What I had said and what the gentleman had said! What did the poor thing mean? As I did not dare to show my ignorance, I merely shook my head.
“Never mind what caused us to speak as we did, as long as we helped you. And we did help you? The police never found out what you had to do with this woman’s death, did they?”
“No, ma’am, O no, ma’am. When such a respectable lady as you said that you saw the young lady come into the house in the middle of the night, how was they to disbelieve it. They never asked me if I knew any different.”
“No,” said I, almost struck dumb by my success, but letting no hint of my complacency escape me. “And I did not mean they should. You are a decent woman, Mrs. Boppert, and should not be troubled.”
“Thank you, ma’am. But how did you know she had come to the house before I left. Did you see her?”
I hate a lie as I do poison, but I had to exercise all my Christian principles not to tell one then.
“No,” said I, “I didn’t see her, but I don’t always have to use my eyes to know what is going on in my neighbor’s houses.” Which is true enough, if it is somewhat humiliating to confess it.
“O ma’am, how smart you are, ma’am! I wish I had some smartness in me. But my husband had all that. He was a man—O what’s that?”
“Nothing but the tea-caddy; I knocked it over with my elbow.”
“How I do jump at everything! I’m afraid of my own shadow ever since I saw that poor thing lying under that heap of crockery.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“She must have pulled those things over herself, don’t you think so, ma’am? No one went in there to murder her. But how came she to have those clothes on. She was dressed quite different when I let her in. I say it’s all a muddle, ma’am, and it will be a smart man as can explain it.”
“Or a smart woman,” I thought.
“Did I do wrong, ma’am? That’s what plagues me. She begged so hard to come in, I didn’t know how to shut the door on her. Besides her name was Van Burnam, or so she told me.”
Here was a coil. Subduing my surprise, I remarked:
“If she asked you to let her in, I do not see how you could refuse her. Was it in the morning or late in the afternoon she came?”
“Don’t you know, ma’am? I thought you knew all about it from the way you talked.”
Had I been indiscreet? Could she not bear questioning? Eying her with some severity, I declared in a less familiar tone than any I had yet used:
“Nobody knows more about it than I do, but I do not know just the hour at which this lady came to the house. But I do not ask you to tell me if you do not want to.”
“O ma’am,” she humbly remonstrated, “I am sure I am willing to tell you everything. It was in the afternoon while I was doing the front basement floor.”
“And she came to the basement door?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And asked to be let in?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Young Mrs. Van Burnam?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Dressed in a black and white plaid silk, and wearing a hat covered with flowers?”
“Yes, ma’am, or something like that. I know it was very bright and becoming.”
“And why did she come to the basement door—a lady dressed like that?”
“Because she knew I couldn’t open the front door; that I hadn’t the key. O she talked beautiful, ma’am, and wasn’t proud with me a bit. She made me let her stay in the house, and when I said it would be dark after a while and that I hadn’t done nothing to the rooms upstairs, she laughed and said she didn’t care, that she wasn’t afraid of the dark and had just as lieve as not stay in the big house alone all night, for she had a book—Did you say anything, ma’am?”
“No, no, go on, she had a book.”
“Which she could read till she got sleepy. I never thought anything would happen to her.”
“Of course not, why should you? And so you let her into the house and left her there when you went out of it? Well, I don’t wonder you were shocked to see her lying dead on the floor next morning.”
“Awful, ma’am. I was afraid they would blame me for what had happened. But I didn’t do nothing to make her die. I only let her stay in the house. Do you think they will do anything to me if they know it?”
“No,” said I, trying to understand this woman’s ignorant fears, “they don’t punish such things. More’s the pity!”—this in confidence to myself. “How could you know that a piece of furniture would fall on her before morning. Did you lock her in when you left the house?”
“Yes, ma’am. She told me to.”
Then she was a prisoner.
Confounded by the mystery of the whole affair, I sat so still the woman looked up in wonder, and I saw I had better continue my questions.
“What reason did she give for wanting to stay in the house all night?”
“What reason, ma’am? I don’t know. Something about her having to be there when Mr. Van Burnam came home. I didn’t make it out, and I didn’t try to. I was too busy wondering what she would have to eat.”
“And what did she have?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. She said she had something, but I didn’t see it.”
“Perhaps you were blinded by the money she gave you. She gave you some, of course?”
“O, not much, ma’am, not much. And I wouldn’t have taken a cent if it had not seemed to make her so happy to give it. The pretty, pretty thing! A real lady, whatever they say about her!”
“And happy? You said she was happy, cheerful-looking, and pretty.”
“O yes, ma’am; she didn’t know what was going to happen. I even heard her sing after she went upstairs.”
I wished that my ears had been attending to their duty that day, and I might have heard her sing too. But the walls between my house and that of the Van Burnams are very thick, as I have had occasion to observe more than once.
“Then she went upstairs before you left?”
“To be sure, ma’am; what would she do in the kitchen?”
“And you didn’t see her again?”
“No, ma’am; but I heard her walking around.”
“In the parlors, you mean?”
“Yes, ma’am, in the parlors.”
“You did not go up yourself?”
“No, ma’am, I had enough to do below.”
“Didn’t you go up when you went away?”
“No, ma’am; I didn’t like to.”
“When did you go?”
“At five, ma’am; I always go at five.”
“How did you know it was five?”
“The kitchen clock told me; I wound it, ma’am and set it when the whistles blew at twelve.”
“Was that the only clock you wound?”
“Only clock? Do you think I’d be going around the house winding any others?”
Her face showed such surprise, and her eyes met mine so frankly, that I was convinced she spoke the truth. Gratified—I don’t know why—I bestowed upon her my first smile, which seemed to affect her, for her face softened, and she looked at me quite eagerly for a minute before she said:
“You don’t think so very bad of me, do you, ma’am?”
But I had been struck by a thought which made me for the moment oblivious to her question. She had wound the clock in the kitchen for her own uses, and why may not the lady above have wound the one in the parlor for hers? Filled with this startling idea, I remarked:
“The young lady wore a watch, of course?”
But the suggestion passed unheeded. Mrs. Boppert was as much absorbed in her own thoughts as I was.
“Did young Mrs. Van Burnam wear a watch?” I persisted.
Mrs. Boppert’s face remained a blank.
Provoked at her impassibility, I shook her with an angry hand, imperatively demanding:
“What are you thinking of? Why don’t you answer my questions?”
She was hers
elf again in an instant.
“O ma’am, I beg your pardon. I was wondering if you meant the parlor clock.”
I calmed myself, looked severe to hide my more than eager interest, and sharply cried:
“Of course I mean the parlor clock. Did you wind it?”
“O no, no, no, I would as soon think of touching gold or silver. But the young lady did, I’m sure, ma’am, for I heard it strike when she was setting of it.”
Ah! If my nature had not been an undemonstrative one, and if I had not been bred to a strong sense of social distinctions, I might have betrayed my satisfaction at this announcement in a way that would have made this homely German woman start. As it was I sat stock-still, and even made her think I had not heard her. Venturing to rouse me a bit, she spoke again after a minute’s silence.
“She might have been lonely, you know, ma’am; and the ticking of a clock is such company.”
“Yes,” I answered with more than my accustomed vivacity, for she jumped as if I had struck her. “You have hit the nail on the head, Mrs. Boppert, and are a much smarter woman than I thought. But when did she wind the clock?”
“At five o’clock, ma’am; just before I left the house.”
“O, and did she know you were going?”
“I think so, ma’am, for I called up, just before I put on my bonnet, that it was five o’clock and that I was going.”
“O, you did. And did she answer back?”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard her step in the hall and then her voice. She asked if I was sure it was five, and I told her yes, because I had set the kitchen clock at twelve. She didn’t say any more, but just after that I heard the parlor clock begin to strike.”
O, thought I, what cannot be got out of the most stupid and unwilling witness by patience and a judicious use of questions. To know that this clock was started after five o’clock, that is, after the hour at which the hands pointed when it fell, and that it was set correctly in starting, and so would give indisputable testimony of the hour when the shelves fell, were points of the greatest importance. I was so pleased I gave the woman another smile.
Instantly she cried:
“But you won’t say anything about it, will you, ma’am? They might make me pay for all the things that were broke.”
My smile this time was not one of encouragement simply. But it might have been anything for all effect it had on her. The intricacies of the affair had disturbed her poor brain again, and all her powers of mind were given up to lament.
“O,” she bemoaned, “I wish I had never seen her! My head wouldn’t ache so with the muddle of it. Why, ma’am, her husband said he came to the house at midnight with his wife! How could he when she was inside of it all the time. But then perhaps he said that, just as you did, to save me blame. But why should a gentleman like him do that?”
“It isn’t worth while for you to bother your head about it,” I expostulated. “It is enough that my head aches over it.”
I don’t suppose she understood me or tried to. Her wits had been sorely tried and my rather severe questioning had not tended to clear them. At all events she went on in another moment as if I had not spoken:
“But what became of her pretty dress? I was never so astonished in my life as when I saw that dark skirt on her.”
“She might have left her fine gown upstairs,” I ventured, not wishing to go into the niceties of evidence with this woman.
“So she might, so she might, and that may have been her petticoat we saw.” But in another moment she saw the impossibility of this, for she added: “But I saw her petticoat, and it was a brown silk one. She showed it when she lifted her skirt to get at her purse. I don’t understand it, ma’am.”
As her face by this time was almost purple, I thought it a mercy to close the interview; so I uttered some few words of a soothing and encouraging nature, and then seeing that something more tangible was necessary to restore her to any proper condition of spirits, I took out my pocket-book and bestowed on her some of my loose silver.
This was something she could understand. She brightened immediately, and before she was well through her expressions of delight, I had quitted the room and in a few minutes later the shop.
I hope the two women had their cup of tea after that.
CHAPTER XX
MISS BUTTERWORTH’S THEORY
I was so excited when I entered my carriage that I rode all the way home with my bonnet askew and never knew it. When I reached my room and saw myself in the glass, I was shocked, and stole a glance at Lena, who was setting out my little tea-table, to see if she noticed what a ridiculous figure I cut. But she is discretion itself, and for a girl with two undeniable dimples in her cheeks, smiles seldom—at least when I am looking at her. She was not smiling now, and though, for the reason given above, this was not as comforting as it may appear, I chose not to worry myself any longer about such a trifle when I had matters of so much importance on my mind.
Taking off my bonnet, whose rakish appearance had given me such a shock, I sat down, and for half an hour neither moved nor spoke. I was thinking. A theory which had faintly suggested itself to me at the inquest was taking on body with these later developments. Two hats had been found on the scene of the tragedy, and two pairs of gloves, and now I had learned that there had been two women there, the one whom Mrs. Boppert had locked into the house on leaving it, and the one whom I had seen enter at midnight with Mr. Van Burnam. Which of the two had perished? We had been led to think, and Mr. Van Burnam had himself acknowledged, that it was his wife; but his wife had been dressed quite differently from the murdered woman, and was, as I soon began to see, much more likely to have been the assassin than the victim. Would you like to know my reasons for this extraordinary statement? If so, they are these:
I had always seen a woman’s hand in this work, but having no reason to believe in the presence of any other woman on the scene of crime than the victim, I had put this suspicion aside as untenable. But now that I had found the second woman, I returned to it.
But how connect her with the murder? It seemed easy enough to do so if this other woman was her rival. We have heard of no rival, but she may have known of one, and this knowledge may have been at the bottom of her disagreement with her husband and the half-crazy determination she evinced to win his family over to her side. Let us say, then, that the second woman was Mrs. Van Burnam’s rival. That he brought her there not knowing that his wife had effected an entrance into the house; brought her there after an afternoon spent at the Hotel D——, during which he had furnished her with a new outfit of less pronounced type, perhaps, than that she had previously worn. The use of the two carriages and the care they took to throw suspicion off their track, may have been part of a scheme of future elopement, for I had no idea they meant to remain in Mr. Van Burnam’s house. For what purpose, then, did they go there? To meet Mrs. Van Burnam and kill her, that their way might be clearer for flight? No; I had rather think that they went to the house without a thought of whom they would encounter, and that only after they had entered the parlors did he realize that the two women he least wished to see together had been brought by his folly face to face.
The presence in the third room of Mrs. Van Burnam’s hat, gloves, and novel seemed to argue that she had spent the evening in reading by the dining-room table, but whether this was so or not, the stopping of a carriage in front and the opening of the door by an accustomed hand undoubtedly assured her that either the old gentleman or some other member of the family had unexpectedly arrived. She was, therefore, in or near the parlor-door when they entered, and the shock of meeting her hated rival in company with her husband, under the very roof where she had hoped to lay the foundations of her future happiness, must have been great, if not maddening. Accusations, recriminations even, did not satisfy her. She wanted to kill; but she had no weapon. Suddenly her eyes fell on the hat-pin which her more self-possessed rival had drawn from her hat, possibly before their encounter, and she conceived a plan whi
ch seemed to promise her the very revenge she sought. How she carried it out; by what means she was enabled to approach her victim and inflict with such certainty the fatal stab which laid her enemy at her feet, can be left to the imagination. But that she, a woman, and not Howard, a man, drove this woman’s weapon into the stranger’s spine, I will yet prove, or lose all faith in my own intuitions.
But if this theory is true, how about the shelves that fell at daybreak, and how about her escape from the house without detection? A little thought will explain all that. The man, horrified, no doubt, at the result of his imprudence, and execrating the crime to which it had led, left the house almost immediately. But the woman remained there, possibly because she had fainted, possibly because he would have nothing to do with her; and coming to herself, saw her victim’s face staring up at her with an accusing beauty she found it impossible to meet. What should she do to escape it? Where should she go? She hated it so she could have trampled on it, but she restrained her passions till daybreak, when in one wild burst of fury and hatred she drew down the cabinet upon it, and then fled the scene of horror she had herself caused. This was at five, or, to be exact, three minutes before that hour, as shown by the clock she had carelessly set in her lighter moments.
She escaped by the front door, which her husband had mercifully forborne to lock; and she had not been discovered by the police, because her appearance did not tally with the description which had been given them. How did I know this? Remember the discoveries I had made in Miss Van Burnam’s room, and allow them to assist you in understanding my conclusions.
Some one had gone into that room; someone who wanted pins; and keeping this fact before my eyes, I saw through the motive and actions of the escaping woman. She had on a dress separated at the waist, and finding, perhaps, a spot of blood on the skirt, she conceived the plan of covering it with her petticoat, which was also of silk and undoubtedly as well made as many women’s dresses. But the skirt of the gown was longer than the petticoat and she was obliged to pin it up. Having no pins herself, and finding none on the parlor floor, she went upstairs to get some. The door at the head of the stairs was locked, but the front room was open, so she entered there. Groping her way to the bureau, for the place was very dark, she found a pin-cushion hanging from a bracket. Feeling it to be full of pins, and knowing that she could see nothing where she was, she tore it away and carried it towards the door. Here there was some light from the skylight over the stairs, so setting the cushion down on the bed, she pinned up the skirt of her gown.
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 16