The Clue. Carolyn Wells

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СКАЧАТЬ Tom Willard?"

      Mrs. Markham gave a start. "Of course we must," she said. "Poor Tom! He must be told. Who will tell him?"

      "I will," volunteered Miss Morton, and Doctor Hills looked up, amazed at her calm tone. This woman puzzled him, and he could not understand her continued attempts at authority in a household where she was a comparative stranger. And yet might it not be merely a kind consideration for those who were nearer and dearer to the principals of this awful tragedy?

      But even as he thought this over, Miss Morton had gone to the telephone, her heavy silk gown rustling as she crossed the room, and her every movement assertive of her own importance.

      Calling up the Mapleton Inn, she succeeded, after several attempts, in rousing some of its occupants, and finally was in communication with young Willard himself. She did not tell him of the tragedy, but only asked him to come over to the house at once, as something serious had happened, and returned to her seat with a murmured observation that Tom would arrive as soon as possible.

      Again the little group lapsed into silence. Cicely Dupuy was very nervous, and kept picking at her handkerchief, quite unconscious that she was ruining its delicate lace edge.

      Doctor Hills glanced furtively from one to another. Many things puzzled him, but most of all he was at a loss to understand the suicide of this beautiful girl on the very eve of her wedding.

      At last Tom Willard came.

      Miss Morton met him at the door, and took him into the drawing-room before he could turn toward the library.

      Schuyler Carleton's frantic touches on various electric buttons had turned on all the lights in the drawing-room. As no one had noticed this, the great apartment had remained illuminated as if for a festivity, and the soft, bright lights fell on the floral bower and the elaborate decorations that had been arranged for the wedding day.

      "What is it?" asked Tom, his own face white with an impending sense of dread as he looked into Miss Morton's eyes.

      As gently as possible, but in her own straightforward and inevitably somewhat abrupt way, Miss Morton told him.

      "I want to warn you," she said, "to prepare for a shock, and I think it kinder to tell you the truth at once. Your cousin Madeleine—Miss Van Norman—has taken her own life."

      "What?" Tom almost shouted the word, and his face showed an absolutely uncomprehending amazement.

      "She killed herself to-night," Miss Morton went on, whose efforts were now directed toward making the young man understand, rather than towards sparing his feelings.

      But Tom could not seem to grasp it. "What do you mean?" he said, catching her by both arms. "Madeleine? Killed herself?"

      "Yes," said Miss Morton, shaken out of her own calm by Tom's excited voice. "In the library, after we had all gone to bed, she stabbed herself with that horrible paper-cutter thing. Did you know she was unhappy?"

      "Unhappy? No; why should she be? Tomorrow was to have been her wedding day!"

      "To-day," corrected Miss Morton. "It is already the day on which our dear Madeleine was to have become a bride. And instead—" Glancing around the brilliant room and at the bridal bower, Miss Morton's composure gave way entirely, and she sobbed hysterically. At this Cicely Dupuy came across from the library. Putting her arm around Miss Morton, she led the sobbing woman away, and without a word to Tom Willard gave him a glance which seemed to say that he must look out for himself, for her duty was to attend Miss Morton.

      As the two women left the drawing-room Tom followed them. He walked slowly, and stared about as if uncertain where to go. He paused a moment midway in the room, and, stooping, picked up some small object from the carpet, which he put in his waistcoat pocket.

      A moment more and he had crossed the hall and stood at the library door, gazing at the scene which had already shocked and saddened the others.

      With a groan, as of utter anguish, Tom involuntarily put up one hand before his eyes.

      Then, pulling himself together with an effort, he seemed to dash away a tear, and walked into the room, saying almost harshly, "What does it mean?"

      Doctor Hills rose to meet him, and by way of a brief explanation he put into Tom's hand the paper he had found on the table. Tom read the written message, and looked more stupefied than ever. With a sudden gesture he turned towards Schuyler Carleton and said in a low voice, "but you did love her, didn't you?"

      "I did," replied Carleton simply.

      "Why should she have thought you didn't?" went on Tom, looking at the paper, and seeming to soliloquize rather than to address his question to any one else.

      As this was the first time that the "S." in Madeleine's note had been openly assumed to stand for Schuyler Carleton, there was a stir of excitement all round the room.

      "I don't know," said Carleton, but a dull, red flush spread over his white face and his voice trembled.

      "You don't know!" said Tom, in cutting tones. "Man, you must know."

      But no reply was made, and, dropping into a chair, Tom buried his face in both hands and remained thus for a long time.

      Tom Willard was a large, stout man, and possessed of the genial and merry demeanor which so often accompanies avoirdupois. Save for his occasional, though really rare, bursts of temper, Tom was always in joking and laughing mood.

      To see him thus in an agonized, speechless despair deeply affected Mrs. Markham. Tom had always been a favorite with her, and not even Madeleine had regretted more than she the estrangement between Richard Van Norman and his nephew. And even as Mrs. Markham looked at the bowed head of the great strong man she suddenly bethought herself for the first time that Tom was now heir to the Van Norman fortune.

      She wondered if he had himself yet realized it; and then she scolded herself for letting such thoughts intrude so unfittingly soon. And yet she well knew that it would not be in ordinary human nature long to ignore the fact of such a sudden change of fortunes. As she looked at Tom her glance strayed toward Mr. Carleton, and then the thought struck her that what Tom had gained this man had lost. For had Madeleine lived the Van Norman money would have been, in a way, at the disposal of her husband. The girl's death then would make Tom a rich man, while Schuyler Carleton would remain poor. He had always been poor, or at least far from wealthy, and more than one gossip was of the opinion that he had wooed Miss Van Norman not entirely because of disinterested love for her.

      While Mrs. Markham was busy with these fast-following thoughts a voice in the doorway made her look up.

      A quiet, unimportant-looking man stood there, and was respectfully addressing Doctor Hills.

      "I'm Hunt, sir," he said, "a plain-clothes man from headquarters."

      The three men in the room gave a start of surprise, and each turned an inquiring look at the newcomer.

      "Who sent you? And what for?" asked Doctor Hills.

      "I've been here all night, sir. I'm on guard in the present room upstairs."

      "I engaged him," said Mrs. Markham. "Madeleine's presents are very valuable, and although the jewels are still in the bank, the silver and other things upstairs are worth a large amount, and I thought best to have this man remain СКАЧАТЬ