At One-Thirty - Isabel Ostrander (book reader for pc .txt) 📗

“YOU are sure?” the detective asked, slowly.

The girl turned, and regarded him deliberately, as if she could read in his sightless eyes the thoughts that were passing through his mind.

“Why do you ask me that so persistently, Mr. Gaunt? I was not in or near the den yesterday, or last night. Had I been, I should have no reason for concealing the fact from you.”

“I thought that perhaps you might have forgotten,” he replied, with unusual hesitancy. “It is important that I should know who of this household visited that room, on no matter how innocent an errand, during the hours preceding Garret Appleton’s death. You heard nothing unusual on your return, nor at any time during the night?”

“No, Mr. Gaunt; and I am a very light sleeper, as is my sister. I cannot understand why the— sound of that revolver-shot did not arouse someone, at least, in all this house.”

“That is not unusual. The police records are full of murder and suicide cases in crowded apartment houses and tenements, where no one happens to hear the shot fired, or, if they are awakened suddenly by something, do not take the trouble to investigate, since all seems then to be quiet around them. But tell me, please: The first idea you had of the murder was when you were awakened by the screams of the maid who discovered the body?”

“Yes. At first, when the terrible, piercing shrieks awakened me, I thought the house was on fire. I thrust my feet into slippers, flung a heavy robe about my shoulders, and rushed for my sister’s room. In the hall, however, it was borne in upon my consciousness that the voice was crying ‘MurdevV not ‘Fire!’ and, not knowing what it was, but remembering my sister’s delicate condition, I felt that I must stop those awful screams before she was disturbed, if possible, and frightened half out of her senses. I turned and ran downstairs, following the direction of the cries, until I came to the den. You know what I found there.”

“Who else of the household was there before you?”

“The housemaid, Katie, of course. She it was who had discovered the body. Maggie, the cook; Dakers, the butler; James, Mr.” Yates Appleton’s, man; and Mrs. Finlay Appleton’s maid, Marie.”

“What was their condition?”

“I don’t remember, Mr. Gaunt, I didn’t notice very much. I was appalled, stunned, by the sight of my brother-in-law’s body. The maids were in hysterics, of course, and the butler in a state of collapse. I remember seeing him crouched against the wall, with his face buried in his hands, and James standing over him, shaking his shoulder, and I think he kept repeating: ‘You fooll You fooll’ but I cannot be sure. It is all like a horrible dream. Then—then the rest came—the family.”

“Which of them appeared first?”

“I don’t know. I only remember my little sister sobbing and shuddering in my arms, and Mrs. Finlay Appleton standing there with her gray hair all disheveled and her face as rigid as a deathmask, staring down at the body of her son. I only know that Yates appeared last, hanging to the door-casing, as if he was afraid to enter the room, and staring—staring horribly. Then—” the low voice sank to a throbbing whisper, and ceased.

“Then—what?” Gaunt urged, gently.

“Then—” Mrs. Appleton seemed to realize his presence, and she turned and spoke to him, and, at her voice, he broke down and wept. Afterward, when he was calmer, she sent him to dress and go for you. ‘ Meandme, the butler had been ordered to notify the police, and the officer and Inspector came, and afterward the Coroner. The rest you know.”

“Miss Ellerslie,” the detective’s voice was very gentle, “you have lived North with your sister since her marriage?”

“No; only for the last year. I would have preferred living in my home in the South, but my sister wanted me—needed me.”

“I understand,” Gaunt returned. “I have had an interview with Mrs. Finlay Appleton.”

The low voice took on a saddened, weary tone, inexpressibly pathetic.

“Ahl Then you know all, and more, than I can tell you. Mrs. Appleton considers us interlopers, almost adventuresses. Her dearest matrimonial plans and ambitions for her eldest son were shattered when he met my sister, and she has never forgiven it, and never will. He—Garret—came down to the Horse Show at Louisville with Brooks Guernsey, in his private car. We—my sister and I—were orphans. Our three brothers were dead, too, and we were living with our uncle, a veteran horseman, near Louisville. Garret fell in love with my sister, and she was fascinated by him. He was better-looking then, dissipation hadn’t left any appreciable traces upon his face, and I think she was dazzled by his wealth and social position. He was a sort of fairy-prince to her, poor child! She was only eighteen. I am four years older…. But all this is irrelevant, isn’t it?”

“No; go on, please. I want to hear everything.”

“She married him, then, and came North, and at first her letters were glowing. Later, she couldn’t keep her increasing unhappiness from straying into them, and at last she begged me to come to her. I came, and saw the situation, and—I stayed. I knew I was unwelcome, detested—oh, you can imagine my almost unbearable position! But I would not leave her, 1 would not be driven away, because she clung to me, and we two were alone in the world. My uncle, our last living relative, died just after I came to New York.

“Garret’s people, and Garret himself, hated me, because I stood between her and what persecution I was able to. We hoped—she and I—that, when they knew she was going to have a child, they would be more kind. Garret was utterly indifferent; he was quite tired of her, longing to turn back to a woman—but I must not speak of that! As for Mrs. Appleton and Yates, they were wild with rage. You understand, Mr. Gaunt, that the birth of a child to Garret and Natalie robs Yates of his full share of his father’s fortune, and he is the favorite of his mother. That was the condition of affairs up to Garret’s—death.”

“A most unfortunate state of things. Miss Ellerslie,”’ Gaunt said, sympathetically. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added: “This is a delicate question, but I must get at the root of the matter, and only you can help me. Do you think— please don’t misunderstand me; I impute nothing against the purity of your sister—but is it not possible that she may have known a change of heart since her marriage?”

“A change of heart?” the girl repeated. Then, her tones deepened, and grew husky, and trembled =with contemptuous indignation as she added: “Ah! I see what you mean! They have even dared to imply that! That, too, was to have been a part—” She broke off suddenly, breathing quickly in great gasps, her perfect control for once shaken. After a pause, which the detective dared not break, she went on in a more even voice:

“My sister could scarcely find warm love in her heart for a man who used her as Garret Appleton did. Her girlhood dream of the fairy-prince was shattered forever. But she was the essence, the soul, of loyalty. Had I not been able to read between the lines of her unconscious confessions, I should never have known from her letters what misery she was enduring before I came, and she has lied to me valiantly, when I found great bruises and marks upon her arms and body, until lying was no longer possible. She does not comj^lain to anyone, it would be against every attribute of her nature; but people who frequent the house could not be altogether blind to the conditions that existed here. There is one man who has been sympathetic. It may be that he loves her—I do not know; but I am sure he has always shown her the honor and respect due to another man’s wife, else she would have forbidden him the house, and — she would have told me. She is impetuous, warm-hearted, perhaps a little volatile in some superficial ways; but there is nothing low or intriguing, nothing dishonorable, in her nature.”

=“And you, yourself, Miss Ellerslie? You have no plans for the future?”

He heard the soft rustle of her gown as she made a sudden> starded movement; then her hands fell quietly in her lap.

“My engagement to Mr. Randolph Force, you mean?” she queried, her voice lingering over the name in an involuntary caress as she spoke. ,

The detective did not allow his surprise at this hitherto undisclosed fact to manifest itself in his face.

“That is a thing of the past. We were to have been married this autumn; but I would not leave my sister, in her sad condition. Now, it shall be never. I shall marry no one. When this tragic mystery is solved, or buried in oblivion, I shall take her away from this dreadful house, back to our home in the South, and try to help her to forget these three awful years. There will only be her little child to remind her, and it may in time become a real comfort and solace to her.”

“But you?” exclaimed the detective. ” Why have you broken your engagement. Miss Ellerslie?”

“I shall break it,” she returned, with a hint of withdrawal, of aloofness, in her tones; “because, let us say, I have experienced a ‘change of heart’ — at any rate, that has nothing to do with the present case, Mr. Gaunt.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said, rising. “I had no desire to seem impertinent. I have one last re- =quest to make of you: Will you allow me to touch your hair? I know this must seem strange to you; but we who are blind see mostly with our fingers, you know. I am anxious to know the color and texture of your hair,”

“It is red,” she replied, in a puzzled tone, “plain, unmitigated red. My sister’s is golden. But— yes, you may feel it, if you like.”

Upon his frank mention of his affliction, her resentment at his apparent prying into that which lay nearest her heart had vanished, and her gentle voice betrayed a deeply compassionate timbre which reached to the man’s very heart-strings, as no pity, no tenderness, had ever done in all his clouded life.

She leaned forward again, and once more the clean, pure fragrance of her assailed him. He placed his hand for an instant upon her soft hair, and then withdrew it instantly, in a manner that gave no hint of anything save the purely impersonal.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly. “And thank you, also, Miss Ellerslie, for replying to my seemingly impertinent questions so frankly. My motives, as you know, were not those of idle curiosity. Do you think that I might venture to see Mrs. Appleton, your sister, now, for just a few moments?”

“I will see. I think so, Mr. Gaunt. You will remain here?”

“Yes. If you will have one of the servants let me know, I will go to her.”

There was a soft rustle, a stirring of the air, and a gentle receding footfall. Gaunt sat where she had left him, a prey to sensations to which he had in all the past been a stranger. What was the peculiar, overmastering influence that this woman, out of all persons with whom he had come in contact, seemed unconsciously to