The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ saw her bending over something in this corner, and could not think what it was. Can it be she is a suicide after all? She has evidently destroyed something here which she didn’t wish any one to see.”

      “I do not know,” I said. “I could almost hope so.”

      “Not a scrap, not a morsel left to show what it was; how unfortunate!”

      “Mrs. Belden must solve this riddle,” I cried.

      “Mrs. Belden must solve the whole riddle,” he replied; “the secret of the Leavenworth murder hangs upon it.” Then, with a lingering look towards the mass of burned paper, “Who knows but what that was a confession?”

      The conjecture seemed only too probable.

      “Whatever it was,” said I, “it is now ashes, and we have got to accept the fact and make the best of it.”

      “Yes,” said he with a deep sigh; “that’s so; but Mr. Gryce will never forgive me for it, never. He will say I ought to have known it was a suspicious circumstance for her to take a dose of medicine at the very moment detection stood at her back.”

      “But she did not know that; she did not see you.”

      “We don’t know what she saw, nor what Mrs. Belden saw. Women are a mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted.”

      “Well, well,” I said, “the end has not come yet; who knows what a talk with Mrs. Belden will bring out? And, by the way, she will be coming back soon, and I must be ready to meet her. Everything depends upon finding out, if I can, whether she is aware of this tragedy or not. It is just possible she knows nothing about it.”

      And, hurrying him from the room, I pulled the door to behind me, and led the way down-stairs.

      “Now,” said I, “there is one thing you must attend to at once. A telegram must be sent Mr. Gryce acquainting him with this unlooked-for occurrence.”

      “All right, sir,” and Q started for the door.

      “Wait one moment,” said I. “I may not have another opportunity to mention it. Mrs. Belden received two letters from the postmaster yesterday; one in a large and one in a small envelope; if you could find out where they were postmarked——”

      Q put his hand in his pocket. “I think I will not have to go far to find out where one of them came from. Good George, I have lost it!” And before I knew it, he had returned up-stairs.

      That moment I heard the gate click.

Chapter XXXI.

       “Thereby Hangs a Tale.”

       Table of Contents

      —Taming of the Shrew.

      “It was all a hoax; nobody was ill; I have been imposed upon, meanly imposed upon!” And Mrs. Belden, flushed and panting, entered the room where I was, and proceeded to take off her bonnet; but whilst doing so paused, and suddenly exclaimed: “What is the matter? How you look at me! Has anything happened?”

      “Something very serious has occurred,” I replied; “you have been gone but a little while, but in that time a discovery has been made—” I purposely paused here that the suspense might elicit from her some betrayal; but, though she turned pale, she manifested less emotion than I expected, and I went on—“which is likely to produce very important consequences.”

      To my surprise she burst violently into tears. “I knew it, I knew it!” she murmured. “I always said it would be impossible to keep it secret if I let anybody into the house; she is so restless. But I forget,” she suddenly said, with a frightened look; “you haven’t told me what the discovery was. Perhaps it isn’t what I thought; perhaps——”

      I did not hesitate to interrupt her. “Mrs. Belden,” I said, “I shall not try to mitigate the blow. A woman who, in the face of the most urgent call from law and justice, can receive into her house and harbor there a witness of such importance as Hannah, cannot stand in need of any great preparation for hearing that her efforts, have been too successful, that she has accomplished her design of suppressing valuable testimony, that law and justice are outraged, and that the innocent woman whom this girl’s evidence might have saved stands for ever compromised in the eyes of the world, if not in those of the officers of the law.”

      Her eyes, which had never left me during this address, flashed wide with dismay.

      “What do you mean?” she cried. “I have intended no wrong; I have only tried to save people. I—I—But who are you? What have you got to do with all this? What is it to you what I do or don’t do? You said you were a lawyer. Can it be you are come from Mary Leavenworth to see how I am fulfilling her commands, and——”

      “Mrs. Belden,” I said, “it is of small importance now as to who I am, or for what purpose I am here. But that my words may have the more effect, I will say, that whereas I have not deceived you, either as to my name or position, it is true that I am the friend of the Misses Leavenworth, and that anything which is likely to affect them, is of interest to me. When, therefore, I say that Eleanore Leavenworth is irretrievably injured by this girl’s death——”

      “Death? What do you mean? Death!”

      The burst was too natural, the tone too horror-stricken for me to doubt for another moment as to this woman’s ignorance of the true state of affairs.

      “Yes,” I repeated, “the girl you have been hiding so long and so well is now beyond your control. Only her dead body remains, Mrs. Belden.”

      I shall never lose from my ears the shriek which she uttered, nor the wild, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!” with which she dashed from the room and rushed up-stairs.

      Nor that after-scene when, in the presence of the dead, she stood wringing her hands and protesting, amid sobs of the sincerest grief and terror, that she knew nothing of it; that she had left the girl in the best of spirits the night before; that it was true she had locked her in, but this she always did when any one was in the house; and that if she died of any sudden attack, it must have been quietly, for she had heard no stir all night, though she had listened more than once, being naturally anxious lest the girl should make some disturbance that would arouse me.

      “But you were in here this morning?” said I.

      “Yes; but I didn’t notice. I was in a hurry, and thought she was asleep; so I set the things down where she could get them and came right away, locking the door as usual.”

      “It is strange she should have died this night of all others. Was she ill yesterday?”

      “No, sir; she was even brighter than common; more lively. I never thought of her being sick then or ever. If I had——”

      “You never thought of her being sick?” a voice here interrupted. “Why, then, did you take such pains to give her a dose of medicine last night?” And Q entered from the room beyond.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ