"Where did you find that?" asked the major, with the first show of deep emotion I have ever observed in him.
My agitation was greater than his as I replied:
"In the rough boarding under those drawers. Some woman"s arm and hand has preceded mine in stealthy search after that fatal spring.
A woman who wore lace, valuable lace."
There was but one woman connected with this affair who rightly answered these conditions. The bride! Veronica Moore.
XXIII
WORDS IN THE NIGHT
Had I any premonition of the astounding fact thus suddenly and, I may say, dramatically revealed to us during the weeks I had devoted to the elucidation of the causes and circ.u.mstances of Mrs. Jeffrey"s death? I do not think so. Nothing in her face, as I remembered it; nothing in the feeling evinced toward her by husband or sister, had prepared me for a disclosure of crime so revolting as to surpa.s.s all that I had ever imagined or could imagine in a woman of such dainty personality and unmistakable culture. Nor was the superintendent or the district attorney less confounded by the event. Durbin only tried to look wise and strut about, but it was of no use; he deceived n.o.body. Veronica Moore"s real connection with Mr. Pfeiffer"s death,--a death which in some inscrutable way had in so short a time led to her own,--was an overwhelming surprise to every one of us.
The superintendent, as was natural, recovered first.
"This throws quite a new light upon the matter," said he. "Now we can understand why Mr. Jeffrey uttered that extraordinary avowal overheard on the bridge: "She must die!" She had come to him with blood on her hands."
It seemed incredible, nay more, unreal. I recalled the sweet refined face turned up to me from the bare boards of this same floor, the accounts I had read of the vivacity of her spirits and the wild charm of her manner till the shadow of this old house fell upon her.
I marveled, still feeling myself in the dark, still clinging to my faith in womankind, still asking to what depths her sister had followed her in the mazes of crime we were forced to recognize but could not understand.
Durbin had no such feelings and no such scruples, as was shown by the sarcastic comment which now left his lips.
"So!" he cried, "we have to do with three criminals instead of two.
Nice family, the Moore-Jeffreys!"
But no one paid any attention to him. Addressing the major, the district attorney asked when he expected to hear from Denver, adding that it had now become of the first importance to ascertain the exact relations existing between the persons under suspicion and the latest victim of this deadly mechanism.
The major"s answer was abrupt. He had been expecting a report for days. He was expecting one yet. If it came in at any time, night or day, he was to be immediately notified. Word might be sent him in an hour, in a minute.
Were his remarks a prophecy? He had hardly ceased speaking when an officer appeared with a telegram in his hand. This the major eagerly took and, noting that it was in cipher, read it by means of the code he carried in his pocket. Translated, it ran thus:
Result of open inquiry in Denver.
Three brothers Pfeiffer; all well thought of, but plain in their ways and eccentric. One doing business in Denver. Died June, "97. One perished in Klondike, October, same year; and one, by name Wallace, died suddenly three months since in Washington.
Nothing further gained by secret inquiry in this place.
Result of open inquiry in Owosso.
A man named Pfeiffer kept a store in Owosso during the time V. M.
attended school there. He was one of three brothers, home Denver, name Wallace. Simultaneously with V. M."s leaving school, P.
broke up business and at instigation of his brother William, who accompanied him, went to the Klondike. No especial relation between lady and this same P. ever noted. V. M. once heard to laugh at his awkward ways.
Result of secret inquiry in Owosso.
V. M. very intimate with schoolmate who has since died. Often rode together; once gone a long time. This was just before V. M. left school for good. Date same as that on which a marriage occurred in a town twenty miles distant. Bride, Antoinette Moore; groom, W.
Pfeiffer of Denver; witness, young girl with red hair. Schoolmate had red hair. Had V. M. a middle initial, and was that initial A?
We all looked at each other; this last question was one none of us could answer.
"Go for Mr. Jeffrey at once," ordered the major, "and let another one of you bring Miss Tuttle. No word to either of what has occurred and no hint of their possible meeting here."
It fell to me to fetch Miss Tuttle. I was glad of this, as it gave me a few minutes by myself in which to compose my mind and adjust my thoughts to the new conditions opened up by the amazing facts which had just come to light. But beyond the fact that Mrs. Jeffrey had been answerable for the death which had occurred in the library at the time of her marriage--that, in the words of the district attorney, she had come to her husband with blood on her hands, my thoughts would not go; confusion followed the least attempt to settle the vital question of how far Miss Tuttle and Mr. Jeffrey had been involved in the earlier crime and what the coming interview with these two would add to our present knowledge. In my anxiety to have this question answered I hastened my steps and was soon at the door of Miss Tuttle"s present dwelling place.
I had not seen this lady since the inquest, and my heart beat high as I sat awaiting her appearance in the dim little parlor where I had been seated by the person who held her under secret surveillance.
The scene I had just been through, the uncertain nature of the relations held by this beautiful woman both toward the crime just discovered and the one long a.s.sociated with her name, lent to these few moments of antic.i.p.ation an emotion which poorly prepared me for the touching sight of the patient smile with which she presently entered.
But I doubt if she noticed my agitation. She was too much swayed by her own. Advancing upon me in all the unconscious pride of her great beauty, she tremulously remarked:
"You have a message for me. Is it from headquarters? Or has the district attorney still more questions to ask?"
"I have a much more trying errand than that," I hastened to say, with some idea of preparing her for an experience that could not fail to be one of exceptional trial. "For reasons which will be explained to you by those in greater authority than myself, you are wanted at the house where--" I could not help stammering under the light of her melancholy eyes--"where I saw you once before," I lamely concluded.
"The house in Waverley Avenue?" she objected wildly, with the first signs of positive terror I had ever beheld in her.
I nodded, dropping my eyes. What call had I to penetrate the conscience of this woman?
"Are they there? all there?" she presently asked again. "The police and--and Mr. Jeffrey?"
"Madam," I respectfully protested, "my duty is limited to conducting you to the place named. A carriage is waiting. May I beg that you will prepare yourself to go at once to Waverley Avenue?"
For answer she subjected me to a long and earnest look which I found it impossible to evade. Then she hastened from the room, but with very unsteady steps. Evidently the courage which had upborne her so long was beginning to fail. Her very countenance was changed. Had she recognized, as I meant she should, that the secret of the Moore house was no longer a secret confined to her own breast and to that of her unhappy brother-in-law?
When she returned ready for her ride this change in her spirits was less observable, and by the time we had reached the house in Waverley Avenue she had so far regained her old courage as to move and speak with the calmness of despair if not of mental serenity.
The major was awaiting us at the door and bowed gravely before her heavily veiled figure.
"Miss Tuttle," he asked, without any preamble, the moment she was well inside the house, "may I inquire of you here, and before I show you what will excuse us for subjecting you to the distress of entering these doors, whether your sister, Mrs. Jeffrey, had any other name or was ever known by any other name than that of Veronica?"
"She was christened Antoinette, as well as Veronica; but the person in whose memory the former name was given her was no honor to the family and she very soon dropped it and was only known as Veronica.
Oh, what have I done?" she cried, awed and frightened by the silence which followed the utterance of these simple words.
No one answered her. For the first time in her presence, the minds of those who faced her were with another than herself. The bride!
the unhappy bride--no maiden but a wife! nay, a wife one minute, a widow the next, and then again a newly-wedded bride before the husband lying below was cold! What wander that she shrank when her new-made bridegroom"s lips approached her own! or that their honeymoon was a disappointment! Or that the shadow which fell upon her on that evil day never left her till she gave herself wholly up to its influence and returned to die on the spot made awful by her own crime.
Before any of us were quite ready to speak, a tap at the door told us that Durbin had arrived with Mr. Jeffrey. When they had been admitted and the latter saw Miss Tuttle standing there, he, too, seemed to realize that a turn had come in their affairs, and that courage rather than endurance was the quality most demanded from him. Facing the small group cl.u.s.tered in the dismal hall fraught with such unutterable a.s.sociations, he earnestly prayed:
"Do not keep me in suspense. Why am I summoned here?"
The reply was as grave as the occasion warranted.
"You are summoned to learn the murderous secret of these old walls, and who it was that last made use of it. Do you feel inclined to hear these details from my lips, or are you ready to state that you already know the means by which so many persons, in times past as well as in times present, have met death here? We do not require you to answer us."