BOOK I

THE SHADOW

I

THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO

I was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening,

when somewhere near the corner of Fifty----Street I was brought to a

sudden stand-still by the sound of a child's voice accosting me from

the stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing.

"O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He's sick

and wants you."

Surprised, for I knew no one on the block, I glanced up and saw

bending from the open doorway the trembling figure of a little girl,

with a wealth of curly hair blowing about her sweet, excited face.

"You have made a mistake," I called up to her. "I am not the person

you suppose. I am a stranger. Tell me whom you know about here and I

will see that someone comes to your grandpa."

But this did not satisfy her. Running down the stoop, she seized me by

the arm with childish impetuosity, crying: "No, no. There isn't time.

Grandpa told me to bring in the first man I saw going by. You are the

first man. Come!"

There was urgency in her tones, and unconsciously I began to yield to

her insistence, and allow myself to be drawn towards the stoop.

"Who is your grandpa?" I asked, satisfied from the imposing look of

the house that he must be a man of some prominence. "If he is sick

there are the servants"--But here her little foot came down in

infantile impatience.

"Grandpa never waits!" she cried, dragging me with her small hands up

the stoop and into the open door. "If you don't hurry he'll think I

didn't do as he told me."

What man would not have yielded? The hall, as seen from the entrance,

was wide and unusually rich. Indeed, an air of the highest

respectability, as well as of unbounded wealth, characterised the

whole establishment; and however odd the adventure appeared, it

certainly offered nothing calculated to awaken distrust. Entering with

her, I shut the door behind me. In an instant she was half-way down

the hall.

"Here! here!" she cried, pausing before a door near its end.

The confidence with which she summoned me (I sometimes wonder if my

countenance conveys more than the ordinary amount of good nature) and

the pretty picture she made, standing in the flood of light which

poured from the unseen apartment toward which she beckoned me, lured

me on till I reached her side, and stood in full view of a scene which

certainly justified her fear if not the demand she made upon a passing

stranger.

In the midst of a small room, plain as any office, I saw an elderly

gentleman standing who, even to my unaccustomed eyes, seemed to be not

simply ill, but in the throes of actual dissolution.

Greatly disturbed, for I had anticipated nothing so serious, I turned

to fly for assistance, when the little child, rushing by me, caught

her grandfather by the knees and gave me such a look, I had not the

heart to leave her.

Indeed it would have been cruel to do so. The appearance and attitude

of the sick man were startling even to me. Though in a state bordering

on death, he was, as I have said, standing, not lying, and his tall

figure swaying against the large table to which he clung, formed a

picture of mental and physical suffering such as I had never before

seen, and can never in all my life to come, forget. One hand was

pressed against his heart, but the other, outspread in a desperate

attempt to support his weight, had fallen on some half-dozen sheets or

so of typewritten paper, which, slipping under the pressure put upon

them, kept him tottering, though he did not fall. He was looking my

way, and as I advanced into the room, his collapsing frame shook with

sudden feeling, and the hand which he held clenched over his heart

opened slightly, revealing a scrap of paper crushed between his

fingers.

Struck with compassion, for the contrast was pitiful between his

naturally imposing appearance and his present helplessness, I murmured

some words of sympathy and encouragement, and then supposing him to be

alone in the house with his grandchild, inquired what I could do to

serve him.

He cast a meaning glance down at his hand, then seeing that I did not

understand him, made a super-human effort and held that member out,

uttering some inarticulate words which I was able to construe into a

prayer to take from him the paper which his stiffening clutch made it

difficult for him to release.

Touched by his extremity, and anxious to afford him all the solace his

desperate case demanded, I drew the paper from between his fingers. As

I did so I noted, first, that it was a portion of one of the sheets I

saw scattered about on every side, and, secondly, that it was folded

together as if intended for someone's private perusal.

"What shall I do with this?" I asked, consulting his eye over which a

glaze was fast forming.

He let his own glance wander eagerly till it fell upon some envelopes,

then it became fixed, and I understood.

Drawing out one, I placed the slip in it, and fastening the envelope,

consulted his face with a smile.

He answered with a look so full of thanks, appreciation, and

confidence that I felt abashed. Something of more than ordinary

significance was conveyed by that look, and I was about to ask what

name I should write on the envelope, when the faint sounds with which

he had been trying to express his secret wishes became articulate, and

I heard these words:

[Illustration: "ONE HAND WAS PRESSED AGAINST HIS HEART"]

"To no one--no one else! To--to----"

Alas! at this critical moment and just as the name was faltering on

his lips, his utterance failed. He strove for expression, but no words

would come.

In a desperation, which was but the faint reflection of his own, I

tried to help him.

"Is it for your lawyer?" I suggested; then, as he made no sign, I

hastily added: "For your doctor? For your wife? For anyone in the

house?"

He gave me one supreme look, raised his eyes, and for an instant stood

in an attitude so expressive of joy and indefinable expectancy that I

was astonished beyond words and forgot that I was in the presence of

death. But only for a moment. While I was still marvelling at this

sudden change in him, the child who was clinging to him uttered a

terrified scream and unloosed her arms. Then I saw him sink, gasp, and

fall forward, and, springing, caught him in my arms before his head

could touch the floor. Alas! it was the last service I could render

him. By the time I had laid him down he had expired, and I found

myself, in no other company than that of a trembling child, bending

above the dead body of a man who with his last breath had charged me

with a commission of whose purport I understood nothing, save that

under no circumstances and upon no pretext was I to deliver the letter

he had entrusted to me, to anyone but the person for whom it was

intended.

But who was this person? Ah, that was the question! Certainly my

position in this house of strangers was a most extraordinary one.

II

THE YOUNG DOCTOR AND THE OLD

Meanwhile the child had started down the hall, and up the stairs,

calling:

"Papa! Papa!"

Startled by this intimation of another person's presence in a house I

had supposed to hold no one but ourselves, I hastily followed her till

she reached the floor above and paused before a shut door. Here

something seemed to restrain her.

"Papa's inside," she whispered.

If this was so, he was not alone. Laughter, quick exclamations, and

the clink of glasses could plainly be heard through the door; and

shocked at the contrast offered by this scene of mirth to the solemn

occurrence which had just taken place below, I hesitated to enter, and

looked about for some means of communicating with the servants who I

now felt must be below. But here the terrified child, who was clinging

to my knee, interposed:

"I do not think papa is there. Papa does not like cards. Uncle George

does. Come, let's look for papa."

She dragged me toward the front of the house, entered another room,

and seemed surprised to find the light turned down and her papa gone.

"Perhaps he is with Uncle Alph," she faltered, and, bounding up

another flight of stairs, turned around to see if I was behind her.

There seemed no alternative left but to follow her till I came upon

someone; so I hastened up this second staircase. She had already

entered a room.

"O Uncle Alph!" I heard her cry. "Grandpa's lying on the floor

downstairs. I cannot find papa. I'm so frightened," and she ran

sobbing towards the young man, who rose to receive her in an

abstraction which even these startling words failed to break.

For this and other reasons I noticed him particularly notwithstanding

the embarrassment of my own position. He was a handsome man of the

luxury-loving type, whose characteristics it would be useless to

describe, since they were of a nature to suggest, rather than explain

the extent of his attractions. I afterwards heard from such of my

friends as were in the habit of walking the avenue with him, that he

never failed to draw the attention of passers-by; something in his

features, his carriage, or the turn of his head and shoulders stamping

him as a man worth looking at, not only once, but twice. At this

moment, however, I was not so much impressed by his good looks, as by

his uneasy and feverish expression.

He had caught up a letter which he had been engaged in writing at our

entrance, and as the child's appeal rang out, he crumpled it nervously

in his hand, and dropped it into the waste-paper basket. As a certain

furtive haste characterised this action, my attention was caught by

it, and I found myself wondering whether it was a letter or

memorandum he thus sacrificed to his surprise.

Meanwhile he seemed to be trying to take in what the little one

wanted. Evidently he had not as yet noticed me standing in the

doorway, and I thought it best to introduce myself.

"I beg your pardon," said I, "I am Arthur Outhwaite of the firm of

Robinson & Outhwaite, lawyers. I was passing by the house when this

child called me in to the assistance of her grandfather whom, I am

sorry to say, I found in a very precarious condition in his study

downstairs. If he is your father, you have my sympathy for his sudden

demise. He died in my arms a moment ago; and having been the witness

of his last moments, I could not leave the house without explaining my

position to his relatives."

"Dead! Father?"

It was not grief, it was hardly astonishment which gave force to this

brief and involuntary exclamation. It was something quite different,

something which it shocked me to hear in his tones and see sparkle in

his eye. But this expression, whatever it betokened, lasted but a

moment. Catching up the child in his arms, he hid his face behind her

and rushed towards the door. Me he hardly noticed.

"Where is he?" he asked, ignoring or forgetting what I had told him.

It was the child who answered.

"In the den, Uncle Alph. Don't take me there; I'm afraid. Set me down;

I want to find Hope."

He hastily obeyed her, and the child ran away. Then, and only then, he

seemed to take in my presence.

"You were called in from the street?" he wonderingly observed; "I

don't understand it. Where were my brothers? They were near enough to

render him assistance. Why should a stranger be called in?"

This was a question for which I had no answer, so I made none. He did

not seem to be struck by the omission.

"Let us go down," said he.

I opened the door which the little one had closed behind her, and

proceeded toward the stair-head. From certain indistinct noises which

I had heard during the foregoing short interchange of words, I

expected to find the house in a state of alarm and everyone alert. But

the card-players were still at their game on the floor below, and I

was not surprised to see my companion pause and give an admonitory

kick to the door through which such incongruous noises issued.

"Father's ill!" he shouted in a voice hoarse with many passions; and

waiting for no reply, he rushed ahead of me downstairs, followed by

some half-dozen partially sobered men.

Among these latter I noticed one whom I took to be the elder brother

of him whom the little one had addressed as Uncle Alph. He had the

same commanding appearance, the same abstracted air, and woke, when he

did wake, to the same curious condition of conflicting emotions. But I

did not have time to dwell long upon this feature of the extraordinary

affair in which I had become thus curiously involved.

The alarm which had been so slow in spreading above, had passed like

wildfire through the lower part of the house, and we found some

half-dozen servants standing in and about the small room where the

master of the house lay stretched. Some were wringing their hands,

some were crying, and some, rigid with terror, stared at the face they

had so lately seen with the hue of health upon it.

At our approach they naturally withdrew to the hall, and I presently

found myself standing between the group thus formed and the three or

four young gentlemen visitors who had not followed the brothers into

the room. Amongst the latter I saw one whose face was not altogether

unfamiliar, and it was from him that I gained my first information

concerning the man to whose dying passion I had been witness, and from

whom I had received the strange commission which, unknown to those

about me, made my continued presence in this house a necessity from

which the embarrassment of the occasion could not release me.

The dead man was Archibald Gillespie, the well-known stockbroker and

railroad magnate, whose name, as well as those of his three

spendthrift sons, was in every man's mouth since that big deal by

which he had made two millions in less than two months.

Meanwhile one of the gentlemen who had accompanied the two Gillespies

into the room where their father lay, came out looking very pale. He

was a doctor, though to all appearance not the family physician.

"Will one of you go for Dr. Bennett?" he asked. "Bring him at once

and at any cost; Mr. Gillespie cannot be moved till he comes."

Dr. Bennett evidently was the family physician.

"Why can't he be moved?" called out a voice near me. "Is there

anything wrong? Mr. Gillespie was violently sick a month ago. I

suppose he got around too quickly."

But the young doctor, without replying, stepped back into the room,

leaving us all agog, though few of us ventured upon open remonstrance.

In another minute one of the men near me slipped out in obedience to

the request just made.

"Is Mrs. Gillespie living?" I asked, after a moment spent in more or

less indecision.

"Where have you come from?" was the answer given, seasoned by a stare

I bore with what equanimity I could. "Mrs. Gillespie has been dead

these fifteen years."

So! the letter was not meant for his wife.

Here I caught an eye fixed on mine. It was that of one of the servants

who stood huddled about the doorway of what appeared to be a large

dining-room on the opposite side of the hall. When this man, for it

was a male servant, saw that he had attracted my attention, he made me

an imperceptible sign. As he was old and grey-haired, I heeded the

sign he made and stepped towards him. Instantly he greeted me with the

whisper:

"You seem to be the only sober man here. Don't let them do anything

till Mr. Leighton comes in. He is the saint of the family, sir."

"Is he the little girl's father?" I asked.

The man nodded. "And a good man, too," he insisted. "A very good man."

Was this honest judgment or sarcasm? I had heard that each of Mr.

Gillespie's sons had given his father no end of trouble.

Meantime a silence deeper than that of awe had spread throughout the

house. Feeling myself out of place and yet strangely in place, I drew

aside into as inconspicuous a corner as I could find, and waited as

all the others did, for the family physician.

While doing so I caught stray glimpses of my first acquaintance,

Alfred Gillespie, who, fretted by some anxiety he could not altogether

conceal, came more than once into the hall and threw furtive glances

up the stairway. Was it the little girl he was concerned about? If so,

I shared his anxiety.

At last the bell rang. Instantly, so great was the strain upon us, we

all moved, and one or two bounded towards the door. But it was opened

by the butler with that mechanical habitude such old servants acquire,

and, though nothing could shake the calm deference of this trained

domestic, there was something in the bow with which he greeted the

newcomer which assured us that the man we so anxiously expected had

arrived.

I had seen Dr. Bennett more than once, but never before showing so

much anxiety. Whether from shock or some secret cause not to be

communicated to us, this old and capable physician seemed to be in a

condition of as much agitation as ourselves, and obeyed the summons of

the young doctor who stood beckoning to him from the threshold of the

little den, with an appearance of alacrity that nevertheless had an

odd element of hesitation in it. I might not have noticed this under

other circumstances, and am quite sure that no one else detected any

peculiarity in his manner, but to me, everything was important which

offered anything like a clue to the proper understanding of a

situation in which I found myself so deeply, yet so secretly involved.

Mr. Gillespie's physician remained for some minutes closeted with the

sons of the deceased and their young medical friend; then he came out.

Instantly I saw from his expression that our fears or rather, those of

the young doctor, were not without foundation. Yet he was careful not

to raise an alarm, and in addressing us, spoke in strictly

professional tones:

"A sad case, gentlemen! Mr. Gillespie has taken an overdose of

chloral. We will have to leave him where he is till the coroner can be

called."

A gasp followed by the clink of breaking glass came from the

dining-room behind me. The old butler had dropped a glass he had just

lifted off the mantel-shelf of the dining-room.

The doctor was at his side in a moment.

"What is that?" he demanded.

The butler stooped for the pieces.

"Only the glass Mr. Gillespie drank out of. He asked for wine a half

hour ago. Your words frightened me, sir."

He did not look frightened; but old servants of his stamp possess a

strange immobility.

"I will pick up these pieces," said the doctor, stooping beside the

man.

The butler drew back. Dr. Bennett picked up the pieces. They were all

dry. Evidently the glass had been drained.

As he came out he cast a keen but not unkindly glance at the group of

young men drawn up in the doorway.

"Which of you was the witness of Mr. Gillespie's death?" he asked.

I bowed. I dreaded his questions, yet saw no way of evading them. If

only Mr. Gillespie had been able to articulate the one word which

would have relieved me of all further responsibility in this matter!

"You are the person who was called into the house by Mr. Gillespie's

grandchild?" the doctor now asked, meeting my eye with the same

expression of instantaneous and complete confidence I had seen on the

features of his unhappy patient.

"I am," I replied; and proceeded to relate the circumstances with all

the simplicity the occasion required. Only I said nothing about the

letter which had been entrusted to me for delivery to some unknown

person. How could I? There had been no encouragement in Mr.

Gillespie's expression when I asked him if the note I had taken from

him was meant for his doctor.

The account I was able to give of the deceased broker's last moments

seemed to deepen the impression which had been made upon the physician

by the condition in which he found him. Taking up the pieces of glass

he had collected from the dining-room hearth, he sniffed them

carefully, during which act the two sons of Mr. Gillespie watched him

with starting eyes. When he laid them down again, we could none of

us conceal our curiosity.

"You have something dreadful to communicate," murmured the elder son.

The doctor hesitated; then he glanced from one to the other of the two

handsome faces before him, and remarked:

"Your brother is not here. Do you know if he is likely to return

soon?"

"Where is Mr. Leighton?" inquired Alfred, turning towards the

servants. "I thought he meant to remain home to-night."

The butler respectfully advanced.

"Mr. Leighton went out an hour ago," said he. "He and Mr. Gillespie

had a few words in the den, sir, after which he put on his hat and

coat and went out."

"Did you see your master at that time?"

"No, sir, I only heard his voice."

"Did that sound natural?"

The old servant seemed loath to reply, but feeling the doctor's eye

resting imperatively upon him, he hesitatingly admitted:

"It wasn't quiet, sir, if you mean that. Mr. Gillespie seemed to be

angry or very much displeased. He spoke quite loud."

"Where were you?"

"In the dining-room, sir, putting away the last of the dinner dishes."

"Did you hear what your master said?"

"No, sir; it was something about religion; too much religion."

"My brother attends too many mission services to please my father,"

explained Alfred in a low tone.

The doctor heard, but did not take his eye from the old servant.

"Was this before he took the glass of wine you have just told us he

asked for?"

"Yes, sir, just before. It was Mr. Leighton who came for it. He said

his father looked tired."

"Ah, and how came the glass to be back then on the dining-room

mantel-shelf?"

"I don't know, sir. Perhaps Mr. Gillespie put it there himself. He

never liked any litter on his study table, sir."

At this statement the older brother opened his lips, but I noticed he

did not speak. There were no traces of intoxication about him now.

"I wish you would show me the bottle from which you poured the wine."

The butler, whose name I afterwards learned to be Hewson, led the way

to a large buffet extending half across the dining-room wall. From

where I stood in the hall-way I could see him pointing out a bottle of

what looked like sherry. Suddenly he gave a start.

"That isn't the one," he cried, loud enough for me to hear. "The

bottle I took out for Mr. Leighton was half-empty. This is quite

full."

Again I saw the lips of the elder brother move, and again he refrained

from speaking.

"I should like to have that bottle found," said the physician; "but no

one need look for it now. Indeed, it would be better for us to wait

for Leighton's return before making any further movement. George,

Alfred, may I ask you to leave me alone with your father for a few

minutes. And let the dining-room be cleared. I don't want to have to

make any excuses to the coroner when he arrives. Your father has not

died a natural death."

It was an announcement for which we had been in a measure prepared by

the serious manner of the young doctor, yet it seemed to me it ought

to have occasioned a greater, or at least a different display of

feeling on the part of the two most intimately concerned. I looked for

an exchange of glances between them or at least some hurried words of

sorrow or dismay. But though all evinced strong emotion, no looks

passed between them, nor did they make the least attempt at mutual

sympathy or encouragement. Were they not on confidential terms? The

moment certainly was one to call out whatever brotherly feeling they

possessed.

"I shall have to make use of the telephone," Dr. Bennett now

announced. "You must pardon my seeming disrespect to the dead. The

occasion demands it."

And with one hurried look to see that his commands had been obeyed,

and that the dining-room had been cleared of the huddling servants, he

stepped back into the so-called den and closed the door behind him.

Next moment we heard his voice rise in the inevitable "Hallo!"

"I don't understand Dr. Bennett's strange demeanour," I now heard

uttered in remark near me. It was George speaking in a low tone to his

brother.

But that brother, with one of his anxious looks up the stairs, failed

to answer.

"Father was in the habit of taking chloral, but I thought he always

waited until he got to his own room. I never knew him to take it

downstairs before," George went on in a low tone between a whisper and

a grumble.

This time Alfred answered.

"He made an exception to-night," said he. "When I ran down to your

door at half-past eight, I met Claire coming out of father's room with

a bottle in her hand. She had been sent up after the chloral, and was

taking it down to him."

George gave his brother a suspicious look.

"Did she say so?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Poor child! She will miss her grandfather. I wonder if she knows?"

I felt that I had no right to listen. But I was standing where the

doctor had left me, and hardly knew how to withdraw till I had

received my dismissal from someone in authority. Yet I was thinking of

going farther front when the doctor came out again and, approaching

me, remarked:

"This delay is probably causing you great inconvenience. But I must

ask you to remain a short time longer. I presume you can find a seat

in the drawing-room."

With a glance at the young gentlemen, I expressed my obligations for

his courtesy, but did not make a move towards the room he had

indicated.

Instantly, and with an understanding of my feelings which surprised

me, George took the hint I had given him, and stepping forward, raised

a heavy plush curtain at the left and begged me to be seated in the

richly appointed room within. But I had hardly taken a step towards it

when a diversion was created by the entrance into the house of a

gentleman whom I at once took to be the third brother for whose

presence all waited with more or less suspense.

He was sufficiently prepossessing in appearance to awaken admiration,

but he bore no resemblance to his brothers. He seemed to have more

character and less--well, I find it difficult to say just what

impression he made upon me at this moment. Enough that with my first

glimpse of him I felt confident that no ordinary person had entered

upon the scene, though just what special characteristic of his

personality or disposition would prove the emphatic one it was not

easy to judge, at a moment's notice.

He had a downcast air, and to my eyes looked weary to the point of

collapse, but he roused at the sight of a stranger, and cast an

inquiring look at the doctor and then at the servants crowding in the

passage beyond.

He evidently took me for one of his brothers' boon companions.

"What's amiss?" he demanded in some irritation--an irritation I was

fain to construe into a total lack of preparation for the fatal news

awaiting him. "What's the matter, George? What's the matter, Alph?"

"The worst!" came in simultaneous reply.

"Father is dead!" cried George.

"Took too much chloral," added Alfred.

Leighton Gillespie stood stock-still for a moment, then threw off his

hat and rushed down the hall. But at the door of what now might be

called the chamber of death, he found the doctor standing in an

attitude which compelled him to come to a sudden stop.

"Wait a moment," said that gentleman. "I have to correct an

impression. Your father has not died from an overdose of chloral as I

had at first supposed, but from a deadly dose of prussic acid. You

have only to smell his lips to be certain of this fact. Now, Leighton,

you may enter."

III

WHAT A DOOR HID

It was a startling declaration, and the horror it called up was

visible on every face. But the surprise which should have accompanied

it was lacking, and however quickly the three nearest the deceased

man's heart strove to cover up their first instinctive acceptance of a

fact so suggestive of hidden troubles, I could not but see that the

prosperous stockbroker had had griefs, anxieties, or hopes to which

this sudden end seemed to those who knew him best, a natural sequence.

I began to regret the chance which had brought me into such close

relations with this family, and felt the closed envelope in my pocket

weighing on my breast like lead.

Meanwhile, he whom they called Leighton was saying in a highly

strained tone, which he vainly endeavoured to make natural:

"May not Dr. Bennett be mistaken? There is the chloral bottle on the

shelf over the fireplace. We are not in the habit of seeing it here.

Does not its presence in this room argue that father felt the need of

it. Prussic acid can only be obtained through a doctor, and I am

confident you never prescribed him such a dangerous drug, Dr.

Bennett."

"No, for it is totally inapplicable to his case. But you will find

that he died from taking it, Leighton; all his symptoms show it, and

we have only to determine now whether he took it in the chloral, in

the glass of wine he drank, or by means of some other agency not yet

discovered. I regret to speak so unequivocally, but I never mince

matters where my profession is concerned. And, besides, the coroner

would not show you this consideration even if I did. The fact is too

patent."

They were now inside the study and I did not hear Leighton's reply,

but when they all came out again, I saw that the latter had not only

accepted the situation, but that he had been informed of the part I

had been called upon to play in this matter. This was apparent from

the way he greeted me, and the questions he put concerning his child's

conduct during the last terrible moments of her grandfather's life.

As he did this I had a fuller opportunity for studying his face. It

was the most melancholy one I had ever seen, and what struck me as

being worthy of remark was that this melancholy seemed a settled one

and quite apart from the present grief and disturbance. Yet he had

been heavily shaken by his father's sudden if not inexplicable death,

or appeared to be, which possibly is not quite the same thing.

"I do not understand why my father should have called anyone in from

the street to witness his sufferings while he had sons in the house,"

he courteously remarked; "but having felt this necessity and having

succeeded in obtaining such help, I am glad that chance favoured him

and us with a person of such apparent good feeling as yourself."

I scarcely heeded him. I was pondering over the letter and whether I

should pass it over to this man. But instinct withheld me, or rather

my lawyer-like habits which happily acted as a restraint upon my

natural impulse. I had received no intimation as yet that it was

intended for any of Mr. Gillespie's sons.

"You will oblige us by waiting for the coroner?" he now went on. "He

has telephoned that he will be here immediately."

"I shall wait," I said. And it was by his invitation I now stepped

into the parlour.

A quarter of an hour, a half-hour, passed before the front door bell

rang again. From the hubbub which ensued, I knew that the man we

wished for had arrived, but it was a long while before he entered the

room in which I sat, during which tedious interim I had to possess my

soul in patience. But at last I heard his step on the threshold, and

looking up, I beheld a spare, earnest man who approached me with great

seriousness, and sat down near enough to indulge in confidential talk

without running the risk of being heard by anyone.

"You are Mr. Outhwaite," he began. "I have heard of your firm and have

more than once seen Mr. Robinson. Had you any acquaintance with Mr.

Gillespie or his family before to-night?"

"No, sir; Mr. Gillespie was known to me only by reputation."

"Then it was pure chance which led you to be a witness of his final

moments?"

"Pure chance, if we do not believe in Providence," I returned.

He surveyed me quite intently.

"Relate what passed."

Now here was a dilemma. Did my duty exact a revelation of the facts

which I had hitherto felt obliged to keep even from the deceased man's

sons? It was a question not to be decided in a moment, so I made up my

mind to be guided by developments, and confined my narration to a

recapitulation of my former plain account of Mr. Gillespie's last

moments. This narrative I made as simple as I could. When I had

finished he asked if Mr. Gillespie's grandchild had been present at

the moment her grandfather expired.

I answered that she had been clinging to him all the time he remained

erect, but shrank back and ran out of the room the moment he gave

signs of falling to the floor.

"Did he speak to her?"

"Not that I heard."

"Did he say anything?"

"A few inarticulate words, no names."

"He did not ask for his sons?"

"No."

"For none of them?"

"No."

"How came the alarm to be spread?"

"I went up with the child and called the young men down."

Coroner Frisbie stroked his chin, still looking at me intently.

"Was there an empty phial or a piece of paper lying about on the

study-table or on the floor when you went in?"

I started.

"Paper?" I repeated. "What kind of paper?"

"Such as is used by druggists and physicians in rolling up their

prescriptions. The prussic acid which Mr. Gillespie has evidently

taken must have been bought in liquid form. The bottle which held it

should be lying about and possibly the paper in which it was wrapped.

That is, if this poison was swallowed intentionally by Mr. Gillespie."

I recalled the exact look of the scrap of paper I had put into an

envelope at this gentleman's request. It was not such a one as is used

by druggists in wrapping up parcels, and I felt my breast grow lighter

by a degree.

"I did not see any such paper."

"Where is the little girl?" he now queried. "I must see her."

I had made up my mind to one thing. If the child said that I had been

given a paper by her grandfather I would acknowledge it and produce

the envelope. But if she had forgotten the fact or had been too

frightened to notice it, I would preserve silence in regard to it a

little longer, in the hope of being shown a way out of my difficulty.

I was therefore not sorry to hear him ask for the little girl.

"I take it that you are not anxious to remain here," he now remarked.

"If you will give me your address and hold yourself in readiness to

obey my summons, I can excuse you for the night."

For answer I held out my card, and seeing that I had no further excuse

for lingering, was moving toward the door, when Dr. Bennett came

hurriedly in.

"I have found something--" he began, and then paused with a quick

glance in my direction, as if questioning the propriety of proceeding

further with his discovery in my presence.

The coroner showed no such hesitation. Hastening to meet the old

family physician, he said:

"You have found the bottle or only the paper in which the bottle was

wrapped?"

Dr. Bennett drew him aside, and I saw what looked like a small cork

pass between them.

"Was it in Mr. Gillespie's study you found this?" queried the coroner.

"I thought I had thoroughly searched the study."

The answer was uttered in the lowest of low tones, but I had no

difficulty in catching the gist of what he said.

"It was on the dining-room floor, under the edge of the rug. A very

suspicious fact, don't you think so? Mr. Gillespie would never have

thrust it there. Some other person--don't know who--not say anything

yet--shrink from seeing the police in this house."

The two doctors interchanged a look which I surprised in the large

mirror opposite. But I gave no sign of having seen anything

extraordinary. I felt too keenly the delicacy of my own position. Next

minute we were all walking towards the hall.

"Silence!" came in admonitory tones from the coroner as we paused for

a moment on the threshold. "Let us not disturb the young men any

further than is necessary to-night."

At that moment we heard the cry:

"Where is Miss Meredith? Has anyone seen Miss Meredith? I cannot find

her in any of the rooms upstairs."

"Hope! Hope! Where are you, Hope?" called out another voice, charged

with feeling.

Hope! Did my heart beat faster as this name, destined to play such a

part in my future life, was sounded in my ears? I cannot say. That

heart has beat often enough since at the utterance of this sweet

monosyllable, but at that time--well, I think I was too interested in

the alarm which this cry instantly raised, to note my personal

sensations. From one end of the house to the other, men and women

rushed from room to room, and I heard not only this name called out,

but that of the child, which it seems was Claire.

"Cannot the child be found either?" I inquired impetuously of the

coroner who still lingered in the lower hall.

"It seems not. Who is Miss Meredith?"

It was the old butler who answered him.

"She is the young gentlemen's cousin," said he. "She was a great

favourite with Mr. Gillespie, and lived here like a daughter. They

will find her somewhere upstairs."

But the prophecy proved to be a false one. Slowly the servants came

creeping down whispering among themselves and looking very much

frightened. Then we saw George descend shaking his head impatiently,

and then Leighton, wild with an anxiety for which he had no name.

"She must be here!" he cried, thinking only of his child. "Claire!

Claire!" And he began running through the great drawing-room where we

knew she could not be.

Alfred had remained above.

Suddenly I recalled a fact connected with my own visit upstairs.

"Have they been up to the fourth floor?" I inquired of Dr. Bennett.

"When I was in Mr. Alfred Gillespie's room on the third floor, I

remember hearing someone rush through the hall. I supposed at that

time it was someone going below. But it may have been someone going

higher up."

"Let us go see!" the doctor suggested.

I followed him without a thought. As we passed Alfred's door, we could

see him standing in the middle of the room in a state of rage which

made him oblivious of our approach. He was tearing into morsels a

piece of paper which had the same appearance as the one he had

formerly thrust into the waste-paper basket, and as he tore, he

muttered words amongst which I caught the following:

"Why should I write? If she loved me she would wait. She would not run

away now, unless he----"

Dr. Bennett, with his finger on his lip, slid by. I hastened after

him, and together we mounted the last flight.

We were now in a portion of the building as new to the doctor as to

myself. When we reached the top of the stairs we found the whole place

dark save for a little glimmer towards the front which proved to be a

gas-jet burning low in one of the attic rooms.

Turning this up we looked around, opened a closet-door or two, then

walked into the back, where the doctor struck a match. Two closed

doors met our eyes. One of these upon being opened disclosed a

well-furnished room, similar in appearance to those in front, the

other an unfinished garret half filled with trunks and boxes.

"Well!" he ejaculated, as the match went out upon this scene. "This is

a mystery."

"Hark!" I urged; "our ears rather than our eyes must do service in

this emergency."

He took the hint, and together we listened till some sound--was it the

breathing of a person concealed near us?--caused us both to start and

the doctor to light another match.

This time we saw something, but the match went out before we could

determine what.

Annoyed by these momentary flashes of light, I dashed back into one of

the rooms we had left, and catching up a candle I had previously noted

there, lit it at the gas-jet, and proceeded back with it to this

garret room.

Instantly a sight full of the strangest interest revealed itself.

Crouched against the farther wall, with wide-extended eyes fixed full

upon us, we perceived a woman, upon whose pallid face and risen locks

terror or some other equally emphatic passion had so fixed its impress

that she looked like some affrighted creature balked in flight by some

dreadful, some unprecedented sight which held her spell-bound. That

she was beautiful, in that touching, feminine way which goes to the

heart, did not lessen the effect of her appearance, nor were we

unmoved by the fact that the child for whom the house had just been

ransacked lay curled up and asleep at her feet.

"Who is it?" I asked. "Miss Meredith?"

The doctor pressed my hand. "We must be careful," he whispered. "She

seems on the verge of delirium."

"The child shows no fear," I murmured.

Meanwhile the doctor was approaching the new object of his care.

"Why choose so cold a place?" he asked, smiling on the young girl who

still clung, as if fastened, to the wall against which she had drawn

herself. "Claire will catch cold; had you not better come downstairs?"

With a start she looked down at the little one resting at her feet,

and her eyes showed a sudden intelligence.

"How did she come here?" she asked. "I did not call her."

"And how came you to be here?" he smiled. "Your white dress looks out

of place in this garret."

She lifted herself straight up, with her back to the wall. Claire, who

was thus dislodged from the place at her feet woke, and began to cry.

"I heard that Mr. Gillespie was dead," came from lips so stiff with

fright or some other deep emotion that I wondered they could form the

words. "I loved Mr. Gillespie, and I brought my grief here."

[Illustration: "CROUCHED AGAINST THE FARTHER WALL, WITH WIDE-EXTENDED

EYES FIXED FULL UPON US"]

She was still standing pressed against the wall, her hands behind her;

and disguise the fact as I would, I could see that her teeth were

chattering with something more than cold, or even such fear as might

follow the sudden death of a near friend and benefactor.

"Will you not come below?" urged the doctor, taking up Claire to his

fatherly breast.

"Never!" her lips seemed to cry; but I heard no sound, and when the

doctor, giving me the child, threw his arm about her and drew her

away, she yielded pliantly enough, though with a steady look into his

face I did not understand then nor for a long time afterwards.

At the stair-head we met Alfred. Perhaps he had heard us go up,

perhaps he had simply thought of searching the attic himself. His

recoil and the exclamation he made were simultaneous.

"You have found her!" was his cry, a cry which did not refer to the

child. Then in reproachful tones: "Hope, why should you give us such a

scare? Had we not enough to face without having our hearts wrung with

terror for you?"

Her answer was a murmur. With the first moment of encounter with this

man her face had become a mask.

IV

"HE DRANK IT _ALONE_"

In making this statement it is not my wish to create any special

prejudice against Alfred. Indeed, I have no right to do so, for when a

few minutes later his brother Leighton came running up the stairs at

sound of his child's voice, I noticed the same recoil on her part,

followed by the same impassibility. Nor did she show a different

feeling when in the hall below George came forward with the inquiries

her surprising absence had naturally provoked. From one and all she

involuntarily shrank, but not without suffering to herself and an

obvious attempt to hide this natural impulse under a demeanour more in

accordance with her near relationship to these three men. In Alfred

this chilling conduct awakened emotions only too easy to read; in

Leighton, surprise, and in George, a distrust bordering upon a passion

so fierce that he turned from white to red and from red to white in an

instant. Evanescent expressions all of them, but important as showing

the feelings entertained towards her by these men among whom she had

been living for more or less time as a sister.

But of my personal sensations you have already heard too much,

especially at this period of my story. Happily, I was able to hide

them from other eyes, and simply showed a natural curiosity when Dr.

Bennett, with a sly look in her direction, whispered in my ear:

"How came she to know of her uncle's death so soon after its

occurrence? You say you heard her rush upstairs while you were in

Alfred's room. That was very soon after you laid the old gentleman out

of your arms. Is it possible that you had already met Miss Meredith?

Did she share that first alarm with you?"

"Not to my knowledge," I returned. "My first view of her was in the

attic with you. Yet she may have been somewhere in this great hall, or

in some of the many rooms I see about us."

Meanwhile I was taking in her beauty, or what I must call beauty from

the lack of any other adequate word. I believe she was not what people

call beautiful. She did not need to be; her charm was incontestable

without it; too incontestable, I fear, for the peace of mind of more

men than Alfred and George Gillespie.

She was standing by the newel-post, in a position startlingly like

that she had maintained above; and while I shrank from the doubts thus

called up, I could not but perceive in the straightforward look of her

eyes, and the fierce clutch of her hands behind her, that some

determination was absorbing all her energies; a determination little

in accord, I fear, with the attitude of simple grief she made such an

effort to maintain. Leighton appeared to see this also, for he set

down the child he had been straining to his breast, and approaching

his cousin, plied her with a few hurried questions.

But the coroner, who had shown some embarrassment at the appearance on

the scene of so young and charming a lady, advanced at this juncture

and prevented the answer which was slowly forming on her lips.

"If you are Miss Meredith, Mr. Gillespie's niece and assistant, you

are justified in your grief. Mr. Gillespie has passed away under very

extraordinary circumstances."

Her hands which had been behind her, came suddenly together in front,

but she did not shift her eyes from the point where she had fixed

them. Perhaps she dreaded to encounter the gaze of the three young men

grouped behind the man addressing her.

"Have those circumstances been related to you?" resumed Dr. Frisbie

with the encouragement in his tone which her loveliness and sorrow

naturally called forth.

"No."

The answer came quickly, and with a sharp accentuation which showed

her to be a woman of force, notwithstanding the condition in which we

had first found her.

"Then this little one had said nothing," he continued with a glance at

Claire who had nestled again at her cousin's feet.

"Claire?" she exclaimed in evident surprise. "Claire?" and her eyes

followed his till they fell inquiringly upon the child whose presence

up to this moment she had probably not noticed. "No, she has said

nothing; at least nothing that I have heard." And her hand went out as

if she would urge the child away. But she did not complete the

gesture, and I doubt if anyone understood her movement unless it was

myself.

The coroner seemed anxious to spare her feelings. "Dr. Bennett will

communicate to you our conclusions in this matter," said he. "I simply

want to ask you when you last saw Mr. Gillespie."

"Alive?" she asked, her eyes stealing towards the door of the little

den.

"Yes, miss; you surely have not seen him dead."

"I was with him at supper," she returned. "We were all there"; and for

the first time she let her gaze fall on each one of her cousins in

succession. "My uncle seemed as well then as at any time since his

illness. He ate a good meal and drank----"

"And drank," repeated the coroner with a stern look behind him at the

young men who had all moved at this.

"His usual glass of wine at dessert. He drank it _alone_!" she

suddenly emphasised, her tone rising in sudden excitement. "I can

never forget that he drank it alone."

A sigh or a suspicion of a sigh answered her. It came from one of her

cousins, but I never knew from which. At its sound she shrank as if

heart-pierced, and put up her hands--those tell-tale hands--and

covered her ears; then she as quickly dropped them, and regarded the

young men before her slowly, separately, and with a heartrending

significance.

"I would so gladly have joined him in this attempt at old-time

sociability had I but known it would have been his last," she said,

and dropped her head again with a sob.

At this look and simple action a burden rolled from my heart. But upon

the coroner and the physician lingering near my side, both look and

words fell with a weight which made this investigation, if

investigation it could be called, halt a moment.

"I do not understand you," observed the former after a momentary

interval surcharged with deep emotion. "Was Mr. Gillespie in the habit

of sharing his wine with those who sat at his board, that you feel the

pathos of that lonely glass so keenly?"

"Yes. I never knew the dinner to close before without some sort of

toast from one of his sons. It is the coincidence that affects me. But

I should not have mentioned it. No one could have known that this was

destined to be our last meal together."

She was looking straight before her now. Though it seems more or less

incredible, she was evidently unconscious of having raised the black

banner of suspicion over the heads of her three cousins. But the blank

silence which followed her words appeared to give her some idea of

what she had done, for with a sudden start and a change in her

appearance which startled us all, she threw out her arms with the cry:

"You are keeping something from me. How did my uncle die? Tell me!

tell me at once!"

Leighton sprang for his child, caught her up and fled with her into a

farther room. George tottered, then drew himself proudly erect.

Alfred, who had been gnawing his finger-ends in restrained passion,

alone stepped forward to her aid, though in a deprecatory way which

robbed him of a large part of his natural grace. But she appeared

insensible to them all. Her attention was fixed upon the doctor, whom

she followed with an agonising gaze, which warned him to be brief if

she was to hear his words at all.

"Your uncle is the victim of _poison_," said he. "But we have reason

to think he took it some time later than at the evening meal. Prussic

acid makes quick work."

The latter explanation fell unheeded. She had fallen at the word

_poison_.

V

HOPE

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.

[Illustration]

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:

[Illustration:]

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:

[Illustration:]

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."

Here the coroner advanced to question her, and I am happy to say that

my presence gave her courage to bear up under the ordeal. This was

what he elicited from her.

She did not know what was in the letter. It had been written by her

uncle while still on his sick bed and after an experience which I will

not relate here, as it will be found more fully stated in the letter

itself. This letter I will reproduce for you at once, though it was

weeks before I knew its whole contents:

GEORGE, LEIGHTON, AND ALFRED:

I may not have been a good father, but I have at least been

a just one. Though each and all of you since coming to man's

estate have given me great cause for complaint, I have never

been harsh towards you, nor have I ever denied you anything

from mere caprice or from an egotistic desire to save myself

trouble. Yet to one of you my life is of so little value

that he is willing to resort to crime to rid himself of me.

Does this shock you, Leighton, George, Alfred? We are a

Christian family, members of an honourable community,

trained each and all in religious principles, you, by the

best, the sweetest of mothers--does it move you to think

that one of you could contemplate parricide and even attempt

it? It moves me; and in two of you must awaken a horror,

the anticipation of which affords me the sole comfort now

remaining to my doomed and miserable life. For nothing will

ever make me believe that this act was a concerted one or

that the attempt which has just been made upon my life had

its birth in more than one dark breast. One guilty soul

there is among you, but only one; and lest to the remaining

two the accusation I have just made may seem fanciful,

unreal, the result of nightmare or the effect of fever, I

will relate what happened in this room last night, just as I

related it to Hope when she asked me this morning why I

seemed so loath to see you before you went out to your

several lounging places.

I was dozing. The lamp which since my illness has never been

turned out in my room, threw great shadows on wall and

ceiling. I seemed conscious of these shadows, though I was

half asleep, but not so conscious that I was not aware of

the light shining through the transom from the gas jet near

the top of the stairs. This light has always been company

for me, especially in wakeful nights or when I found myself

troubled by dreams or any physical distress. It seemed to

connect me with the rest of the house, and simple as it may

seem to you, accounts for the cheerfulness with which I have

declined the offers of my sons to sit with me during these

last painful nights. I had no need of their company while

this light shone; and as for pain--why, that is an evil

which all men are called upon sooner or later to endure.

I was resting then, in this mild reflected light, when

suddenly it went out. This woke me, for the orders are

strict that this jet be left burning till the servants come

downstairs in the morning. But I did not stir in my bed; I

simply listened. Though aroused and somewhat disturbed by

this palpable disregard of my wishes, I exerted all of my

faculties to detect the step I now heard loitering about my

door. But it was studiously cautious and made no distinct

sound in my ear. I did not like this, and listened still

more intently, whereupon I heard the door open and someone

come in, softly, and with long pauses such as were not wont

to accompany the entrance of any member of my household. I

was deciding whether to raise an alarm or lie still and let

myself be robbed of the money which I had just received from

the bank, when I heard the whispered "Father" with which one

and all of you approach me at night when you wish to

ascertain if I am asleep or awake.

Why did I hear myself called and yet make no reply? What was

in my heart, or what have I seen of late in your natures or

conduct, that I should remain quiet under this appeal and

lie there shut-eyed and watchful? I had no definite reason

for doubting any of you. I knew you were in debt and that

two of you at least were in crying need of money, but I

hardly think I dreaded the rifling of my desk by the hands

of one of my sons. Yet that approach so gentle and so

measured! the drawn-in breath! the shadow that grew and grew

upon the wall!--all these spoke of something quite different

from the anxiety of a son keeping watch over a sick father's

slumbers.

The desk was near the window towards which my eyes were

turned in open watchfulness, and I hoped by lying still to

catch sight of the intruder's figure at the moment of his

passing between me and the faint illumination made on the

curtains by the street lamp opposite. But the intruder did

not advance in that direction. He passed instead to the

little cupboard over the wash-stand, where, as you all know,

my medicines are kept. This I was made aware of by the faint

click made by one bottle striking another. "George has come

home ill, or Leighton has one of his terrible headaches,"

was the soothing thought which then came to me, and I found

it difficult not to speak out and ask who was sick and what

bottle was wanted. But the something which from the first

had acted in the way of restraint upon me, held me still,

and I remained dumb while that sneaking hand continued to

fumble among the phials and glasses. Suddenly a fear struck

me, a fear so far removed from any which I had ever before

known, that my whole attitude of thought towards my sons

must have undergone an instantaneous change--a gulf opening

where an instant before was confidence and love. The

medicine was kept there from which my nightly dose was

prepared; a medicine which you have all heard declared by my

physician to be a deadly poison, which must be measured most

carefully and given in only such doses as he had prescribed.

Could it be that my son was feeling about for this? Had

George bet once too often on that mare which will be his

ruin, or Leighton found his religion an insufficient cloak

for indiscretions which ever shunned the light of day; or

Alfred--the child of my heart, he whom his dying mother

placed as a last trust in my arms--confounded the _ennui_ of

inaction with that weariness of life which is the bane of

rich men's sons? I know the despairs that come in youth, and

I quaked where I lay; but it was not upon self-destruction

that this man at the cupboard was bent. I felt my whole

frame tremble and my heart sink in unutterable despair as he

advanced, still quietly and with great pauses, up to the

foot-board of my bed, then around to the side, protected, as

you know, by a screen, till he crouched out of sight, but

within reach of the small table where my glass stands with

the spoon beside it, ready for my use if I grow restless and

weary.