you know who did place it there?”
“I do not”
“Of course,” said the coroner, “the discovery of this instrument in this condition does not necessarily implicate its owner. Other hands might have used it and secreted it where it was found, perhaps with the intent of diverting suspicion. Who has the care of your dressing-room, Mrs. Van Wyck?”
“My maid, Jeannette.”
“Let her be summoned,” the coroner ordered. But Jeannette was nowhere to be found. She had disappeared, no one knew when or where. To the minds of most present, this looked suspicious. It was easily to be seen that the villagers were quite ready to denounce Anne Van Wyck as the slayer of her own husband. Anne had never been popular with the village people. Clever and highly strung as she was, she had found little in common with their ordinary and, to her, stupid pursuits. And now they were quite ready to believe the worst of her.
Anne herself looked supercilious and scornful. “I have no notion where my maid has gone,” she stated, “but I am positive that she is in no way implicated in this tragedy. She may have gone on some errand, and will doubtless return soon. I am entirely sure she can give you no information or enlightenment as to the crime that has been committed in this house, any more than I can.”
“And you can tell us nothing, Mrs. Van Wyck, more than we know already?” the coroner said, floundering a little in the complexity of his emotions.
“No,” replied Anne quietly.
The coroner fidgeted uneasily, and then said, “It is impossible to carry matters further without the testimony of the maid, Jeannette. I therefore declare this inquest adjourned for a few days, by which time I trust we may have further and more definite evidence.”
The jury, to a man, looked decidedly relieved, but it was a rather disappointed audience that filed slowly out of the house. To my mind, the coroner’s reason for adjourning the inquest was a pretext. I think he felt sure that if the jury had had to decide then and there, they must have accused Anne of the murder. And the evidence was certainly incriminating. While I felt, with every fibre of my being, the wish and desire to hold Anne innocent, yet there was something terribly convincing of guilt in the fact of that hidden stiletto. But again, the absurdity of it! How was it humanly possible, even granting that Anne had used the fatal instrument, for her to leave the study so securely locked and bolted on the inside? But that was the old question, and the one to which no one had an answer. But how I hoped the answer might incriminate anybody but Anne!
That evening was a strange one. As an experience of my life, I shall never forget it The members of the household all seemed to be at cross purposes. There were a great many people about, with the result that the Van Wycks and their house guests chose the music room for themselves and denied the others admission.
In the library were gathered the coroner and Mr. Markham in confab with Mr. Van Wyck’s lawyers, and some directors of the companies with which he had been identified.
The ceremony of dinner had been a great strain on us all, but now that we were by ourselves, the tension was loosened a little.
Anne was verging on the hysterical. She had borne up so long and so bravely against the onslaughts of Mrs. Carstairs that a reaction had set in, and she seemed to lose all her defensive courage. As a result, we all tried to comfort or cheer her, and avoided referring to painful subjects.
Archer was gentle and deferential, but he said little to her, and seemed to content himself with, watching her closely.
Barbara and Morland were in quarrelsome mood, a condition not unusual with them. Of course it was necessary they should make certain arrangements, pertaining to the funeral of their father, and naturally they deferred to Anne in many matters. But Anne listlessly declined to express any opinions, and insisted that they should use their own judgment and settle all questions between themselves.
The subject of the stiletto was not so much as mentioned, and indeed, the whole great matter of the tragedy and the inquest, was not even touched upon.
Beth Fordyce was the only one who seemed inclined to open the subject, and she occasionally declared with insistence that Carstairs had killed his master.
As we were awaiting the detective’s investigation of the valet’s affairs, we had no wish to discuss this. Or at least, if some of us had, we did not want to do it in the presence of the Van Wyck family. I made up my mind to talk alone with Archer later, but at present, I considered it my duty to do anything I might to avoid serious or tragic considerations.
It seemed to me that Anne became more and more drooping, and at last I begged of her to go for a short walk on the terrace. She agreed more readily than I had hoped, and we went out together. It was an exquisite night, the air soft and balmy, and the moon overhead.
“Just for a little while, Anne,” I said gently, “forget it all, can’t you? A short respite from these harrowing thoughts will clear your brain and heart, and make you stronger to bear what must come to-morrow.”
She spoke suddenly, repeating my words in a frightened tone: “What must come to-morrow! What do you mean, Raymond?”
I couldn’t bring myself to speak of that tell-tale stiletto, so I said, “The whole dreadful business, Anne. The conclusion of the inquest, the detective work that must follow, the funeral, and all the thousand and one accompaniments of this tragedy that has come to you. Just for an hour, put it out of your mind, and I know it will help you. Let us talk of things far off and unassociated with this place. Let us talk of when we went to school together.”
We had left the terrace, and were walking down a path through one of the formal gardens. She gave me a look of trust, as she said, softly, “You are very good to me, Raymond.”
“I’m your friend, Anne; it is not being good, as you phrase it, to want to help you in your sadness and trouble.”
“You are my friend?” she said, slowly. “Does that mean you trust me,—you have faith in me?”
“Of course I have! I trust you infinitely. I have unbounded faith in you.”
Anne’s voice sank to a whisper, and she tremblingly said, “You wouldn’t if you knew! Oh, Raymond, that is the pity of it—you wouldn’t—if you knew—”
I was appalled. Not so much by her words as by the despair in her voice. Though I wouldn’t admit it to myself, it was like the wail of a guilty conscience.
Like a flash, I remembered the peculiar tone of her voice when she had said to me, “I am capable of crime.”
But I wouldn’t believe it. Nothing could make me believe it,—not even Anne herself.
“Don’t talk,” I said to her; “you are overwrought, to-night. You can’t see things at their proper value, and you’re exaggerating something to yourself. Now I command you,” and I endeavored to be playful, “to talk about the moon. How large do you think it is?”
Anne smiled involuntarily, for she remembered, as I did, that in our school days, it had been one of our games to discuss the apparent size of the moon.
But my project was unsuccessful. After a fleeting memory, Anne forgot the moon, and burst out, passionately: “Why does that woman hate me so?”
I saw that it was useless to try to divert her thoughts, so I concluded to talk with her, and it seemed to me that a direct common-sense attitude would be the best for her.
“Anne,” I said, “you know very well why she hates you. You know that, whether she told the truth or not when she said Mr. Van Wyck had promised to marry her, she certainly hoped that he would do so; and when he married you instead, it is not surprising that it should anger her against you.”
“It is more than that,” said Anne, musingly; “she has for me an animosity beyond that of a jealous rival. She seems uncanny, sometimes, and looks at me with what I think must be the evil eye.”
“Well, granted