The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ facts surrounding this woman’s death? Could the supposition of suicide advanced by Howard before the Coroner be entertained for a moment, or that equally improbable suggestion of accident?

      Going to my bureau drawer, I drew out the old grocer-bill which has already figured in these pages, and re-read the notes I had scribbled on its back early in the history of this affair. They related, if you will remember, to this very question, and seemed even now to answer it in a more or less convincing way. Will you pardon me if I transcribe these notes again, as I cannot imagine my first deliberations on this subject to have made a deep enough impression for you to recall them without help from me.

      The question raised in these notes was threefold, and the answers, as you will recollect, were transcribed before the cause of death had been determined by the discovery of the broken pin in the dead woman’s brain.

      These are the queries:

      First: was her death due to accident?

      Second: was it effected by her own hand?

      Third: was it a murder?

      The replies given are in the form of reasons, as witness:

      My reasons for not thinking it an accident.

1. If it had been an accident, and she had pulled the cabinet over upon herself,2 she would have been found with her feet pointing towards the wall where the cabinet had stood. But her feet were towards the door and her head under the cabinet.

      2. The precise arrangement of the clothing about her feet, which precluded any theory involving accident.

      My reason for not thinking it a suicide.

      She could not have been found in the position observed without having lain down on the floor while living, and then pulled the shelves down upon herself. (A theory obviously too improbable to be considered.)

       My reason for not thinking it murder.

      She would need to have been held down on the floor while the cabinet was being pulled over on her, a thing which the quiet aspect of the hands and feet make appear impossible. (Very good, but we know now that she was dead when the shelves fell over, so that my one excuse for not thinking it a murder is rendered null.)

      My reasons for thinking it a murder.

      –-But I will not repeat these. My reasons for not thinking it an accident or a suicide remained as good as when they were written, and if her death had not been due to either of these causes, then it must have been due to some murderous hand. Was that hand the hand of her husband? I have already given it as my opinion that it was not.

      Now, how to make that opinion good, and reconcile me again to myself; for I am not accustomed to have my instincts at war with my judgment. Is there any reason for my thinking as I do? Yes, the manliness of man. He only looked well when he was repelling the suspicion he saw in the surrounding faces. But that might have been assumed, just as his careless manner was assumed during the early part of the inquiry. I must have some stronger reason than this for my belief. The two hats? Well, he had explained how there came to be two hats on the scene of crime, but his explanation had not been very satisfactory. I had seen no hat in her hand when she crossed the pavement to her father’s house. But then she might have carried it under her cape without my seeing it—perhaps. The discovery of two hats and of two pairs of gloves in Mr. Van Burnam’s parlors was a fact worth further investigation, and mentally I made a note of it, though at the moment I saw no prospect of engaging in this matter further than my duties as a witness required.

      And now what other clue was offered me, save the one I have already mentioned as being given by the clock? None that I could seize upon; and feeling the weakness of the cause I had so obstinately embraced, I rose from my seat at the tea-table and began making such alterations in my toilet as would prepare me for the evening and my inevitable callers.

      “Amelia,” said I to myself, as I encountered my anything but satisfied reflection in the glass, “can it be that you ought, after all, to have been called Araminta? Is a momentary display of spirit on the part of a young man of doubtful principles, enough to make you forget the dictates of good sense which have always governed you up to this time?”

      The stern image which confronted me from the mirror made me no reply, and smitten with sudden disgust, I left the glass and went below to greet some friends who had just ridden up in their carriage.

      They remained one hour, and they discussed one subject: Howard Van Burnam and his probable connection with the crime which had taken place next door. But though I talked some and listened more, as is proper for a woman in her own house, I said nothing and heard nothing which had not been already said and heard in numberless homes that night. Whatever thoughts I had which in any way differed from those generally expressed, I kept to myself,—whether guided by discretion or pride, I cannot say; probably by both, for I am not deficient in either quality.

      Arrangements had already been made for the burial of Mrs. Van Burnam that night, and as the funeral ceremony was to take place next door, many of my guests came just to sit in my windows and watch the coming and going of the few people invited to the ceremony.

      But I discouraged this. I have no patience with idle curiosity. Consequently by nine I was left alone to give the affair such real attention as it demanded; something which, of course, I could not have done with a half dozen gossiping friends leaning over my shoulder.

      Chapter XVII.

       Butterworth Versus Gryce

       Table of Contents

      The result of this attention can be best learned from the conversation I held with Mr. Gryce the next morning.

      He came earlier than usual, but he found me up and stirring.

      “Well,” he cried, accosting me with a smile as I entered the parlor where he was seated, “it is all right this time, is it not? No trouble in identifying the gentleman who entered your neighbor’s house last night at a quarter to twelve?”

      Resolved to probe this man’s mind to the bottom, I put on my sternest air.

      “I had not expected any one to enter there so late last night,” said I. “Mr. Van Burnam declared so positively at the inquest that he was the person we have been endeavoring to identify, that I did not suppose you would consider it necessary to bring him to the house for me to see.”

      “And so you were not in the window?”

      “I did not say that; I am always where I have promised to be, Mr. Gryce.”

      “Well, then?” he inquired sharply.

      I was purposely slow in answering him—I had all the longer time to search his face. But its calmness was impenetrable, and finally I declared:

      “The man you brought with you last night—you were the person who accompanied him, were you not—was not the man I saw alight there four nights ago.”

      He may have expected it; it may have been the very assertion he desired from me, but his manner showed displeasure, and the quick “How?” СКАЧАТЬ