“The strange thing is,” she went on, “that I have known you for years,
and never suspected your sense of humor. You’ll forgive me, I know, if
I tell you that your lack of humor was to my mind the only flaw in an
otherwise perfect character.”
“I am not aware--” I began stiffly. “I have always believed that I
furnished to the Neighborhood Club its only leaven of humor.”
“Don’t spoil it,” she begged. “Don’t. If you could know how I have
enjoyed it. All afternoon I have been chuckling. The fire-tongs, Horace.
The fire-tongs!”
Then I knew that my wife had been to Mrs. Dane and I drew a long breath.
“I assure you,” I said gravely, “that while doubtless I carried the
wretched things home and--er--placed them where they were found, I have
not the slightest recollection of it. And it is hardly amusing, is it?”
“Amusing!” she cried. “It’s delicious. It has made me a young woman
again. Horace, if I could have seen your wife’s face when she found
them, I would give cheerfully almost anything I possess.”
But underneath her mirth I knew there was something else. And, after
all, she could convince my wife if she were convinced herself. I told
the whole story--of the visit Sperry and I had made the night Arthur
Wells was shot, and of what we discovered; of the clerk at the
pharmacy and his statement, and even of the whiskey and its unfortunate
effect--at which, I regret to say, she was vastly amused; and, last of
all, of my experience the previous night in the deserted house.
She was very serious when I finished. Tea came, but we forgot to drink
it. Her eyes flashed with excitement, her faded face flushed. And, with
it all, as I look back, there was an air of suppressed excitement
that seemed to have nothing to do with my narrative. I remembered it,
however, when the denouement came the following week.
She was a remarkable woman. Even then she knew, or strongly suspected,
the thing that the rest of us had missed, the x of the equation. But I
think it only fair to record that she was in possession of facts which
we did not have, and which she did not divulge until the end.
“You have been so ungenerous with me,” she said finally, “that I am
tempted not to tell you why I sent for you. Of course, I know I am only
a helpless old woman, and you men are people of affairs. But now and
then I have a flash of intelligence. I’m going to tell you, but you
don’t deserve it.”
She went down into the black silk bag at her side which was as much
a part of her attire as the false front she wore with such careless
abandon, and which, brown in color and indifferently waved, was
invariably parting from its mooring. She drew out a newspaper clipping.
“On going over Clara’s notes,” she said, “I came to the conclusion,
last Tuesday, that the matter of the missing handbag and the letters was
important. More important, probably, than the mere record shows. Do
you recall the note of distress in Miss Jeremy’s voice? It was almost a
wail.”