Had Mr. Jeffrey placed the small stand holding the candelabrum on the

spot where it had been found? No. Had he carried into the house, at the

time of his acknowledged visit, the candles which had been afterward

discovered there? No. He had had time to think since his hesitating and

unsatisfactory replies of the day before, and he was now in a position

to say that while he distinctly remembered buying candles on his way to

the Moore house, he had not found them in his pocket on getting there

and had been obliged to make use of the matches he always carried on

his person in order to find his way to the upstairs room where he felt

positive he would find a candle.

This gave the coroner an opportunity to ask:

“And why did you expect to find a candle there?”

The answer astonished me and, I have no doubt, many others.

“It was the room in which my wife had dressed for the ceremony. It had

not been disturbed since that time. My wife had little ways of her own;

one was to complete her toilet by using a curling iron on a little lock

she wore over her temple. When at home she heated this curling iron in

the gas jet, but there being no gas in the Moore house, I naturally

concluded that she had made use of a candle, as the curl had been

noticeable under her veil.”

Oh, the weariness in his tone! I could scarcely interpret it. Was he

talking by rote, or was he utterly done with life and all its

interests? No one besides myself seemed to note this strange passivity.

To the masses he was no longer a suffering man, but an individual from

whom information was to be got. The next question was a vital one.

He had accounted for one candle in the house; could he account for the

one found in the tumbler or for the one lying crushed and battered on

the closet floor?

He could not.

And now we all observed a change of direction in the inquiry. Witnesses

were summoned to corroborate Mr. Jeffrey’s statements, statements which

it seemed to be the coroner’s present wish to establish. First came the

grocer who had sold Mr. Jeffrey the candles. He acknowledged, much to

Jinny’s discomfort, that an hour after Mr. Jeffrey had left the store,

he had found on the counter the package which that gentleman had

forgotten to take. Poor Jinny had not stayed long enough to hear his

story out. The grocer finished his testimony by saying that immediately

upon his discovery he had sent the candles to Mr. Jeffrey’s house.

This the coroner caused to be emphasized to such an extent that we were

all convinced of its importance. But as yet his purpose was not evident

save to those who were more in his confidence than myself.

The other witnesses were men from Rauchers, who had acted as waiters at

the time of the marriage. One of them testified that immediately on

Miss Moore’s arrival he had been sent for a candle and a box of

matches. The other, that he had carried up to her room a large

candelabrum from the drawing-room mantel. A pair of curling tongs taken

from the dressing table of this room was next produced, together with

other articles of toilet use which had been allowed to remain there

uncared for, though they were of solid silver and of beautiful design.

The next witness was a member of Mr. Jeffrey’s own household. Chloe was

her name, and her good black face worked dolefully as she admitted that

the package of candles which the grocer boy had left on the kitchen

table, with the rest of the groceries on the morning of that dreadful

day when “Missus” killed herself, was not to be found when she came to

put the things away. She had looked and looked for it, but it was not

there.

Further inquiry brought out the fact that but one other member of the

household was in the kitchen when these groceries were delivered; and

that this person gave a great start when the boy shouted out, “The

candles there were bought by Mr. Jeffrey,” and hurried over to the

table and handled the packages, although Chloe did not see her carry

any of them away.

“And who was this person?”

“Miss Tuttle.”

With the utterance of this name the veil fell from the coroner’s

intentions and the purpose of this petty but prolonged inquiry stood

revealed. It was to all a fearful and impressive moment. To me it was

as painful as it was triumphant. I had not anticipated such an outcome

when I put my wits to work to prove that murder, and not suicide, was

answerable for young Mrs. Jeffrey’s death.

When the murmur which had hailed this startling turn in the inquiry had

subsided, the coroner drew a deep breath, and, with an uneasy glance at

the jury, who, to a man, seemed to wish themselves well out of this

job, he dismissed the cook and summoned a fresh witness.

Her name made the people stare.

“Miss Nixon.”

Miss Nixon! That was a name well known in Washington; almost as well

known as that of Uncle David, or even of Mr. Tallman. What could this

quaint and characteristic little body have to do with this case of

doubtful suicide? A word will explain. She was the person who, on the

day before, had made that loud exclamation when the box containing the

ribbon and the pistol had been disclosed to the jury.

As her fussy little figure came forward, some nudged and some laughed,

possibly because her bonnet was not of this year’s style, possibly

because her manner was peculiar and as full of oddities as her attire.

But they did not laugh long, for the little lady’s look was appealing,

if not distressed. The fact that she was generally known to possess one

of the largest bank accounts in the District, made any marked show of

disrespect toward her a matter of poor judgment, if not of questionable

taste.

The box in the coroner’s hand prepared us for what was before us. As he

opened it and disclosed again the dainty white bow which, as I have

before said, was of rather a fantastic make, the whole roomful of eager

spectators craned forward and were startled enough when he asked:

“Did you ever see a bow like this before?”

Her answer came in the faintest of tones.

“Yes, I have one like it; very like it; so like it that yesterday I

could not suppress an exclamation on seeing this one.”

“Where did you get the one you have? Who fashioned it, I mean, or tied

it for you, if that is what I ought to say?”

“It was tied for me by—Miss Tuttle. She is a friend of mine, or was—and

a very good one; and one day while watching me struggling with a piece

of ribbon, which I wanted made into a bow, she took it from my hand and

tied a knot for which I was very much obliged to her. It was very

pretty.”

“And like this?”

“Almost exactly, sir.”

“Have you that knot with you?”

She had.

“Will you show it to the jury?”

Heaving a sigh which she had much better have suppressed, she opened a

little bag she carried at her side and took out a pink satin bow. It

had been tied by a deft hand; and more than one pair of eyes fell

significantly at sight of it.

Amid a silence which was intense, two or three other witnesses were

called to prove that Miss Tuttle’s skill in bow-tying was exceptional,

and was often made use of, not only by members of her household, but,

as in Miss Nixon’s case, by outsiders; the special style shown in the

one under consideration being the favorite.

During all this, I kept my eyes on Mr. Jeffrey. It had now become so

evident which way the coroner’s inquiries tended that I wished to be

the first to note their effect on him. It was less marked than I had

anticipated. The man seemed benumbed by accumulated torment and stared

at the witnesses filing before him as if they were part of some wild

phantasmagoria which confused, without enlightening him. When finally

several persons of both sexes were brought forward to prove that his

attentions to Miss Tuttle had once been sufficiently marked for an

announcement of their engagement to be daily looked for, he let his

head fall forward on his breast as if the creeping horror which had

seized him was too much for his brain if not for his heart. The final

blow was struck when the man whom I had myself seen in Alexandria

testified to the _contretemps_ which had occurred in Atlantic City; an

additional point being given to it by the repetition of some old

conversation raked up for the purpose, by which an effort was made to

prove that Miss Tuttle found it hard to forgive injuries even from

those nearest and dearest to her. This subject might have been

prolonged, but some of the jury objected, and the time being now ripe

for the great event of the day, the name of the lady herself was

called.

After so significant a preamble, the mere utterance of Miss Tuttle’s

name had almost the force of an accusation; but the dignity with which

she rose calmed all minds, and subdued every expression of feeling. I

could but marvel at her self-poise and noble equanimity, and asked

myself if, in the few days which had passed since first the murmur of

something more serious than suicide had gone about, she had so schooled

herself for all emergencies that nothing could shake her

self-possession, not even the suggestion that a woman of her beauty and

distinction could be concerned in a crime. Or had she within herself

some great source of strength, which sustained her in this most

dreadful ordeal? All were on watch to see. When the veil dropped from

before her features and she stepped into the full sight of the

expectant crowd, it was not the beauty of her face, notable and

conspicuous as that was, which roused the hum of surprise that swept

from one end of the room to the other, but the calmness, almost the

elevation of her manner, a calmness and elevation so unlooked for in

the light of the strange contradictions offered by the evidence to

which we had been listening for a day and a half, that all were

affected; many inclined even to believe her innocent of any undue

connection with her sister’s death before she had stretched forth her

hand to take the oath.

I was no exception to the rest. Though I had exerted myself from the

first to bring matters to a climax—but not to this one—I experienced

such a shock under the steady gaze of her sad but gentle eyes, that I

found myself recoiling before my own presumption with something like

secret shame till I was relieved by the thought that a perfectly

innocent woman would show more feeling at so false and cruel a

position. I felt that only one with something to conceal would turn so

calm a front upon men ready, as she knew, to fix upon her a great

crime. This conviction steadied me and made me less susceptible to her

grace and to the tone of her quiet voice and the far-away sadness of

her look. She faltered only when by chance she glanced at the shrinking

figure of Francis Jeffrey.

Her name which she uttered without emphasis and yet in a way to arouse

attention sank into all hearts with more or less disturbance. “Alice

Cora Tuttle!” How in days gone by, and not so long gone by, either,

those three words had aroused the enthusiasm of many a gallant man and

inspired the toast at many a gallant feast! They had their charm yet,

if the heightened color observable on many a cheek there was a true

index to the quickening heart below.

“How are you connected with the deceased Mrs. Jeffrey?”

“I am the child of her mother by a former husband. We were

half-sisters.”

No bitterness in this statement, only an infinite sadness. The coroner

continued to question her. He asked for an account of her childhood,

and forced her to lay bare the nature of her relations with her sister.

But little was gained by this, for their relations seemed to have been

of a sympathetic character up to the time of Veronica’s return from

school, when they changed somewhat; but how or why, Miss Tuttle was

naturally averse to saying. Indeed she almost refused to do so, and the

coroner, feeling his point gained more by this refusal than by any

admission she might have made, did not press this subject but passed on

to what interested us more: the various unexplained actions on her part

which pointed toward crime.

His first inquiry was in reference to the conversation held between her

and Mr. Jeffrey at the time he visited her room. We had listened to his

account of it and now we wished to hear hers. But the cue which had

been given her by this very account had been invaluable to her, and her

testimony naturally coincided with his. We found ourselves not an inch

advanced. They had talked of her sister’s follies and she had advised

patience, and that was all she could say on the subject—all she would

say, as we presently saw.

The coroner introduced a fresh topic.

“What can you tell us about the interview you had with you sister prior

to her going out on the night of her death?”

“Very little, except that it differed entirely from what is generally

supposed. She did not come to my room for conversation but simply to

tell me that she had an engagement. She was in an excited mood but said

nothing to alarm me. She even laughed when she left me; perhaps to put

me off my guard, perhaps because she was no longer responsible.”

“Did she know that Mr. Jeffrey had visited you earlier in the day? Did

she make any allusion to it, I mean?”

“None at all. She shrugged her shoulders when I asked if she was well,

and anticipated all further questions by running from the room. She was

always capricious in her ways and never more so than at that moment.

Would to God that it had been different! Would to God that she had

shown herself to be a suffering woman! Then I might have reached her

heart and this tragedy would have been averted.”

The coroner favored the witness with a look of respect, perhaps because

his next question must necessarily be cruel.

“Is that all you have to say concerning this important visit, the last

you held with your sister before her death?”

“No, sir, there is something else, something which I should like to

relate to this jury. When she came into my room, she held in her hand a

white ribbon; that is, she held the two ends of a long satin ribbon

which seemed to come from her pocket. Handing those two ends to me, she

asked me to tie them about her wrist. ‘A knot under and a bow on top,’

she said, ‘so that it can not slip off.’ As this was something I had

often been called on to do for her, I showed no hesitation in complying

with her request. Indeed, I felt none. I thought it was her fan or her

bouquet she held concealed in the folds of her dress, but it proved to

be—Gentlemen, you know what. I pray that you will not oblige me to

mention it.”

It was such a stroke as no lawyer would have advised her to make,—I

heard afterward that she had refused the offices of a dozen lawyers who

had proffered her their services. But uttered as it was with a noble

air and a certain dignified serenity, it had a great effect upon those

about her and turned in a moment the wavering tide of favor in her

direction.

The coroner, who doubtless was perfectly acquainted with the

explanation with which she had provided herself, but who perhaps did

not look for it to antedate his attack, bowed in quiet acknowledgment

of her request and then immediately proceeded to ignore it.

“I should be glad to spare you,” said he, “but I do not find it

possible. You knew that Mr. Jeffrey had a pistol?”

“I did.”

“That it was kept in their apartment?”

“Yes.”

“In the upper drawer of a certain bureau?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Miss Tuttle, will you tell us why you went to that drawer—if you

did go to that drawer—immediately after Mrs. Jeffrey left the house?”

She had probably felt this question coming, not only since the coroner

began to speak but ever since the evidence elicited from Loretta proved

that her visit to this drawer had been secretly observed. Yet she had

no answer ready.

“I did not go for the pistol,” she finally declared. But she did not

say what she had gone for, and the coroner did not press her.

Again the tide swung back.

She seemed to feel the change but did not show it in the way naturally

looked for. Instead of growing perturbed or openly depressed she

bloomed into greater beauty and confronted with steadier eye, not us,

but the men she instinctively faced as the tide of her fortunes began

to lower. Did the coroner perceive this and recognize at last both the

measure of her attractions and the power they were likely to carry with

them? Perhaps, for his voice took an acrid note as he declared:

“You had another errand in that room?”

She let her head droop just a trifle.

“Alas!” she murmured.

“You went to the book-shelves and took out a book with a peculiar

cover, a cover which Mr. Jeffrey has already recognized as that of the

book in which he found a certain note.”

“You have said it,” she faltered.

“Did you take such a book out?”

“I did.”

“For what purpose, Miss Tuttle?”

She had meant to answer quickly. But some consideration made her

hesitate and the words were long in coming; when she did speak, it was

to say:

“My sister asked another favor of me after I had tied the ribbon.

Pausing in her passage to the door, she informed me in a tone quite in

keeping with her whole manner, that she had left a note for her husband

in the book they were reading together. Her reason for doing this, she

said, was the very natural one of wishing him to come upon it by

chance, but as she had placed it in the front of the book instead of in

the back where they were reading, she was afraid that he would fail to

find it. Would I be so good as to take it out for her and insert it

again somewhere near the end? She was in a hurry or she would return

and do it herself. As she and Mr. Jeffrey had parted in anger, I hailed

with joy this evidence of her desire for a reconciliation, and it was

in obedience to her request, the singularity of which did not strike me

as forcibly then as now, that I went to the shelves in her room and

took down the book.”

“And did you find the note where she said?”

“Yes, and put it in toward the end of the story.”

“Nothing more? Did you read the note?”

“It was folded,” was Miss Tuttle’s quiet answer. Certainly this woman

was a thoroughbred or else she was an adept in deception such as few of

us had ever encountered. The gentleness of her manner, the easy tone,

the quiet eyes, eyes in whose dark depths great passions were visible,

but passions that were under the control of an equally forcible will,

made her a puzzle to all men’s minds; but it was a fascinating puzzle

that awoke a species of awe in those who attempted to understand her.

To all appearances she was the unlikeliest woman possible to cherish

criminal intents, yet her answers were rather clever than convincing,

unless you allowed yourself to be swayed by the look of her beautiful

face or the music of her rich, sad voice.

“You did not remain before these book-shelves long?” observed the

coroner.

“You have a witness who knows more about that than I do,” she

suggested; and doubtless aware of the temerity of this reply, waited

with unmoved countenance, but with a visibly bounding breast, for what

would doubtless prove a fresh attack.

It was a violent one and of a character she was least fitted to meet.

Taking up the box I have so often mentioned, the coroner drew away the

ribbon lying on top and disclosed the pistol. In a moment her hands

were over her ears.

“Why do you do that?” he asked. “Did you think I was going to discharge

it?”

She smiled pitifully as she let her hands fall again.

“I have a dread of firearms,” she explained. “I always have had. Now

they are simply terrible to me, and this one—”

“I understand,” said the coroner, with a slight glance in the direction

of Durbin. They had evidently planned this test together on the

strength of an idea suggested to Durbin by her former action when the

memory of this shot was recalled to her.

“Your horror seems to lie in the direction of the noise they make,”

continued her inexorable interlocutor. “One would say you had heard

this pistol discharged.”

Instantly a complete breaking-up of her hitherto well maintained

composure altered her whole aspect and she vehemently cried:

“I did, I did. I was on Waverley Avenue that night, and I heard the

shot which in all probability ended my sister’s life. I walked farther

than I intended; I strolled into the street which had such bitter

memories for us and I heard—No, I was not in search of my sister. I had

not associated my sister’s going out with any intention of visiting

this house; I was merely troubled in mind and anxious and—and—”

She had overrated her strength or her cleverness. She found herself

unable to finish the sentence, and so did not try. She had been led by

the impulse of the moment farther than she had intended, and, aghast at

her own imprudence, paused with her first perceptible loss of courage

before the yawning gulf opening before her.

I felt myself seized by a very uncomfortable dread lest her

concealments and unfinished sentences hid a guiltier knowledge of this

crime than I was yet ready to admit.

The coroner, who is an older man than myself, betrayed a certain

satisfaction but no dread. Never did the unction which underlies his

sharpest speeches show more plainly than when he quietly remarked:

“And so under a similar impulse you, as well as Mr. Jeffrey, chose this

uncanny place to ramble in. To all appearance that old hearth acted

much more like a lodestone upon members of your family than you were

willing at one time to acknowledge.”

This reference to words she had herself been heard to use seemed to

overwhelm her. Her calmness fled and she cast a fleeting look of

anguish at Mr. Jeffrey. But his face was turned from sight, and,

meeting with no help there, or anywhere, indeed, save in her own

powerful nature, she recovered as best she could the ground she had

lost and, with a trembling question of her own, attempted to put the

coroner in fault and reestablish herself.

“You say ‘ramble through.’ Do you for a moment think that I entered

that old house?”

“Miss Tuttle,” was the grave, almost sad reply, “did you not know that

in some earth, dropped from a flower-pot overturned at the time when a

hundred guests flew in terror from this house, there is to be seen the

mark of a footstep,—a footstep which you are at liberty to measure with

your own?”

“Ah!” she murmured, her hands going up to her face.

But in another moment she had dropped them and looked directly at the

coroner.

“I walked there—I never said that I did not walk there—when I went

later to see my sister and in sight of a number of detectives passed

straight through the halls and into the library.”

“And that this footstep,” inexorably proceeded the coroner, “is not in

a line with the main thoroughfare extending from the front to the back

of the house, but turned inwards toward the wall as if she who made it

had stopped to lean her head against the partition?”

Miss Tuttle’s head drooped. Probably she realized at this moment, if

not before, that the coroner and jury had ample excuse for mistrusting

one who had been so unmistakably caught in a prevarication; possibly

her regret carried her far enough to wish she had not disdained all

legal advice from those who had so earnestly offered it. But though she

showed alike her shame and her disheartenment, she did not give up the

struggle.

“If I went into the house,” she said, “it was not to enter that room. I

had too great a dread of it. If I rested my head against the wall it

was in terror of that shot. It came so suddenly and was so frightful,

so much more frightful than anything you can conceive.”

“Then you did enter the house?”

“I did.”

“And it was while you were inside, instead of outside, that you heard

the shot?”

“I must admit that, too. I was at the library door.”

“You acknowledge that?”

“I do.”

“But you did not enter the library?”

“No, not then; not till I was taken back by the officer who told me of

my sister’s death.”

“We are glad to hear this precise statement from you. It encourages me

to ask again the nature of the freak which took you into this house.

You say that it was not from any dread on your sister’s account? What,

then, was it? No evasive answer will satisfy us, Miss Tuttle.”

She realized this as no one else could.

Mr. Jeffrey’s reason for his visit there could not be her reason, yet

what other had she to give? Apparently none.

“I can not answer,” she said.

And the deep sigh which swept through the room was but an echo of the

despair with which she saw herself brought to this point.

“We will not oblige you to,” said the coroner with apparent

consideration. But to those who knew the law against forcing a witness

to incriminate himself, this was far from an encouraging concession.

“However,” he now went on, with suddenly assumed severity, “you may

answer this. Was the house dark or light when you entered it? And, how

did you get in?”

“The house was dark, and I got in through the front door, which I found

ajar.”

“You are more courageous than most women! I fear there are few of your

sex who could be induced to enter it in broad daylight and under every

suitable protection.”

She raised her figure proudly.

“Miss Tuttle, you have heard Chloe say that you were in the kitchen of

Mr. Jeffrey’s house when the grocer boy delivered the candles which had

been left by your brother-in-law on the counter of the store where he

bought them. Is this true?”

“Yes, sir, it is true.”

“Did you see those candles?”

“No, sir.”

“You did not see them?”

“No, sir.”

“Yet you went over to the table?”

“Yes, sir, but I did not meddle with the packages. I had really no

business with them.”

The coroner, surveying her sadly, went quickly on as if anxious to

terminate this painful examination.

“You have not told us what you did when you heard that pistol-shot.”

“I ran away as soon as I could move; I ran madly from the house.”

“Where?”

“Home.”

“But it was half-past ten when you got home.”

“Was it?”

“It was half-past ten when the man came to tell you of your sister’s

death.”

“It may have been.”

“Your sister is supposed to have died in a few minutes. Where were you

in the interim?”

“God knows. I do not.”

A wild look was creeping into her face, and her figure was swaying. But

she soon steadied it. I have never seen a more admirable presence

maintained in the face of a dreadful humiliation.

“Perhaps I can help you,” rejoined the coroner, not unkindly. “Were you

not in the Congressional Library looking up at the lunettes and

gorgeously painted walls?”

“I?” Her eyes opened wide in wondering doubt. “If I was, I did not know

it. I have no remembrance of it.”

She seemed to lose sight of her present position, the cloud under which

she rested, and even the construction which might be put upon such a

forgetfulness at a time confessedly prior to her knowledge of the

purpose and effect of the shot from which she had so incontinently

fled.

“Your condition of mind and that of Mr. Jeffrey seem to have been

strangely alike,” remarked the coroner.

“No, no!” she protested.

“Arguing a like source.”

“No, no,” she cried again, this time with positive agony. Then with an

effort which awakened respect for her powers of mind, if for nothing

else, she desperately added: “I can not say what was in his heart that

night, but I know what was in mine—dread of that old house, to which I

had been drawn in spite of myself, possibly by the force of the tragedy

going on inside it, culminating in a delirium of terror, which sent me

flying in an opposite direction from my home and into places I had been

accustomed to visit when my heart was light and untroubled.”

The coroner glanced at the jury, who unconsciously shook their heads.

He shook his, too, as he returned to the charge.

“Another question, Miss Tuttle. When you heard a pistol-shot sounding

from the depths of that dark library, what did you think it meant?”

She put her hands over her ears—it seemed as if she could not prevent

this instinctive expression of recoil at the mention of the

death-dealing weapon—and in very low tones replied:

“Something dreadful; something superstitious. It was night, you

remember, and at night one has such horrible thoughts.”

“Yet an hour or two later you declared that the hearth was no

lodestone. You forgot its horrors and your superstition upon returning

to your own house.”

“It might be;” she murmured; “but if so, they soon returned. I had

reason for my horror, if not for my superstition, as the event showed.”

The coroner did not attempt to controvert this. He was about to launch

a final inquiry.

“Miss Tuttle; upon the return of yourself and Mr. Jeffrey to your home

after your final visit to the Moore house, did you have any interview

that was without witnesses?”

“No.”

“Did you exchange any words?”

“I think we did exchange some words; it would be only natural.”

“Are you willing to state what words?”

She looked dazed and appeared to search her memory.

“I don’t think I can,” she objected.

“But something was said by you and some answer was made by him?”

“I believe so.”

“Can not you say definitely?”

“We did speak.”

“In English?”

“No, in French.”

“Can not you translate that French for us?”

“Pardon me, sir; it was so long ago my memory fails me.”

“Is it any better for the second and longer interview between you the

next day?”

“No—sir.”

“You can not give us any phrase or word that was uttered there?”

“No.”

“Is this your final reply on this subject?”

“It is.”

She never had been subjected to an interrogation like this before. It

made her proud soul quiver in revolt, notwithstanding the patience with

which she had fortified herself. With red cheeks and glistening eyes

she surveyed the man who had made her suffer so, and instantly every

other man there suffered with her; excepting possibly Durbin, whose

heart was never his strong point. But our hearts were moved, our

reasons were not convinced, as was presently shown, when, with a bow of

dismissal, the coroner released her, and she passed back to her seat.

Simultaneously with her withdrawal the gleam of sensibility left the

faces of the jury, and the dark and brooding look which had marked

their countenances from the beginning returned, and returned to stay.

What would their verdict be? There were present two persons who

affected to believe that it would be one of suicide occasioned by

dementia. These were Miss Tuttle and Mr. Jeffrey, who, now that the

critical period had come, straightened themselves boldly in their seats

and met the glances concentrated upon them with dignity, if not with

the assurance of complete innocence. But from the carefulness with

which they avoided each other’s eyes and the almost identical

expression mirrored upon both faces, it was visible to all that they

regarded their cause as a common one, and that the link which they

denied, as having existed between them prior to Mrs. Jeffrey’s death,

had in some way been supplied by that very tragedy; so that they now

unwittingly looked with the same eyes, breathed with the same breath,

and showed themselves responsive to the same fluctuations of hope and

fear.

The celerity with which that jury arrived at its verdict was a shock to

us all. It had been a quiet body, offering but little assistance to the

coroner in his questioning; but when it fell to these men to act, the

precision with which they did so was astonishing. In a half-hour they

returned from the room into which they had adjourned, and the foreman

gave warning that he was prepared to render a verdict.

Mr. Jeffrey and Miss Tuttle both clenched their hands; then Miss Tuttle

pulled down her veil.

“We find,” said the solemn foreman, “that Veronica Moore Jeffrey, who

on the night of May eleventh was discovered lying dead on the floor of

her own unoccupied house in Waverley Avenue, came to her death by means

of a bullet, shot from a pistol connected to her wrist by a length of

white satin ribbon.

“That the first conclusion of suicide is not fully sustained by the

facts;

“And that attempt should be made to identify the hand that fired this

pistol.”

It was as near an accusation of Miss Tuttle as was possible without

mentioning her name. A groan passed through the assemblage, and Mr.

Jeffrey, bounding to his feet, showed an inclination to shout aloud in

his violent indignation. But Miss Tuttle, turning toward him, lifted

her hand with a commanding gesture and held it so till he sat down

again.

It was both a majestic and an utterly incomprehensible movement on her

part, giving to the close of these remarkable proceedings a dramatic

climax which set all hearts beating and, I am bound to say, all tongues

wagging till the room cleared.

XVI.

AN EGOTIST OF THE FIRST WATER

Had the control of affairs been mine at this moment I am quite positive

that I should have found it difficult to deny these two the short

interview which they appeared to crave and which would have been to

them such an undeniable comfort. But a sterner spirit than mine was in

charge, and the district attorney, into whose hands the affair had now

fallen, was inexorable. Miss Tuttle was treated with respect, with

kindness, even, but she was not allowed any communication with her

brother-in-law beyond the formal “Good afternoon” incident upon their

separation; while he, scorning to condemn his lips to any such trite

commonplace, said nothing at all, only looked a haggard inquiry which

called forth from her the most exalted look of patience and encouraging

love it has ever been my good fortune to witness. Durbin was standing

near and saw this look as plainly as I did, but it did not impose on

him, he said. But what in the nature of human woe could impose on him?

Durbin is a machine—a very reliable and useful machine, no doubt, yet

when all is said, a simple contrivance of cogs and wheels; while

I—well, I hope that I am something more than that; or why was I a

changed man toward her from the moment I saw the smile which marked

this accused woman’s good by to Francis Jeffrey. No longer believing in

her guilt, I went about my business with tumult in brain and heart,

asking in my remorse for an opportunity to show her some small courtesy

whereby to relieve the torture I felt at having helped the coroner in

the inquiries which had brought about what looked to me now like a

cruel and unwarranted result.

That it should be given to Durbin to hold such surveillance over her as

her doubtful position demanded added greatly to my discomfort. But I

was enabled to keep my lips firmly shut over any expression of secret

jealousy or displeasure; and this was fortunate, as otherwise I might

have failed to obtain the chance of aiding her later on, in other and

deeper matters.

Meanwhile, and before any of us had left this room, one fact had become

apparent. Mr. Jeffrey was not going to volunteer any fresh statement in

face of the distinct disapproval of his sister-in-law. As his eye fell

upon the district attorney, who had lingered near, possibly in the hope

of getting something more from this depressed and almost insensible

man, he made one remark, but it was an automatic one, calculated to

produce but little effect on the discriminating ears of this

experienced official.

“I do not believe that my wife was murdered.” This was what he said.

“It was a wicked verdict. My wife killed herself. Wasn’t the pistol

found tied to her?”

Either from preoccupation or a dazed condition of mind, he seemed to

forget that Miss Tuttle had owned to tying on this pistol; and that

nothing but her word went to prove that this was done before and not

after the shot had been delivered in the Moore house library. I thought

I understood him and was certain that I sympathized with his condition;

but in the ears of those less amiably disposed toward him, his

statements had lost force and the denial went for little.

Meanwhile a fact which all had noted and commented on had recurred to

my mind and caused me to ask a brother officer who was walking out

beside me what he thought of Mr. Moore’s absence from an inquiry

presumably of such importance to all members of this family.

The fellow laughed and said:

“Old Dave has lost none of his peculiarities in walking into his

fortune. This is his day at the cemetery. Didn’t you know that? He will

let nothing on earth get in the way of his pilgrimage to that spot on

the twenty-third of May, much less so trivial an occurrence as an

inquest over the remains of his nearest relative.”

I felt my gorge rise; then a thought struck me and I asked how long the

old gentleman kept up his watch.

“From sunrise to sundown, the boys say. I never saw him there myself.

My beat lies in an opposite direction.”

I left him and started for Rock Creek Cemetery. There were two good

hours yet before sundown and I resolved to come upon Uncle David at his

post.

It took just one hour and a quarter to get there by the most direct

route I could take. Five minutes more to penetrate the grounds to where

a superb vehicle stood, drawn by two of the finest horses I had seen in

Washington for many a long day. As I was making my way around this

equipage I came upon a plot in a condition of upheaval preparatory to

new sodding and the planting of several choice shrubs. In the midst of

the sand thus exposed a single head-stone rose. On his knees beside

this simple monument I saw the figure of Uncle David, dressed in his

finest clothes and showing in his oddly contorted face the satisfaction

of great prosperity, battling with the dissatisfaction of knowing that

one he had so loved had not lived to share his elevation. He was

rubbing away the mold from the name which, by his own confession, was

the only one to which his memory clung in sympathy or endearment. At

his feet lay an open basket, in which I detected the remains of what

must have been a rather sumptuous cold repast. To all appearance he had

foregone none of his ancient customs; only those customs had taken on

elegance with his rise in fortune. The carriage and the horses, and

most of all, the imperturbable driver, seemed to awaken some awe in the

boys. They were still in evidence, but they hung back sheepishly and

eyed the basket of neglected food as if they hoped he would forget to

take it away. Meanwhile the clattering of chains against the harness,

the pawing of the horses and the low exclamations of the driver caused

me the queerest feelings. Advancing quite unceremoniously upon the

watcher by the grave, I remarked aloud;

“The setting sun will soon release you, Mr. Moore. Are you going

immediately into town?”

He paused in his rubbing, which was being done with a very tender hand,

and as if he really loved the name he was endeavoring to bring into

plainer view. Scowling a little, he turned and met me point-blank with

a look which had a good deal of inquiry in it.

“I am not usually interrupted here,” he emphasized; “except by the

boys,” he added more mildly. “They sometimes approach too closely, but

I am used to the imps and scarcely notice them. Ah! there are some of

my old friends now! Well, it is time they knew that a change has taken

place in my fortunes. Hi, there! Hands up and catch this, and this, and

this!” he shouted. “But keep quiet about it or next year you will get

pennies again.”

And flinging quarters right and left, he smiled in such a pompous,

self-satisfied way at the hurrah and scramble which ensued, that it was

well worth my journey there just to see this exhibition of combined

vanity and good humor.

“Now go!” he vociferated; and the urchins, black and white, flew away,

flinging up their heels in delight and shouting: “Bully for you, Uncle

David! We’ll come again next year, not for twenty-fives but _fifties_.”

“I will make it dollars if I only live so long,” he muttered. And

deigning now to remember the question I had put to him, he grandly

remarked:

“I am going straight into town. Can I do anything for you?”

“Nothing. I thought you might like to know what awaits you there. The

city is greatly stirred up. The coroner’s jury in the Jeffrey-Moore

case has just brought in a verdict to the effect that suicide has not

been proved. Naturally, this is equivalent to one of murder.”

“Ah!” he ejaculated, slightly taken aback for one so invariably

impassive.

“And to whom is the guilt of this crime ascribed?” he presently

ventured.

“There was mention of no name; but the opprobrium naturally falls on

Miss Tuttle.”

“Miss Tuttle? Ah!”

“Since Mr. Jeffrey is proved to have been too far away at the time to

have fired that shot, while she—”

“I am following you—”

“Was in the very house—at the door of the library in fact—and heard the

pistol discharged, if she did not discharge it herself—which some

believe, notably the district attorney. You should have been there, Mr.

Moore.”

He looked surprised at this suggestion.

“I never am anywhere but here on the twenty-third of May,” he declared.

“Miss Tuttle needed some adviser.”

“Ah, probably.”

“You would have been a good one.”

“And a welcome one, eh?”

I hardly thought he would have been a welcome one, but I did not admit

the fact. Nevertheless he seized on the advantage he evidently thought

he had gained and added, mildly enough, or rather without any display

of feeling:

“Miss Tuttle likes me even less than Veronica did. I do not think she

would have accepted, certainly she would not have desired, my presence

in her counsels. But of one thing I wish her to be assured, her and the

world in general. Any money she may need at this—at this unhappy crisis

in her life, she will find amply supplied. She has no claims on me, but

that makes little difference where the family honor is concerned. Her

mother’s husband was my brother—the girl shall have all she needs. I

will write her so.”

He was moving toward his carriage.

“Fine turnout?” he interrogatively remarked.

I assented with all the surprise,—with all the wonder even—which his

sublime egotism seemed to invite.

“It is the best that Downey could raise in the time I allotted him.

When I really finger the money, we shall see, we shall see.”

His foot was on the carriage-step. He looked up at the west. The sun

was almost down but not quite. “Have you any special business with me?”

he asked, lingering with what I thought a surprising display of

conscientiousness till the last ray of direct sunlight had disappeared.

I glanced up at the coachman sitting on his box as rigid as any stone.

“You may speak,” said he; “Cæsar neither hears nor sees anything but

his horses when he drives me.”

The black did not wink. He was as completely at home on the box and as

quiet and composed in his service as if he had driven this man for

years.

“He understands his duty,” finished the master, but with no outward

appearance of pride. “What have you to say to me?”

I hesitated no longer.

“Miss Tuttle is supposed to have secretly entered the Moore house on

the night you summoned us. She even says she did. I know that you have

sworn to having seen no one go into that house; but notwithstanding

this, haven’t you some means at your disposal for proving to the police

and to the world at large that she never fired that fatal shot? Public

opinion is so cruel. She will be ruined whether innocent or guilty,

unless it can be very plainly shown that she did not enter the library

prior to going there with the police.”

“And how can you suppose me to be in a position to prove _that?_ Say

that I had sat in my front window all that evening, and watched with

uninterrupted assiduity the door through which so many are said to have

passed between sunset and midnight—something which I did not do, as I

have plainly stated on oath—how could you have expected me to see what

went on in the black interior of a house whose exterior is barely

discernible at night across the street?”

“Then you can not aid her?” I asked.

With a light bound he leaped into the carriage. As he took his seat he

politely remarked:

“I should be glad to, since, though not a Moore, she is near enough the

family to affect its honor. But not having even seen her enter the

house I can not testify in any way in regard to her. Home, Cæsar, and

drive quickly. I do not thrive under these evening damps.”

And leaning back, with an inexpressible air of contentment with

himself, his equipage and the prospect of an indefinite enjoyment of

the same, the last representative of the great Moore family was quietly

driven away.

XVII.

A FRESH START

I was far from being good company that night. I knew this without being

told. My mind was too busy. I was too full of regrets and plans,

reasonings and counter reasonings. In my eyes Miss Tuttle had suddenly

become innocent, consequently a victim. But a victim to what? To some

exaggerated sense of duty? Possibly; but to what duty? That was the

question, to answer which offhand I would, in my present excitement,

have been ready to sacrifice a month’s pay.

For I was moved, not only by the admiration and sympathy which all men

must feel for a beautiful woman caught in such a deadly snare of

circumstantial evidence, but by the conviction that Durbin, whose

present sleek complacency was more offensive to me than the sneering

superiority of a week ago, believed her to be a guilty woman, and as

such his rightful prey. This alone would have influenced me to take the

opposite view; for we never ran along together, and in a case where any

division of opinion was possible, always found ourselves, consciously

or unconsciously, on different sides. Yet I did not really dislike

Durbin, who is a very fine fellow. I only hated his success and the

favor which rewarded it.

I know that I have some very nasty failings and I do not shrink from

owning them. My desire is to represent myself as I am, and I must admit

that it was not entirely owing to disinterested motives that I now took

the secret stand I did in Miss Tuttle’s favor. To prove her innocent

whom once I considered the cause of, if not the guilty accessory to her

sister’s murder, now became my dream by night and my occupation by day.

Though I seemed to have no sympathizer in this effort and though the

case against her was being pushed very openly in the district

attorney’s office, yet I clung to my convictions with an almost

insensate persistence, inwardly declaring her the victim of

circumstances, and hoping against hope that some clue would offer

itself by means of which I might yet prove her so. But where was I to

seek for this clue?

Alas, no ready answer to this very important query was forthcoming. All

possible evidence in this case seemed to have been exhausted save such

as Mr. Jeffrey and Miss Tuttle withheld. And so the monstrous

accusation stood, and before it all Washington—my humble self

included—stood in a daze of mingled doubt and compassion, hunting for

explanations which failed to appear and seeking in vain for some

guiltier party, who evermore slipped from under our hand. Had Mr.

Jeffrey’s alibi been less complete he could not have stood up against

the suspicions which now ran riot. But there was no possibility of

shifting the actual crime back to him after the testimony of so frank

and trustworthy a man as Tallman. If the stopping of Mrs. Jeffrey’s

watch fixed the moment of her death as accurately as was supposed,—and

I never heard the least doubt thrown out in this regard,—he could not

by any means of transit then known in Washington have reached Waverley

Avenue in time to fire that shot. The gates of the cemetery were closed

at sundown; sundown took place that night at one minute past seven, and

the distance into town is considerable. His alibi could not be

gainsaid. So his name failed to be publicly broached in connection with

the shooting, though his influence over Miss Tuttle could not be

forgotten, suggesting to some that she had acted as his hand in the

deed which robbed him of an undesirable wife. But this I would not

believe. I preferred to accept the statement that she had stopped short

of the library door in her suspicious visit there, and that the

ribbon-tying, which went for so much, had been done at home. That these

facts, especially the latter, called for more than common credulity, I

was quite ready to acknowledge; and had her feeling for Francis Jeffrey

shown less unselfishness, I should certainly have joined my fellows in

regarding these assertions as very lame attempts to explain what could

only be explained by a confession of guilt.

So here was a tangle without a frayed end to pull at, unless the

impervious egotism of Uncle David afforded one, which I doubted. For

how could any man with a frightful secret in his breast show that

unmixed delight in his new equipage and suddenly acquired position,

which had so plainly beamed from that gentleman’s calm eye and assured

bearing? When he met my scrutiny in the sacred precincts where the one

love of his heart lay buried, he did so without a quiver or any sign of

inner disturbance. His tone to Cæsar as he drove off had been the tone

of a man who can afford to speak quietly because he is conscious of

being so undeniably the master; and when his foot rose to the carriage

step it was with the confidence of one who had been kept out of his

rights for most of his natural life, but who feels in his present

enjoyment of them no apprehension of a change. His whole bearing and

conversation on that day were, as I am quite ready to admit, an

exhibition of prodigious selfishness; but it was also an exhibition of

mental poise incompatible with a consciousness of having acquired his

fortune by any means which laid him open to the possibility of losing

it. Or so I judged.

Finding myself, with every new consideration of the tantalizing

subject, deeper and deeper in the quagmire of doubt and uncertainty, I

sought enlightenment by making a memorandum of the special points which

must have influenced the jury in their verdict, as witness:

1. The relief shown by Mr. Jeffrey at finding an apparent communication

from his wife hinting at suicide.

2. The possibility, disclosed by the similarity between the sisters’

handwriting, of this same communication being a forgery substituted for

the one really written by Mrs. Jeffrey.

3. The fact that, previous to Mr. Jeffrey’s handling of the book in

which this communication was said to have been hidden, it had been seen

in Miss Tuttle’s hands.

4. That immediately after this she had passed to the drawer where Mr.

Jeffrey’s pistol was kept.

5. That while this pistol had not been observed in her hand, there was

as yet no evidence to prove that it had been previously taken from the

drawer, save such as was afforded by her own acknowledgment that she

had tied some unknown object, presumably the pistol, to her sister’s

wrist before that sister left the house.

6. That if this was so, the pistol and the ribbon connecting it with

Mrs. Jeffrey’s wrist had been handled again before the former was

discharged, and by fingers which had first touched dust—of which there

was plenty in the old library.

7. That Miss Tuttle had admitted, though not till after much

prevarication and apparent subterfuge, that she had extended her walk

on that fatal night not only as far as the Moore house, but that she

had entered it and penetrated as far as the library door at the very

moment the shot was fired within.

8. That in acknowledging this she had emphatically denied having

associated the firing of this shot with any idea of harm to her sister;

yet was known to have gone from this house in a condition of mind so

serious that she failed to recollect the places she visited or the

streets she passed through till she found herself again in her sister’s

house face to face with an officer.

9. That her first greeting of this officer was a shriek, betraying a

knowledge of his errand before he had given utterance to a word.

10. That the candles found in the Moore house were similar to those

bought by Mr. Jeffrey and afterward delivered at his kitchen door.

11. That she was the only member of the household besides the cook who

was in the kitchen at the time, and that it was immediately after her

departure from the room that the package containing the candles had

been missed.

12. That opportunities of coming to an understanding with Mr. Jeffrey

after his wife’s death had not been lacking and it was not until after

such opportunities had occurred that any serious inquiry into this

matter had been begun by the police. To which must be added, not in way

of proof but as an important factor in the case, that her manner, never

open, was such throughout her whole public examination as to make it

evident to all that only half of what had occurred in the Jeffreys’

house since the wedding had been given out by her or by the man for

whose release from a disappointing matrimonial entanglement she was

supposed to have worked; this, though the suspicion hanging over them

both called for the utmost candor.

Verily, a serious list; and opposed to this I had as yet little to

offer but my own belief in her innocence and the fact, but little dwelt

on and yet not without its value, that the money which had come to Mr.

Jeffrey, and the home which had been given her, had both been forfeited

by Mrs. Jeffrey’s death.

As I mused and mused over this impromptu synopsis, in my vain attempt

to reach some fresh clue to a proper understanding of the

inconsistencies in Miss Tuttle’s conduct by means of my theory of her

strong but mistaken devotion to Mr. Jeffrey, a light suddenly broke

upon me from an entirely unexpected quarter. It was a faint one, but

any glimmer was welcome. Remembering a remark made by Mr. Jeffrey in

his examination, that Mrs. Jeffrey had not been the same since crossing

the fatal doorstep of the Moore house, I asked myself if we had paid

enough attention to the mental condition and conduct of the bride prior

to the alarm which threw a pall of horror over her marriage; and caught

by the idea, I sought for a fuller account of the events of that day

than had hitherto been supplied by newspaper or witness.

Hunting up my friend, the reporter, I begged him to tell me where he

had obtained the facts from which he made that leading article in the

Star which had so startled all Washington on the evening of the Jeffrey

wedding. That they had come from some eye-witness I had no doubt, but

who was the eye-witness? Himself? No. Who then? At first he declined to

tell me, but after a fuller understanding of my motives he mentioned

the name of a young lady, who, while a frequent guest at the most

fashionable functions, was not above supplying the papers with such

little items of current gossip as came under her own observation.

How I managed to approach this lady and by what means I succeeded in

gaining her confidence are details quite unnecessary to this narrative.

Enough that I did obtain access to her and that she talked quite

frankly to me, and in so doing supplied me with a clue which ultimately

opened up to me an entirely new field of inquiry. We had been

discussing Mr. Jeffrey and Miss Tuttle, when suddenly, and with no

apparent motive beyond the natural love of gossip which was her

weakness, she launched out into remarks about the bride. The ceremony

had been late; did I know it? A half-hour or three-quarters past the

time set for it. And why? Because Miss Moore was not ready. She had

chosen to array herself in the house and had come early enough for the

purpose; but she would not accept any assistance, not even that of her

maid, and of course she kept every one waiting. “Oh, there was no more

uneasy soul in the whole party that morning than the bride!” Let other

people remark upon the high look in Cora Tuttle’s face, or gossip about

the anxious manner of the bridegroom; she, the speaker, could tell

things about the bride which would go to show that she was not all

right even before that ominous death’s-head reared itself into view at

her marriage festival. Why, the fact that she came downstairs and was

married without her bridal bouquet was enough. Had there not been so

much else to talk about, people would have talked about that. But the

big event had so effectually swallowed up the little that only herself,

and possibly two other ladies she might name, seemed to retain any

memory of the matter.

“What ladies?” I asked.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter what ladies. Two of the very best sort. I know

they noticed it, because I heard them talking about it. We were all

standing in the upper hall and were all crowded into a passage leading

to the room where the bride was dressing. It was before the alarm had

gone around of what had been discovered in the library, and we were all

impatient enough for the appearance of the bride, who, we had been

told, intended to wear the old point in which her great-grandmother was

married. I have a weakness for old point and I was determined to stand

where I could see her come out, even if I lost sight of the ceremony

itself. But it would have been tedious enough waiting in that close

hall if the ladies behind me had not kept up a conversation, which I,

of course, pretended not to hear. I remember it, every word, for it was

my sole amusement for half an hour. What was it? Oh, it was about that

same bouquet, which, by the way, I had the privilege of staring at all

the time they chatted. For the boy who brought it had not been admitted

into Miss Moore’s room, and, not knowing what else to do with it, was

lingering before her door, with the great streamers falling from his

hands, and the lilies making the whole place heavy with a sickening

perfume. From what I heard the ladies say, he had been standing there

an hour, and the timid knock he gave from time to time produced in me

an odd feeling which those ladies behind me seemed to share.

“‘It’s a shame!’ I heard one of them cry. ‘Veronica Moore has no excuse

for such thoughtlessness. It is an hour now that she has been shut up

in her room alone. She won’t have even her maid in. She prefers to

dress alone, she says. Peculiar in a bride, isn’t it? But one thing is

certain: she can not put on her veil without help. She will have to

call some one in for that.’ At which the other volunteered that the

Moores were all queer, and that she didn’t envy Francis Jeffrey. ‘What!

not with fifty thousand a year to lighten her oddities?’ returned her

companion with a shrug which communicated itself to me, so closely were

we packed together. ‘I have a son who could bear with them under such

circumstances.’ Indeed she has, and all Washington knows it, but the

remark passed without comment, for they had not yet exhausted the main

event, and the person they now attacked was Miss Tuttle. ‘Why doesn’t

she come and see that that bouquet is taken in? I declare it’s not

decent. Mr. Jeffrey would not feel complimented if he knew the fate of

those magnificent lilies and roses. I presume he furnished the

bouquet.’

“‘Miss Tuttle has looked out of her room once,’ I heard the other

reply. ‘She is in splendid beauty today, but pale. But she never could

control Veronica.’ ‘Hush! you speak louder than you think’ This amused

me, and I do believe that in another moment I should have laughed

outright if another boy had not appeared in the hall before us, who,

shoving aside the first, rapped on the door with a spirit which called

for answer. But he was no more successful than the other boy had been;

so, being a brisk fellow, with no time for nonsense, he called out,

‘Your bouquet, Miss, and a message, which I am to give you before you

go downstairs! The gentleman is quite particular about it.’ These words

were literally shouted at the door, but in the hubbub of voices about

us I don’t believe any one heard them but ourselves and the bride. I

know that she heard them, for she opened the door a very little

way,—such a very little way that the boy had to put his lips to the

crack when he spoke, and then turn and place his ear where his lips had

been in order to catch her reply. This, for some reason, seemed a long

time in coming, and the fellow grew so impatient that he amused himself

by snatching the bouquet from the other boy and thrusting it in through

the crack, to the very great detriment of its roses and lilies. When

she took it he bawled for his answer, and when he got it, he stared and

muttered doubtfully to himself as he worked his way out again through

the crowd, which by this time was beginning to choke up all the halls

and stairways.

“But why have I told you all this nonsense?” she asked quite suddenly.

“It isn’t of the least consequence that Veronica Moore kept a boy

waiting at her door while she dressed herself for her wedding; but it

shows that she was queer even then, and I for one believe in the theory

of suicide, and in that alone, and in the excuse she gave for it, too;

for if she had really loved Francis Jeffrey she would not have been so

slow to take in the magnificent bouquet he had provided for her.”

But comment, even from those who had known these people well, was not

what I wanted at this moment, but facts. So, without much attention to

these words, I said:

“You will excuse me if I suggest that you are going on too fast. The

door of the bride’s room has just been shut upon the boy who brought

her a message. When was it opened again?”

“Not for a good half-hour; not till every one had grown nervous and

Miss Tuttle and one or two of her most intimate friends had gone more

than once to her door; not, in fact, till the hour for the ceremony had

come and gone and Mr. Jeffrey had crossed the hall twice under the

impression that she was ready for him. Then, when weariness was general

and people were asking what kept the bride and how much longer they

were to be kept waiting, her door suddenly opened and I caught a

glimpse of her face and heard her ask at last for her maid. O, I repeat

that Veronica Moore was not all right that day, and though I have heard

no one comment on the fact, it has been a mystery to me ever since why

she gave that sudden recoil when Francis Jeffrey took her hand after

the benediction. It was not timidity, nor was it fear, for she did not

know till a minute afterward what had happened in the house. Did some

sudden realization of what she had done in marrying a man whom she

herself declared she did not love come when it was too late? What do

you think?”

Miss Freeman had forgotten herself; but the impetuosity which had led

her into asking my opinion made her forget in another moment that she

had done so. And when in my turn I propounded a question and inquired

whether she ever again saw the boy who besieged the bride’s door with a

message, she graciously replied:

“The boy; let me see. Yes, I saw him twice; once in a back hall talking

earnestly to Mr. Jeffrey, and secondly at the carriage door just before

the bridal party rode away. It was Mrs. Jeffrey who was talking to him

then, and I wondered to see him look so pleased when everybody in and

about the house was pale as ashes.”

“Do you know the name of that boy?” I carelessly inquired.

“His name? O no. He is one of Raucher’s waiters; the curly-haired one.

You see him everywhere; but I don’t know his name. Do you flatter

yourself that he can tell you anything that other people don’t know?

Why, if he knew the least thing that wasn’t in everybody’s mouth, you

would have heard from him long ago. Those men are the greatest gossips

in town”—I wonder what she thought of herself,—“and so proud to be of

any importance.” This was true enough, though I did not admit it at the

time; and when the interview was closed and I went away, I have no

doubt she considered me quite the most heavy person she had ever met.

But this did not disturb me. The little facts she had stated were new

to me and, repeating my former method, I was already busy arranging

them in my mind. Witness the result:

1. The ceremony of marriage between Francis Jeffrey and Veronica Moore

was fully three-quarters of an hour late.

2. This was owing to the caprice of the bride, who would not have any

one in the room with her, not even her maid.

3. The bridal bouquet did not figure in the ceremony. In the flurry of

the moment it was forgotten or purposely left behind by the bride. As

this bouquet was undoubtedly the gift of Mr. Jeffrey, the fact may be

significant.

4. She received a message of a somewhat peremptory character before

going below. From whom? Her bridegroom? It would so appear from the

character of the message.

5. The messenger showed great astonishment at the reply he was given to

carry back. Yet he has not been known to mention the matter. Why? When

every one talked he was silent. Through whose influence? This was

something to find out.

6. Though at the time the benediction was pronounced every one was in a

state of alarm except the bride, it was noticed that she gave an

involuntary recoil when her bridegroom stooped for the customary kiss.

Why? Were the lines of her last farewell true then, and did she

experience at that moment a sudden realization of her lack of love?

7. She did not go again upstairs, but very soon fled from the house

with the rest of the bridal party.

Petty facts, all, but possibly more significant than appeared. I made

up my mind to find the boy who brought the bouquet and also the one who

carried back her message.

But here a surprise, if not a check, awaited me. The florist’s boy had

left his place and no one could tell where he had gone. Neither could I

find the curly-haired waiter at Raucher’s. He had left also, but it was

to join the volunteers at San Antonio.

Was there meaning in this coincidence? I resolved to know. Visiting the

former haunts of both boys, I failed to come upon any evidence of an

understanding between them, or of their having shown any special

interest in the Jeffrey tragedy. Both seemed to have been strangely

reticent in regard to it, the florist’s boy showing stupidity and the

waiter such satisfaction in his prospective soldiering that no other

topic was deemed worthy his attention. The latter had a sister and she

could not say enough of the delight her brother had shown at the

prospect of riding a horse again and of fighting in such good company.

He had had some experience as a cowboy before coming to Washington, and

from the moment war was declared had expressed his intention of joining

the recruits for Cuba as soon as he could see her so provided for that

his death would not rob her of proper support. How this had come about

she did not know. Three weeks before he had been in despair over the

faint prospect of doing what he wished; then suddenly, and without any

explanation of how the change had come about, he had rushed in upon her

with the news that he was going to enlist in a company made up of

bronco busters and rough riders from the West, that she need not worry

about herself or about him, for he had just put five hundred dollars to

her account in bank, and that as for himself he possessed a charmed

life and was immune, as she well knew, and need fear bullets no more

than the fever. By this he meant that he had had yellow fever years

before in Louisiana, and that a ball which had once been fired at him

had gone clean through his body without taking his life.

“What was the date of the evening on which he told you he had placed

money in bank for you?”

“April the twenty-ninth.”

Two days after the Jeffrey-Moore wedding!

Convinced now that his departure from town was something more than a

coincidence, I pursued my inquiries and found that he had been

received, just as she had said, into the First Volunteer Corps under

Colonel Wood. This required influence. Whose was the influence? It took

me some time to find out, but after many and various attempts, most of

which ended in failure, I succeeded in learning that the man who had

worked and obtained for him a place in this favored corps was _Francis

Jeffrey_.

XVIII.

IN THE GRASS

I did some tall thinking that night. I remembered that this man had

held some conversation with the Jeffreys at their carriage door

previous to their departure from the Moore house, and found myself

compelled to believe that only a matter of importance to themselves as

well as to him would have detained them at such a minute. Oh, that

Tampa were not so far off or that I had happened on this clue earlier!

But Tampa was at that moment a far prospect for me and I could only

reason from such facts as I had been able to collect in Washington.

Fixing my mind now on Mrs. Jeffrey, I asked the cause of the many

caprices which had marked her conduct on her wedding morning. Why had

she persisted in dressing alone, and what occasioned the absorption

which led to her ignoring all appeals at her door at a time when a

woman is supposed to be more than usually gracious? But one answer

suggested itself. Her heart was not in her marriage, and that last hour

of her maidenhood had been an hour of anguish and struggle. Perhaps she

not only failed to love Francis Jeffrey, but loved some other man. This

seemed improbable, but things as strange as this have happened in our

complex society and no reckoning can be made with a woman’s fancy. If

this was so—and what other theory would better or even so well account

for her peculiar behavior both then and afterward? The hour usually

given by brides to dress and gladsome expectation was with her one of

farewell to past hopes and an unfortunate, if not passionate,

attachment. No wonder that she wished to be alone. No wonder that

interruption angered her. Perhaps it had found her on her knees.

Perhaps— Here I felt myself seized by a strong and sudden excitement. I

remembered the filings I had gathered up from the small stand by the

window, filings which had glittered and which must have been of gold.

What was the conclusion? In this last hour of her maiden life she had

sought to rid herself of some article of jewelry which she found it

undesirable to carry into her new life. What article of jewelry? In

consideration of the circumstances and the hour, I could think of but

one. A ring! the symbol of some old attachment.

The slight abrasion at the base of her third finger, which had been

looked upon as the result of too rough and speedy a withdrawing of the

wedding-ring on the evening of her death, was much more likely to have

been occasioned by the reopening of some little wound made two weeks

before by the file. If Durbin and the rest had taken into account these

filings, they must have come to very much the same conclusion; but

either they had overlooked them in their search about the place, or,

having noted them, regarded them as a clue leading nowhere.

But for me they led the way to a very definite inquiry. Asking to see

the rings Mrs. Jeffrey had left behind her on the night she went for

the last time to the Moore house, I looked them carefully over, and

found that none of them showed the least mark of the file. This

strengthened my theory, and I proceeded to take my next step with

increased confidence. It seemed an easy one, but proved unexpectedly

difficult. My desire was to ascertain whether she had worn previous to

her marriage any rings which had not been seen on her finger since, and

it took me one whole week to establish the fact that she had.

But that fact once learned, the way cleared before me. Allowing my

fancy full rein, I pictured to myself her anxious figure standing alone

in that ancient and ghostly room filing off this old ring from her

dainty finger. Then I asked myself what she would be likely to do with

this ring after disengaging it from her hand? Would she keep it?

Perhaps; but if so, why could it not be found? None such had been

discovered among her effects. Or had she thrown it away, and if so,

where? The vision of her which I had just seen in my mind’s eye came

out with a clearness at this, which struck me as providential. I could

discern as plainly as if I had been a part of the scene the white-clad

form of the bride bending toward the light which came in sparsely

through the half-open shutter she had loosened for this task. This was

the shutter which had never again been fastened and whose restless

blowing to and fro had first led attention to this house and the crime

it might otherwise have concealed indefinitely. Had some glimpse of the

rank grass growing underneath this window lured her eye and led her to

cast away the ring which she had no longer any right to keep? It would

be like a woman to yield to such an impulse; and on the strength of the

possibility I decided to search this small plot for what it might very

reasonably conceal.

But I did not wish to do this openly. I was not only afraid of

attracting Durbin’s attention by an attempt which could only awaken his

disdain, but I hesitated to arouse the suspicion of Mr. Moore, whose

interest in his newly acquired property made him very properly alert to

any trespass upon it.

The undertaking, therefore, presented difficulties. But it was my

business to overcome these, and before long I conceived a plan by which

every blade of grass in the narrow strip running in front of this house

might be gone over without rousing anything more serious than Uncle

David’s ire.

Calling together a posse of street urchins, I organized them into a

band, with the promise of a good supper all around if one of them

brought me the pieces of a broken ring which I had lost in the grass

plot of a house where I had been called upon to stay all night. That

they might win the supper in the shortest possible time and before the

owner of this house, who lived opposite, could interfere, I advised

them to start at the fence in a long line and, proceeding on their

knees, to search, each one, the ground before him to the width of his

own body. The fortunate one was to have the privilege of saying what

the supper should consist of. To give a plausible excuse for this

search, a ball was to be tossed up and down the street till it lighted

in the Moore house inclosure.

It was a scheme to fire the street boy’s soul, and I was only afraid of

failure from the over-enthusiasm it aroused. But the injunctions which

I gave them to spare the shrubs and not to trample the grass any more

than was necessary were so minute and impressive that they moved away

to their task in unexpected order and with a subdued cheerfulness

highly promising of success.

I did not accompany them. Jinny, who has such an innocent air on the

street, took my place and promenaded up and down the block, just to see

that Mr. Moore did not make too much trouble. And it was well she did

so, for though he was not at home,—I had chosen the hour of his

afternoon ride,—his new man-servant was; and he no sooner perceived

this crowd of urchins making for the opposite house than he rushed at

them, and would have scattered them far and wide in a twinkling if the

demure dimples of my little ally had not come into play and distracted

his attention so completely as to make him forget the throng of unkempt

hoodlums who seemed bound to invade his master’s property. She was

looking for Mr. Moore’s house, she told him. Did he know Mr. Moore, and

his house which was somewhere near? Not his new, great, big house,

where the horrible things took place of which she had read in the

papers, but his little old house, which she had heard was soon to be

for rent, and which she thought would be just the right size for

herself and mother. Was _that_ it? That dear little place all smothered

in vines? How lovely! and what would the rent be, did he think? and had

it a back-yard with garden-room enough for her to raise pinks and

nasturtiums? and so on, and so on, while he stared with delighted eyes,

and tried to put in a word edgewise, and the boys—well, they went

through that strip of grass in just ten minutes. My brave little Jinny

had just declared with her most roguish smile that she would run home

and tell her mother all about this sweetest of sweet little places,

when a shout rose from the other side of the street, and that

collection of fifteen or twenty boys scampered away as if mad, shouting

in joyous echo of the boy at their head:

“It’s to be chicken, heaping plates of ice cream and sponge cake.”

By which token she knew that the ring had been found.

When they brought this ring to me I would not have exchanged places

with any man on earth. As Jinny herself was curious enough to stroll

along about this time, I held it out where we both could see it and

draw our conclusions.

It was a plain gold circlet set with a single small ruby. It was cut

through and twisted out of shape, just as I had anticipated; and as I

examined it I wondered what part it had played and was yet destined to

play in the drama of Veronica Jeffrey’s mysterious life and still more

mysterious death. That it was a factor of some importance, arguing some

early school-girl love, I could but gather from the fact that its

removal from her finger was effected in secrecy and under circumstances

of such pressing haste. How could I learn the story of that ring and

the possible connection between it and Mr. Jeffrey’s professed jealousy

of his wife and the disappointing honeymoon which had followed their

marriage? That this feeling on his part had antedated the ambassador’s

ball no one could question; but that it had started as far back as the

wedding day was a new idea to me and one which suggested many

possibilities. Could this idea be established, and, if so, how? But one

avenue of inquiry offered itself. The waiter, who had been spirited

away so curiously immediately after the wedding; might be able to give

us some information on this interesting point. He had been the medium

of the messages which had passed between her and Mr. Jeffrey just prior

to the ceremony; afterward he had been seen talking earnestly to that

gentleman and later with her. Certainly, it would add to our

understanding of the situation to know what reply she had sent to the

peremptory demand made upon her at so critical a time; an understanding

so desirable that the very prospect of it was almost enough to warrant

a journey to Tampa. Yet, say that the results were disappointing, how

much time lost and what a sum of money! I felt the need of advice in

this crisis, yet hesitated to ask it. My cursed pride and my no less

cursed jealousy of Durbin stood very much in my way at this time.

A week had now passed since the inquest, and, while Miss Tuttle still

remained at liberty, it was a circumscribed liberty which must have

been very galling to one of her temperament and habits. She rode and

she walked, but she entered no house unattended nor was she allowed any

communication with Mr. Jeffrey. Nevertheless she saw him, or at least

gave him the opportunity of seeing her. Each day at three o’clock she

rode through K Street, and the detective who watched Mr. Jeffrey’s

house said that she never passed it without turning her face to the

second-story window, where he invariably stood. No signs passed between

them; indeed, they scarcely nodded; but her face, as she lifted it to

meet his eye, showed so marked a serenity and was so altogether

beautiful that this same detective had a desire to see if it maintained

like characteristics when she was not within reach of her

brother-in-law. Accordingly, the next day he delegated his place to

another and took his stand farther down the street. Alas! it was not

the same woman’s face he saw; but a far different and sadder one. She

wore that look of courage and brave hope only in passing Mr. Jeffrey’s

house. Was it simply an expression of her secret devotion to him or the

signal of some compact which had been entered into between them?

Whichever it was, it touched my heart, even in his description of it.

After advising with Jinny I approached the superintendent, to whom,

without further reserve, I opened my heart.

The next day I found myself on the train bound for Tampa, with full

authority to follow Curly Jim until I found him.