Anne Part 73

Anne met Miss Lois in New York. Miss Lois had never been in New York before; but it would take more than New York to confuse Miss Lois. They remained in the city for several days in order to rest and arrange their plans. There was still much to explain which the letters, voluminous as they had been, had not made entirely clear.

But first they spoke of the child. It was Miss Lois at length who turned resolutely from the subject, and took up the tangled coil which awaited her. "Begin at the beginning and tell every word," she said, sitting erect in her chair, her arms folded with tight compactness. If Miss Lois could talk, she could also listen. In the present case she listened comprehensively, sharply, and understandingly. When all was told--"How different it is from the old days when we believed that you and Rast would live always with us on the island, and that that would be the whole," she said, with a long, sad retrospective sigh. Then dismissing the past, "But we must do in this disappointing world what is set before us," she added, sighing again, but this time in a preparatory way. Anew she surveyed Anne. "You are much changed, child," she said. Something of her old spirit returned to her. "I wish those fort ladies could see you _now_!" she remarked, taking off her spectacles and wiping them with a combative air.

Possessed of Anne's narrative, she now began to arrange their plans in accordance with it, and to fit what she considered the necessities of the situation. As a stand-point she prepared a history, which, in its completeness, would have satisfied even herself as third person, forgetting that the mental organizations of the Timloesville people were probably not so well developed in the direction of a conscientious and public-spirited inquiry into the affairs of their neighbors as were those of the meritorious New England community where she had spent her youth. In this history they were to be aunt and niece, of the same name, which, after long cogitation, she decided should be Young, because it had "a plain, respectable sound." She herself was to be a widow (could it have been possible that, for once in her life, she wished to know, even if but reminiscently, how the married state would feel?), and Anne was to be her husband's niece. "Which will account for the lack of resemblance," she said, fitting all the parts of her plan together like those of a puzzle. She had even constructed an elaborate legend concerning said husband, and its items she enumerated with relish. His name, it appeared, had been Asher, and he had been something of a trial to her, although at the last he had experienced religion, and died thoroughly saved. His brother Eleazer, Anne's father, had been a very different person, a sort of New England David. He had taught in an academy, studied for the ministry, and died of "a galloping consumption"--a consolation to all his friends. Miss Lois could describe in detail both of these death-beds, and repeat the inscriptions on the two tombstones. Her own name was Deborah, and Anne's was Ruth. On the second day she evolved the additional item that Ruth was "worn out keeping the accounts of an Asylum for the Aged, in Washington--which is the farthest thing I can think of from teaching children in New York--and I have brought you into the country for your health."

Anne was dismayed. "I shall certainly make some mistake in all this,"

she said.

"Not if you pay attention. And you can always say your head aches if you don't want to talk. I am not sure but that you had better be threatened with something serious," added Miss Lois, surveying her companion consideringly. "It would have to be connected with the mind, because, unfortunately, you always look the picture of health."

"Oh, please let me be myself," pleaded Anne.

"Never in the world," replied Miss Lois. "Ourselves? No indeed. We've got to _be_ conundrums as well as guess them, Ruth Young."

They arrived at their destination, not by the train, but in the little country stage which came from the south. The witnesses from Timloesville present at the trial had been persons connected with the hotel. In order that Anne should not come under their observation, they took lodgings at a farm-house at some distance from the village, and on the opposite side of the valley. Anne was not to enter the village; but of the meadow-paths and woods she would have free range, as the inhabitants of Timloesville, like most country people, had not a high opinion of pedestrian exercise. Anne was not to enter the town at all; but Miss Lois was to examine "its every inch."

The first day pa.s.sed safely, and the second and third. Anne was now sufficiently accustomed to her new name not to start when she was addressed, and sufficiently instructed in her "headaches" not to repudiate them when inquiries were made; Miss Lois announced, therefore, that the search could begin. She cla.s.sified the probabilities under five heads.

First. The man must be left-handed.

Second. He must say "gold" for "cold."

Third. As Timloesville was a secluded village to which few strangers came, and as it had been expressly stated at the trial that no strangers were noticed in its vicinity either before or after the murder, the deed had evidently been committed, not as the prosecution mole-blindedly averred, by the one stranger who _was_ there, but by no stranger at all--by a resident in the village itself or its neighborhood.

Fourth. As the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Heathcote was unexpected, the crime must have been one of impulse: there had not been time for a plan.

Fifth. The motive was robbery: the murder was probably a second thought, occasioned, perhaps, by Helen's stirring.

Miss Lois did not waste time. Within a few days she was widely known in Timloesville--"the widow Young, from Washington, staying at Farmer Blackwell's, with her niece, who is out of health, poor thing, and her aunt so anxious about her." The widow was very affable, very talkative; she was considered an almost excitingly agreeable person. But it was strange that she should not have heard of their event, their own particular and now celebrated crime. Mrs. Strain, wife of J. Strain, Esq., felt that this ignorance was lamentable. She therefore proposed to the widow that she should in person go to the Timloe Hotel, and see with her own eyes "the very spot."

"The effect, Mrs. Young, is curdling," she declared.

Mrs. Young was willing to be curdled, if Mrs. Strain would support her in the experience. On the next afternoon, therefore, they went to the Timloe Hotel, and were shown over "the very floor" which had been pressed by the footsteps of the murderer, his beautiful wife, and her highly respectable and observing (one might almost say _providentially_ observing) maid. The landlord himself, Mr. Graub, did not disdain to accompany them. Mr. Graub had attended the trial in person, and he had hardly ceased since to admire himself for his own perspicuous cleverness in owning the house where such a very distinguished crime had been committed. There might be localities where a like deed would have injured the patronage of an inn; but the neighborhood of Timloesville was not one of them. The people slowly took in and appreciated their event, as an anaconda is said slowly to take in and appreciate his dinner; they digested it at their leisure. Farmers coming in to town on Sat.u.r.days, instead of bringing luncheon in a tin pail, as usual, went to the expense of dining at the hotel, with their wives and daughters, in order to see the room, the blind, and the outside stairway. Mr.

Graub, in this position of affairs, was willing to repeat the tale, even to a non-diner. For Mrs. Young was a stranger from Washington, and who knew but that Washington itself might be stirred to a dining interest in the scene of the tragedy, especially as the second trial was still to come?

The impression on the blind was displayed; it was very faint, but clearly that of a left hand.

"And here is the cloth that covered the bureau," continued the landlord, taking it from a paper and spreading it on the old-fashioned chest of drawers. "It is not the identical cloth, for that was required at the trial, together with a fac-simile of the blind; but I can a.s.sure you that this one is just like the original, blue-bordered and fringed precisely the same, and we traced the spots on it exactly similar before we let the other go. For we knew that folks would naturally be interested in such a memento."

"It is indeed deeply absorbing," said Mrs. Young. "I wonder, now, what the size of that hand might be? Not yours, Mr. Graub; yours is a very small hand. Let me compare. Suppose I place my fingers so (I will not touch it). Yes, a large hand, without doubt, and a left hand. Do you know of any left-handed persons about here?"

"Why, the man himself was left-handed," answered the landlord and Mrs.

Strain together--"Captain Heathcote himself."

"He had been wounded, and carried his right arm in a sling," added Mr.

Graub.

"Ah, yes," said the widow; "I remember now. Was this impression measured?"

"Yes; I have the exact figures," replied the landlord, taking out a note-book, and reading the items aloud in a slow, important voice.

"Did you measure it yourself?" asked the widow. "Because if _you_ did it, I shall feel sure the figures are correct."

"I did not measure it myself," answered Mr. Graub, not unimpressed by this confidence. "I can, however, re-measure it in a moment if it would be any gratification to you."

"It would be--immense," said the widow. Whereupon he went down stairs for a measure.

"I am subject to dizziness myself, but I _must_ hear some one come up that outside stairway," said Mrs. Young to Mrs. Strain during his absence. "_Would_ you do it for me? I want to _imagine_ the _whole_."

Mrs. J. Strain, though stout, consented; and when her highly decorated bonnet was out of sight, the visitor swiftly drew from her pocket the paper outline of Heathcote's hand which Anne had given her, and compared it with the impression. The outlines seemed different; the hand which had touched the cloth appeared to have been shorter and wider than Heathcote's, the finger-tips broader, as though cushioned with flesh underneath. Mrs. Strain's substantial step was now heard on the outside stairway. But the pattern was already safely returned to the deep pocket of Mrs. Young.

"I have been picturing the entire scene," she said, in an impressive whisper when the bonnet re-appeared, "and I a.s.sure you that when I heard your footsteps on those stairs, goose-flesh rose and ran like lightning down my spine." And Mrs. Strain, though out of breath, considered that her services had been well repaid.

Mr. Graub now returned, and measured the prints with the nicest accuracy. Owing to the widow's compliment to his hands, he had stopped to wash them, in order to give a finer effect to the operation. Mrs.

Young requested that the figures be written down for her on a slip of paper, "as a memorial"; and then, with one more exhaustive look at the room, the stairway, and the garden, she went away, accompanied by her friend, leaving Mr. Graub more than ever convinced that he was a very unusual man.

Mrs. Strain was easily induced to finish the afternoon's dissipations by going through the gra.s.s meadow by the side of the track made by the murderer on his way to the river. They walked "by the side," because the track itself was railed off. So many persons had visited the meadow that Mr. Graub had been obliged to protect his relic in order to preserve its ident.i.ty, and even existence. The little trail was now conspicuous by the fringing of tall gra.s.s which still stood erect on each side of it, the remainder of the meadow having been trodden flat.

"It ends at the river," said Mrs. Young, reflectively.

"Yes, where he came to wash his hands, after the deed was done,"

responded Mrs. Strain. "And what his visions and inward thoughts must have been at sech a moment I leave you, Mrs. Young, solemnly to consider."

Mrs. Young then returned homeward, after thanking her Timloesville friend for a "most impressive day."

"The outlines are too indistinct to be really of much use, Ruth," she said, as she removed her bonnet. "I believe it was so stated at the trial, wasn't it? But if I have eyes, they do _not_ fit."

"Of course not, since it is the hand of another person," replied Anne.

"But did you notice, or rather could you see, what the variations were?"

"A broader palm, I should say, and the fingers shorter. The only point, however, which I could make out with certainty was the thick cushion of flesh at the ends of the fingers; that seemed clear enough."

At sunset they went across the fields together to the point on the river-bank where the meadow trail ended.

"The river knows all," said Anne, looking wistfully at the smooth water.

"_They_ think so too, for they've dragged it a number of times,"

responded Miss Lois. "All the boys in the neighborhood have been diving here ever since, I am told; they fancy the purse, watch, and rings are in the mud at the bottom. But they're safe enough in somebody's _pocket_, you may be sure."

"Miss Lois," said the girl, suddenly, "perhaps he went away in a boat!"

"My name is Deborah--Aunt Deborah; and I do wish, Ruth, you would not forget it so constantly. In a boat? Well, perhaps he did. But I don't see how that helps it. To-morrow is market-day, and I must go in to the village and look out for left-handed men; they won't escape me though they fairly dance jigs on their right!"

"He went away in a boat," repeated Anne, as they walked homeward through the dusky fields.

But the man was no nearer or plainer because she had taken him from the main road and placed him on the river; he seemed, indeed, more distant and shadowy than before.