FORGED LETTERS
Alden looked at Bertha. "Mr. Durgan must read these letters," he said,
"because they belong to his wife. You must choose whether you will be a
witness to the reading. Yours is a filial as well as a sisterly part. It
is in the effort to bring your father's enemy to justice that I take
this step. On the other hand, you may think that your sister has also
acted with that filial duty in view, and that, in taking a course in
opposition to her wishes, you would be casting a reflection upon her
conduct which is disloyal. I cannot advise you, you must judge for
yourself."
Bertha did not speak.
"The course which your sister has pursued appears to me suicidal,"
continued Alden. "I cannot, if I would, endorse her action further; but
you must judge for yourself."
"Whatever duty to my dear father I leave unperformed, his happiness
cannot now be marred. I only wish to serve my sister now."
Then she followed her sister upstairs.
When Alden was relieved from constraint, his face and figure settled
into lines even more haggard and weary than before.
"I will give you the letters in the order of their dates," said he to
Durgan.
The letters were carefully arranged. He had made notes concerning each
on a slip of paper.
The first was written upon cheap notepaper in a cramped hand. Durgan, as
he read, characterized the writer as a half-educated person,
unaccustomed to social usage. It was dated from New York, and on a day
about a month before the Claxton tragedy. It ran thus:
"MRS. DURGAN:
"Madame--I find the boarding-house to which you have been so good
as to recommend me very comfortable. The parcel of comforts has
reached and been duly received by me, for which also kindly receive
my thanks. But I cannot forbear from reminding you that he who
would seek spiritual knowledge and communion with those in a finer
state of being than our own, must eschew such unnecessary
gratification of the flesh. Again thanking you, dear madame,
"I remain, your obedient servant,
"JOHN CHARLTON BEARDSLEY."
Durgan turned this over and over. There was no postmark or stamp on the
envelope. It had perhaps been returned by the bearer of the parcel
referred to. The paper was not soiled, and the fragrance of his wife's
own stationery adhered to it. She had evidently kept this paltry note
among her own papers until recently--why? A fashionable woman must
receive hundreds of such notes. Then, too, to keep what was of no use
was not in accordance with his wife's business habits.
After this followed three more notes on the same paper. They also were
brief and formal, giving thanks for favors, making or cancelling
engagements to teach spiritual lore.
Then came one dated the day before the Claxton murder. Durgan felt a
strange thrill as he read it:
"MADAME: I feel compelled to visit Mr. Claxton at his own residence
to-morrow. I feel that it is my duty to declare to him in the
presence of Mrs. Claxton--or if he will not consent to this to
warn Mr. Claxton of the risk to his soul which he encounters in his
present meetings with----"
Here a line had been carefully erased. The next line began in the middle
of a sentence.
"----not think that I have any other than an honorable intention.
For again I say that if we seek to know the spirit world we must
purge ourselves of all dross.
"I am, your obedient servant,
"JOHN CHARLTON BEARDSLEY."
"This is of importance", said Durgan. "He intended to go to the house on
the fatal day, and there is suggestion of material for a quarrel over
some unknown person--a woman, probably, as Mrs. Claxton's presence is
required."
"Is there reason to assume this third person unknown? It may have been a
name that is erased, or it may have been a pronoun in the second person.
Shall we read on?"
The next letter was dated the day after the crime. It ran:
"MRS. DURGAN:
"Madame--I am sensible of kindness in your inquiries about my
health. I have, as you are aware, received a great shock in
hearing of the terrible fate of our friend, Mr. Claxton. Alas! In
the midst of life we are in death. I had, as you know, held the
intention of paying him a call upon that very day, but, instead,
fell into a trance soon after my simple breakfast of bread and
milk. In that trance I saw the dark deed committed, but could not
see the actor. The terror of the hour has preyed upon my health. If
I can keep my evening engagements this week it will be all that I
can do. I will not see you again at present, except in public. Your
obedient servant,
J. C. B."
"Do you think he could possibly have gone out and done it in his trance,
and never known his own guilt?" asked Durgan.
"Observe that that letter appears to be written from Beardsley's, while
'Dolphus swears that he was then in Mrs. Durgan's house."
The next was a reply from Mrs. Durgan, upon the costly, scented paper
her husband knew so well--crest and monogram and address embossed in
several delicate colors. It was dated the same day.
"DEAR MR. CHARLTON BEARDSLEY: I am sorry indeed to hear that your
health has been too greatly strained by spiritual exercises and
(may I not say?) by too great abstinence. I regret this on my own
account, for I am deprived of the valuable instruction you have
been giving me in spiritual matters. I confess I cannot glean so
much wisdom from you when I meet you only in the more public
séance. But on no account risk any danger to your health. Yours
cordially,
"ANNA DURGAN.
"P.S.--I was so absorbed in my personal disappointment that I have
forgotten to express my horror and sympathy at the terrible news
(which is now in all the papers) concerning your friend, Mr.
Claxton, and his family."
Next, with the same date, came another note from Mrs. Durgan, briefly
inviting the medium to pay a week's visit at her house, and stating that
an old nurse of her own would wait on him if he preferred to keep his
room.
The next letter was dated two months later, and was from Beardsley at
Atlantic City. In it the patient recounted with gratitude all the
attention he had received during a long illness suffered in Mrs.
Durgan's house. He also spoke of much pleasure in a further friendship
with her, and the hope of spending his life not far from her. More
elegance of thought and language was now displayed.
After this there were several other letters, written at intervals during
the next year, alternately by Beardsley and Mrs. Durgan, and filled only
with matters of ordinary friendship--discussions on spiritualism, and of
a plan that Beardsley should avail himself permanently of Mrs. Durgan's
hospitality. Beardsley stated that he had no longer the health to
continue his work as a medium.
When the reading was finished, and Alden was waiting, Durgan was loth to
speak. He felt a curious sense of helplessness. Why had these particular
letters been kept? Was it to incriminate Charlton Beardsley or to
exculpate him? The period of the letters was well chosen with reference
to the crime, but how had his wife been able to foresee a month before
the murder that she might want to produce the notes of that date? Then
arose a question of much greater interest to Durgan. The Beardsley
revealed in these letters was, as he had always believed, the last man
to attract Mrs. Durgan. If innocent, he appeared to be a simple-minded,
uneducated enthusiast in bad health and liable to fits. If guilty, there
was still less reason why a woman whose motive was always selfish, and
whose aim was ambitious, should compromise herself by befriending him.
"What do you think of these letters?" asked Durgan impatiently.
Alden gave a little genteel snort of anger and annoyance. He looked
towards the stairs and spoke in a low voice. "I confide in you, Mr.
Durgan. In confidence, I may say I am confounded. The world has said
that this was an extraordinary case, and that without knowing this
latest and most baffling development. I confess I am confounded."
"But you will have some theory about them?"
"The only thing they prove is that someone has thought it worth while to
try to deceive someone else; and I should think--pardon me--that the
agent in the matter is Mrs. Durgan. This is her writing, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Beardsley's letters are all forgeries except one."
Durgan took back the letters to seek evidence of forgery. His hand
trembled.
"Don't you see which is the genuine one?" asked Alden.
Durgan did not see until it was pointed out to him that the letter which
contained the erasure differed from the rest in displaying some
peculiarities of crude handwriting which were more or less successfully
copied, but exaggerated, in the others which bore his supposed
signature.
"Do you agree with me that my wife's are genuine?" asked Durgan
haughtily.
"I have no reason to suppose otherwise. They are all in the same hand,
but I think----"
"Go on," said Durgan.
"I think they were not written at the dates given, but were composed to
make up this series."
"Do you suppose, then, that my wife is the author of these Beardsley
forgeries?"
"I cannot tell. If they were written in Beardsley's interest, why did he
not write them himself? But if not in his interest, whoever forged them
must have done it at her bidding."
As Durgan kept silence, Alden spoke again. "I ought to explain to you,
perhaps with an apology, why I suggested that the person referred to in
the erased line may have been Mrs. Durgan. By mere accident I heard, a
year after the trial, a piece of gossip which first made me pitch on
that one letter as probably genuine. I am loth to mention it to you, for
it appeared to be trivial talk about a mere mistake. A man who had
belonged to that somewhat secret circle of Beardsley's was telling me
that Beardsley knew nothing of society, and was, like all lower-class
men, at first quite unaccustomed to the idea of mere friendship between
men and women, and, as an illustration of this, he went on to say what I
am referring to. Mrs. Durgan and Claxton seemed to have discovered some
spiritual affinity. The spirits, I understood, sometimes spoke through
Mrs. Durgan and sent messages to him----"
"She said they did?"
"Personally, of course, I don't believe in such communications, but we
may believe that Mrs. Durgan believed----"
"I was not entering into that question. I merely wish to be clear as to
what occurred."
"Yes; I understood that Mrs. Durgan said they sent messages of an
agreeable and flattering nature; and Beardsley suspected that they were
not genuine, and, being a person of primitive ideas, showed disapproval.
He thought they indicated undue interest in Claxton on Mrs. Durgan's
part. The man told me that all who knew of the incident laughed at
Beardsley's lack of knowledge of the world. He gave me to understand no
one thought the incident of any importance, and all had the good feeling
not to speak of it after poor Claxton's death."
"Did they suppose Beardsley to be jealous?"
"Not at all. My informant, a man of the world, represented him as
having the idea that a high moral tone was necessary to insure the
success of his entertainments, and that these flattering messages were
not in harmony with such a tone."
"You heard this a year ago and no suspicion of Beardsley entered your
mind?"
"No. How should it? My informant ended his chat by remarking how well
Mrs. Durgan knew how to disarm criticism, for, instead of being
offended, she had most charitably supported the simple moralist during
years of ill health."
"It is easy to be wise after the event," said Durgan; and then he asked:
"What are you going to do now?"
"The chief thing we have got to consider is that, although these
letters, and above all, those I have not yet shown you, confirm the
mulatto's tale that Beardsley was at the house, we have as yet no
explanation whatever of the crime, and no reason whatever to accuse
Beardsley of it beyond the fact that he was there. I do not see how to
get further except by discovering a clue to Miss Claxton's conduct. The
kernel of the secret lies there."
"I see quite clearly," rejoined Durgan, "that we are, as you say, far
from any explanation of the mystery; but as far as my wife is concerned,
these letters appear to me to show that she knew that she was
protecting this man at the risk of danger to herself. She has prepared
this series to save herself if he is found out. The one letter which you
suppose to be his is evidence that he had the intention of visiting the
Claxtons that morning; the rest of the letters only imply that she
believed he had never gone. If, as we now suppose, the cause of quarrel
between Beardsley and poor Claxton was this misapprehension of his
regarding my wife's feeling for Claxton, she may have sheltered him at
first to save scandal involving herself."
"Yet," said Alden, "we must admit that this does not appear to be any
sufficient motive for Mrs. Durgan's conduct. We agree that only some
important fact, as yet unknown to us, can explain the action of these
two women."
Alden put down his notes on the small table. They sat in silence. The
smouldering birch log in the stove chimney emitted only an occasional
spit of flame. The dogs slumbered in front of it. The shaded lamp, which
Durgan had often regarded as the symbol of domestic felicity, threw the
same soft light around the graceful room as on the first evening of his
introduction to it. Upstairs there was an occasional sound made by the
movements of the sisters, which gave a soft reminder of their presence
in the house, and no more. Through the low, uncurtained windows the
mountain trees and the meadows were seen outlined in the starlight, as
on the night of his arrival.
"What of these other letters you still have in your hand?" said Durgan
at last.
"There are three that were tied up and hidden, evidently before the
stolen packet came into her possession; and three that were with the
rest that you have seen. These last three I cannot let you see. They are
the saddest letters I have ever read. They are written to Beardsley, and
altho without date or signature, undoubtedly in Miss Claxton's writing.
They implore him by every sacred feeling of love and duty to turn to God
in repentance and accept the Christian salvation. Mr. Durgan, nothing
but love and the most earnest sense of duty could have prompted these
letters, and I wish, in your presence, to put them in the fire. They
have been rejected and spurned by the cur to whom they were sent, and
altho they are undoubted proofs that for him she has felt the madness--I
can call it by no other word--the madness of love, they shall never be
used as evidence against her."
The little man stepped forward and laid them on the fire. The tears,
unfelt, fell from his eyes as he did so. The flame shot up from the
glowing log, and the dark, uncurtained windows of the room repeated the
quivering light.
The sorrow of it drowned Durgan's curiosity. He forgot to wonder what
letters Miss Claxton had previously hidden in the tree till Alden roused
himself to speak again.
"The three letters still left, which apparently came months ago, at
intervals, in response to those just burned, are addressed to Miss
Claxton at my office. I judge from this that Beardsley never knew of the
alias 'Smith' or of this retreat. Indeed, Adolphus told me he does not
know." Alden paused absently.
"And these letters?" Durgan reminded.
"These letters are no doubt from that beast. They are in feigned hand
and anonymous; and the subject is money--no religion, no duty, no
affection, is to be believed as long as money is withheld. Thousands of
dollars are demanded. I've no means of knowing whether this money was
given or not."
Durgan went over the notes, which Alden had described accurately.
"The negro is really dying, I suppose?" he asked. "He can help us no
further?"
"Yes; he may be dead by this time; but, curiously enough, to the end of
my interview he was chuckling, and saying that he would pay the villain
and right the lady yet. But he would not give me, or the doctor, any
indication of what he meant. He adjured me to----"
"Listen." Durgan went to the window as he spoke, and the dogs pricked
their ears.
"I hear nothing," said Alden.
"I ought to be going home," said Durgan. "What were you saying?"
"Only that the fellow told me to keep my wits about me, and tell you to
do the same. There is something to be subtracted from all the evidence
he gave, for he was certainly, if rational at all, in a very fantastic
humor."
The lawyer's tones were low and weary. Durgan was not even listening. He
had opened the window a little.
"I think there is a horse, or horses, on the road from the Cove," he
said. His thought glanced back to the last time he heard horsemen
approach in the night, to arrest Adam. No errand of less baneful import
seemed to fit the circumstances now.
The French clock on the mantel-shelf rang out twelve musical strokes.