III
I had the very slightest acquaintance with the basement of the Bentonhouse. I knew it was dry and orderly, and with that my interest in itceased. It was not cemented, but its hard clay floor was almost as solidas macadam. In one end was built a high potato-bin. In another cornertwo or three old pews from the church, evidently long discarded andshowing weather-stains, as though they had once served as gardenbenches, were up-ended against the whitewashed wall. The fruit-closet,built in of lumber, occupied one entire end, and was virtually a room,with a door and no windows.
Maggie had, she said, found it locked and had had an itinerant locksmithfit a key to it.
"It's all scrubbed and ready," she said. "I found that preservedmelon-rind you had for lunch in a corner. 'Twouldn't of kept muchlonger, so I took it up and opened it. She's probably got all sorts ofstuff spoiling in the locked part. Some folks're like that."
Most of the shelves were open, but now, holding the lamp high, I sawthat a closet with a door occupied one end. The door was padlocked. Atthe time I was interested, but I was, as I remember, much more occupiedwith Maggie's sense of meum and tuum, which I considered deficient, andof a small lecture on other people's melon rinds, which I delivered asshe sullenly put away the jelly.
But that night, after I had gone to bed, the memory of that padlockbecame strangely insistent. There was nothing psychic about the feelingI had. It was perfectly obvious and simple. The house held, or had held,a secret. Yet it was, above stairs, as open as the day. There was nocorner into which I might not peer, except--Why was that portion of thefruit-closet locked?
At two o'clock, finding myself unable to sleep, I got up and put on mydressing-gown and slippers. I had refused to repeat the experimentof being locked in. Then, with a candle and a box of matches, I wentdownstairs. I had, as I have said, no longer any terror of the lowerfloor. The cat lay as usual on the table in the back hall. I saw hiseyes watching me with their curious unblinking stare, as intelligent astwo brass buttons. He rose as my light approached, and I made a bed forhim of a cushion from a chair, failing my Paisley shawl.
It was after that that I had the curious sense of being led. It wasas though I knew that something awaited my discovery, and that my solevolition was whether I should make that discovery or not. It was there,waiting.
I have no explanation for this. And it is quite possible that I mighthave had it, to find at the end nothing more significant than root-beer,for instance, or bulbs for the winter garden.
And indeed, at first sight, what awaited me in the locked closetamounted to anti-climax. For when I had broken the rusty padlock openwith a hatchet, and had opened doors with nervous fingers, nothing morestartling appeared than a number of books. The shelves were piled highwith them, a motley crew of all colors, but dark shades predominating.
I went back to bed, sheepishly enough, and wrapped my chilled feet in anextra blanket. Maggie came to the door about the time I was dozing offand said she had heard hammering downstairs in the cellar some time ago,but she had refused to waken me until the burglars had gone.
"If it was burglars," she added, "you're that up-and-ready, Miss Agnes,that I knew if I waked you you'd be downstairs after them. What's a bitof silver to a human life?"
I got her away at last, and she went, muttering something about diggingup the cellar floor and finding an uneasy spirit. Then I fell asleep.
I had taken cold that night, and the following morning I spent in bed.At noon Maggie came upstairs, holding at arm's length a book. She kepther face averted, and gave me a slanting and outraged glance.
"This is a nice place we've come to," she said, acidly. "Murder in thetelephone and anti-Christ in the fruit cellar!"
"Why, Maggie," I expostulated.
"If these books stay, I go, and that's flat, Miss Agnes," was her ipsedixit. She dropped the book on the bed and stalked out, pausing at thedoor only to throw back, "If this is a clergyman's house, I guess I'd bebetter out of the church."
I took up the book. It was well-worn, and in the front, in a heavymasculine hand, the owner had written his name--written it large, a bitdefiantly, perhaps. It had taken both courage and conviction to bringsuch a book into that devout household.
I am not quick, mentally, especially when it comes to logical thought. Idaresay I am intuitive rather than logical. It was not by any processof reasoning at all, I fancy, that it suddenly seemed strange that thereshould be books locked away in the cellar. Yet it was strange. For thathad been a bookish household. Books were its stock in trade, one maysay. Such as I had borrowed from the library had been carefullytended. Torn leaves were neatly repaired. The reference books werealphabetically arranged. And, looking back on my visit to the cellar, Irecalled now as inconsistent the disorder of those basement shelves.
I did not reach the truth until, that afternoon, I made a second visitto the cellar. Mrs. Graves had been mistaken. If not all Carlo Benton'sproscribed books were hidden there, at least a large portion of hislibrary was piled, in something like confusion, on the shelves. Yet shemaintained that they had searched the house, and she herself had beenpresent when the books were packed and taken away to the river.
That afternoon I returned Mrs. Graves's visit. She was at home, and in asort of flurried neatness that convinced me she had seen me from far upthe road. That conviction was increased by the amazing promptness withwhich a tea-tray followed my entrance. I had given her tea the day shecame to see me, and she was not to be outdone. Indeed, I somehow gainedthe impression that tray and teapot, and even little cakes, had beenwaiting, day by day, for my anticipated visit.
It was not hard to set her talking of Carlo Benton and his wickedness.She rose to the bait like a hungry fish. Yet I gathered that, beyond hisreligious views or lack of them, she knew nothing. But on the matter ofthe books she was firm.
"After the box was ready," she said, "we went to every room and searchedit. Miss Emily was set on clearing out every trace. At the last minuteI found one called 'The Fallacy of Christianity' slipped down behind thedresser in his room, and we put that in."
It was "The Fallacy of Christianity" that Maggie had brought me thatmorning.
"It is a most interesting story," I observed. "What delicious tea, Mrs.Graves! And then you fastened up the box and saw it thrown into theriver. It was quite a ceremony."
"My dear," Mrs. Graves said solemnly, "it was not a ceremony. It was arite--a significant rite."
How can I reconcile the thoughts I had that afternoon with my latervisit to Miss Emily? The little upper room in the village, dominatedand almost filled by an old-fashioned bed, and Miss Emily, frail anddelicate and beautifully neat, propped with pillows and holding a finehandkerchief, as fresh as the flutings of her small cap, in her hand.On a small stand beside the bed were her Bible, her spectacles, and herquaint old-fashioned gold watch.
And Miss Emily herself? She was altered, shockingly altered. A certaintenseness had gone, a tenseness that had seemed to uphold her frail bodyand carry her about. Only her eyes seemed greatly alive, and before Ileft they, too, had ceased their searching of mine and looked weary andold.
And, at the end of my short visit, I had reluctantly reached thisconclusion: either Miss Emily had done the thing she confessed to doing,incredible as it might appear, or she thought she had done it; and thething was killing her.
She knew I had found the confession. I knew that. It was written largeover her. What she had expected me to do God only knows. To stand up anddenounce her? To summon the law? I do not know.
She said an extraordinary thing, when at last I rose to go. I believenow that it was to give me my chance to speak. Probably she found thesuspense intolerable. But I could not do it. I was too surprised, tooperplexed, too--well, afraid of hurting her. I had the feeling, I know,that I must protect her. And that feeling never left me until the end.
"I think you must know, my dear," she said, from her pillows, "that Ihave your Paisley shawl."
I was breathless. "I thought that, perhap
s"--I stumbled.
"It was raining that night," she said in her soft, delicate voice. "Ihave had it dried and pressed. It is not hurt. I thought you would notmind," she concluded.
"It does not matter at all--not in the least," I said unhappily.
I am quite sure now that she meant me to speak then. I can recall theway she fixed her eyes on me, serene and expectant. She was waiting. Butto save my life I could not. And she did not. Had she gone as far as shehad the strength to go? Or was this again one of those curious pacts ofhers--if I spoke or was silent, it was to be?
I do not know.
I do know that we were both silent and that at last, with a quickbreath, she reached out and thumped on the floor with a cane that stoodbeside the bed until a girl came running up from below stairs.
"Get the shawl,