Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. “How do you know that?” I cried.
Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. “Look at it,” said he; “examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you notice in regard to it?”
“Why, the first thing that strikes me, is that the words are printed, instead of written; something which might be expected from this girl, according to all accounts.”
“Well?”
“That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary paper—”
“Ordinary paper?”
“Yes.”
“That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality.”
“Of course.”
“But is it?”
“Why, yes; I should say so.”
“Look at the lines.”
“What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page; evidently the scissors have been used here.”
“In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of commercial note?”
“Yes.”
“And is that all you see?”
“All but the words.”
“Don’t you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming down?”
“No, unless you mean the manufacturer’s stamp in the corner.” Mr. Gryce’s glance took meaning. “But I don’t see why the loss of that should be deemed a matter of any importance.”
“Don’t you? Not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived of all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper from which it was taken?”
“No.”
“Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don’t you see that, as Hannah could have had no motive for concealing where the paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this sheet must have been prepared by someone else?”
“No,” said I; “I cannot say that I see all that.”
“Can’t! Well then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about to commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished, in her confession, to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from which the sheet was taken, on which she wrote it?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue.”
“But—”
“Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr. Raymond, and tell me what you gather from it.”
“Why,” said I, after complying, “that the girl, worn out with constant apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with herself, and that Henry Clavering—”
“Henry Clavering?”
The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. “Yes,” said I.
“Ah, I didn’t know that Mr. Clavering’s name was mentioned there; excuse me.”
“His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so strikingly in accordance—”
Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. “Does it not seem a little surprising to you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she knew by name?”
I started; it was unnatural surely.
“You believe Mrs. Belden’s story, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a year ago?”
“I do.”
“Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with Mr. Clavering and with his name?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Then why didn’t she use it? If her intention was, as she here professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she could have at once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is the work, not of a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the role of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden, according to you, maintains that Hannah told her, upon entering the house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she declares it to have been the work of Black Mustache.”
“I know; but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?”
“Yes,” said he; “yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person. But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words from this Mrs. Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle the whole matter!”
“A few words from Mrs. Belden,” I repeated. “I have had thousands from her today, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the beginning.”
“You have had,” said he, “but I have not. Fetch her in, Mr. Raymond.”
I rose. “One thing,” said I, “before I go. What if Hannah had found the sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any thought of the suspicions it would occasion!”
“Ah!” said he, “that is just what we are going to find out.”
Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there alone for something, she knew not what.
I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first. Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity. Anything was better than suspense.
Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as she upon the good opinion of others.
“Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable event has occurred,” he exclaimed, partly rising in his enthusiasm to greet her. “May I request you to sit,” he asked; “if a stranger may be allowed to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her own house.”
“It does not seem like my own house any longer,” said she, but in a sad, rather than an aggressive tone; so much had his genial way imposed upon her. “Little better than a prisoner here, go and come, keep silence or speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an unhappy creature, whom I took in for the most unselfish
