She thinks! Mr. Byrd stared at his companion for a minute in silence. She thinks! Then there was a possibility, it seems, that it was only her thought, and that Mr. Mansell was not really the culpable man he had been brought to consider him.
But here an exclamation, uttered by Mr. Ferris, called their attention back to that gentleman. He was reading a letter which had evidently been just brought in, and his expression was one of amazement, mixed with doubt. As they looked toward him they met his eye, that had a troubled and somewhat abashed expression, which convinced them that the communication he held in his hand was in some way connected with the matter under consideration.
Surprised themselves, they unconsciously started forward, when, in a dry and not altogether pleased tone, the District Attorney observed:
“This affair seems to be full of coincidences. You talk of a missing link, and it is immediately thrust under your nose. Read that!”
And he pushed toward them the following epistle, roughly scrawled on a sheet of common writing-paper:
If Mr. Ferris is anxious for justice, and can believe that suspicion does not always attach itself to the guilty, let him, or someone whose business it is, inquire of Miss Imogene Dare, of this town, how she came to claim as her own the ring that was picked up on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens’ house.
“Well!” cried Mr. Byrd, glancing at Hickory, “what are we to think of this?”
“Looks like the work of old Sally Perkins,” observed the other, pointing out the lack of date and signature.
“So it does,” acquiesced Mr. Byrd, in a relieved tone. “The miserable old wretch is growing impatient.”
But Mr. Ferris, with a gloomy frown, shortly said:
“The language is not that of an ignorant old creature like Sally Perkins, whatever the writing may be. Besides, how could she have known about the ring? The persons who were present at the time it was picked up are not of the gossiping order.”
“Who, then, do you think wrote this?” inquired Mr. Byrd.
“That is what I wish you to find out,” declared the District Attorney.
Mr. Hickory at once took it in his hand.
“Wait,” said he, “I have an idea.” And he carried the letter to one side, where he stood examining it for several minutes. When he came back he looked tolerably excited and somewhat pleased. “I believe I can tell you who wrote it,” said he.
“Who?” inquired the District Attorney.
For reply the detective placed his finger upon a name that was written in the letter.
“Imogene Dare?” exclaimed Mr. Ferris, astonished.
“She herself,” proclaimed the self-satisfied detective.
“What makes you think that?” the District Attorney slowly asked.
“Because I have seen her writing, and studied her signature, and, ably as she has disguised her hand in the rest of the letter, it betrays itself in her name. See here.” And Hickory took from his pocketbook a small slip of paper containing her autograph, and submitted it to the test of comparison.
The similarity between the two signatures was evident, and both Mr. Byrd and Mr. Ferris were obliged to allow the detective might be right, though the admission opened up suggestions of the most formidable character.
“It is a turn for which I am not prepared,” declared the District Attorney.
“It is a turn for which we are not prepared,” repeated Mr. Byrd, with a controlling look at Hickory.
“Let us, then, defer further consideration of the matter till I have had an opportunity to see Miss Dare,” suggested Mr. Ferris.
And the two detectives were very glad to acquiesce in this, for they were as much astonished as he at this action of Miss Dare, though, with their better knowledge of her feelings, they found it comparatively easy to understand how her remorse and the great anxiety she doubtless felt for Mr. Hildreth had sufficed to drive her to such an extreme and desperate measure.
XX
A Crisis
Hamlet
Queen Alas, how is it with you?
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse?
⋮
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up and stands on end.
⋮
Whereon do you look?Hamlet On him! On him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects! then what I have to do
Will want true color; tears, perchance, for blood.
That my readers may understand even better than Byrd and Hickory how it was that Imogene came to write this letter, I must ask them to consider certain incidents that had occurred in a quarter far removed from the eye of the detectives.
Mr. Orcutt’s mind had never been at rest concerning the peculiar attitude assumed by Imogene Dare at the time of Mrs. Clemmens’ murder. Time and thought had not made it any more possible for him to believe now than then that she knew anything of the matter beyond what appeared to the general eye: but he could not forget the ring. It haunted him. Fifty times a day he asked himself what she had meant by claiming as her own a jewel which had been picked up from the floor of a strange house at a time so dreadful, and which, in despite of her explanations to him, he found it impossible to believe was hers or ever could have been hers? He was even tempted to ask her; but he never did. The words would not come. Though they faltered again and again upon his lips, he could not give utterance to them; no, though with every passing day he felt that the bond uniting her to him was growing weaker and weaker, and that if something did not soon intervene to establish confidence between them, he would presently lose all hope of the treasure for the possession of which he was now ready to barter away half the remaining years
