“Let us go back and listen again at her door,” was Mr. Ransom’s emphatic but inconsequent reply.
The lawyer desisted from further advice, but sighed as he followed his new client into the hall. At the turn of the staircase they were stopped by the sound of wrangling voices in the office below. Mr. Harper heard his name mentioned and hastened to interfere. Assuring Mr. Ransom of his speedy return, he stepped downstairs, and in a few minutes reappeared with a middle-aged man of characteristic appearance, whom he introduced to Mr. Ransom as Mr. Goodenough. The sight of the uncouth head of their youthful acquaintance of the morning peering up after him from the foot of the stairs was warranty sufficient that this was the man who had met the strange young lady on the highway early that morning.
At sight of him Mr. Ransom felt that inner recoil which we all experience at the prospect of an immediate and definite termination of a long brooding doubt. In another instant and with one word this uncultured and hitherto unknown man would settle for him the greatest question of his life. And he did not feel prepared for it. He had an impulse almost of flight, as if in this way he could escape a certainty he feared. What certainty? Perhaps he could not have answered had he been asked. His mind was in a turmoil. He had feelings—instincts; that was all.
The lawyer, noting his condition, undertook the leadership of affairs. Beckoning Mr. Goodenough into Mr. Ransom’s room, he softly closed the door upon the many inquiring ears about, and, assuming the manner most likely to encourage the unsophisticated but straightforward looking man with whom he had to deal, quietly observed:
“We hear that you met this morning a young girl going towards the Ferry. There is great reason why we should know just how this young girl looks. A lady disappeared from here last night, and though, from a letter she left behind her, we have every reason to believe that her body is somewhere in the river, yet we don’t want to overlook the possibility of her having escaped alive in another direction. Can you describe the person you saw?”
“Wa’al, I’m not much good at talk,” was the embarrassed, almost halting reply. “I saw the gal and I remember just how she looked, but I couldn’t put it into words to save my soul. She was pretty and chipper and walked along as if she was part of the mornin’; but that don’t tell you much, does it? Yet I don’t know what else to say. P’raps you could help me by asking questions.”
“We’ll see. Was she light-complexioned? Yellow hair, you know, and blue eyes?”
“No; I don’t think she was. Not what I call light. My Sal’s light; this gal wasn’t like my Sal.”
“Dark, then, very dark, with a gipsy color and snapping black eyes?”
“No, not that either. What I should call betweens. But more dark than light.”
Harper flashed a glance at Ransom before putting his next question.
“What did she have on her head?”
“Bless me if I can tell! It wasn’t a sun-bonnet, nor was it slapped all over with ribbons and flowers like my darter’s.”
“But she had some sort of hat on?”
“Sartain. Did you think she was just running to the neighbors?”
“But she wore no coat?”
“I don’t remember any coat.”
“Do you remember her frock?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Don’t you remember its color?”
“No.”
“Wasn’t it black? the skirt of it, at least?”
“Black? Wa’al, I guess not. A gal of her age in black! No, she was as bright as the flowers in my wife’s garden. Not a black thing on her. I should sooner think her clothes were red than black.”
Harper showed his surprise.
“Not a black skirt?” he persisted.
“No, sir’ee. I haven’t much eye for fixin’s but I’ve eye enough to know when a gal’s dressed like a gal and not like some old woman.”
Harper’s eye stole again towards Ransom.
“Checkmate in four moves,” he muttered. “The person we are interested in could have worn no such clothing as Mr. Goodenough describes. Yet clothing can be changed. How, I cannot see in this instance; but I will risk no mistake. The trail we followed led too surely in the direction of the highway for us to drop all inquiries because of a colored skirt and a hat we cannot quite account for. If the face is one we know (and I really believe it was), we can leave the other discrepancies to future explanation.” And turning back to the patient countryman, he composedly remarked: “You are positive in your recollections of the young lady’s features. You would have no difficulty in recognizing her if you saw her again?”
“Not a bit. Once I get a picter in my mind of a man or a woman I see it always. And I can see her as plain as plain the moment I stop to think. She was pretty, you see, and just a little scared to speak to a stranger. But that went as she saw my face, and she asked me very perlite if she was on the right road to the Ferry.”
“And you told her she was?”
“Sartain; and how much time she had to get there to catch the boat.”
“I see. So you would know her again if you saw her.”
“I jest would.”
The lawyer made a move towards the door which Mr. Ransom hastened to open. As the long vista of the hall disclosed itself, Mr. Harper turned upon the countryman with the quiet remark:
“There were two ladies here, you know. Twins. Their likeness was remarkable. If we show you the remaining one who now lies asleep, you surely will be able to tell if she is like the lady you saw.”
“If she looks just like her you can bet beans against potatoes on that.”
“Come, then. You needn’t feel any embarrassment, for she’s not only sound asleep but so deaf she couldn’t hear you if she were awake. You need only take one glance and nod your head if she looks like the other. It is very desirable that none of us should speak. The case is a mysterious one and there’s enough talk about it already without the women hiding and listening behind every shut door you see, adding their gossip to the rest.”
A knowing look, a twitch at the corners of a good-natured mouth, and the man followed them down the hall, past one or two of the doors alluded to, till they reached the one against the panel of which Mr. Ransom had already laid his ear.
“Still asleep,” his gesture seemed to signify; and with a word of caution he led the way in.
The room was very dark. Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw down the shade when she put her strange charge to bed, and at this first moment of entrance it was impossible for them to see more than the outline of a dark head upon a snowy pillow. But gradually, feature by feature of the sleeping woman’s countenance became visible, and the lawyer, turning his acute gaze on the man from whose recognition he expected so much, impatiently awaited the nod which was to settle their doubt.
But that nod did not come, not even after Mr. Ransom, astonished at the long pause, turned on the stranger his own haggard and inquiring eyes. Instead, Mr. Goodenough lifted a blank stare to either face beside him, and, shaking his head, stumbled awkwardly back in an endeavor to leave the room. Mr. Ransom, taken wholly by surprise, uttered some peremptory ejaculation, but a glance from the lawyer quieted him, and not till they were all shut up again in that convenient room at the head of the stairs did any of the three speak.
And not even then without an embarrassed pause. Both the lawyer and his unhappy client had a deep and, in the case of the latter, a heartrending disappointment to overcome, and the clock on the stairs ticked out several seconds before the lawyer ventured to remark:
“Miss Hazen’s face is quite new to you, I perceive. Evidently it was not her twin sister you met on the high road this morning.”
“Nor anything like her,” protested the man. “A different face entirely; prettier and more saucy. Such a gal as a man like me would be glad to call darter.”
“Oh, I see!” assented the lawyer. Then with the instinctive caution of his class, “You have made no mistake?”
“Not a bit of a one,” emphasized th
e other. “Sorry I can’t give the gentleman any hope, but if the sisters look alike, it was not this woman’s twin I met. I’m ready to take my oath on that.”
“Very well. One catches at straws in a stress like this. Here’s a fiver to pay for your trouble, and another for the lad who brought you here. Good day. We had no sound reason for expecting any different result from our experiment.”
The man bowed awkwardly and went out. Mr. Harper brought down his fist heavily on the table, and after a short interval of silence, during which he studiously avoided meeting his companion’s eye, he remarked:
“I am as much taken aback as yourself. For all he had to say about her gay clothing, I expected a different result. The girl on the highway was neither Mrs. Ransom nor her sister. We have made a confounded mistake and Mrs. Ransom—”
“Don’t say it. I’m going back to the room where that woman lies sleeping. I cannot yet believe that my heart is not shut up within its walls. I’m going to watch for her eyes to open. Their expression will tell me what I want to know—the look one gives before full realization comes and the soul is bare without any thought of subterfuge.”
“Very well. I should probably do the same if I were you. Only your insight may be affected by prejudice. You will excuse me if I join you in this watch. The experiment is of too important a character for its results to depend upon the correct seeing of one pair of eyes.”
CHAPTER XVI
“LOVE!”
She lay in the abandonment of profound slumber, one hand under her cheek, the other hidden by the white spread Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw closely about her. Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Ransom regretted this fact, for each instinctively felt that in her hands, if not in her sleeping face, they should be able to read the story of her life. If that life had been a hard one, such as must have befallen the waif, Anitra, her hands should show it.
But her hands were covered. And so, or nearly so, was her face; the latter by her long and curling locks of whose beauty I have hitherto spoken. One cheek only was visible, and this cheek looked dark to Ransom, decidedly darker than Georgian’s; but realizing that the room itself was dark, he forbore to draw the attention of the lawyer to it, or even to allow it to affect his own judgment to the extent it reasonably called for.
His first scrutiny over, Mr. Harper crossed over to his old seat against the wall. Mr. Ransom remained by the bed. And thus began their watch.
It was a long and solemn one; a tedious waiting. The gloom and quiet of the small room was so profound that both men, for all their suspense and absorption in the event they awaited, welcomed the sound of a passing whisper or the careful stepping of feet in the corridor without.
If they turned to look they could just catch the outline of each other’s countenance, but this they did not often attempt. Their attention was held by the silent figure on the bed, and so motionless was this figure in the profound slumber in which it lay enchained, and so motionless were they in their increasing suspense and expectation, that time seemed to have come to a standstill in this little room. There was one break. The lips which had hitherto remained mute opened in a quiet murmur, and Mr. Harper, watching his client, saw him clutch the headboard in sudden emotion before he finally rose and, with looks still fixed on the bed, approached him with the startling announcement:
“The word she whispered was ‘Love’! It must be Georgian.”
Alas! the same thought struck them both. Was this a proof? Mr. Ransom flushed hotly and crept softly back to his post.
Again time seemed to stop. Then there came a cautious rap on the door, followed by the hasty retreat of the person knocking. It caused Mr. Ransom to stir slightly, but did not affect the lawyer. Suddenly the former rose with every evidence of renewed agitation. This drew Mr. Harper from his seat.
“What is it?” he cried, softly approaching the other and whispering, though after events proved that he might have spoken aloud with impunity.
Mr. Ransom pointed to her temple from which her hair had just fallen away.
“The veining here. I have often studied it. I recognize its every convolution. It is Georgian, Georgian who lies there—ah, she’s stirring, waking! Let me go—”
He dragged himself from Mr. Harper’s detaining hand, bent over the bed and murmured softly but with the thrilling intensity of a suffering, hoping heart, the name which at that moment meant the whole wide world to him:
“Georgian!”
Would she greet this expression with recognition and a smile? The lawyer half expected her to and stepped near enough to see, but the eyes which had opened upon the white wall in front of her stared on, and when they did turn, as they did after one halting, agonizing minute, it was in response to some movement made by Mr. Ransom and not in reply to his voice.
This sudden and unexpected overthrow of his secretly cherished hopes was terrible. As he saw her rise on one elbow and meet his gaze with one which revealed the astonishment and resentment of a wild creature suddenly entrapped, he felt, or so he afterwards declared, as if the viper which had hitherto clung cold and deathlike about his heart had suddenly sprung to life and stung him. It was the most uncanny moment of his life.
Aghast at the effect of this upon his own mind, he reeled from the room, followed by the lawyer. As they passed down the hall they heard her voice raised to a scream in uncontrollable shame and indignation. This was followed by the snap of her key in the lock.
They had made a great mistake, or so the lawyer decided when they again stood face to face in Mr. Ransom’s room. That the latter made no immediate answer was no proof that he did not coincide in the other’s opinion. Indeed it was only too evident that he did, for his first words, when he had controlled himself sufficiently to speak, were these:
“I should have taken your advice. In future I will. To me she is henceforth Anitra, and I shall treat her as my wife’s sister. Watch if I fail. Anitra! Anitra!” He reiterated the word as if he would fix it in his mind as well as accustom his lips to it. Then he wheeled about and faced Harper, whose eyes he doubtless felt on him. “Yet I am not so thoroughly convinced as to feel absolute peace here,” he admitted, striking his breast with irrepressible passion. “My good sense tells me I am a fool, but my heart whispers that the sweetness in her sleeping face was the sweetness which won me to love Georgian Hazen. That gentle sweetness! Did you note it?”
“Yes, I noted what you mention. But don’t let that influence you too much. The wildest heart has its tender moments, and her dreams may have been pleasant ones.”
Mr. Ransom remembered her unconscious whisper and felt stunned, silenced. The lawyer gave no evidence of observing this, but remarked quite easily and with evident sincerity:
“I am more readily affected by proof than you are. I am quite convinced myself, that our wits have been wool-gathering. There was no mistaking her look of outraged womanhood. It was not your wife who encountered your look, but the deaf Anitra. Of course, you won’t believe me. Yet I advise you to do so. It would be too dreadful to find that this woman really is your wife.”
“What?”
“I know what I am saying. Nothing much worse could happen to you. Don’t you see where the hypothesis to which you persist in clinging would land you? Should the woman in there prove to be your wife Georgian—” The lawyer stopped and, in a tone the seriousness of which could not fail to impress his agitated hearer, added quietly, “you remember what I said to you a short time ago about guilt.”
“Guilt!”
“No, the word was shame. But guilt better expresses my meaning. I repeat, should the woman prove to be, not the lovely but ignorant girl she appears, but Georgian Ransom, your wife, then upon her must fall the onus of Anitra’s disappearance if not of her possible death. No! you must hear me out; the time has come for plain speaking. Your wife had her reasons—we do not know what they were, but they were no common ones—for wishing this intrusive sister out of the way. Anitra, on the contrary, could have desired nothing so much as the pr
eservation of her protector. The conclusion is not an agreeable one. Let us hope that the question it involves will never be presented for any man’s consideration.”
Mr. Ransom sank speechless into a chair. This last blow was an overwhelming one and he sank before it.
Mr. Harper altered his tone. He had real commiseration for his client and had provided himself with an antidote to the poison he had just so ruthlessly administered.
“Courage!” he cried. “I only wished you to see that there were worse losses to consider than that of your wife’s desertion, even if that desertion took the form of suicide. There is a reason which you have forgotten for acquitting Mrs. Ransom of such criminal intentions and of accepting as your sister-in-law the woman who calls herself Anitra. Recall Mrs. Ransom’s will; the general terms of which I felt myself justified in confiding to you. In it there are no provisions made for this Anitra. Had Mrs. Ransom, for any inexplicable reason, planned an exchange of identities with her sorely afflicted sister, she would have been careful to have left that sister some portion of her great fortune. But she did not remember her with a cent. This fact is very significant and should give you great comfort.”
“It should, it should, in face of the other alternative you have suggested as possible. But I fear that I am past comfort. In whatever light we regard this tragedy, it all means woe and disaster to me. I have made a mess of my life and I have got to face the fact like a man.” Then rising and confronting Mr. Harper with passionate intensity, he called out till the room rang again:
“Georgian is dead! You hear me, Georgian is dead!”
CHAPTER XVII
“I DON’T HEAR”
The afternoon passed without further developments. Mr. Harper, who had his own imperative engagements, left on the evening train for New York, promising to return the next day in case his presence seemed indispensable to his client.
That client’s final word to him had been an injunction to keep an eye on Georgian’s so-called brother and to report how he had been affected by the news from Sitford; and when, in the lull following the lawyer’s departure, Mr. Ransom sat down in his room to look his own position resolutely in the face, this brother and his possible connection with the confusing and unhappy incidents of this last fatal week regained that prominent place in his thoughts which the doubts engendered by the unusual character of these incidents had for a while dispelled.
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 152