"The fisherman, unassisted by destiny, could not catch a fish in
the Tigris; and the fish, without fate, could not have died upon
dry land."--SAADI.
Anne met Miss Lois in New York. Miss Lois had never been in New York
before; but it would take more than New York to confuse Miss Lois. They
remained in the city for several days in order to rest and arrange their
plans. There was still much to explain which the letters, voluminous as
they had been, had not made entirely clear.
But first they spoke of the child. It was Miss Lois at length who turned
resolutely from the subject, and took up the tangled coil which awaited
her. "Begin at the beginning and tell every word," she said, sitting
erect in her chair, her arms folded with tight compactness. If Miss Lois
could talk, she could also listen. In the present case she listened
comprehensively, sharply, and understandingly. When all was told--"How
different it is from the old days when we believed that you and Rast
would live always with us on the island, and that that would be the
whole," she said, with a long, sad retrospective sigh. Then dismissing
the past, "But we must do in this disappointing world what is set before
us," she added, sighing again, but this time in a preparatory way. Anew
she surveyed Anne. "You are much changed, child," she said. Something
of her old spirit returned to her. "I wish those fort ladies could see
you _now_!" she remarked, taking off her spectacles and wiping them with
a combative air.
Possessed of Anne's narrative, she now began to arrange their plans in
accordance with it, and to fit what she considered the necessities of
the situation. As a stand-point she prepared a history, which, in its
completeness, would have satisfied even herself as third person,
forgetting that the mental organizations of the Timloesville people were
probably not so well developed in the direction of a conscientious and
public-spirited inquiry into the affairs of their neighbors as were
those of the meritorious New England community where she had spent her
youth. In this history they were to be aunt and niece, of the same name,
which, after long cogitation, she decided should be Young, because it
had "a plain, respectable sound." She herself was to be a widow (could
it have been possible that, for once in her life, she wished to know,
even if but reminiscently, how the married state would feel?), and Anne
was to be her husband's niece. "Which will account for the lack of
resemblance," she said, fitting all the parts of her plan together like
those of a puzzle. She had even constructed an elaborate legend
concerning said husband, and its items she enumerated with relish. His
name, it appeared, had been Asher, and he had been something of a trial
to her, although at the last he had experienced religion, and died
thoroughly saved. His brother Eleazer, Anne's father, had been a very
different person, a sort of New England David. He had taught in an
academy, studied for the ministry, and died of "a galloping
consumption"--a consolation to all his friends. Miss Lois could describe
in detail both of these death-beds, and repeat the inscriptions on the
two tombstones. Her own name was Deborah, and Anne's was Ruth. On the
second day she evolved the additional item that Ruth was "worn out
keeping the accounts of an Asylum for the Aged, in Washington--which is
the farthest thing I can think of from teaching children in New
York--and I have brought you into the country for your health."
Anne was dismayed. "I shall certainly make some mistake in all this,"
she said.
"Not if you pay attention. And you can always say your head aches if you
don't want to talk. I am not sure but that you had better be threatened
with something serious," added Miss Lois, surveying her companion
consideringly. "It would have to be connected with the mind, because,
unfortunately, you always look the picture of health."
"Oh, please let me be myself," pleaded Anne.
"Never in the world," replied Miss Lois. "Ourselves? No indeed. We've
got to _be_ conundrums as well as guess them, Ruth Young."
They arrived at their destination, not by the train, but in the little
country stage which came from the south. The witnesses from Timloesville
present at the trial had been persons connected with the hotel. In order
that Anne should not come under their observation, they took lodgings at
a farm-house at some distance from the village, and on the opposite side
of the valley. Anne was not to enter the village; but of the
meadow-paths and woods she would have free range, as the inhabitants of
Timloesville, like most country people, had not a high opinion of
pedestrian exercise. Anne was not to enter the town at all; but Miss
Lois was to examine "its every inch."
The first day passed safely, and the second and third. Anne was now
sufficiently accustomed to her new name not to start when she was
addressed, and sufficiently instructed in her "headaches" not to
repudiate them when inquiries were made; Miss Lois announced, therefore,
that the search could begin. She classified the probabilities under five
heads.
First. The man must be left-handed.
Second. He must say "gold" for "cold."
Third. As Timloesville was a secluded village to which few strangers
came, and as it had been expressly stated at the trial that no strangers
were noticed in its vicinity either before or after the murder, the deed
had evidently been committed, not as the prosecution mole-blindedly
averred, by the one stranger who _was_ there, but by no stranger at
all--by a resident in the village itself or its neighborhood.
Fourth. As the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Heathcote was unexpected, the
crime must have been one of impulse: there had not been time for a plan.
Fifth. The motive was robbery: the murder was probably a second thought,
occasioned, perhaps, by Helen's stirring.
Miss Lois did not waste time. Within a few days she was widely known in
Timloesville--"the widow Young, from Washington, staying at Farmer
Blackwell's, with her niece, who is out of health, poor thing, and her
aunt so anxious about her." The widow was very affable, very talkative;
she was considered an almost excitingly agreeable person. But it was
strange that she should not have heard of their event, their own
particular and now celebrated crime. Mrs. Strain, wife of J. Strain,
Esq., felt that this ignorance was lamentable. She therefore proposed to
the widow that she should in person go to the Timloe Hotel, and see with
her own eyes "the very spot."
"The effect, Mrs. Young, is curdling," she declared.
Mrs. Young was willing to be curdled, if Mrs. Strain would support her
in the experience. On the next afternoon, therefore, they went to the
Timloe Hotel, and were shown over "the very floor" which had been
pressed by the footsteps of the murderer, his beautiful wife, and her
highly respectable and observing (one might almost say _providentially_
observing) maid. The landlord himself, Mr. Graub, did not disdain to
accompany them. Mr. Graub had attended the trial in person, and he had
hardly ceased since to admire himself for his own perspicuous cleverness
in owning the house where such a very distinguished crime had been
committed. There might be localities where a like deed would have
injured the patronage of an inn; but the neighborhood of Timloesville
was not one of them. The people slowly took in and appreciated their
event, as an anaconda is said slowly to take in and appreciate his
dinner; they digested it at their leisure. Farmers coming in to town on
Saturdays, instead of bringing luncheon in a tin pail, as usual, went
to the expense of dining at the hotel, with their wives and daughters,
in order to see the room, the blind, and the outside stairway. Mr.
Graub, in this position of affairs, was willing to repeat the tale, even
to a non-diner. For Mrs. Young was a stranger from Washington, and who
knew but that Washington itself might be stirred to a dining interest in
the scene of the tragedy, especially as the second trial was still to
come?
The impression on the blind was displayed; it was very faint, but
clearly that of a left hand.
"And here is the cloth that covered the bureau," continued the landlord,
taking it from a paper and spreading it on the old-fashioned chest of
drawers. "It is not the identical cloth, for that was required at the
trial, together with a fac-simile of the blind; but I can assure you
that this one is just like the original, blue-bordered and fringed
precisely the same, and we traced the spots on it exactly similar before
we let the other go. For we knew that folks would naturally be
interested in such a memento."
"It is indeed deeply absorbing," said Mrs. Young. "I wonder, now, what
the size of that hand might be? Not yours, Mr. Graub; yours is a very
small hand. Let me compare. Suppose I place my fingers so (I will not
touch it). Yes, a large hand, without doubt, and a left hand. Do you
know of any left-handed persons about here?"
"Why, the man himself was left-handed," answered the landlord and Mrs.
Strain together--"Captain Heathcote himself."
"He had been wounded, and carried his right arm in a sling," added Mr.
Graub.
"Ah, yes," said the widow; "I remember now. Was this impression
measured?"
"Yes; I have the exact figures," replied the landlord, taking out a
note-book, and reading the items aloud in a slow, important voice.
"Did you measure it yourself?" asked the widow. "Because if _you_ did
it, I shall feel sure the figures are correct."
"I did not measure it myself," answered Mr. Graub, not unimpressed by
this confidence. "I can, however, re-measure it in a moment if it would
be any gratification to you."
"It would be--immense," said the widow. Whereupon he went down stairs
for a measure.
"I am subject to dizziness myself, but I _must_ hear some one come up
that outside stairway," said Mrs. Young to Mrs. Strain during his
absence. "_Would_ you do it for me? I want to _imagine_ the _whole_."
Mrs. J. Strain, though stout, consented; and when her highly decorated
bonnet was out of sight, the visitor swiftly drew from her pocket the
paper outline of Heathcote's hand which Anne had given her, and compared
it with the impression. The outlines seemed different; the hand which
had touched the cloth appeared to have been shorter and wider than
Heathcote's, the finger-tips broader, as though cushioned with flesh
underneath. Mrs. Strain's substantial step was now heard on the outside
stairway. But the pattern was already safely returned to the deep pocket
of Mrs. Young.
"I have been picturing the entire scene," she said, in an impressive
whisper when the bonnet re-appeared, "and I assure you that when I heard
your footsteps on those stairs, goose-flesh rose and ran like lightning
down my spine." And Mrs. Strain, though out of breath, considered that
her services had been well repaid.
Mr. Graub now returned, and measured the prints with the nicest
accuracy. Owing to the widow's compliment to his hands, he had stopped
to wash them, in order to give a finer effect to the operation. Mrs.
Young requested that the figures be written down for her on a slip of
paper, "as a memorial"; and then, with one more exhaustive look at the
room, the stairway, and the garden, she went away, accompanied by her
friend, leaving Mr. Graub more than ever convinced that he was a very
unusual man.
Mrs. Strain was easily induced to finish the afternoon's dissipations by
going through the grass meadow by the side of the track made by the
murderer on his way to the river. They walked "by the side," because
the track itself was railed off. So many persons had visited the meadow
that Mr. Graub had been obliged to protect his relic in order to
preserve its identity, and even existence. The little trail was now
conspicuous by the fringing of tall grass which still stood erect on
each side of it, the remainder of the meadow having been trodden flat.
"It ends at the river," said Mrs. Young, reflectively.
"Yes, where he came to wash his hands, after the deed was done,"
responded Mrs. Strain. "And what his visions and inward thoughts must
have been at sech a moment I leave you, Mrs. Young, solemnly to
consider."
Mrs. Young then returned homeward, after thanking her Timloesville
friend for a "most impressive day."
"The outlines are too indistinct to be really of much use, Ruth," she
said, as she removed her bonnet. "I believe it was so stated at the
trial, wasn't it? But if I have eyes, they do _not_ fit."
"Of course not, since it is the hand of another person," replied Anne.
"But did you notice, or rather could you see, what the variations were?"
"A broader palm, I should say, and the fingers shorter. The only point,
however, which I could make out with certainty was the thick cushion of
flesh at the ends of the fingers; that seemed clear enough."
At sunset they went across the fields together to the point on the
river-bank where the meadow trail ended.
"The river knows all," said Anne, looking wistfully at the smooth water.
"_They_ think so too, for they've dragged it a number of times,"
responded Miss Lois. "All the boys in the neighborhood have been diving
here ever since, I am told; they fancy the purse, watch, and rings are
in the mud at the bottom. But they're safe enough in somebody's
_pocket_, you may be sure."
"Miss Lois," said the girl, suddenly, "perhaps he went away in a boat!"
"My name is Deborah--Aunt Deborah; and I do wish, Ruth, you would not
forget it so constantly. In a boat? Well, perhaps he did. But I don't
see how that helps it. To-morrow is market-day, and I must go in to the
village and look out for left-handed men; they won't escape me though
they fairly dance jigs on their right!"
"He went away in a boat," repeated Anne, as they walked homeward through
the dusky fields.
But the man was no nearer or plainer because she had taken him from the
main road and placed him on the river; he seemed, indeed, more distant
and shadowy than before.