Fanny, dear," said Miss Emily, "and wrap it up for MissBlakiston."
I wanted desperately, while the girl left the room to obey, to saysomething helpful, something reassuring. But I could not. My voicefailed me. And Miss Emily did not give me another opportunity. Shethanked me rather formally for the flowers I had brought from hergarden, and let me go at last with the parcel under my arm, withoutfurther reference to it. The situation was incredible.
Somehow I had the feeling that Miss Emily would never reopen the subjectagain. She had given me my chance, at who knows what cost, and I had nottaken it. There had been something in her good-by--I can not find wordsfor it, but it was perhaps a finality, an effect of a closed door--thatI felt without being able to analyze.
I walked back to the house, refusing the offices of Mr. Staley, who metme on the road. I needed to think. But thinking took me nowhere. Onlyone conclusion stood out as a result of a mile and a half of mentalstruggle. Something must be done. Miss Emily ought to be helped. She wasunder a strain that was killing her.
But to help I should know the facts. Only, were there any facts to know?Suppose--just by way of argument, for I did not believe it--that theconfession was true; how could I find out anything about it? Five yearswas a long time. I could not go to the neighbors. They were none toofriendly as it was. Besides, the secret, if there was one, was not mine,but was Miss Emily's.
I reached home at last, and smuggled the shawl into the house. I had nointention of explaining its return to Maggie. Yet, small as it was inits way, it offered a problem at once. For Maggie has a penetrating eyeand an inquiring nature. I finally decided to take the bull by the hornsand hang it in its accustomed place in the hall, where Maggie, findingit at nine o'clock that evening, set up such a series of shrieks andexclamations as surpassed even her own record.
I knitted that evening. It has been my custom for years to knitbedroom-slippers for an old ladies' home in which I am interested.Because I can work at them with my eyes shut, through long practise,I find the work soothing. So that evening I knitted at ElizaKlinordlinger's fifth annual right slipper, and tried to develop acourse of action.
I began with a major premise--to regard the confession as a real one,until it was proved otherwise. Granted, then, that my little old MissEmily had killed a woman.
1st--Who was the woman?
2nd--Where is the body?
3rd--What was the reason for the crime?
Question two I had a tentative answer for. However horrible andincredible it seemed, it was at least possible that Miss Emily hadsubstituted the body for the books, and that what Mrs. Graves describedas a rite had indeed been one. But that brought up a picture I could notface. And yet--
I called up the local physician, a Doctor Lingard, that night and askedhim about Miss Emily's condition. He was quite frank with me.
"It's just a breaking up," he said. "It has come early, because she hashad a trying life, and more responsibility than she should have had."
"I have been wondering if a change of scene would not be a good thing,"I suggested. But he was almost scornful.
"Change!" he said. "I've been after her to get away for years. She won'tleave. I don't believe she has been twelve miles away in thirty years."
"I suppose her brother was a great care," I observed.
It seemed to me that the doctor's hearty voice was a trifle less frankwhen he replied. But when I rang off I told myself that I, too, wasbecoming neurasthenic and suspicious. I had, however, learned what I hadwanted to know. Miss Emily had had no life outside Bolivar County. Theplace to look for her story was here, in the immediate vicinity.
That night I made a second visit to the basement. It seemed to me, withthose chaotic shelves before me, that something of the haste and terrorof a night five years before came back to me, a night when, confrontedby the necessity for concealing a crime, the box upstairs had beenhurriedly unpacked, its contents hidden here and locked away, and someother content, inert and heavy, had taken the place of the books.
Miss Emily in her high bed, her Bible and spectacles on the stand besideher, her starched pillows, her soft and highbred voice? Or anotherMiss Emily, panting and terror-stricken, carrying down her armfuls offorbidden books, her slight figure bent under their weight, her earsopen for sounds from the silent house? Or that third Miss Emily, MartinSprague's, a strange wild creature, neither sane nor insane, building acrime out of the fabric of a nightmare? Which was the real Emily Benton?
Or was there another contingency that I had not thought of? Had somesecret enemy of Miss Emily's, some hysterical girl from the parish,suffering under a fancied slight, or some dismissed and revengefulservant, taken this strange method of retaliation, done it and thenwarned the little old lady that her house contained such a paper? Iconfess that this last thought took hold on me. It offered a way outthat I clutched at.
I had an almost frantic feeling by that time that I must know thetruth. Suspense was weighing on me. And Maggie, never slow to voicean unpleasant truth, said that night, as she brought the carafe ofice-water to the library, "You're going off the last few days, MissAgnes." And when I made no reply: "You're sagging around the chin.There's nothing shows age like the chin. If you'd rub a littlelemon-juice on at night you'd tighten up some."
I ignored her elaborately, but I knew she was right. Heat and sleeplessnights and those early days of fear had told on me. And although Iusually disregard Maggie's cosmetic suggestions, culled from the beautycolumns of the evening paper, a look in the mirror decided me. I wentdownstairs for the lemon. At least, I thought it was for the lemon. Iam not sure. I have come to be uncertain of my motives. It is distinctlypossible that, sub-consciously, I was making for the cellar all thetime. I only know that I landed there, with a lemon in my hand, atsomething after eleven o'clock.
The books were piled in disorder on the shelves. Their five years ofburial had not hurt them beyond a slight dampness of the leaves. Nohand, I believe, had touched them since they were taken from the boxwhere Mrs. Graves had helped to pack them. Then, if I were shrewd, Ishould perhaps gather something from their very disorder, But, as amatter of fact, I did not.
I would, quite certainly, have gone away as I came, clueless, had I notattempted to straighten a pile of books, dangerously sagging--like mychin!--and threatening a fall. My effort was rewarded by a veritableNiagara of books. They poured over the edge, a few first, then more,until I stood, it seemed, knee-deep in a raging sea of atheism.
Somewhat grimly I set to work to repair the damage, and one by one Ipicked them up and restored them. I put them in methodically this time,glancing at each title to place the volume upright. Suddenly, out ofthe darkness of unbelief, a title caught my eye and held it, "TheHandwriting of God." I knew the book. It had fallen into bad company,but its theology was unimpeachable. It did not belong. It--
I opened it. The Reverend Samuel Thaddeus had written his own name init, in the cramped hand I had grown to know. Evidently its presencethere was accidental. I turned it over in my hands, and saw that it wasclosed down on something, on several things, indeed. They proved to be asmall black note-book, a pair of spectacles, a woman's handkerchief.
I stood there looking at them. They might mean nothing but theaccidental closing of a book, which was mistakenly placed in badcompany, perhaps by Mrs. Graves. I was inclined to doubt her knowledgeof religious literature. Or they might mean something more, something Ihad feared to find.
Armed with the volume, and the lemon forgotten--where the cook found itthe next day and made much of the mystery--I went upstairs again.
Viewed in a strong light, the three articles took on real significance.The spectacles I fancied were Miss Emily's. They were, to allappearances, the duplicates of those on her tidy bedside stand. But thehandkerchief was not hers. Even without the scent, which had left it,but clung obstinately to the pages of the book, I knew it was not hers.It was florid, embroidered, and cheap. And held close to the light, Imade out a laundry-mark in ink on the border. The name was either
Wrightor Knight.
The note-book was an old one, and covered a period of almost twentyyears. It contained dates and cash entries. The entries were nearly allin the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus's hand, but after the date of his deaththey had been continued in Miss Emily's writing. They varied little,save that the amounts gradually increased toward the end, and the dateswere further apart. Thus, in 1898 there were six entries, aggregatingfive hundred dollars. In 1902-1903 there were no entries at all, butin 1904 there was a single memorandum of a thousand dollars. The entireamount must have been close to twenty-five thousand dollars. There wasnothing to show whether it was money saved or money spent, money paidout or come in.
But across the years 1902 and 1903, the Reverend Thaddeus had writtendiagonally the word "Australia." There was a certain amount ofenlightenment there. Carlo Benton had been in Australia