not like a man anxious to have you go?"

"No."

"And when did the child come down?"

"Later."

"Not immediately?"

"No; a quarter of an hour or so later."

"Humph! The child was with him then a quarter of an hour before his death?"

"I suppose so; I do not know."

The detective waited a moment, then his hand closed over the letters.

"Miss, it is very important to know whether Mr. Gillespie anticipated death. This correspondence--you know it--a letter to Simpson & Beals, Attorneys, Dubuque, Iowa; another to Howard MacCartney, St. Augustine, Florida; this to the president of the Santa Fe Railroad; and this to Clarke, Beales & Co., Nassau Street, City. All business letters, I presume?"

"Entirely so, sir."

"And none of them, I judge, such as a man would write who expected to close all accounts with the world in less than an hour?"

"None."

How laconic she was for a girl scarcely out of her teens!

"From this correspondence, then, as you know it, he showed no intention of suicide?"

"On the contrary. In one of those letters, the one to Clarke, Beales & Co., I think, he made an appointment for to-morrow. My uncle was very exact in business matters. He would never have made this appointment if he had not hoped to keep it."

"Are you two in league?" the angry voice of George broke in. "Are you trying to make out that father died from violence?"

"In league?"

Did she say it or only look it? I felt my heart swell at her piteous, her agonised expression. Mr. Gryce, as he called himself, may have seen it, but he appeared to be looking at the slip of paper he now drew from his pocket, and which we all recognised as that which she had shortly before let drop.

"You see this," he said, "it looks like a piece of perfectly blank paper."

"And it is," she declared. "Why he should send it to me I do not know. It was given me in an envelope by the gentleman at the door, who says he got it from my uncle before he died. Everyone here knows that."

"Very good. Now let me ask from what sheet your uncle tore this scrap of paper? You recognise it as paper you have seen before?"

"O, yes, it is part of what is used in the typewriter. At least I suppose it to be. It looks like it."

"Sweetwater, bring me the typewriter!"

Sweetwater was the young man who had before shown himself in attendance on the coroner.

"O, what does this mean?" asked Hope, shrinking back.

An oath answered her. George had reached the end of his patience.

The placidity of the old man remained undisturbed.

Meanwhile the young detective called Sweetwater had returned with the typewriter in his arms. Setting it down on the library table, towards which they all immediately moved, he composedly strolled my way. We were now grouped as follows: the family and some others in the library, Sweetwater and myself at the front door.

Naturally, from the point I have just indicated, I could not look into the library; but my hearing being good and that of the young detective still better, we both managed to get the drift of what was being said, though we could not note the speakers.

I had seen a slip of paper protruding from the machine when it was carried past me, and it was to this piece of paper Mr. Gryce first called Miss Meredith's attention.

"There's an unfinished letter here, as you see. Did you have a hand in writing it?"

She did not answer very promptly, but when she did, it was with a "No" which was startlingly abrupt.

"Ah! then there's someone else in the house who uses the typewriter."

"Mr. Gillespie. He often used it when he was in a hurry and I not by."

"Mr. Gillespie? Do you think it was he who wrote these lines?"

"I do. There was no one else to do it."

Was my imagination too active, or had her voice a choked sound which spoke of some latent emotion she strove to conceal?

"Then," suavely responded the detective, "we need no other proof of Mr. Gillespie's condition up to the time he worked off this last line. I doubt if you ever made a better copy yourself, Miss Meredith. But why is it torn across in this manner? Half of the sheet is missing, and some portion at least of the letter is gone."

A sudden gasp which could have come from no other lips than hers was followed by certain short exclamations from the others indicative of interest if not surprise.

"Shall I take it out? Or will one of you read it as it lies here? I prefer one of you to read it."

We heard a few stammering sentences uttered by George or Alfred, then Leighton's voice broke in with the calm remark:

"It is about some shares lately purchased in Denver. If you think it necessary to hear what my father had to say concerning them, this is a facsimile of what he wrote a half-hour or so before he died:

New York, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1899.

James C. Taylor, Esq.,
18 State St.,
Boston, Mass.

Dear Sir:---

In regard to the financing of the $10,000,000, mentioned in
our conversation on the 12th inst., it is of the utmost
importance that I am placed as soon as possible in full
possession of the facts regarding the propert

The rest is torn off, as you say. Do you consider this letter important?"

"Not at all, except as showing the sound condition of your father's mind immediately prior to his collapse at ten o'clock. It is not the letter itself which should engage your attention, but the fact that this portion of it which has been wrenched off cannot be found. I know," he went on, before a rejoinder could be made by anyone in the startled group about him, "that a strip seemingly of this same paper was received by Miss Meredith in an envelope a few minutes ago. Indeed, I have it here. But though it was evidently stripped from this same sheet--from the bottom part of it, as you can see from its one straight edge--it does not fit the portion left in the machine. Some two inches or so of the sheet is lacking. Now where are these two inches? Not in the room from which we brought the typewriter, nor yet on Mr. Gillespie's person, for we have looked."

Silence.

"No one seems to answer," breathed a voice in my ear.

Had this shrewd and seemingly able detective expected a reply? I had not. Silence had too often followed inquiry in this house.

"It is a loss open to explanation," mildly resumed the aged detective. "It is also one which the police deems important. We shall have to search for that connecting slip of paper unless, as I sincerely hope, someone here present can produce it."

"Search!" a commanding voice broke in--that of Leighton. "We know nothing about it."

"It is a pity," rejoined the old man, with a mildness unusual in one of his class. "Such a measure should not be necessary. Someone here ought to be able to direct us where to find this missing portion of a letter interrupted by so stern a fact as the writer's death."

Still no answer.

"Had there been a fire in the room--but there was no fire. Or had Mr. Gillespie left the room----"

"Speak out!" the stern tones again enjoined. "You think some of us took it?"

"I do not say so," was the conciliatory reply. "But this scrap must be found. Its remarkable disappearance shows that it has more or less bearing on the mystery of your father's death."

"Then we must entreat you to use your power and find it if you can." It was still Leighton who was speaking. "George, Alfred, let us accept the situation with good grace; we will gain nothing by antagonising the police."

Two muffled oaths answered him; their natures were more passionate than his, or possibly less under control. But they offered no objections, and the next minute the old detective appeared in the hall.

One look passed between him and the young man loitering at my side. Then the latter turned to me:

"This is to be my task," he whispered. "I don't know the house at all. I hear that you have been up."

From whom could he have heard this? From Dr. Bennett? It was possible. Such fellows worm themselves into the confidence of warier persons than this amiable old physician.

"I have passed through the halls," I admitted, none too encouragingly. "But I don't see how that can help you."

"It's a four-story building, I suppose. All the houses along here are."

"Yes, it's a four-story house."

He rubbed one hand awkwardly against the other; indeed, his whole manner was awkward; then he walked slowly down the hall. When he reached the library door he stopped and looked in with a shy and deprecating air. Suddenly he began to back away. Someone was coming out. It was Miss Meredith. When she was in full sight and he brought to a stand-still by the wall against which he had retreated, he spoke, but not to her, though his eyes were fixed upon her in a sort of blank stare she may have attributed to the power of her beauty, but which I felt was of a character to make her careful.

"Four stories!" he muttered. "Parlour floor, first bedroom floor, second bedroom floor, and the attic! Where shall I begin? Ha! I think I know," he smiled, and passed quickly down the hall.

She had given an involuntary pressure to her hands when he mentioned the word attic.

I thought of the position in which I had found her there; of the doubts expressed by the doctor as to how she could have received an intimation of her uncle's death before an alarm had been raised or her cousins fully aroused, and felt forced to acknowledge that the police were justified in their action, great as was the spell cast over me by her loveliness.

That, justified or not, they meant to do their work, I soon saw. With a steady eye the coroner held us all to our places, while the young detective disappeared above, followed only by Leighton, who had asked the privilege of accompanying him for fear of some alarm being given to his little child who was upstairs alone. From the way Miss Meredith's eyes followed them, I knew there was something to be feared from this quest which she alone had the power of measuring.

What was I to think of this young girl who chose to be reticent on a subject involving questions of life and death! I would not probe my doubts too closely. I steeled myself against her look, resolving to be the lawyer--her lawyer--if required, but nothing more, at least till these shadows were cleared up.

Her two cousins remained in the library, to which Mr. Gryce had returned after making the signal to his man Sweetwater. We were all under great restraint with the exception of the doctor, who was chatting confidentially with the coroner. What he said I could in a measure gather from the expression of Miss Meredith's face, who was nearer him than I. That it served to intensify rather than relieve the situation was apparent from the gravity with which the coroner listened. Later, some stray words reached me.

"Had the greatest dread of poison--" This I distinctly heard--"Never took any medicine without asking--" I could not catch the rest. "Tell him symptoms--all the poisons--like a child--he _never_ poisoned himself." This last rung in my ears with persistent iteration. It rang so loud I thought everyone on that floor must have heard it. But I saw no change in Alfred's restless figure hovering on the threshold of the library door a few feet behind Miss Meredith; while George, conversing feverishly with Mr. Gryce, raised his voice rather than dropped it as these fatal words fell from the lips of one who certainly had the best of reasons for believing himself in the confidence of his patient.

Miss Meredith, who was listening to something besides this conversation, fateful as it was, was meanwhile schooling herself for Sweetwater's return. I could discern this by the change that passed over her face just when his steps began to be heard; and was conscious of quite a personal shock when I saw her hand fall involuntarily on her bosom as if the thing he sought was _there_ and not in the rooms above.

Cursing myself for the infatuation which would not let my eyes leave her face, I turned with sudden impulse into the reception room opening on my right. But I speedily stepped back again. Miss Meredith, who seemed to have gained some confidence by my presence, had feebly uttered my name. It seemed that the child had been heard to cry above, and that the coroner had refused to let her go up.

I made my way to her side, and, despite Alfred's scowls, entered into conversation with her, urging her to be calm and wait patiently for the detective's return.

"The child has its father," I suggested.

But this did not seem to afford her much comfort. She wrung her hands in her anxiety, and showed no relief till her cousin, followed by the watchful detective, was again seen on the stairs.

Then she took my arm. She needed it, for life and death were in the gaze she fixed upon the latter. And he--well, I had never seen the man before that night; yet I felt as certain from the way his feet fell on the stairs he so slowly descended that he had been successful in his search, and that the piece of paper which rustled so gently in his hand was the one Mr. Gryce had declared to be of such importance, and which she--but what man can complete a thought suggestive of distrust, while the hand of its lovely object presses warmly on his arm, and the eyes whose glance he both fears and loves rest upon his in a confidence which in itself is a rebuke?

I gave up speculation and devoted myself to sustaining Miss Meredith in her present ordeal. As Sweetwater reached the last step she murmured these words:

"I tried; but fate has rebuked me. Now I see my duty."

Her eyes had not followed Leighton's figure as he joined his brothers in the library, but mine did, and it did not make my heart any lighter to see from the glance he tossed her on entering that he was prepared for some event serious enough to warrant all this emotion.

"You have found what you have sought!" she cried, intercepting the young detective in her anxiety to end the suspense it took all her strength to sustain.

His smile was dubious, but it was a smile. Meantime the paper he held had found its way into the coroner's hands.

"Call Gryce!" shouted out that functionary, with a doubtful look at the slip in his hand; "I shall need his experience in deciphering this."

The detective was at his side in an instant, and together they bent over the scrap. The suspense was great, and the moment well-nigh intolerable. Then we saw the detective's finger rest on a certain portion of the paper they were mutually consulting, and remain there. The coroner read the words thus indicated, and his face showed both strong and sudden feeling.

"Ah!" he ejaculated. "What do you make out of that?"

The detective uttered a few low words, and taking the piece which had been in the envelope he fitted it to the one held by the coroner. We could all see that they were part of the same sheet.

"I should like to see if it also fits the portion that was left in the typewriter," suggested the other, ignoring the anxious looks bent upon him from every side. Passing by us all, he laid the three pieces together on the library table with a glance at the young Gillespies which was not without its element of compassion.

"Let us see it. What's on it?" urged Alfred. "Why, this is worse than father's death."

"If Miss Meredith will tell me how this central portion came to be on the attic floor, I will presently oblige you," rejoined the coroner.

She who of all present showed no interest in the completed sheet answered instantly, and without any further attempt at subterfuge or denial:

"I carried it there. I had come upon my uncle lying dead in his study, and thinking, fearing, that he had been struck while at the typewriter, I flew to the latter, and, lifting up the carriage, consulted the letter attached to it for some indication of this, and saw--George, Leighton, Alfred," she vehemently cried, facing them with a look before which each proud and spirited head sank in turn, "I do not know upon which of your three souls the weight of this crime rests. But one of you, one, I say, lies under the ban of your father's denunciation. Read!" And her trembling finger crossed that of the detective and fell upon a line terminating the half-finished letter which they had already partially read.

This was the appearance of that letter as now presented:

New York, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1899.

James C. Taylor, Esq., 18 State St., Boston, Mass.,

Dear Sir:--

In regard to the financing of the $10,000,000, mentioned in
our conversation on the 12th inst., it is of the utmost
importance that I am placed as soon as possible in full
possession of the important facts regarding the property
covered by these bonds.

First, the actual cost per mile, and if such cost covers the
necessary equipment for same both for freight and passenger
service; also if these bonds are the first lien one of my
sons he

"Those last words were written after he felt himself sinking under the poison," rang out in instinctive emphasis from her lips. "Contradict me, George! Contradict me, Leighton! or you, Alfred, if you can! It would give me new life. It would restore me----"

She was sinking, fainting, almost at the point of death herself, but not a voice was lifted, not a hand raised. This suggestion of crime had robbed them, one and all, of breath, almost of life.

VIII

THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN

Suddenly one voice rang out in passionate protest. "Hope! Hope! It was not I! It was not I!" And Alfred, leaving his brothers, stood before his young cousin, with self-forgetful gestures expressing a denial which was half-prayer.

George flushed, and his fist rose; Leighton drooped his head in shame--or was it sorrow; but the next minute he had that rebellious fist in his own clutch. Miss Meredith kept her eyes turned sedulously away from them all.

"I only want one of you to speak; the man who can exonerate his brothers by confessing his own guilt. Do not touch me!"

This to Alfred, whose hand had caught hold of her dress.

With an air of pride, the first I had seen in him, the youngest son of Mr. Gillespie withdrew from her side and took up his stand on the farther side of the hall.

"You are quick with your suspicions," he flashed out. "What sort of men do you think us, that you should allow an incoherent phrase like this at the end of a letter begun in health but finished in agony, prejudice you to the death against persons of your own blood? It would take more than that to make me think evil of you, Hope."

It was a natural reproach, and it told not only upon her, but upon us all. The words which had precipitated this situation might mean much and might mean little. Had the reputation of these young men been of a more stable character, or had no attempt been made to suppress this portion of the letter, suspicion would never have followed the discovery of this incongruous addition to the half-finished business letter found in the typewriter; "one of my sons he"--was that an accusation of crime? George and Leighton were on the point of asserting not, and Alfred had just begun to swagger with an air of injured pride, when Miss Meredith, recovering herself, laid her hand upon her bosom in repetition of her former action, and slowly drew forth a letter, the appearance of which evidently produced a new and still greater shock in the breasts of the three young men.

"I shall not try to vindicate myself," said she. "I have lived like a sister in this house, and you would have a right to reproach me if it were not for what I hold here. Alfred, you have complained that the few words left in the typewriter by your dying father were incoherent and unsatisfactory. Will you regard as equally meaningless this letter written four weeks ago? Sir,"--here she turned to the coroner,--"my uncle was ill a month ago. It was not a dangerous illness, but the remedies given--Oh! Dr. Bennett help me to say it--were remedies we all knew to be dangerous if taken in too great quantities. One night--I cannot go on--he had reason to think his glass was tampered with, and after that, he wrote this letter, and charged me with its delivery in case he--he--Ah! I need not say in case of what. You have seen his dear head lying low in the room over there. Only,--as this letter is addressed to my cousins conjointly, will you allow them to read it without witnesses if they will swear to respect it and restore it in an un-mutilated condition to your hands? It is the only favour I ask you to show them, and this I humbly entreat you to grant, if only in recognition of what I have suffered at having precipitated this horror when I only meant to--to----"

She was sinking--falling--nay, almost at the point of death herself. But she reached out the letter, and the coroner, giving it one glance, handed it over to Leighton as the one least shaken by the calamity which had just overwhelmed the house.

"God forbid that I should deny to sons the privilege of being the first to read the last letter addressed them by their father."

But he made no move towards drawing the curtain between himself and the room from which he was retreating, nor could he be said to have really taken his eye off any of them during the reading of this long letter.

"You see I had need of a friend," murmured Miss Meredith, swaying towards me.

I gave her a commiserating look. Was ever a girl more unfortunately situated? Two at least of the men against whom she had felt forced to utter this denunciation of crime, loved her (or so I believed), Alfred passionately, George with less show of feeling, but possibly with fully as much depth and fervour.

"You might have held the letter back," I whispered.

But she met me with a noble look.

"You mean if I have not drawn suspicion upon them by my first subterfuge. But with so much in their disfavour, how could I calculate upon another opportunity of seeing them all together. And they must read it together. So my uncle told me. But he never thought it would be with police-officers in the house."