Taking off my bonnet, whose rakish appearance had given me such a shock, I sat down, and for half an hour neither moved nor spoke4. I was thinking. A theory which had faintly suggested itself to me at the inquest was taking on body with these later developments. Two hats had been found on the scene of the tragedy, and two pairs of gloves, and now I had learned that there had been two women there, the one whom Mrs. Boppert had locked into the house on leaving it, and the one whom I had seen enter at midnight with Mr. Van Burnam. Which of the two had perished?[Pg 202] We had been led to think, and Mr. Van Burnam had himself acknowledged, that it was his wife; but his wife had been dressed quite differently from the murdered woman, and was, as I soon began to see, much more likely to have been the assassin than the victim. Would you like to know my reasons for this extraordinary statement? If so, they are these:
I had always seen a woman's hand in this work, but having no reason to believe in the presence of any other woman on the scene of crime than the victim, I had put this suspicion aside as untenable. But now that I had found the second woman, I returned to it.
But how connect her with the murder? It seemed easy enough to do so if this other woman was her rival. We have heard of no rival, but she may have known of one, and this knowledge may have been at the bottom of her disagreement with her husband and the half-crazy determination she evinced to win his family over to her side. Let us say, then, that the second woman was Mrs. Van Burnam's rival. That he brought her there not knowing that his wife had effected an entrance into the house; brought her there after an afternoon spent at the Hotel D——, during which he had furnished her with a new outfit5 of less pronounced type, perhaps, than that she had previously6 worn. The use of the two carriages and the care they took to throw suspicion off their track, may have been part of a scheme of future elopement, for I had no idea they meant to remain in Mr. Van Burnam's house. For what purpose, then, did they go there? To meet Mrs. Van Burnam and kill her, that their way might be clearer for flight? No; I had rather think that they went to the house without a thought of whom they would[Pg 203] encounter, and that only after they had entered the parlors7 did he realize that the two women he least wished to see together had been brought by his folly9 face to face.
The presence in the third room of Mrs. Van Burnam's hat, gloves, and novel seemed to argue that she had spent the evening in reading by the dining-room table, but whether this was so or not, the stopping of a carriage in front and the opening of the door by an accustomed hand undoubtedly10 assured her that either the old gentleman or some other member of the family had unexpectedly arrived. She was, therefore, in or near the parlor8-door when they entered, and the shock of meeting her hated rival in company with her husband, under the very roof where she had hoped to lay the foundations of her future happiness, must have been great, if not maddening. Accusations11, recriminations even, did not satisfy her. She wanted to kill; but she had no weapon. Suddenly her eyes fell on the hat-pin which her more self-possessed rival had drawn12 from her hat, possibly before their encounter, and she conceived a plan which seemed to promise her the very revenge she sought. How she carried it out; by what means she was enabled to approach her victim and inflict13 with such certainty the fatal stab which laid her enemy at her feet, can be left to the imagination. But that she, a woman, and not Howard, a man, drove this woman's weapon into the stranger's spine14, I will yet prove, or lose all faith in my own intuitions.
But if this theory is true, how about the shelves that fell at daybreak, and how about her escape from the house without detection? A little thought will explain all that. The man, horrified15, no doubt, at the[Pg 204] result of his imprudence, and execrating16 the crime to which it had led, left the house almost immediately. But the woman remained there, possibly because she had fainted, possibly because he would have nothing to do with her; and coming to herself, saw her victim's face staring up at her with an accusing beauty she found it impossible to meet. What should she do to escape it? Where should she go? She hated it so she could have trampled17 on it, but she restrained her passions till daybreak, when in one wild burst of fury and hatred18 she drew down the cabinet upon it, and then fled the scene of horror she had herself caused. This was at five, or, to be exact, three minutes before that hour, as shown by the clock she had carelessly set in her lighter19 moments.
She escaped by the front door, which her husband had mercifully forborne to lock; and she had not been discovered by the police, because her appearance did not tally20 with the description which had been given them. How did I know this? Remember the discoveries I had made in Miss Van Burnam's room, and allow them to assist you in understanding my conclusions.
Some one had gone into that room; some one who wanted pins; and keeping this fact before my eyes, I saw through the motive22 and actions of the escaping woman. She had on a dress separated at the waist, and finding, perhaps, a spot of blood on the skirt, she conceived the plan of covering it with her petticoat, which was also of silk and undoubtedly as well made as many women's dresses. But the skirt of the gown was longer than the petticoat and she was obliged to pin it up. Having no pins herself, and finding none[Pg 205] on the parlor floor, she went up-stairs to get some. The door at the head of the stairs was locked, but the front room was open, so she entered there. Groping her way to the bureau, for the place was very dark, she found a pin-cushion hanging from a bracket. Feeling it to be full of pins, and knowing that she could see nothing where she was, she tore it away and carried it towards the door. Here there was some light from the skylight over the stairs, so setting the cushion down on the bed, she pinned up the skirt of her gown.
When this was done she started away, brushing the cushion off the bed in her excitement, and fearing to be traced by her many-colored hat, or having no courage remaining for facing again the horror in the parlor, she slid out without one and went, God knows whither, in her terror and remorse23.
So much for my theory; now for the facts standing21 in the way of its complete acceptance. They were two: the scar on the ankle of the dead girl, which was a peculiarity24 of Louise Van Burnam, and the mark of the rings on her fingers. But who had identified the scar? Her husband. No one else. And if the other woman had, by some strange freak of chance, a scar also on her left foot, then the otherwise unaccountable apathy25 he had shown at being told of this distinctive26 mark, as well as his temerity27 in afterwards taking it as a basis for his false identification, becomes equally consistent and natural; and as for the marks of the rings, it would be strange if such a woman did not wear rings and plenty of them.
Howard's conduct under examination and the contradiction between his first assertions and those that followed, all become clear in the light of this new theory.[Pg 206] He had seen his wife kill a defenceless woman before his eyes, and whether influenced by his old affection for her or by his pride in her good name, he could not but be anxious to conceal28 her guilt29 even at the cost of his own truthfulness30. As long then as circumstances permitted, he preserved his indifferent attitude, and denied that the dead woman was his wife. But when driven to the wall by the indisputable proof which was brought forth31 of his wife having been in the place of murder, he saw, or thought he did, that a continued denial on his part of Louise Van Burnam being the victim might lead sooner or later to the suspicion of her being the murderer, and influenced by this fear, took the sudden resolution of profiting by all the points which the two women had in common by acknowledging, what everybody had expected him to acknowledge from the first, that the woman at the Morgue was his wife. This would exonerate32 her, rid him of any apprehension33 he may have entertained of her ever returning to be a disgrace to him, and would (and perhaps this thought influenced him most, for who can understand such men or the passions that sway them) insure the object of his late devotion a decent burial in a Christian34 cemetery35. To be sure, the risk he ran was great, but the emergency was great, and he may not have stopped to count the cost. At all events, the fact is certain that he perjured36 himself when he said that it was his wife he brought to the house from the Hotel D——, and if he perjured himself in this regard, he probably perjured himself in others, and his testimony37 is not at all to be relied upon.
Convinced though I was in my own mind that I had struck a truth which would bear the closest investigation,[Pg 207] I was not satisfied to act upon it till I had put it to the test. The means I took to do this were daring, and quite in keeping with the whole desperate affair. They promised, however, a result important enough to make Mr. Gryce blush for the disdain38 with which he had met my threats of interference.
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1
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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2
askew
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| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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4
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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7
parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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9
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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12
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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13
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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14
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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execrating
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| v.憎恶( execrate的现在分词 )；厌恶；诅咒；咒骂 | |
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trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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18
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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19
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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20
tally
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| n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致 | |
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21
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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24
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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25
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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temerity
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| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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29
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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30
truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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31
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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32
exonerate
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| v.免除责任，确定无罪 | |
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33
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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35
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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36
perjured
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| adj.伪证的，犯伪证罪的v.发假誓，作伪证( perjure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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38
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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