That Affair Next Door

  XX.

  MISS BUTTERWORTH'S THEORY.

  I was so excited when I entered my carriage that I rode all the way homewith my bonnet askew and never knew it. When I reached my room and sawmyself in the glass, I was shocked, and stole a glance at Lena, who wassetting out my little tea-table, to see if she noticed what a ridiculousfigure I cut. But she is discretion itself, and for a girl with twoundeniable dimples in her cheeks, smiles seldom--at least when I amlooking at her. She was not smiling now, and though, for the reasongiven above, this was not as comforting as it may appear, I chose not toworry myself any longer about such a trifle when I had matters of somuch importance on my mind.

  Taking off my bonnet, whose rakish appearance had given me such a shock,I sat down, and for half an hour neither moved nor spoke. I wasthinking. A theory which had faintly suggested itself to me at theinquest was taking on body with these later developments. Two hats hadbeen found on the scene of the tragedy, and two pairs of gloves, and nowI had learned that there had been two women there, the one whom Mrs.Boppert had locked into the house on leaving it, and the one whom I hadseen enter at midnight with Mr. Van Burnam. Which of the two hadperished? We had been led to think, and Mr. Van Burnam had himselfacknowledged, that it was his wife; but his wife had been dressed quitedifferently from the murdered woman, and was, as I soon began to see,much more likely to have been the assassin than the victim. Would youlike to know my reasons for this extraordinary statement? If so, theyare these:

  I had always seen a woman's hand in this work, but having no reason tobelieve in the presence of any other woman on the scene of crime thanthe victim, I had put this suspicion aside as untenable. But now that Ihad found the second woman, I returned to it.

  But how connect her with the murder? It seemed easy enough to do so ifthis other woman was her rival. We have heard of no rival, but she mayhave known of one, and this knowledge may have been at the bottom of herdisagreement with her husband and the half-crazy determination sheevinced to win his family over to her side. Let us say, then, that thesecond woman was Mrs. Van Burnam's rival. That he brought her there notknowing that his wife had effected an entrance into the house; broughther there after an afternoon spent at the Hotel D----, during which hehad furnished her with a new outfit of less pronounced type, perhaps,than that she had previously worn. The use of the two carriages and thecare they took to throw suspicion off their track, may have been part ofa scheme of future elopement, for I had no idea they meant to remain inMr. Van Burnam's house. For what purpose, then, did they go there? Tomeet Mrs. Van Burnam and kill her, that their way might be clearer forflight? No; I had rather think that they went to the house without athought of whom they would encounter, and that only after they hadentered the parlors did he realize that the two women he least wished tosee together had been brought by his folly face to face.

  The presence in the third room of Mrs. Van Burnam's hat, gloves, andnovel seemed to argue that she had spent the evening in reading by thedining-room table, but whether this was so or not, the stopping of acarriage in front and the opening of the door by an accustomed handundoubtedly assured her that either the old gentleman or some othermember of the family had unexpectedly arrived. She was, therefore, in ornear the parlor-door when they entered, and the shock of meeting herhated rival in company with her husband, under the very roof where shehad hoped to lay the foundations of her future happiness, must have beengreat, if not maddening. Accusations, recriminations even, did notsatisfy her. She wanted to kill; but she had no weapon. Suddenly hereyes fell on the hat-pin which her more self-possessed rival had drawnfrom her hat, possibly before their encounter, and she conceived a planwhich seemed to promise her the very revenge she sought. How she carriedit out; by what means she was enabled to approach her victim and inflictwith such certainty the fatal stab which laid her enemy at her feet, canbe left to the imagination. But that she, a woman, and not Howard, aman, drove this woman's weapon into the stranger's spine, I will yetprove, or lose all faith in my own intuitions.

  But if this theory is true, how about the shelves that fell at daybreak,and how about her escape from the house without detection? A littlethought will explain all that. The man, horrified, no doubt, at theresult of his imprudence, and execrating the crime to which it had led,left the house almost immediately. But the woman remained there,possibly because she had fainted, possibly because he would have nothingto do with her; and coming to herself, saw her victim's face staring upat her with an accusing beauty she found it impossible to meet. Whatshould she do to escape it? Where should she go? She hated it so shecould have trampled on it, but she restrained her passions tilldaybreak, when in one wild burst of fury and hatred she drew down thecabinet upon it, and then fled the scene of horror she had herselfcaused. This was at five, or, to be exact, three minutes before thathour, as shown by the clock she had carelessly set in her lightermoments.

  She escaped by the front door, which her husband had mercifully forborneto lock; and she had not been discovered by the police, because herappearance did not tally with the description which had been given them.How did I know this? Remember the discoveries I had made in Miss VanBurnam's room, and allow them to assist you in understanding myconclusions.

  Some one had gone into that room; some one who wanted pins; and keepingthis fact before my eyes, I saw through the motive and actions of theescaping woman. She had on a dress separated at the waist, and finding,perhaps, a spot of blood on the skirt, she conceived the plan ofcovering it with her petticoat, which was also of silk and undoubtedlyas well made as many women's dresses. But the skirt of the gown waslonger than the petticoat and she was obliged to pin it up. Having nopins herself, and finding none on the parlor floor, she went up-stairsto get some. The door at the head of the stairs was locked, but thefront room was open, so she entered there. Groping her way to thebureau, for the place was very dark, she found a pin-cushion hangingfrom a bracket. Feeling it to be full of pins, and knowing that shecould see nothing where she was, she tore it away and carried it towardsthe door. Here there was some light from the skylight over the stairs,so setting the cushion down on the bed, she pinned up the skirt of hergown.

  When this was done she started away, brushing the cushion off the bed inher excitement, and fearing to be traced by her many-colored hat, orhaving no courage remaining for facing again the horror in the parlor,she slid out without one and went, God knows whither, in her terror andremorse.

  So much for my theory; now for the facts standing in the way of itscomplete acceptance. They were two: the scar on the ankle of the deadgirl, which was a peculiarity of Louise Van Burnam, and the mark of therings on her fingers. But who had identified the scar? Her husband. Noone else. And if the other woman had, by some strange freak of chance, ascar also on her left foot, then the otherwise unaccountable apathy hehad shown at being told of this distinctive mark, as well as histemerity in afterwards taking it as a basis for his falseidentification, becomes equally consistent and natural; and as for themarks of the rings, it would be strange if such a woman did not wearrings and plenty of them.

  Howard's conduct under examination and the contradiction between hisfirst assertions and those that followed, all become clear in the lightof this new theory. He had seen his wife kill a defenceless womanbefore his eyes, and whether influenced by his old affection for her orby his pride in her good name, he could not but be anxious to concealher guilt even at the cost of his own truthfulness. As long then ascircumstances permitted, he preserved his indifferent attitude, anddenied that the dead woman was his wife. But when driven to the wall bythe indisputable proof which was brought forth of his wife having beenin the place of murder, he saw, or thought he did, that a continueddenial on his part of Louise Van Burnam being the victim might leadsooner or later to the suspicion of her being the murderer, andinfluenced by this fear, took the sudden resolution of profiting by allthe points which the two women had in common by acknowledging, whateverybody had expected him to acknowledge from the first, that the woma
nat the Morgue was his wife. This would exonerate her, rid him of anyapprehension he may have entertained of her ever returning to be adisgrace to him, and would (and perhaps this thought influenced himmost, for who can understand such men or the passions that sway them)insure the object of his late devotion a decent burial in a Christiancemetery. To be sure, the risk he ran was great, but the emergency wasgreat, and he may not have stopped to count the cost. At all events, thefact is certain that he perjured himself when he said that it was hiswife he brought to the house from the Hotel D----, and if he perjuredhimself in this regard, he probably perjured himself in others, and histestimony is not at all to be relied upon.

  Convinced though I was in my own mind that I had struck a truth whichwould bear the closest investigation, I was not satisfied to act uponit till I had put it to the test. The means I took to do this weredaring, and quite in keeping with the whole desperate affair. Theypromised, however, a result important enough to make Mr. Gryce blush forthe disdain with which he had met my threats of interference.