The Confession

sarcasm. She placed the saucer on a table and rolledher stained hands in her apron.

  "That woman," she said, "what was she doing under the telephone stand?"

  She almost immediately burst into tears, and it was some time before Icaught what she feared. For she was more concrete than I. And she knewnow what she was afraid of. It was either a bomb or fire.

  "Mark my words, Miss Agnes," she said, "she's going to destroy theplace. What made her set out and rent it for almost nothing if sheisn't? And I know who rings the telephone at night. It's her."

  "What on earth for?" I demanded as ungrammatical and hardly less uneasythan Maggie.

  "She wakes us up, so we can get out in time. She's a preacher'sdaughter. More than likely she draws the line at bloodshed. That's onereason. Maybe there's another. What if by pressing a button somewhereand ringing that bell, it sets off a bomb somewhere?"

  "It never has," I observed dryly.

  But however absurd Maggie's logic might be, she was firm in hermajor premise. Miss Emily had been on her hands and knees by thetelephone-stand, and had, on seeing Maggie, observed that she haddropped the money for the hackman out of her glove.

  "Which I don't believe. Her gloves were on the stand. If you'll comeback, Miss Agnes, I'll show you how she was."

  We made rather an absurd procession, Maggie leading with the saucer, Ifollowing, and the cat, appearing from nowhere as usual, bringing up therear. Maggie placed the jelly on the stand, and dropped on her handsand knees, crawling under the stand, a confused huddle of gingham apron,jelly-stains, and suspicion.

  "She had her head down like this," she said, in rather a smotheredvoice. "I'm her, and you're me. And I says: 'If it's rolled offsomewhere I'll find it next time I sweep, and give it back to you.'Well, what d'you think of that! Here it is!"

  My attention had by this time been caught by the jelly, now unmistakablysolidifying in the center. I moved to the kitchen door to tell Deliato take it off the fire. When I returned, Maggie was digging under thetelephone battery-box with a hair-pin and muttering to herself.

  "Darnation!" she said, "it's gone under!"

  "If you do get it," I reminded her, "it belongs to Miss Emily."

  There is a curious strain of cupidity in Maggie. I have never been ableto understand it. With her own money she is as free as air. But let hersee a chance for illegitimate gain, of finding a penny on the street,of not paying her fare on the cars, of passing a bad quarter, and she isfilled with an unholy joy. And so today. The jelly was forgotten. Terrorwas gone. All that existed for Maggie was a twenty-five cent piece undera battery-box.

  Suddenly she wailed: "It's gone, Miss Agnes. It's clear under!"

  "Good heavens, Maggie! What difference does it make?"

  "W'you mind if I got the ice-pick and unscrewed the box?"

  My menage is always notoriously short of tools.

  I forbade it at once, and ordered her back to the kitchen, and after afinal squint along the carpet, head flat, she dragged herself out and toher feet.

  "I'll get the jelly off," she said, "and then maybe a hat pin'll reachit. I can see the edge of it."

  A loud crack from the kitchen announced that cook had forgotten thesilver spoon, and took Maggie off on a jump. I went back to the libraryand "Bolivar County," and, I must confess, to a nap in my chair.

  I was roused by the feeling that some one was staring at me. My eyesfocused first on the icepick, then, as I slowly raised them, on Maggie'sface, set in hard and uncompromising lines.

  "I'd thank you to come with me," she said stiffly.

  "Come where?"

  "To the telephone."

  I groaned inwardly. But, because submission to Maggie's tyranny hasbecome a firm habit with me, I rose. I saw then that she held a dingyquarter in one hand.

  Without a word she turned and stalked ahead of me into the hall. It iscurious, looking back and remembering that she had then no knowledge ofthe significance of things, to remember how hard and inexorable her backwas. Viewed through the light of what followed, I have never been ableto visualize Maggie moving down the hall. It has always been a menacingfigure, rather shadowy than real. And the hail itself takes on grotesqueproportions, becomes inordinately long, an infinity of hall, fading awayinto time and distance.

  Yet it was only a moment, of course, until I stood by the telephone.Maggie had been at work. The wooden box which covered the battery-jarshad been removed, and lay on its side. The battery-jars were uncovered,giving an effect of mystery unveiled, a sort of shamelessness, ofdestroyed illusion.

  Maggie pointed. "There's a paper under one of the jars," she said. "Ihaven't touched it, but I know well enough what it is."

  I have not questioned Maggie on this point, but I am convinced that sheexpected to find a sort of final summons, of death's visiting-card, forone or the other of us.

  The paper was there, a small folded scrap, partially concealed under ajar.

  "Them prints was there, too," Maggie said, non-committally.

  The box had accumulated the flocculent floating particles of months,possibly years--lint from the hall carpet giving it a reddish tinge. Andin this light and evanescent deposit, fluttered by a breath, fingershad moved, searched, I am tempted to say groped, although the word seemsabsurd for anything so small. The imprint of Maggie's coin and of herattempts at salvage were at the edge and quite distinct from the others.

  I lifted the jar and picked up the paper. It was folded and refoldeduntil it was not much larger than a thumb-nail, a rather stiff papercrossed with faint blue lines. I am not sure that I would have openedit--it had been so plainly in hiding, and was so obviously not myaffair--had not Maggie suddenly gasped and implored me not to look atit. I immediately determined to examine it.

  Yet, after I had read it twice, it had hardly made an impression on mymind. There are some things so incredible that the brain automaticallyrejects them. I looked at the paper. I read it with my eyes. But I didnot grasp it.

  It was not note paper. It was apparently torn from a tablet of glazedand ruled paper--just such paper, for instance, as Maggie soaks inbrandy and places on top of her jelly before tying it up. It had beenraggedly torn. The scrap was the full width of the sheet, but only threeinches or so deep. It was undated, and this is what it said:

  "To Whom it may concern: On the 30th day of May, 1911, I killed a woman(here) in this house. I hope you will not find this until I am dead.

  "(Signed) EMILY BENTON."

  Maggie had read the confession over my shoulder, and I felt herbody grow rigid. As for myself, my first sensation was one of acutediscomfort--that we should have exposed the confession to the lightof day. Neither of us, I am sure, had really grasped it. Maggie put atrembling hand on my arm.

  "The brass of her," she said, in a thin, terrified voice. "And sittingin church like the rest of us. Oh, my God, Miss Agnes, put it back!"

  I whirled on her, in a fury that was only an outlet for my own shock.

  "Once for all, Maggie," I said, "I'll ask you to wait until you arespoken to. And if I hear that you have so much as mentioned this--pieceof paper, out you go and never come back."

  But she was beyond apprehension. She was literal, too. She saw, not MissEmily unbelievably associated with a crime, but the crime itself. "Whod'you suppose it was, Miss Agnes?"

  "I don't believe it at all. Some one has placed it there to hurt MissEmily."

  "It's her writing," said Maggie doggedly.

  After a time I got rid of her, and sat down to think in the library.Rather I sat down to reason with myself.

  For every atom of my brain was clamoring that this thing was true, thatmy little Miss Emily, exquisite and fine as she was, had done the thingshe claimed to have done. It was her own writing, thin, faintly shaded,as neat and as erect as herself. But even that I would not accept,until I had compared it with such bits of hers as I possessed, the notebegging me to take the house, the inscription on the fly-leaf of "FiftyYears in Bolivar County."

  And here was somethi
ng I could not quite understand. The writing was allof the same order, but while the confession and the inscription inthe book were similar, letter for letter, in the note to me there weredifferences, a change in the "t" in Benton, a fuller and blackerstroke, a variation in the terminals of the letters--it is hard toparticularize.

  I spent the remainder of the day in the library, going out for dinner,of course, but returning to my refuge again immediately after. Only inthe library am I safe from Maggie. By virtue of her responsibility formy wardrobe, she virtually shares my bedroom, but her respect for booksshe never reads makes her regard a library as at least semi-holy ground.She dusts books with more caution than china, and