A WOMAN AND SPOOKS FIND A LETTER
The trial had been in progress some six days when the State rested its
case. None of the family or friends of the defendant underestimated the
impression created by the array of facts marshalled by the district
attorney. The evidence, though wholly circumstantial, was nevertheless
sinister and deadly.
Hilda Ramsey, white and worn, kissed her brother with quivering lips and
went out of the court leaning on her husband's arm, and making no
pretense of concealing her suffering. Neither her belief in her
brother's innocence, nor her confidence in Silvia's ability to prove it,
could counteract the pain and humiliation of the past weeks. Ramsey
wrung his brother-in-law's hand, and gave him a look more eloquent than
words, and Frank bade him brace up. "'Thrice is he armed that hath his
quarrel just,' you know, old fellow," he said, with a slap on the
shoulder.
There was a grayish pallor on Silvia's face as she gave her client her
hand, but he was as composed and almost as cheerful as if he were but "a
looker-on in Vienna" as he once more assured her and Frank of his entire
confidence in a verdict of acquittal.
"If you will pardon me," he said, looking at Silvia kindly, "I will
change places with you and be the counsellor for a moment, and advise
you to eat a good dinner of very simple things, then disconnect your
telephone and go to bed and read Omar till you fall asleep; there are
times when it is an immense comfort to remember that--
"'He that tossed you down into the Field,
_He_ knows about it all--He knows! He knows!'"
His quiet voice acted like a tonic, and her face was full of gratitude
as she bade him goodnight, and turned to confer with Frank. Carroll
stood by the reporters' tables, irresolutely, until presently Silvia
beckoned her. The two women exchanged looks which were enigmatical to
Frank, but evidently perfectly intelligible to them, for Carroll turned
away with a sound like a strangled sob, and the pall of weariness and
depression which had lifted for a moment again settled over Silvia, now
that there were no longer any prying or unfriendly eyes upon them.
Without another word she turned and went down to her car. Frank waited
until Carroll gathered up her "copy," and then they went out into the
street together.
"Why didn't you go home with Miss Holland?" he asked. "She looked as if
she wanted you; I supposed she was going to ask you when she called you
over."
"Not she," answered the girl. "She knows better than to prepare for the
great day of her life by gabbling half the night. Besides, I'm too blue
to be of any use to her."
"Anything happened?" he asked, too absorbed in his own affairs to give
other matters more than perfunctory attention.
"Yes," she said, vexation in her voice. "I've fallen down on an
assignment, the biggest I've had since I came to New York, and I'm all
broken up over it."
He turned and looked at her, conscious of a sense of disappointment all
out of proportion to the occasion. It was the first time he had ever
known her to fail in comprehension or sympathy; that she could even
remember, let alone obtrude, a small personal grievance of her own in
the face of the tragedy that surrounded them, was so utterly out of
keeping with her character that he looked at her in amazement, and it
took him several minutes to control his voice so as to make the proper
politely concerned query as to the demands of the city editor which had
proved too much for her well-known ability.
"It wasn't the city editor," she said, too unhappy to notice the icy
timbre of his voice. "It's a good thing to disappoint them once in a
while; keeps 'em from expecting you to outdo the labors of Hercules in
time to beat the morning papers. No, it was something I was to do for
Silvia, and I can't make good; at least I haven't, and I'm at the end of
my resources."
In spite of the fact that it was still broad daylight, and a crowded
thoroughfare, Frank Earl stopped and gave her hand a cordial grip that
made her wince. "You're all right," he said. "You're all right. Now
let's go and have dinner."
"Are you not going to the Ramseys'?" she asked, evidently taking it for
granted that the family would wish to be together at such a time.
"Oh, no," he answered. "Hilda will go straight to bed, poor girl; and
Ramsey will sit beside her and dab cologne on her forehead, and after a
while he'll coax her to eat a cracker and drink some tea, and he'll have
his dinner right there beside her. You don't know the turtle-doves. I
don't hanker for my own society to-night, but I shall have to put up
with it unless you take pity on me."
"I can't, Frank," she answered. "I simply can't eat when my mind is so
upset; I'm going straight home."
"And make _your_ supper on crackers and tea, I suppose," he said
disgustedly. "Well, in that case, I'll go for a tramp and try to get rid
of the cobwebs in my brain, and the stuffy air of that courtroom. I
always feel as if twenty centuries of alleged justice, injustice and
malpractice looked down upon me when I get into court; that's one reason
why I'm no good as a trial lawyer. Here, isn't this your street?"
"Yes, no--I don't live where I did any more just now," she answered
lucidly. He stopped and looked at her and smiled in spite of every
everything. "I've sent in my copy, and you can walk up with me, if you
want to."
They walked on in silence; Frank was evidently thinking deeply, and
Carroll was following some weary round of conjecture for the thousandth
time when she stopped at her number. Frank looked at it and then at her,
startled out of his usual debonair manner for once.
"Why--it is----"
"Yes," she answered. "I've been living here for some time, but that
wasn't for publication, so I kept my other room, and had my mail go
there as usual. Silvia desired it."
"She hasn't left any stone unturned," he said musingly. "I wonder what
was in that letter!"
"Oh, she has told you, then?" Carroll asked.
"About Mrs. Bell's letter to her? Oh, yes, she told me to-night, just
before you joined us; I thought you knew about it. Anyhow, it seems to
be gone beyond recall. Don't you intend to invite me in? Well, of all
the inhospitable persons! I'll see you in the morning," and lifting his
hat he went on up the Avenue.
Carroll climbed the two flights slowly and unlocked her door. The suite
across the hall had been vacated by a superstitious tenant the week
after the murder, and the family immediately below had moved away that
morning. As Carroll closed the door behind her she was conscious of a
sense of oppression. It was not fear, which is a simple, concrete
emotion, easily understood; it was not even so subtle as dread of any
abstract thing, ghost or goblin damned. She gave her shoulders a little
shake, as if the sensation were some tangible thing to be thrown off,
and laying aside her hat and gloves she went through to the buffet
kitchen and put the kettle on. She returned to the sitting-room and
looked about her uneasily, and then put on a house gown and slippers,
and arranged her tea-tray. There were but four rooms in the apartment,
in addition to the kitchenette, and but one of them offered much in the
way of light or ventilation, so Carroll lived in the front room, as Emma
Bell had lived there; she worked there, as Emma Bell had worked; she
looked upon the same nondescript blue wall paper, and the few pictures
that relieved its monotony. With some misty idea, similar to that of the
French "_confrontation_," she had brought none of her own books or
belongings to disturb the suggestion of the room as it had been. There
were three large windows, through which the city lights were beginning
to shine; under one of these and across that end of the room was a
divan, covered with a bright rug; opposite and against the other wall
was a desk, with a chair before it, and bookshelves, and a corner
cupboard which held a plentiful supply of tea-things. Between the two
windows nearest it was a tea-table, which evidently served a double
purpose, for underneath was a basketful of neatly folded sewing. By the
table was the high-armed mission rocking-chair in which the dead woman
had been found. Opposite was the little sewing-chair, usually occupied
by Alice when she and her mother had supper together at the table, which
had been a gift of Silvia's. Evidently it had been a fancy of Mrs.
Bell's to set the chair for the child before she opened the fatal box,
and Carroll had kept both chairs in their relative positions. The
doorway into the alcove bedroom was concealed by a portiere.
There was nothing in the desk now but some of Carroll's writing
materials; everything in the room had been ransacked at the time of its
mistress' death, and Silvia had herself searched carefully for anything
that might afford a possible clue. Sometimes she even thought that some
one, possessing a key, had entered the place and removed all evidence
while that ghastly witness still sat in the chair, for there were no
letters, no papers, nothing. Immediately after going there to stay,
Carroll had gone over the tiny place with systematic care. There was no
upholstered furniture in which anything could have been concealed; even
the divan was a rattan affair; there were only rugs upon the floors. The
mattress revealed nothing, and though she laboriously examined every
picture, there was nothing concealed back of them or within the frames.
"Don't you think the letter was mailed?" Silvia asked her, and she had
replied that while it probably had been, the chances were that a rough
draft of it had been written, and preserved somewhere, and it was for
this that she searched until it became evident that the slight resources
of the flat were exhausted.
It was rather a poor little place, woefully lacking in the closets and
cubby-holes so dear to women, and yet, as Carroll sat there in the
child's place, with her second cup of strong tea getting cold beside
her, she found herself looking at the other chair expectantly, and the
empty desk seemed watching her; she was resentfully conscious that
everything in that room knew the truth, everything save its human
occupant with her keen mind, her active brain. The hours passed and
still she sat there, waiting, waiting. There were the usual noises,
commonplace and mysterious, to be found in vacant houses, but about nine
o'clock she became conscious that there were sounds in the recently
vacated flat below. Evidently the family had come back for some last
articles which they had left behind. They were a quiet old couple with
whom Carroll had exchanged greetings now and then on the stairs; the old
lady had told her they were going to live with their daughter. Carroll
roused herself and lit the gas, and a little while later there came a
tap at the door. She was frightened for a second, the sound was so
unexpected, and then with a laugh at her foolishness she went to the
door and opened it, revealing an old man, her neighbor from the floor
below. He held a rather heavy package in his arms, and explained, rather
shamefacedly, that they had no high-chair, and when their little
grandchild was brought to visit them Mrs. Bell had been accustomed to
lend them her big dictionary. "Not bein' literary she didn't need it,
and the very afternoon of the day she died I came up to borrow it, same
as usual; she had stepped out, but the door was ajar, and the
dictionary lying right on the end of the divan, so I took it, and when I
brought it back after supper I couldn't get in, and after the trouble my
wife wrapped it up and put it away for safe-keeping, Miss, and forgot it
till we come to move," he finished breathlessly.
He put the package on the divan, and Carroll talked with him a few
moments longer, and then locked the door upon his retreating form and
went to the window, and stood there, looking out, yet seeing nothing. It
was beginning to rain, and the cool, damp air was pleasant, but she
shivered and turned back to the room that still kept its silent
mistress' secret, as she had kept it, even in death. The little clock on
the mantel struck ten, and there was a quick, light step on the stair,
and a brisk knock at her door. As she opened it, Frank stood there,
shaking the drops of water from his hat.
"I've had my walk," he said, "I've got over my gloom; I've lost my
grouch, but I still have my appetite with me. Now come on, like a good
fellow, and let's have supper."
"Oh, go away, Frank," she said, almost crying with vexation. "I was
almost on the verge of something when you came."
"That's what I thought," he said cheerfully. "I said, 'She'll drink a
pint of strong tea and sit there in the dark until the rugs begin to
wiggle and the wall paper glowers at her.' You're on the verge of
nervous prostration; that's what you're on the verge of, and nothing
else. Now come along, or have I got to come over there and make you?" He
noticed her negligee. "Put on your frock, and I'll wait, but hurry."
"It's raining," she demurred, "and I haven't my raincoat here."
"I brushed by one in the hall," he said, and stepping back he lifted
down a somewhat shabby gray raincoat and flung it toward her. She picked
it up, and slipped it on. It was large, but still she could wear it, and
while she stood in the middle of the room hesitating, she slipped her
hands into the capacious pockets.
"Well?" demanded Frank impatiently.
The girl did not answer, but stood staring ahead of her. Slowly she
raised her left hand, pressing the thumb between her eyebrows, and
taking the right hand from the raincoat pocket, she stretched it out,
the fingers groping uncertainly. She turned so white that the young man
in the doorway stared, frightened, yet under a spell that forbade his
moving. Suddenly the trembling, questioning hand grew rigid, and
without an instant's hesitation she turned and walked to the divan, and
laid her hand upon the bundle.
"It is here, Frank," she said quietly. "Turn up the light, and cut this
cord."
He did so, and as the paper fell away from the dictionary, she opened
the heavy volume and their eyes fell upon a large manila envelope
plainly addressed to "Miss Silvia Holland, City Investment Building, New
York." The girl laid her hand upon it.
"Wait a minute; let me tell you what happened," she said. "When the
postman came she gave him the letter for Alice, and he gave her the box.
She didn't give him this letter because she hadn't stamps enough--see,
it has but one--or perhaps she meant to use it as a threat; there was
somebody who had a motive for killing her. The woman across the hall
called her and she slipped this envelope into the dictionary and went
out, leaving her door open; old Mr. Dillon came up and got the book;
he's just been telling me about it. They never opened it, and after her
body was found--Mrs. Bell's, I mean--his wife was so upset that she went
to her daughter, and they forgot it entirely until to-night. When Mrs.
Bell came back, she opened the package the postman had given her, and
she never had a chance to miss anything after that."
She lifted her hand, and Frank picked up the envelope and looked at it
and then at her.
"I believe you have solved the mystery," he said, "and that all you have
not learned will be revealed when Silvia opens this envelope. Oh, this
is wonderful, Carroll! I'll get a taxi, and we'll go to her at once."
"I wouldn't," said the girl. "It'll be nearly midnight by the time we
can get there, and if it is bad news--which it isn't--there's nothing
she can do to-night, and if it is good--and I am sure it is, for us at
least--it can wait until morning. Whichever it is, she needs a night's
sleep before she faces any new complication."
She took the envelope and looked at it again, and then at Frank Earl.
With a little laugh she clutched it to her bosom, and holding out the
other hand to him, she said, "Now, I'm ready to go to the kitchen and
cook anything there is to be found in this section of New York!"
"Carroll," he said, humbly, "would you mind if I proposed to you once
more? We seem to need you in our family."