الفصل الفصل 29 · THE MISSING WITNESS

. THE MISSING WITNESS

“I fled and cried out death.”

Milton.

“MR. RAYMOND!”

The voice was low and searching; it reached me in my dreams, waked

me, and caused me to look up. Morning had begun to break, and

by its light I saw, standing in the open door leading into the

dining-room, the forlorn figure of the tramp who had been admitted

into the house the night before. Angry and perplexed, I was about

to bid her be gone, when, to my great surprise, she pulled out a

red handkerchief from her pocket, and I recognized Q.

“Read that,” said he, hastily advancing and putting a slip of paper

into my hand. And, without another word or look, left the room,

closing the door behind him.

Rising in considerable agitation, I took it to the window, and by

the rapidly increasing light, succeeded in making out the rudely

scrawled lines as follows:

“She is here; I have seen her; in the room marked with a

cross in the accompanying plan. Wait till eight o’clock,

then go up. I will contrive some means of getting Mrs.

B---- out of the house.”

Sketched below this was the following plan of the upper floor:

[Illustration: (Upper floor plan)]

Hannah, then, was in the small back room over the dining-room, and

I had not been deceived in thinking I had heard steps overhead, the

evening before. Greatly relieved, and yet at the same time much

moved at the near prospect of being brought face to face with one

who we had every reason to believe was acquainted with the dreadful

secret involved in the Leavenworth murder, I lay down once more,

and endeavored to catch another hour’s rest. But I soon gave up

the effort in despair, and contented myself with listening to the

sounds of awakening life which now began to make themselves heard

in the house and neighborhood.

As Q had closed the door after him, I could only faintly hear

Mrs. Belden when she came down-stairs. But the short, surprised

exclamation which she uttered upon reaching the kitchen and finding

the tramp gone and the back-door wide open, came plainly enough

to my ears, and for a moment I was not sure but that Q had made a

mistake in thus leaving so unceremoniously. But he had not studied

Mrs. Belden’s character in vain. As she came, in the course of her

preparations for breakfast, into the room adjoining mine, I could

hear her murmur to herself:

“Poor thing! She has lived so long in the fields and at the

roadside, she finds it unnatural to be cooped up in the house all

night.”

The trial of that breakfast! The effort to eat and appear

unconcerned, to chat and make no mistake,--May I never be called

upon to go through such another! But at last it was over, and I was

left free to await in my own room the time for the dreaded though

much-to-be-desired interview. Slowly the minutes passed; eight

o’clock struck, when, just as the last vibration ceased, there came

a loud knock at the back-door, and a little boy burst into the

kitchen, crying at the top of his voice: “Papa’s got a fit! Oh,

Mrs. Belden! papa’s got a fit; do come!”

Rising, as was natural, I hastened towards the kitchen, meeting

Mrs. Belden’s anxious face in the doorway.

“A poor wood-chopper down the street has fallen in a fit,” she

said. “Will you please watch over the house while I see what I can

do for him? I won’t be absent any longer than I can help.”

And almost without waiting for my reply, she caught up a shawl,

threw it over her head, and followed the urchin, who was in a state

of great excitement, out into the street.

Instantly the silence of death seemed to fill the house, and a

dread the greatest I had ever experienced settled upon me. To leave

the kitchen, go up those stairs, and confront that girl seemed

for the moment beyond my power; but, once on the stair, I found

myself relieved from the especial dread which had overwhelmed me,

and possessed, instead, of a sort of combative curiosity that led

me to throw open the door which I saw at the top with a certain

fierceness new to my nature, and not altogether suitable, perhaps,

to the occasion.

I found myself in a large bedroom, evidently the one occupied by

Mrs. Belden the night before. Barely stopping to note certain

evidences of her having passed a restless night, I passed on to the

door leading into the room marked with a cross in the plan drawn

for me by Q. It was a rough affair, made of pine boards rudely

painted. Pausing before it, I listened. All was still. Raising the

latch, I endeavored to enter. The door was locked. Pausing again, I

bent my ear to the keyhole. Not a sound came from within; the grave

itself could not have been stiller. Awe-struck and irresolute,

I looked about me and questioned what I had best do. Suddenly I

remembered that, in the plan Q had given me, I had seen intimation

of another door leading into this same room from the one on the

opposite side of the hall. Going hastily around to it, I tried it

with my hand. But it was as fast as the other. Convinced at last

that nothing was left me but force, I spoke for the first time,

and, calling the girl by name, commanded her to open the door.

Receiving no response, I said aloud with an accent of severity:

“Hannah Chester, you are discovered; if you do not open the door,

we shall be obliged to break it down; save us the trouble, then,

and open immediately.”

Still no reply.

Going back a step, I threw my whole weight against the door. It

creaked ominously, but still resisted.

[Illustration: “I could not prevent a feeling of sickly

apprehension from seizing me as I turned towards the silent figure

stretched so near”]

Stopping only long enough to be sure no movement had taken place

within, I pressed against it once more, this time with all my

strength, when it flew from its hinges, and I fell forward into a

room so stifling, chill, and dark that I paused for a moment to

collect my scattered senses before venturing to look around me. It

was well I did so. In another moment, the pallor and fixity of the

pretty Irish face staring upon me from amidst the tumbled clothes

of a bed, drawn up against the wall at my side, struck me with so

deathlike a chill that, had it not been for that one instant of

preparation, I should have been seriously dismayed. As it was, I

could not prevent a feeling of sickly apprehension from seizing

me as I turned towards the silent figure stretched so near, and

observed with what marble-like repose it lay beneath the patchwork

quilt drawn across it, asking myself if sleep could be indeed so

like death in its appearance. For that it was a sleeping woman I

beheld, I did not seriously doubt. There were too many evidences

of careless life in the room for any other inference. The clothes,

left just as she had stepped from them in a circle on the floor;

the liberal plate of food placed in waiting for her on the chair by

the door, --food amongst which I recognized, even in this casual

glance, the same dish which we had had for breakfast --all and

everything in the room spoke of robust life and reckless belief in

the morrow.

And yet so white was the brow turned up to the bare beams of the

unfinished wall above her, so glassy the look of the half-opened

eyes, so motionless the arm lying half under, half over, the edge

of the coverlid that it was impossible not to shrink from contact

with a creature so sunk in unconsciousness. But contact seemed to

be necessary; any cry which I could raise at that moment would

be ineffectual enough to pierce those dull ears. Nerving myself,

therefore, I stooped and lifted the hand which lay with its

telltale scar mockingly uppermost, intending to speak, call, do

something, anything, to arouse her. But at the first touch of her

hand on mine an unspeakable horror thrilled me. It was not only

icy cold, but stiff. Dropping it in my agitation, I started back

and again surveyed the face. Great God! when did life ever look

like that? What sleep ever wore such pallid hues, such accusing

fixedness? Bending once more I listened at the lips. Not a breath,

nor a stir. Shocked to the core of my being, I made one final

effort. Tearing down the clothes, I laid my hand upon her heart. It

was pulseless as stone.