– you will not give me credit either for good sense or for the sincerity of my desire to be of service to you," I made out to say. "I certainly thought from Mr. Gillespie's actions, above all from the expressions which accompanied them, that he had entrusted me with a communication of no little importance, and that this communication was meant for Miss Meredith."
To my chagrin, my plea went unheeded: she was too absorbed in hiding her own satisfaction at the turn affairs had taken, and her cousins in deciding to what extent their position had been improved by the discovery of a blank sheet of paper where all had expected to find words, and very important words, too. Consequently it fell to Dr. Bennett to answer me.
"No one can doubt your intentions, Mr. Outhwaite. Miss Meredith will be the first to acknowledge her indebtedness to you when she comes to herself. You have fulfilled your commission according to the dictates of your own conscience. That you have failed to effect all you hoped for is not your fault. As a lawyer you will rate the matter at its worth, and as a man of heart excuse the exaggerated effect it has to all appearance produced upon those about you."
It was a palpable dismissal, and I took it for such, or would have if Miss Meredith, whose attention the word lawyer had seemingly caught, had not honoured me with a look which held me rooted to the spot.
"Wait!" she cried, "I want to speak to that young man. Do not let him go yet." And advancing, she stood before me in an attitude at once womanly and confiding.
"Come back, Hope!" I heard uttered in the peremptory tones of him they called Leighton.
But though the spasm which passed over her face denoted what it cost her to disobey the voice of so near a relative, she stood her ground.
"I need a friend," she said to me. "Someone who will stand by me and support me in a task I may find myself too weak to accomplish unaided. I cannot have recourse to my cousins. They are too closely connected with the sorrows brought upon us all by this event. Besides, I find it easier to depend on a stranger, – one who does not care for me, as Dr. Bennett does; a lawyer, too; I may need a lawyer – sir, will you aid me with your counsels? I should find it hard to come upon another man of such evident sincerity as yourself."
"Hope! Hope!"
Entreaty had now become command; Leighton even took a step towards her. She faltered, but managed to murmur:
"You will not go till I have seen you again. You will not!"
"I will not," I rejoined, putting down the hat I had caught up.
The next minute she, as well as myself, perceived why she had been thus peremptorily called back.
The group around the newel-post had changed. A large, elderly man, with a world of experience in his time-worn but kindly visage, was standing in the place occupied by the coroner a moment before. He was bowing in the direction of Miss Meredith, and he held some half-dozen letters in his hand.
As her eyes fell on these letters he regarded her with an encouraging smile, and said:
"I am Detective Gryce, miss. I ask pardon for disturbing you, and I don't want you to lay too much stress upon my presence here or upon the few questions I have to put on behalf of the coroner who has just been called to the telephone. A few explanations are all I want, and some of these you are in a position to give me. You have been in the habit of using the typewriter for your uncle, I am told."
"Yes, sir."
"Did you use it for the writing of these five letters found upon his desk?"
"Yes, sir."
"To-night?"
"Yes, sir."
"At what hour?"
"Between dinner time and half-past eight."
This was the first time she had acknowledged having seen her uncle after dinner.
"So you were with him until half-past eight?"
"Yes, or thereabouts."
"And left him in the enjoyment of his usual health?"
"To all appearance, yes."
"Before or after your cousin Leighton came into the study?"
"Before."
"Why did you leave? Was Mr. Gillespie through with his work for the night?"
"I don't know; I don't think so, but I was tired, and he begged me to go upstairs."
"In his usual manner?"
"Yes."
"Not like a man anxious to have you go?"
"No."
"And when did the child come down?"
"Later."
"Not immediately?"
"No; a quarter of an hour or so later."
"Humph! The child was with him then a quarter of an hour before his death?"
"I suppose so; I do not know."
The detective waited a moment, then his hand closed over the letters.
"Miss, it is very important to know whether Mr. Gillespie anticipated death. This correspondence – you know it – a letter to Simpson & Beals, Attorneys, Dubuque, Iowa; another to Howard MacCartney, St. Augustine, Florida; this to the president of the Santa Fé Railroad; and this to Clarke, Beales & Co., Nassau Street, City. All business letters, I presume?"
"Entirely so, sir."
"And none of them, I judge, such as a man would write who expected to close all accounts with the world in less than an hour?"
"None."
How laconic she was for a girl scarcely out of her teens!
"From this correspondence, then, as you know it, he showed no intention of suicide?"
"On the contrary. In one of those letters, the one to Clarke, Beales & Co., I think, he made an appointment for to-morrow. My uncle was very exact in business matters. He would never have made this appointment if he had not hoped to keep it."
"Are you two in league?" the angry voice of George broke in. "Are you trying to make out that father died from violence?"
"In league?"
Did she say it or only look it? I felt my heart swell at her piteous, her agonised expression. Mr. Gryce, as he called himself, may have seen it, but he appeared to be looking at the slip of paper he now drew from his pocket, and which we all recognised as that which she had shortly before let drop.
"You see this," he said, "it looks like a piece of perfectly blank paper."
"And it is," she declared. "Why he should send it to me I do not know. It was given me in an envelope by the gentleman at the door, who says he got it from my uncle before he died. Everyone here knows that."
"Very good. Now let me ask from what sheet your uncle tore this scrap of paper? You recognise it as paper you have seen before?"
"O, yes, it is part of what is used in the typewriter. At least I suppose it to be. It looks like it."
"Sweetwater, bring me the typewriter!"
Sweetwater was the young man who had before shown himself in attendance on the coroner.
"O, what does this mean?" asked Hope, shrinking back.
An oath answered her. George had reached the end of his patience.
The placidity of the old man remained undisturbed.
Meanwhile the young detective called Sweetwater had returned with the typewriter in his arms. Setting it down on the library table, towards which they all immediately moved, he composedly strolled my way. We were now grouped as follows: the family and some others in the library, Sweetwater and myself at the front door.
Naturally, from the point I have just indicated, I could not look into the library; but my hearing being good and that of the young detective still better, we both managed to get the drift of what was being said, though we could not note the speakers.
I had seen a slip of paper protruding from the machine