XXXV
THE DOVE
I remained at the gate. I had been bidden to show my interest in whatwas going on in Mother Jane's garden, and this was the way I did it. Butmy thoughts were not with the diggers. I knew, as well then as later,that they would find nothing worth the trouble they were taking; and,having made up my mind to this, I was free to follow the lead of my ownthoughts.
They were not happy ones; I was neither satisfied with myself nor withthe prospect of the long day of cruel suspense that awaited us. When Iundertook to come to X., it was with the latent expectation of makingmyself useful in ferreting out its mystery. And how had I succeeded? Ihad been the means through which one of its secrets had been discovered,but not _the_ secret; and while Mr. Gryce was good enough, or wiseenough, to show no diminution in his respect for me, I knew that I hadsunk a peg in his estimation from the consciousness I had of having sunktwo, if not three pegs, in my own.
This was a galling thought to me. But it was not the only one whichdisturbed me. Happily or unhappily, I have as much heart as pride, andLucetta's despair, and the desperate resolve to which it had led, hadmade an impression upon me which I could not shake off.
Whether she knew the criminal or only suspected him; whether in the heatof her sudden anguish she had promised more or less than she couldperform, the fact remained that we (by whom I mean first and above all,Mr. Gryce, the ablest detective on the New York force, and myself, who,if no detective, am at least a factor of more or less importance in aninquiry like this) were awaiting the action of a weak and suffering girlto discover what our own experience should be able to obtain for usunassisted.
That Mr. Gryce felt that he was playing a great card in thus enlistingher despair in our service, did not comfort me. I am not fond of gamesin which real hearts take the place of painted ones; and, besides, I wasnot ready to acknowledge that my own capacity for ferreting out thismystery was quite exhausted, or that I ought to remain idle whileLucetta bent under a task so much beyond her strength. So deeply was Iimpressed by this latter consideration, that I found myself, even in themidst of my apparent interest in what was going on at Mother Jane'scottage, asking if I was bound to accept the defeat pronounced upon myefforts by Mr. Gryce, and if there was not yet time to retrieve myselfand save Lucetta. One happy thought, or clever linking of cause toeffect, might lead me yet to the clue which we had hitherto sought invain. And then who would have more right to triumph than AmeliaButterworth, or who more reason to apologize than Ebenezar Gryce! Butwhere was I to get my happy thought, and by what stroke of fortune couldI reasonably hope to light upon a clue which had escaped the penetratingeye of my quondam colleague? Lucetta's gesture and Lucetta'sexclamation, "He passed that way!" indicated that her suspicions pointedin the direction of Deacon Spear's cottage; so did William's wanderingaccusations: but this was little help to me, confined as I was to theKnollys demesnes, both by Mr. Gryce's command and by my own sense ofpropriety. No, I must light on something more tangible; somethingpractical enough to justify me in my own eyes for any interference Imight meditate. In short, I must start from a fact, and not from asuspicion. But what fact? Why, there was but one, and that was thefinding of certain indisputable tokens of crime in Mother Jane'skeeping. That was a clue, a clue, to be sure, which Mr. Gryce, whileostensibly following it in his present action, really felt to leadnowhere, but which I--Here my thoughts paused. I dare not promise myselftoo satisfactory results to my efforts, even while conscious of thatvague elation which presages success, and which I could only overcome byresorting again to reasoning. This time I started with a question. HadMother Jane committed these crimes herself? I did not think so; neitherdid Mr. Gryce, for all the persistence he showed in having the groundabout her humble dwelling-place turned over. Then, how had the ring ofMr. Chittenden come to be in her possession, when, as all agreed, shenever was known to wander more than forty rods away from home? If thecrime by which this young gentleman had perished had taken place up theroad, as Lucetta's denouncing finger plainly indicated, then this tokenof Mother Jane's complicity in it had been carried across theintervening space by other means than Mother Jane herself. In otherwords, it was brought to her by the perpetrator, or it was placed whereshe could lay hand on it; neither supposition implying guilt on herpart, she being in all probability as innocent of wrong as she was ofsense. At all events, such should be my theory for the nonce, oldtheories having exploded or become of little avail in the present aspectof things. To discover, then, the source of crime, I must discover themeans by which this ring reached Mother Jane--an almost hopeless task,but not to be despaired of on that account: had I not wrung the truth intimes gone by from that piece of obstinate stolidity the Van Burnamscrub-woman? and if I could do this, might I not hope to win an equalconfidence from this half-demented creature, with a heart so passionateit beat to but one tune, her Lizzie? I meant at least to try, and, underthe impulse of this resolve, I left my position at the gate andrecrossed the road to Mother Jane, whose figure I could dimly discern onthe farther side of her little house.
Mr. Gryce barely looked up as I passed him, and the men not at all. Theywere deep in their work, and probably did not see me. Neither did MotherJane at first. She had not yet wearied of the shining gold she held,though she had begun again upon that chanting of numbers the secret ofwhich Mr. Gryce had discovered in his investigation of her house.
I therefore found it hard to make her hear me when I attempted to speak.She had fixed upon the new number fifteen and seemed never to tire ofrepeating it. At last I took cue from her speech, and shouted out theword _ten_. It was the number of the vegetable in which Mr. Chittenden'sring had been hidden, and it made her start violently.
"Ten! ten!" I reiterated, catching her eye. "He who brought it hascarried it away; come into the house and look."
It was a desperate attempt. I felt myself quake inwardly as I realizedhow near Mr. Gryce was standing, and what his anger would be if hesurprised me at this move after he had cried "Halt!"
But neither my own perturbation nor the thought of his possible angercould restrain the spirit of investigation which had returned to me withthe above words; and when I saw that they had not fallen upon deaf ears,but that Mother Jane heard and in a measure understood them, I led theway into the hut and pointed to the string from which the one preciousvegetable had been torn.
She gave a spring toward it that was well-nigh maniacal in its fury, andfor an instant I thought she was going to rend the air with one of herwild yells, when there came a swishing of wings at one of the openwindows, and a dove flew in and nestled in her breast, diverting herattention so, that she dropped the empty husk of the onion she had justgrasped and seized the bird in its stead. It was a violent clutch, soviolent that the poor dove panted and struggled under it till its headflopped over and I looked to see it die in her hands.
"Stop!" I cried, horrified at a sight I was so unprepared to expect fromone who was supposed to cherish these birds most tenderly.
But she heard me no more than she saw the gesture of indignant appeal Imade her. All her attention, as well as all her fury, was fixed upon thedove, over whose neck and under whose wings she ran her tremblingfingers with the desperation of one looking for something he failed tofind.
"Ten! ten!" it was now her turn to shout, as her eyes passed in angrymenace from the bird to the empty husk that dangled over her head. "Youbrought it, did you, and you've taken it, have you? There, then! You'llnever bring or carry any more!" And lifting up her hand, she flung thebird to the other side of the room, and would have turned upon me, inwhich contingency I would for once have met my match, if, in releasingthe bird from her hands, she had not at the same time released the coinwhich she had hitherto managed to hold through all her passionategestures.
The sight of this piece of gold, which she had evidently forgotten forthe moment, turned her thoughts back to the joys it promised her.Recapturing it once more, she sank again into her old ecstasy, uponwhich I proceeded to pick up the poor, se
nseless dove, and leave the hutwith a devout feeling of gratitude for my undoubted escape.
That I did this quietly and with the dove hidden under my little cape,no one who knows me well will doubt. I had brought something from thehut besides this victim of the old imbecile's fury, and I was no morewilling that Mr. Gryce should see the one than detect the other. I hadbrought away a clue.
"The birds of the air shall carry it." So the Scripture runs. This bird,this pigeon, who now lay panting out his life in my arms had brought herthe ring which in Mr. Gryce's eyes had seemed to connect her with thedisappearance of young Mr. Chittenden.