The Dead Letter. Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
and awaited the hour. Thus far, there was absolutely no clue whatever to the guilty party; bold as was the act, committed in the early evening, in the haunts of a busy community, it had been most fatally successful; and the doer had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up. No one, as yet, could form any plausible conjecture, even as to the motive.
In the name of Eleanor Argyll—in the name of her whom I loved, whose happiness I had that day seen in ruins, I vowed to use every endeavor to discover and bring to punishment the murderer. I know not why this purpose took such firm hold of me. The conviction of the guilty would not restore the life which had been taken; the bloom to a heart prematurely withered; it would afford no consolation to the bereaved. Yet, if to discover, had been to call back Henry Moreland to the world from which he had been so ruthlessly dismissed, I could hardly have been more determined in the pursuit. In action only could I feel relief from the oppression which weighed upon me. It could not give life to the dead—but the voice of Justice called aloud, never to permit this deed to sink into oblivion, until she had executed the divine vengeance of the law upon the doer.
As I stood there in silence and darkness, pondering the matter, I heard a light rustle of the dry leaves upon the ground, and felt, rather than saw, a figure pass me. I might have thought it one of the servants were it not for the evident caution of its movements. Presently, where the shadows of the trees were less thick, I detected a person stealing toward the house. As she crossed an open space, the starlight revealed the form and garments of a female; the next moment she passed into the obscurity of shadows again, where she remained some time, unsuspicious of my proximity, like myself leaning against a tree, and watching the mansion. Apparently satisfied that no one was about—the hour now verging toward midnight—she approached with hovering steps, now pausing, now drawing back, the west side of the mansion, from one of the windows of which the solemn light of the death-candles shone. Under this window she crouched down. I could not tell if her attitude were a kneeling one. It must have been more than an hour that she remained motionless in this place; I, equally quiet, watching the dark spot where she was. For the instant that she had stood between me and the window, her form was outlined against the light, when I saw that this must be the young woman whose strange conduct at the gate had attracted my attention. Of course I did not see her face; but the tall, slender figure, the dark bonnet, and nervous movement, were the same. I perplexed myself with vain conjectures.
I could not help connecting her with the murder, or with the victim, in some manner, however vague.
At last she arose, lingered, went away, passing near me with that soft, rustling step again. I was impelled to stretch out my hand and seize her; her conduct was suspicious; she ought to be arrested and examined, if only to clear herself of these circumstances. The idea that, by following her, I might trace her to some haunt, where proofs were secreted, or accomplices hidden, withheld my grasp.
Cautiously timing my step with hers, that the murmur of the leaves might not betray me, I followed. As she passed out the gate, I stood behind a tree, lest she should look back and discern me; then I passed through, following along in the shadow of the fence.
She hurried on in the direction of the spot at which the murder had been committed; but when nearly there, perceiving that some persons, though long past midnight, still hovered about the fatal place, she turned, and passed me. As soon as I dared, without alarming her, I also turned, pursuing her through the long, quiet street, until it brought her to a more crowded and poorer part of the village, where she went down a side street, and disappeared in a tenement-house, the entrance-hall to which was open. I ought to have gone at once for officers, and searched the place; but I unwisely concluded to wait for daylight.
As I came up the walk on my return, I met James Argyll in the avenue, near the front portico.
“Oh, is it you?” he exclaimed, after I had spoken to him. “I thought it was—was—”
“You are not superstitious, James?” for his hollow voice betrayed that he was frightened.
“You did give me a confounded uneasy sensation as you came up,” he answered with a laugh.—How can people laugh under such circumstances?—“Where have you been at this hour, Richard?”
“Walking in the cool air. The house smothered me.”
“So it did me. I could not rest. I have just come out to get a breath of air.”
“It is almost morning,” I said, and passed on into my chamber.
I knew who watched, without food, without rest, in the chamber of death, by whose door my footsteps led; but ache as my heart might, I had no words of comfort for sorrow like hers—so I passed on.
CHAPTER IV.
MORELAND VILLA.
Several minor circumstances prevented my going in search of the woman who had excited my suspicions on the previous day, until about nine o’clock of the morning, when I engaged an officer, and we two went quietly, without communicating our plans to any one else, to the tenement-house before spoken of.
Although Blankville was not a large village, there was in it, as in nearly every town blessed with a railroad depot, a shabby quarter where the rougher portion of its working people lived. The house stood in this quarter—it was a three-story frame building, occupied by half a dozen families, mostly those of Irish laborers, who found work in the vicinity of the depot. I had seen the strange girl ascend to the second floor, in the dim light of the previous night, so we went up and knocked at the first door we came upon. It was opened by a decent-appearing middle-aged woman, who held the knob in her hand while she waited for us to make known our errand; we both stepped into her apartment, before we spoke. A rapid glance revealed an innocent-looking room with the ordinary furniture of such a place—a cooking-stove, bed, table, etc.; but no other inmate. There was a cupboard, the door of which stood open, showing its humble array of dishes and eatables—there were no pantries, nor other places of concealment. I was certain that I had seen the girl enter this room at the head of the stairs, so I ventured:
“Is your daughter at home, ma’am?”
“Is it my niece you mean?”
I detected an Irish accent, though the woman spoke with but little “brogue,” and was evidently an old resident of our country—in a manner Americanized.
“Oh, she is your niece? I suppose so—a tall girl with dark eyes and hair.”
“That’s Leesy, herself. Was you wanting any work done?”
“Yes,” answered the officer, quickly, taking the matter out of my hands. “I wanted to get a set of shirts made up—six, with fine, stitched bosoms.” He had noticed a cheap sewing-machine standing near the window, and a bundle of coarse muslin in a basket near by.
“It’s sorry I am to disappoint you; but Leesy’s not with me now, and I hardly venture on the fine work. I make the shirts for the hands about the railroad that hasn’t wives of their own to do it—but for the fine bussums”—doubtfully—“though, to be sure, the machine does the stitches up beautiful—if it wasn’t for the button-holes!”
“Where is Leesy? Doesn’t she stop with you?”
“It’s her I have here always when she’s out of a place. She’s an orphan, poor girl, and it’s not in the blood of a Sullivan to turn off their own. I’ve brought her up from a little thing of five years old—given her the education, too. She can read and write like the ladies of the land.”
“You didn’t say where she was, Mrs. Sullivan.”
“She’s making the fine things in a fancy-store in New York—caps and collars and sleeves and the beautiful tucked waists—she’s such taste, and the work is not so hard as plain-sewing—four dollars a week she gets, and boarded for two and a half, in a nice, genteel place. She expects to be illivated to the forewoman’s