XXXIII. UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY
_Pol._ What do you read, my lord? _Ham._ Words, words, words. --Hamlet.
MRS. BELDEN paused, lost in the sombre shadow which these words werecalculated to evoke, and a short silence fell upon the room. It wasbroken by my asking for some account of the occurrence she had justmentioned, it being considered a mystery how Hannah could have foundentrance into her house without the knowledge of the neighbors.
“Well,” said she, “it was a chilly night, and I had gone to bed early(I was sleeping then in the room off this) when, at about a quarter toone--the last train goes through R---- at 12.50--there came a low knockon the window-pane at the head of my bed. Thinking that some of theneighbors were sick, I hurriedly rose on my elbow and asked whowas there. The answer came in low, muffled tones, ‘Hannah, MissLeavenworth’s girl! Please let me in at the kitchen door.’ Startled athearing the well-known voice, and fearing I knew not what, I caught upa lamp and hurried round to the door. ‘Is any one with you?’ I asked.‘No,’ she replied. ‘Then come in.’ But no sooner had she done so thanmy strength failed me, and I had to sit down, for I saw she looked verypale and strange, was without baggage, and altogether had the appearanceof some wandering spirit. ‘Hannah!’ I gasped, ‘what is it? what hashappened? what brings you here in this condition and at this timeof night?’ ‘Miss Leavenworth has sent me,’ she replied, in the low,monotonous tone of one repeating a lesson by rote. ‘She told me to comehere; said you would keep me. I am not to go out of the house, and noone is to know I am here.’ ‘But why?’ I asked, trembling with a thousandundefined fears; ‘what has occurred?’ ‘I dare not say,’ she whispered;‘I am forbid; I am just to stay here, and keep quiet.’ ‘But,’ I began,helping her to take off her shawl,--the dingy blanket advertised forin the papers--‘you must tell me. She surely did not forbid you to tell_me?_’ ‘Yes she did; every one,’ the girl replied, growing white in herpersistence, ‘and I never break my word; fire couldn’t draw it outof me.’ She looked so determined, so utterly unlike herself, as Iremembered her in the meek, unobtrusive days of our old acquaintance,that I could do nothing but stare at her. ‘You will keep me,’ she said;‘you will not turn me away?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I will not turn you away.’‘And tell no one?’ she went on. ‘And tell no one,’ I repeated.
“This seemed to relieve her. Thanking me, she quietly followed meup-stairs. I put her into the room in which you found her, because itwas the most secret one in the house; and there she has remained eversince, satisfied and contented, as far as I could see, till this verysame horrible day.”
“And is that all?” I asked. “Did you have no explanation with herafterwards? Did she never give you any information in regard to thetransactions which led to her flight?”
“No, sir. She kept a most persistent silence. Neither then nor when,upon the next day, I confronted her with the papers in my hand, and theawful question upon my lips as to whether her flight had been occasionedby the murder which had taken place in Mr. Leavenworth’s household, didshe do more than acknowledge she had run away on this account. Some oneor something had sealed her lips, and, as she said, ‘Fire and tortureshould never make her speak.’”
Another short pause followed this; then, with my mind still hoveringabout the one point of intensest interest to me, I said:
“This story, then, this account which you have just given me of MaryLeavenworth’s secret marriage and the great strait it put herinto--a strait from which nothing but her uncle’s death could relieveher--together with this acknowledgment of Hannah’s that she had lefthome and taken refuge here on the insistence of Mary Leavenworth, is thegroundwork you have for the suspicions you have mentioned?”
“Yes, sir; that and the proof of her interest in the matter which isgiven by the letter I received from her yesterday, and which you say youhave now in your possession.”
Oh, that letter!
“I know,” Mrs. Belden went on in a broken voice, “that it is wrong, in aserious case like this, to draw hasty conclusions; but, oh, sir, how canI help it, knowing what I do?”
I did not answer; I was revolving in my mind the old question: was itpossible, in face of all these later developments, still to believe MaryLeavenworth’s own hand guiltless of her uncle’s blood?
“It is dreadful to come to such conclusions,” proceeded Mrs. Belden,“and nothing but her own words written in her own hand would ever havedriven me to them, but----”
“Pardon me,” I interrupted; “but you said in the beginning of thisinterview that you did not believe Mary herself had any direct hand inher uncle’s murder. Are you ready to repeat that assertion?”
“Yes, yes, indeed. Whatever I may think of her influence in inducingit, I never could imagine her as having anything to do with its actualperformance. Oh, no! oh, no! whatever was done on that dreadful night,Mary Leavenworth never put hand to pistol or ball, or even stood bywhile they were used; that you may be sure of. Only the man who lovedher, longed for her, and felt the impossibility of obtaining her by anyother means, could have found nerve for an act so horrible.”
“Then you think----”
“Mr. Clavering is the man? I do: and oh, sir, when you consider that heis her husband, is it not dreadful enough?”
“It is, indeed,” said I, rising to conceal how much I was affected bythis conclusion of hers.
Something in my tone or appearance seemed to startle her. “I hope andtrust I have not been indiscreet,” she cried, eying me with somethinglike an incipient distrust. “With this dead girl lying in my house, Iought to be very careful, I know, but----”
“You have said nothing,” was my earnest assurance as I edged towards thedoor in my anxiety to escape, if but for a moment, from an atmospherethat was stifling me. “No one can blame you for anything you haveeither said or done to-day. But”--and here I paused and walked hurriedlyback,--“I wish to ask one question more. Have you any reason, beyondthat of natural repugnance to believing a young and beautiful womanguilty of a great crime, for saying what you have of Henry Clavering, agentleman who has hitherto been mentioned by you with respect?”
“No,” she whispered, with a touch of her old agitation.
I felt the reason insufficient, and turned away with something of thesame sense of suffocation with which I had heard that the missing keyhad been found in Eleanore Leavenworth’s possession. “You must excuseme,” I said; “I want to be a moment by myself, in order to ponder overthe facts which I have just heard; I will soon return “; and withoutfurther ceremony, hurried from the room.
By some indefinable impulse, I went immediately up-stairs, and took mystand at the western window of the large room directly over Mrs. Belden.The blinds were closed; the room was shrouded in funereal gloom, butits sombreness and horror were for the moment unfelt; I was engaged ina fearful debate with myself. Was Mary Leavenworth the principal, ormerely the accessory, in this crime? Did the determined prejudice of Mr.Gryce, the convictions of Eleanore, the circumstantial evidence even ofsuch facts as had come to our knowledge, preclude the possibilitythat Mrs. Belden’s conclusions were correct? That all the detectivesinterested in the affair would regard the question as settled, I did notdoubt; but need it be? Was it utterly impossible to find evidence yetthat Henry Clavering was, after all, the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?
Filled with the thought, I looked across the room to the closet wherelay the body of the girl who, according to all probability, had knownthe truth of the matter, and a great longing seized me. Oh, why couldnot the dead be made to speak? Why should she lie there so silent, sopulseless, so inert, when a word from her were enough to decide theawful question? Was there no power to compel those pallid lips to move?
Carried away by the fervor of the moment, I made my way to her side. Ah,God, how still! With what a mockery the closed lips and lids confrontedmy demanding gaze! A stone could not have been more unresponsive.
With a feeling that was almost like anger, I stood there, when--wha
twas it I saw protruding from beneath her shoulders where they crushedagainst the bed? An envelope? a letter? Yes.
Dizzy with the sudden surprise, overcome with the wild hopes thisdiscovery awakened, I stooped in great agitation and drew the letterout. It was sealed but not directed. Breaking it hastily open, I tooka glance at its contents. Good heavens! it was the work of the girlherself!--its very appearance was enough to make that evident! Feelingas if a miracle had happened, I hastened with it into the other room,and set myself to decipher the awkward scrawl.
This is what I saw, rudely printed in lead pencil on the inside of asheet of common writing-paper:
“I am a wicked girl. I have knone things all the time which I had oughtto have told but I didn’t dare to he said he would kill me if I did Imene the tall splendud looking gentulman with the black mustash who Imet coming out of Mister Levenworth’s room with a key in his hand thenight Mr. Levenworth was murdered. He was so scared he gave me money andmade me go away and come here and keep every thing secret but I can’t doso no longer. I seem to see Miss Elenor all the time crying and askingme if I want her sent to prisun. God knows I’d rathur die. And this isthe truth and my last words and I pray every body’s forgivness and hopenobody will blame me and that they wont bother Miss Elenor any more butgo and look after the handsome gentulman with the black mushtash.”
BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED