The Dead Letter. Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
our way to the hotel we fell into an easy conversation on topics entirely removed from the one which absorbed the gravest thoughts of both. Mr. Burton did more talking now than he had done at the office, perhaps with the object of making me express myself freely; though if so, he managed with so much tact that his wish was not apparent. He had but poor success; the calamity of our house lay too heavily on me for me to forget it in an instant; but I was constantly surprised at the character of the man whose acquaintance I was making. He was intelligent, even educated, a gentleman in language and manner—a quite different person, in fact, from what I had expected in a member of the detective-police.
Shut up in the private parlor which I obtained at the Metropolitan, the subject of the murder was again broached and thoroughly discussed. Mr. Burton won my confidence so inevitably that I felt no hesitation in unvailing to him the domestic hearth of Mr. Argyll, whenever the habits or circumstances of the family were consulted in their bearing upon the mystery. And when he said to me, fixing his eye upon me, but speaking gently,
“You, too, loved the young lady,”—I neither blushed nor grew angry. That penetrating eye had read the secret of my heart, which had never been spoken or written, yet I did not feel outraged that he had dared to read it out to me. If he could find any matter against me in that holiest truth of my existence, he was welcome to it.
“Be it so,” I said; “that is with myself, and no one else.”
“There are others who love her,” he continued, “but there is a difference in the quality of love. There is that which sanctifies, and something, called by the same name, which is an excuse for infinite perfidy. In my experience I have found the love of woman and the love of money at the bottom of most mischief—the greed of gain is by far the commonest and strongest; and when the two are combined, there is motive enough for the darkest tragedy. But you spoke of a young woman, of whom you have suspicions.”
I told Mr. Burton that in this matter I trusted to his discretion; that I had not brought it to notice before Mr. Browne, because I shrunk from the danger of fixing a ruinous suspicion upon a person who might be perfectly innocent; yet that circumstances were such as to demand investigation, which I was sure he was the person to carry on. I then gave him a careful account of every thing I had seen or learned about the sewing-girl. He agreed with me that she ought to be placed under secret surveillance. I told him that the officer from Blankville would be in after tea, when we could consult together and dispose of the discussion before the arrival of James and Mr. Browne—and I then rung the bell, ordering a light supper in our room.
The Blankville official had nothing to report of Miss Sullivan, except that she had not arrived either at her boarding-house or at the shop where she was employed, and her character stood high at both places. She had been represented to him as a “strictly proper” person, very reserved, in poor health, with a sad appearance, and an excellent workwoman—that no gentlemen were ever known to call to see her, and that she never went out after returning to her boarding-house at the close of work-hours. We then requested him to say nothing about her to his brother officers, and to keep the matter from the newspapers, as we should regret doing an irreparable injury to one who might be guiltless.
It seemed as if the Fates were in favor of the guilty. Mr. Browne, punctually at eight o’clock, reported that there was none of the money paid out to James Argyll at Mr. Argyll’s order, which the bank would identify—not even its own bill of five hundred dollars, which was a recent issue. They had paid out such a bill on the draft, but the number was not known to them.
“However,” said Mr. Browne, “bills of that denomination are not common, and we shall be on the lookout for them, wherever offered.”
“But even should the robber be discovered, there is no proof that it would establish any connection with the murder. It may have been a coincidence,” remarked James. “I have often noticed that one calamity is sure to be followed by another. If there is a railroad disaster, a powder-mill explosion, a steamer destroyed by fire, before the horror of the first accident has done thrilling our nerves, we are pretty certain to be startled by another catastrophe.”
“I, too,” said Mr. Burton, “have remarked the succession of events—echoes, as it were, following the clap of thunder. And I have usually found that, like the echoes, there was a natural cause for them.”
James moved uneasily in his chair, arose, pulled aside the curtain, and looked out into the night. I had often noticed that he was somewhat superstitious; perhaps he saw the eyes of Henry Moreland looking down at him from the starry hights; he twitched the curtains together with a shiver, and came back to us.
“It is not impossible,” he said, keeping his face in the shadow, for he did not like us to see how the night had affected him, “that some one of the clerks in Mr. Moreland’s banking-house—perhaps some trusted and responsible person—was detected by Henry, in making false entries, or some other dishonesty—and that to save himself the disgrace of betrayal and dismissal, he has put the discoverer out of the way. The whole business of the establishment ought to be thoroughly overhauled. It appears that Henry went directly to the cars from the office; so that if any trouble had arisen between him and one of the employees, there would have been no opportunity for his consulting his father, who was not at the place all that afternoon.”
“Your suggestion is good,” said Mr. Browne, “and must be attended to.”
“The whereabouts of every one of the employees, down to the porter, at the time of the murder, are already accounted for. They were all in the city,” said Mr. Burton, with precision.
Shortly after, the party separated for the night. An urgent invitation came from Mr. Moreland for James and myself to stop at his house during our stay in the city; but we thought it better not to disturb the quiet of the house of mourning with the business which we wished to press forward, and returned an answer to that effect. It was nearly ten o’clock when James recollected that we had not been to the offices of the daily journals with the advertisements which ought to appear in the morning. It was the work of a few minutes for me to write one out, which we then copied on three or four sheets of paper, and finding an errand-boy below, we dispatched him with two of the copies to as many journals, and ourselves hurried off with the others. I went to one establishment and my companion to another, in order to hasten proceedings, knowing that it was doubtful if we could get them inserted at that late hour. Having succeeded to my satisfaction with my own errand, I thought I would walk over to the next street and meet James, whom, having a little further than I to go, I would probably meet, returning. As I neared the building to which he had gone, and which was brilliantly lighted up for its night-work, I saw James come out on the pavement, look around him an instant, and then start off in a direction opposite to that which would lead back to Broadway and his hotel. He had not observed me, who chanced to be in shadow at the moment; and I, without any particular motive which I could analyze, started after him, thinking to overtake him and offer to join him in a walk. He went, however, at so rapid a pace, that I still remained behind. Our course lay through Nassau and Fulton streets, to the Brooklyn ferry. I quickened my pace almost to a run, as James passed into the ferry-house, for I saw that a boat was about to start; but I had a vexatious delay in finding small change, so that I got through just in time to see the boat move off, James himself having to take a flying leap to reach it after it was under way. At that hour there was a boat only every fifteen minutes; of course I gave up the pursuit; and sitting down at the end of the bridge, I allowed the cool wind from the bay and river to blow against my hot face, while I gazed out on the dark waters, listening to their incessant moaning about the piers, and watching where they glimmered beneath the lights of the opposite shore. The blue and red lamps of the moving vessels, in my present mood, had a weird and ghastly effect; the thousands of masts of the moored shipping stood up naked against the sky, like a forest of blighted, skeleton pines. Sadness, the deepest I had ever felt in my life, fell upon me—sadness too deep for any expression. The shifting water, slipping and sighing about the works of men which fretted it; the unapproachable, glittering sky; the leafless forest, the wind fresh from its ocean solitudes—these partially interpreted it, but not wholly. Their soul, as far as the soul of Nature goes, was in unison with mine; but in humanity lies a still deeper deep, rises a higher hight. I was as much alone as if