XVIII.
THE LITTLE PINCUSHION.
The verdict rendered by the Coroner's jury showed it to be a morediscriminating set of men than I had calculated upon. It was murderinflicted by a hand unknown.
I was so gratified by this that I left the court-room in quite anagitated frame of mind, so agitated, indeed, that I walked through onedoor instead of another, and thus came unexpectedly upon a group formedalmost exclusively of the Van Burnam family.
Starting back, for I dislike anything that looks like intrusion,especially when no great end is to be gained by it, I was about toretrace my steps when I felt two soft arms about my neck.
"Oh, Miss Butterworth, isn't it a mercy that this dreadful thing isover! I don't know when I have ever felt anything so keenly."
It was Isabella Van Burnam.
Startled, for the embraces bestowed on me are few, I gave a subdued sortof grunt, which nevertheless did not displease this young lady, for herarms tightened, and she murmured in my ear: "You dear old soul! I likeyou _so_ much."
"We are going to be very good neighbors," cooed a still sweeter voice inmy other ear. "Papa says we must call on you soon." And Caroline'sdemure face looked around into mine in a manner some would have thoughtexceedingly bewitching.
"Thank you, pretty poppets!" I returned, freeing myself as speedily aspossible from embraces the sincerity of which I felt open to question."My house is always open to you." And with little ceremony, I walkedsteadily out and betook myself to the carriage awaiting me.
I looked upon this display of feeling as the mere gush of twoover-excited young women, and was therefore somewhat astonished when Iwas interrupted in my afternoon nap by an announcement that the twoMisses Van Burnam awaited me in the parlor.
Going down, I saw them standing there hand in hand and both as white asa sheet.
"O Miss Butterworth!" they cried, springing towards me, "Howard has beenarrested, and we have no one to say a word of comfort to us."
"Arrested!" I repeated, greatly surprised, for I had not expected it tohappen so soon, if it happened at all.
"Yes, and father is just about prostrated. Franklin, too, but he keepsup, while father has shut himself into his room and won't see anybody,not even us. O, I don't know how we are to bear it! Such a disgrace, andsuch a wicked, wicked shame! For Howard never had anything to do withhis wife's death, had he, Miss Butterworth?"
"No," I returned, taking my ground at once, and vigorously, for I reallybelieved what I said. "He is innocent of her death, and I would like thechance of proving it."
They evidently had not expected such an unqualified assertion from me,for they almost smothered me with kisses, and called me _their onlyfriend_! and indeed showed so much real feeling this time that I neitherpushed them away nor tried to withdraw myself from their embraces.
When their emotions were a little exhausted I led them to a sofa and satdown before them. They were motherless girls, and my heart, if hard, isnot made of adamant or entirely unsusceptible to the calls of pity andfriendship.
"Girls," said I, "if you will be calm, I should like to ask you a fewquestions."
"Ask us anything," returned Isabella; "nobody has more right to ourconfidence than you."
This was another of their exaggerated expressions, but I was so anxiousto hear what they had to tell, I let it pass. So instead of rebukingthem, I asked where their brother had been arrested, and found it hadbeen at his rooms and in presence of themselves and Franklin. So Iinquired further and learned that, so far as they knew, nothing had beendiscovered beyond what had come out at the inquest except that Howard'strunks had been found packed, as if he had been making preparations fora journey when interrupted by the dreadful event which had put him intothe hands of the police. As there was a certain significance in this,the girls seemed almost as much impressed by it as I was, but we did notdiscuss it long, for I suddenly changed my manner, and taking them bothby the hand, asked if they could keep a secret.
"Secret?" they gasped.
"Yes, a secret. You are not the girls I should confide in ordinarily;but this trouble has sobered you."
"O, we can do anything," began Isabella; and "Only try us," murmuredCaroline.
But knowing the volubility of the one and the weakness of the other, Ishook my head at their promises, and merely tried to impress them withthe fact that their brother's safety depended upon their discretion. Atwhich they looked very determined for poppets, and squeezed my hands sotightly that I wished I had left off some of my rings before engaging inthis interview.
When they were quiet again and ready to listen I told them my plans.They were surprised, of course, and wondered how I could do anythingtowards finding out the real murderer of their sister-in-law; but seeinghow resolved I looked, changed their tone and avowed with much feelingtheir perfect confidence in me and in the success of anything I mightundertake.
This was encouraging, and ignoring their momentary distrust, I proceededto say:
"But for me to be successful in this matter, no one must know myinterest in it. You must pay me no visits, give me no confidences, nor,if you can help it, mention my name before _any one_, not even beforeyour father and brother. So much for precautionary measures, my dears;and now for the active ones. I have no curiosity, as I think you mustsee, but I shall have to ask you a few questions which under othercircumstances would savor more or less of impertinence. Had yoursister-in-law any special admirers among the other sex?"
"Oh," protested Caroline, shrinking back, while Isabella's eyes grewround as a frightened child's. "None that we ever heard of. She wasn'tthat kind of a woman, was she, Belle? It wasn't for any such reasonpapa didn't like her."
"No, no, _that_ would have been too dreadful. It was her family weobjected to, that's all."
"Well, well," I apologized, tapping their hands reassuringly, "I onlyasked--let me now say--from curiosity, though I have not a particle ofthat quality, I assure you."
"Did you think--did you have any idea--" faltered Caroline, "that----"
"Never mind," I interrupted. "You must let my words go in one ear andout of the other after you have answered them. I wish"--here I assumed abrisk air--"that I could go through your parlors again before everytrace of the crime perpetrated there has been removed."
"Why, you can," replied Isabella.
"There is no one in them now," added Caroline, "Franklin went out justbefore we left."
At which I blandly rose, and following their leadership, soon foundmyself once again in the Van Burnam mansion.
My first glance upon re-entering the parlors was naturally directedtowards the spot where the tragedy had taken place. The cabinet had beenreplaced and the shelves set back upon it; but the latter were empty,and neither on them nor on the adjacent mantel-piece did I see theclock. This set me thinking, and I made up my mind to have another lookat that clock. By dint of judicious questions I found that it had beencarried into the third room, where we soon found it lying on a shelf ofthe same closet where the hat had been discovered by Mr. Gryce. Franklinhad put it there, fearing that the sight of it might affect Howard, andfrom the fact that the hands stood as I had left them, I gathered thatneither he nor any of the family had discovered that it was in runningcondition.
Assured of this, I astonished them by requesting to have it taken downand set up on the table, which they had no sooner done than it startedto tick just as it had done under my hand a few nights before.
The girls, greatly startled, surveyed each other wonderingly.
"Why, it's going!" cried Caroline.
"Who could have wound it!" marvelled Isabella.
"Hark!" I cried. The clock had begun to strike.
It gave forth five clear notes.
"Well, it's a mystery!" Isabella exclaimed. Then seeing no astonishmentin my face, she added: "Did you know about this, Miss Butterworth?"
"My dear girls," I hastened to say, with all the impressivenesscharacteristic of me in my more serious moments. "I do not expect you
toask me for any information I do not volunteer. This is hard, I know; butsome day I will be perfectly frank with you. Are you willing to acceptmy aid on these terms?"
"O yes," they gasped, but they looked not a little disappointed.
"And now," said I, "leave the clock where it is, and when your brothercomes home, show it to him, and say that having the curiosity to examineit you were surprised to find it going, and that you had left it therefor him to see. He will be surprised also, and as a consequence willquestion first you and then the police to find out who wound it. If theyacknowledge having done it, you must notify me at once, for that's whatI want to know. Do you understand, Caroline? And, Isabella, do you feelthat you can go through all this without dropping a word concerning meand my interest in this matter?"
Of course they answered yes, and of course it was with so mucheffusiveness that I was obliged to remind them that they must keep acheck on their enthusiasm, and also to suggest that they should not cometo my house or send me any notes, but simply a blank card, signifying:"No one knows who wound the clock."
"How delightfully mysterious!" cried Isabella. And with this girlishexclamation our talk in regard to the clock closed.
The next object that attracted our attention was a paper-covered novel Idiscovered on a side-table in the same room.
"Whose is this?" I asked.
"Not mine."
"Not mine."
"Yet it was published this summer," I remarked.
They stared at me astonished, and Isabella caught up the book. It wasone of those summer publications intended mainly for railroaddistribution, and while neither ragged nor soiled, bore evidence ofhaving been read.
"Let me take it," said I.
Isabella at once passed it into my hands.
"Does your brother smoke?" I asked.
"Which brother?"
"Either of them."
"Franklin sometimes, but Howard, never. It disagrees with him, Ibelieve."
"There is a faint odor of tobacco about these pages. Can it have beenbrought here by Franklin?"
"O no, he never reads novels, not such novels as this, at all events. Heloses a lot of pleasure, we think."
I turned the pages over. The latter ones were so fresh I could almostput my finger on the spot where the reader had left off. Feeling like abloodhound who has just run upon a trail, I returned the book toCaroline, with the injunction to put it away; adding, as I saw her airof hesitation: "If your brother Franklin misses it, it will show that hebrought it here, and then I shall have no further interest in it." Whichseemed to satisfy her, for she put it away at once on a high shelf.
Perceiving nothing else in these rooms of a suggestive character, I ledthe way into the hall. There I had a new idea.
"Which of you was the first to go through the rooms upstairs?" Iinquired.
"Both of us," answered Isabella. "We came together. Why do you ask, MissButterworth?"
"I was wondering if you found everything in order there?"
"We did not notice anything wrong, did we, Caroline? Do you think thatthe--the person who committed that awful crime went _up-stairs_? Icouldn't sleep a wink if I thought so."
"Nor I," Caroline put in. "O, don't say that he went up-stairs, MissButterworth!"
"I do not know it," I rejoined.
"But you asked----"
"And I ask again. Wasn't there some little thing out of its usualplace? I was up in your front chamber after water for a minute, but Ididn't touch anything but the mug."
"We missed the mug, but--O Caroline, the pin-cushion! Do you supposeMiss Butterworth means the pin-cushion?"
I started. Did she refer to the one I had picked up from the floor andplaced on a side-table?
"What about the pin-cushion?" I asked.
"O nothing, but we did not know what to make of its being on the table.You see, we had a little pin-cushion shaped like a tomato which alwayshung at the side of our bureau. It was tied to one of the brackets andwas never taken off; Caroline having a fancy for it because it kept herfavorite black pins out of the reach of the neighbor's children whenthey came here. Well, this cushion, this sacred cushion which none of usdared touch, was found by us on a little table by the door, with theribbon hanging from it by which it had been tied to the bureau. Some onehad pulled it off, and very roughly too, for the ribbon was all raggedand torn. But there is nothing in a little thing like that to interestyou, is there, Miss Butterworth?"
"No," said I, not relating my part in the affair; "not if our neighbor'schildren were the marauders."
"But none of them came in for days before we left."
"Are there pins in the cushion?"
"When we found it, do you mean? No."
I did not remember seeing any, but one cannot always trust to one'smemory.
"But you had left pins in it?"
"Possibly, I don't remember. Why should I remember such a thing asthat?"
I thought to myself, "I would know whether I left pins on my pin-cushionor not," but every one is not as methodical as I am, more's the pity.
"Have you anywhere about you a pin like those you keep on that cushion?"I inquired of Caroline.
She felt at her belt and neck and shook her head.
"I may have upstairs," she replied.
"Then get me one." But before she could start, I pulled her back. "Dideither of you sleep in that room last night?"
"No, we were going to," answered Isabella, "but afterwards Caroline tooka freak to sleep in one of the rooms on the third floor. She said shewanted to get away from the parlors as far as possible."
"Then I should like a peep at the one overhead."
The wrenching of the pin-cushion from its place had given me an idea.
They looked at me wistfully as they turned to mount the stairs, but Idid not enlighten them further. What would an idea be worth shared bythem!
Their father undoubtedly lay in the back room, for they moved verysoftly around the head of the stairs, but once in front they let theirtongues run loose again. I, who cared nothing for their babble when itcontained no information, walked slowly about the room and finallystopped before the bed.
It had a fresh look, and I at once asked them if it had been lately madeup. They assured me that it had not, saying that they always kept theirbeds spread during their absence, as they did so hate to enter a roomdisfigured by bare mattresses.
I could have read them a lecture on the niceties of housekeeping, but Irefrained; instead of that I pointed to a little dent in the smoothsurface of the bed nearest the door.
"Did either of you two make that?" I asked.
They shook their heads in amazement.
"What is there in that?" began Caroline; but I motioned her to bring methe little cushion, which she no sooner did than I laid it in the littledent, which it fitted to a nicety.
"You wonderful old thing!" exclaimed Caroline. "How ever did youthink----"
But I stopped her enthusiasm with a look. I may be wonderful, but I amnot old, and it is time they knew it.
"Mr. _Gryce_ is _old_," said I; and lifting the cushion, I placed it ona perfectly smooth portion of the bed. "Now take it up," said I, when,lo! a second dent similar to the first.
"You see where that cushion has lain before being placed on the table,"I remarked, and reminding Caroline of the pin I wanted, I took my leaveand returned to my own house, leaving behind me two girls as much filledwith astonishment as the giddiness of their pates would allow.