to say:
"But for me to be successful in this matter, no one must know my
interest in it. You must pay me no visits, give me no confidences, nor,
if you can help it, mention my name before _any one_, not even before
your father and brother. So much for precautionary measures, my dears;
and now for the active ones. I have no curiosity, as I think you must
see, but I shall have to ask you a few questions which under other
circumstances would savor more or less of impertinence. Had your
sister-in-law any special admirers among the other sex?"
"Oh," protested Caroline, shrinking back, while Isabella's eyes grew
round as a frightened child's. "None that we ever heard of. She wasn't
that kind of a woman, was she, Belle? It wasn't for any such reason
papa didn't like her."
"No, no, _that_ would have been too dreadful. It was her family we
objected to, that's all."
"Well, well," I apologized, tapping their hands reassuringly, "I only
asked--let me now say--from curiosity, though I have not a particle of
that quality, I assure you."
"Did you think--did you have any idea--" faltered Caroline, "that----"
"Never mind," I interrupted. "You must let my words go in one ear and
out of the other after you have answered them. I wish"--here I assumed a
brisk air--"that I could go through your parlors again before every
trace of the crime perpetrated there has been removed."
"Why, you can," replied Isabella.
"There is no one in them now," added Caroline, "Franklin went out just
before we left."
At which I blandly rose, and following their leadership, soon found
myself once again in the Van Burnam mansion.
My first glance upon re-entering the parlors was naturally directed
towards the spot where the tragedy had taken place. The cabinet had been
replaced and the shelves set back upon it; but the latter were empty,
and neither on them nor on the adjacent mantel-piece did I see the
clock. This set me thinking, and I made up my mind to have another look
at that clock. By dint of judicious questions I found that it had been
carried into the third room, where we soon found it lying on a shelf of
the same closet where the hat had been discovered by Mr. Gryce. Franklin
had put it there, fearing that the sight of it might affect Howard, and
from the fact that the hands stood as I had left them, I gathered that
neither he nor any of the family had discovered that it was in running
condition.
Assured of this, I astonished them by requesting to have it taken down
and set up on the table, which they had no sooner done than it started
to tick just as it had done under my hand a few nights before.
The girls, greatly startled, surveyed each other wonderingly.
"Why, it's going!" cried Caroline.
"Who could have wound it!" marvelled Isabella.
"Hark!" I cried. The clock had begun to strike.
It gave forth five clear notes.
"Well, it's a mystery!" Isabella exclaimed. Then seeing no astonishment
in my face, she added: "Did you know about this, Miss Butterworth?"
"My dear girls," I hastened to say, with all the impressiveness
characteristic of me in my more serious moments. "I do not expect you to
ask me for any information I do not volunteer. This is hard, I know; but
some day I will be perfectly frank with you. Are you willing to accept
my aid on these terms?"
"O yes," they gasped, but they looked not a little disappointed.
"And now," said I, "leave the clock where it is, and when your brother
comes home, show it to him, and say that having the curiosity to examine
it you were surprised to find it going, and that you had left it there
for him to see. He will be surprised also, and as a consequence will
question first you and then the police to find out who wound it. If they
acknowledge having done it, you must notify me at once, for that's what
I want to know. Do you understand, Caroline? And, Isabella, do you feel
that you can go through all this without dropping a word concerning me
and my interest in this matter?"
Of course they answered yes, and of course it was with so much
effusiveness that I was obliged to remind them that they must keep a
check on their enthusiasm, and also to suggest that they should not come
to my house or send me any notes, but simply a blank card, signifying:
"No one knows who wound the clock."
"How delightfully mysterious!" cried Isabella. And with this girlish
exclamation our talk in regard to the clock closed.
The next object that attracted our attention was a paper-covered novel I
discovered on a side-table in the same room.
"Whose is this?" I asked.
"Not mine."
"Not mine."
"Yet it was published this summer," I remarked.
They stared at me astonished, and Isabella caught up the book. It was
one of those summer publications intended mainly for railroad
distribution, and while neither ragged nor soiled, bore evidence of
having been read.
"Let me take it," said I.
Isabella at once passed it into my hands.
"Does your brother smoke?" I asked.
"Which brother?"
"Either of them."
"Franklin sometimes, but Howard, never. It disagrees with him, I
believe."
"There is a faint odor of tobacco about these pages. Can it have been
brought here by Franklin?"
"O no, he never reads novels, not such novels as this, at all events. He
loses a lot of pleasure, we think."
I turned the pages over. The latter ones were so fresh I could almost
put my finger on the spot where the reader had left off. Feeling like a
bloodhound who has just run upon a trail, I returned the book to
Caroline, with the injunction to put it away; adding, as I saw her air
of hesitation: "If your brother Franklin misses it, it will show that he
brought it here, and then I shall have no further interest in it." Which
seemed to satisfy her, for she put it away at once on a high shelf.
Perceiving nothing else in these rooms of a suggestive character, I led
the way into the hall. There I had a new idea.
"Which of you was the first to go through the rooms upstairs?" I
inquired.
"Both of us," answered Isabella. "We came together. Why do you ask, Miss
Butterworth?"
"I was wondering if you found everything in order there?"
"We did not notice anything wrong, did we, Caroline? Do you think that
the--the person who committed that awful crime went _up-stairs_? I
couldn't sleep a wink if I thought so."
"Nor I," Caroline put in. "O, don't say that he went up-stairs, Miss
Butterworth!"
"I do not know it," I rejoined.
"But you asked----"
"And I ask again. Wasn't there some little thing out of its usual
place? I was up in your front chamber after water for a minute, but I
didn't touch anything but the mug."
"We missed the mug, but--O Caroline, the pin-cushion! Do you suppose
Miss Butterworth means the pin-cushion?"
I started. Did she refer to the one I had picked up from the floor and
placed on a side-table?
"What about the pin-cushion?" I asked.
"O nothing, but we did not know what to make of its being on the table.
You see, we had a little pin-cushion shaped like a tomato which always
hung at the side of our bureau. It was tied to one of the brackets and
was never taken off; Caroline having a fancy for it because it kept her
favorite black pins out of the reach of the neighbor's children when
they came here. Well, this cushion, this sacred cushion which none of us
dared touch, was found by us on a little table by the door, with the
ribbon hanging from it by which it had been tied to the bureau. Some one
had pulled it off, and very roughly too, for the ribbon was all ragged
and torn. But there is nothing in a little thing like that to interest
you, is there, Miss Butterworth?"
"No," said I, not relating my part in the affair; "not if our neighbor's
children were the marauders."
"But none of them came in for days before we left."
"Are there pins in the cushion?"
"When we found it, do you mean? No."
I did not remember seeing any, but one cannot always trust to one's
memory.
"But you had left pins in it?"
"Possibly, I don't remember. Why should I remember such a thing as
that?"
I thought to myself, "I would know whether I left pins on my pin-cushion
or not," but every one is not as methodical as I am, more's the pity.
"Have you anywhere about you a pin like those you keep on that cushion?"
I inquired of Caroline.
She felt at her belt and neck and shook her head.
"I may have upstairs," she replied.
"Then get me one." But before she could start, I pulled her back. "Did
either of you sleep in that room last night?"
"No, we were going to," answered Isabella, "but afterwards Caroline took
a freak to sleep in one of the rooms on the third floor. She said she
wanted to get away from the parlors as far as possible."
"Then I should like a peep at the one overhead."
The wrenching of the pin-cushion from its place had given me an idea.
They looked at me wistfully as they turned to mount the stairs, but I
did not enlighten them further. What would an idea be worth shared by
them!
Their father undoubtedly lay in the back room, for they moved very
softly around the head of the stairs, but once in front they let their
tongues run loose again. I, who cared nothing for their babble when it
contained no information, walked slowly about the room and finally
stopped before the bed.
It had a fresh look, and I at once asked them if it had been lately made
up. They assured me that it had not, saying that they always kept their
beds spread during their absence, as they did so hate to enter a room
disfigured by bare mattresses.
I could have read them a lecture on the niceties of housekeeping, but I
refrained; instead of that I pointed to a little dent in the smooth
surface of the bed nearest the door.
"Did either of you two make that?" I asked.
They shook their heads in amazement.
"What is there in that?" began Caroline; but I motioned her to bring me
the little cushion, which she no sooner did than I laid it in the little
dent, which it fitted to a nicety.
"You wonderful old thing!" exclaimed Caroline. "How ever did you
think----"
But I stopped her enthusiasm with a look. I may be wonderful, but I am
not old, and it is time they knew it.
"Mr. _Gryce_ is _old_," said I; and lifting the cushion, I placed it on
a perfectly smooth portion of the bed. "Now take it up," said I, when,
lo! a second dent similar to the first.
"You see where that cushion has lain before being placed on the table,"
I remarked, and reminding Caroline of the pin I wanted, I took my leave
and returned to my own house, leaving behind me two girls as much filled
with astonishment as the giddiness of their pates would allow.
XIX.
A DECIDED STEP FORWARD.
I felt that I had made an advance. It was a small one, no doubt, but it
was an advance. It would not do to rest there, however, or to draw
definite conclusions from what I had seen without further facts to guide
me. Mrs. Boppert could supply these facts, or so I believed. Accordingly
I decided to visit Mrs. Boppert.
Not knowing whether Mr. Gryce had thought it best to put a watch over my
movements, but taking it for granted that it would be like him to do so,
I made a couple of formal calls on the avenue before I started eastward.
I had learned Mrs. Boppert's address before leaving home, but I did not
ride directly to the tenement where she lived. I chose, instead, to get
out at a little fancy store I saw in the neighborhood.
It was a curious place. I never saw so many or such variety of things in
one small spot in my life, but I did not waste any time upon this quaint
interior, but stepped immediately up to the good woman I saw leaning
over the counter.
"Do you know a Mrs. Boppert who lives at 803?" I asked.
The woman's look was too quick and suspicious for denial; but she was
about to attempt it, when I cut her short by saying:
"I wish to see Mrs. Boppert very much, but not in her own rooms. I will
pay any one well who will assist me to five minutes' conversation with
her in such a place, say, as that I see behind the glass door at the end
of this very shop."
The woman, startled by so unexpected a proposition, drew back a step,
and was about to shake her head, when I laid on the counter before her
(shall I say how much? Yes, for it was not thrown away) a five-dollar
bill, which she no sooner saw than she gave a gasp of delight.
"Will you give me _that_?" she cried.
For answer I pushed it towards her, but before her fingers could clutch
it, I resolutely said:
"Mrs. Boppert must not know there is anybody waiting here to see her, or
she will not come. I have no ill-will towards her, and mean her only
good, but she's a timid sort of person, and----"
"I know she's timid," broke in the good woman, eagerly. "And she's had
enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and
innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them
what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she's
grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out after
sundown. But I think I can get her here; and if you mean her no harm,
why, ma'am----" Her fingers were on the bill, and charmed with the feel
of it, she forgot to finish her sentence.
"Is there any one in the room back there?" I asked, anxious to recall
her to herself.
"No, ma'am, no one at all. I am a poor widder, and not used to such
company as you; but if you will sit down, I will make myself look more
fit and have Mrs. Boppert over here in a minute." And calling to some
one of the name of Susie to look after the shop, she led the way towards
the glass door I have mentioned.
Relieved to find everything working so smoothly and determined to get
the worth of my money out of Mrs. Boppert when I saw her, I followed the
woman into the most crowded room I ever entered. The shop was nothing to
it; there you could move without hitting anything; here you could not.
There were tables against every wall, and chairs where there were no
tables. Opposite me was a window-ledge filled with flowering plants, and
at my right a grate and mantel-piece covered, that is the latter, with
innumerable small articles which had evidently passed a long and forlorn
probation on the shop shelves before being brought in here. While I was
looking at them and marvelling at the small quantity of dust I found,
the woman herself disappeared behind a stack of boxes, for which there
was undoubtedly no room in the shop. Could she have gone for Mrs.
Boppert already, or had she slipped into another room to hide the money
which had come so unexpectedly into her hands?
I was not long left in doubt, for in another moment she returned with a
flower-bedecked cap on her smooth gray head, that transformed her into a
figure at once so complacent and so ridiculous that, had my nerves not
been made of iron, I should certainly have betrayed my amusement. With
it she had also put on her company manner, and what with the smiles she
bestowed upon me and her perfect satisfaction with her own appearance, I
had all I could do to hold my own and keep her to the matter in hand.
Finally she managed to take in my anxiety and her own duty, and saying
that Mrs. Boppert could never refuse a cup of tea, offered to send her
an invitation to supper. As this struck me favorably, I nodded, at which
she cocked her head on one side and insinuatingly whispered:
"And would you pay for the tea, ma'am?"
I uttered an indignant "No!" which seemed to surprise her. Immediately
becoming humble again, she replied it was no matter, that she had tea
enough and that the shop would supply cakes and crackers; to all of
which I responded with a look which awed her so completely that she
almost dropped the dishes with which she was endeavoring to set one of
the tables.
"She does so hate to talk about the murder that it will be a perfect
godsend to her to drop into good company like this with no prying
neighbors about. Shall I set a chair for you, ma'am?"
I declined the honor, saying that I would remain seated where I was,
adding, as I saw her about to go:
"Let her walk straight in, and she will be in the middle of the room
before she sees me. That will suit her and me too; for after she has
once seen me, she won't be frightened. _But you are not to listen at the
door._"
This I said with great severity, for I saw the woman was becoming very
curious, and having said it, I waved her peremptorily away.
She didn't like it, but a thought of the five dollars comforted her.
Casting one final look at the table, which was far from uninvitingly
set, she slipped out and I was left to contemplate the dozen or so
photographs that covered the walls. I found them so atrocious and their
arrangement so distracting to my bump of order, which is of a pronounced
character, that I finally shut my eyes on the whole scene, and in this
attitude began to piece my thoughts together. But before I had proceeded
far, steps were heard in the shop, and the next moment the door flew
open and in popped Mrs. Boppert, with a face like a peony in full
blossom. She stopped when she saw me and stared.
"Why, if it isn't the lady----"
"Hush! Shut the door. I have something very particular to say to you."
"O," she began, looking as if she wanted to back out. But I was too
quick for her. I shut the door myself and, taking her by the arm, seated
her in the corner.
"You don't show much gratitude," I remarked.
I did not know what she had to be grateful to me for, but she had so
plainly intimated at our first interview that she regarded me as having
done her some favor, that I was disposed to make what use of it I could,
to gain her confidence.
"I know, ma'am, but if you could see how I've been harried, ma'am. It's
the murder, and nothing but the murder all the time; and it was to get
away from the talk about it that I came here, ma'am, and now it's you I
see, and you'll be talking about it too, or why be in such a place as
this, ma'am?"
"And what if I do talk about it? You know I'm your friend, or I never
would have done you that good turn the morning we came upon the poor
girl's body."
"I know, ma'am, and grateful I am for it, too; but I've never understood
it, ma'am. Was it to save me from being blamed by the wicked police, or
was it a dream you had, and the gentleman had, for I've heard what he
said at the inquest, and it's muddled my head till I don't know where
I'm standing."
What I had said and what the gentleman had said! What did the poor thing
mean? As I did not dare to show my ignorance, I merely shook my head.
"Never mind what caused us to speak as we did, as long as we helped
_you_. And we did help you? The police never found out what you had to
do with this woman's death, did they?"
"No, ma'am, O no, ma'am. When such a respectable lady as you said that
you saw the young lady come into the house in the middle of the night,
how was they to disbelieve it. They never asked me if I knew any
different."
"No," said I, almost struck dumb by my success, but letting no hint of
my complacency escape me. "And I did not mean they should. You are a
decent woman, Mrs. Boppert, and should not be troubled."
"Thank you, ma'am. But how did you know she had come to the house before
I left. Did you see her?"
I hate a lie as I do poison, but I had to exercise all my Christian
principles not to tell one then.
"No," said I, "I didn't see her, but I don't always have to use my eyes
to know what is going on in my neighbor's houses." Which is true enough,
if it is somewhat humiliating to confess it.
"O ma'am, how smart you are, ma'am! I wish I had some smartness in me.
But my husband had all that. He was a man--O what's that?"
"Nothing but the tea-caddy; I knocked it over with my elbow."
"How I do jump at everything! I'm afraid of my own shadow ever since I
saw that poor thing lying under that heap of crockery."
"I don't wonder."
"She must have pulled those things over herself, don't you think so,
ma'am? No one went in there to murder her. But how came she to have
those clothes on. She was dressed quite different when I let her in. I
say it's all a muddle, ma'am, and it will be a smart man as can explain
it."
"Or a smart woman," I thought.
"Did I do wrong, ma'am? That's what plagues me. She begged so hard to
come in, I didn't know how to shut the door on her. Besides her name was
Van Burnam, or so she told me."
Here was a coil. Subduing my surprise, I remarked:
"If she asked you to let her in, I do not see how you could refuse her.
Was it in the morning or late in the afternoon she came?"
"Don't you know, ma'am? I thought you knew all about it from the way you
talked."
Had I been indiscreet? Could she not bear questioning? Eying her with
some severity, I declared in a less familiar tone than any I had yet
used:
"Nobody knows more about it than I do, but I do not know just the hour
at which this lady came to the house. But I do not ask you to tell me if
you do not want to."
"O ma'am," she humbly remonstrated, "I am sure I am willing to tell you
everything. It was in the afternoon while I was doing the front basement
floor."
"And she came to the basement door?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And asked to be let in?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Young Mrs. Van Burnam?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Dressed in a black and white plaid silk, and wearing a hat covered with
flowers?"
"Yes, ma'am, or something like that. I know it was very bright and
becoming."
"And why did she come to the basement door--a lady dressed like that?"
"Because she knew I couldn't open the front door; that I hadn't the key.
O she talked beautiful, ma'am, and wasn't proud with me a bit. She made
me let her stay in the house, and when I said it would be dark after a
while and that I hadn't done nothing to the rooms upstairs, she laughed
and said she didn't care, that she wasn't afraid of the dark and had
just as lieve as not stay in the big house alone all night, for she had
a book--Did you say anything, ma'am?"
"No, no, go on, she had a book."
"Which she could read till she got sleepy. I never thought anything
would happen to her."
"Of course not, why should you? And so you let her into the house and
left her there when you went out of it? Well, I don't wonder you were
shocked to see her lying dead on the floor next morning."
"Awful, ma'am. I was afraid they would blame me for what had happened.
But I didn't do nothing to make her die. I only let her stay in the
house. Do you think they will do anything to me if they know it?"
"No," said I, trying to understand this woman's ignorant fears, "they
don't punish such things. More's the pity!"--this in confidence to
myself. "How could you know that a piece of furniture would fall on her
before morning. Did you lock her in when you left the house?"
"Yes, ma'am. She told me to."
Then she was a prisoner.
Confounded by the mystery of the whole affair, I sat so still the woman
looked up in wonder, and I saw I had better continue my questions.
"What reason did she give for wanting to stay in the house all night?"
"What reason, ma'am? I don't know. Something about her having to be
there when Mr. Van Burnam came home. I didn't make it out, and I didn't
try to. I was too busy wondering what she would have to eat."
"And what did she have?"
"I don't know, ma'am. She said she had something, but I didn't see it."
"Perhaps you were blinded by the money she gave you. She gave you some,
of course?"
"O, not much, ma'am, not much. And I wouldn't have taken a cent if it
had not seemed to make her so happy to give it. The pretty, pretty
thing! A real lady, whatever they say about her!"
"And happy? You said she was happy, cheerful-looking, and pretty."
"O yes, ma'am; _she_ didn't know what was going to happen. I even heard
her sing after she went up-stairs."
I wished that my ears had been attending to their duty that day, and I
might have heard her sing too. But the walls between my house and that
of the Van Burnams are very thick, as I have had occasion to observe
more than once.
"Then she went up-stairs before you left?"
"To be sure, ma'am; what would she do in the kitchen?"
"And you didn't see her again?"
"No, ma'am; but I heard her walking around."
"In the parlors, you mean?"
"Yes, ma'am, in the parlors."
"You did not go up yourself?"
"No, ma'am, I had enough to do below."
"Didn't you go up when you went away?"
"No, ma'am; I didn't like to."
"When did you go?"
"At five, ma'am; I always go at five."
"How did you know it was five?"
"The kitchen clock told me; I wound it, ma'am and set it when the
whistles blew at twelve."
"Was that the only clock you wound?"
"Only clock? Do you think I'd be going around the house winding any
others?"
Her face showed such surprise, and her eyes met mine so frankly, that I
was convinced she spoke the truth. Gratified--I don't know why,--I
bestowed upon her my first smile, which seemed to affect her, for her
face softened, and she looked at me quite eagerly for a minute before
she said: