That Affair at Elizabeth by Burton Egbert Stevenson (book club suggestions TXT) 📕

understand even yet," I added, "why that face should affect her so. She couldn't have recognised it, since she'd never seen Parello."

"How do you know she never saw him? I'm decidedly inclined to think she had—that he was the cause of that violent quarrel between her and her sister which Dr. Schuyler mentioned. Lucy Kingdon, looking at the man clear-eyed, saw him as he was and tried to dissuade her sister from the entanglement; the elder woman, blinded by passion, wouldn't listen, and the quarrel followed, in which both, no doubt, used words which they afterwards regretted."

"Yes," I agreed, "perhaps you're right."

"Even if she'd never seen him," Godfrey added, "she must have suspected who it was—there was only one man in the world whom her sister was capable of killing. Or she might have imagined that it was some one else. There's been nothing in all this, Lester, to disprove my original theory about Miss Lawrence."

"Godfrey," I said impulsively, "I'm going to disprove it once and for all. Look at this," and I thrust into his hands the photograph Burr Curtiss had entrusted to me.

He gazed at it for some moments in silence. At last he handed it back to me.

"Do you believe that theory now?" I asked.

"No," he answered, and sat staring straight before him, his lips compressed.

"I knew you'd say so," I said. "I knew you'd see how impossible it was that there should be any shameful secret in her life. I wavered once or twice when every discovery we made seemed to confirm your theory, but I never really believed it. I'd only to recall this photograph——"

"Why didn't you show it to me before?" he asked.

"Candidly, Godfrey," I answered, crimsoning a little, "I—I don't know."

"Oh, yes, you do!" he retorted. "You were afraid I'd chin it out of you."

"Well, yes, I was," I admitted.

He looked at me curiously for a moment.

"I see you don't know me very well, even yet, Lester," he said, at last. "I'm sorry you didn't let me see it. It would have saved me a wild-goose chase. But then," he added, with a grim little laugh, "I might not have stumbled upon this second tragedy. So perhaps it was as well, after all. I forgive you."

"You think the photograph would have made the mystery clearer?" I asked.

"Clearer?" he echoed. "My dear Lester, it makes it more unexplainable than ever. It converts it from a vulgar intrigue into the most puzzling problem I ever had to deal with!"

I was staring at him in astonishment.

"I don't see how it can do that!" I protested.

"Don't you? Well, I'll tell you. I've already pointed out to you that, so far as I could see, my theory was the only conceivable one which would explain Marcia Lawrence's flight. I look at that photograph and see at once that I must throw that theory aside. What have I left? Nothing! That photograph shows me a pure, cultured, innocent woman; I know that she loved devotedly the man she was to marry. Yet she deliberately deserts him. I should say it was incredible, if I didn't know it was true!"

"Then," I said, "while we've solved one mystery, the other is as deep as ever."

"Deeper!" he corrected. "Miles deeper. In fact, it hasn't any bottom at all, that I can see," and he sank back into his seat again, a deep line between his eyebrows.

CHAPTER XXIV The Secret

The dusk of evening was falling as we were ferried across to the city. I bade Godfrey good-bye, and took a cab direct to my rooms, for I was weary in body and spirit. But a bath and dinner improved both, and at eight o'clock I was ringing at Mr. Royce's door, for I knew how anxious he would be to hear my story, and besides, I owed him some reparation for leaving him alone at the office.

He opened the door himself, and his face brightened at sight of me.

"Why, Lester!" he cried, and shook hands warmly. "Come in. I'm mighty glad to see you."

"I thought you'd like to hear about it," I said.

"Of course I shall. It was like you to think of it."

"I wanted to talk it over with you. It may help to straighten things out. I was afraid there wouldn't be time at the office."

"We are rushed there, and that's a fact. Suppose we go up to the den. We can talk our talk out, there. Though," he added, as he led the way up the stair, "we could do that anywhere to-night. I'm keeping bachelor's hall. That affair at Elizabeth so upset my wife that she's gone away to the mountains to get braced up. Here we are," and he threw open a door.

It was a cheery room, where he had gathered together the impedimenta which had marked his progress through bachelordom, mementoes of his college days, and such other possessions as were peculiarly his.

"Now," he said, when we were settled, "let's have the story. Of course I've read the papers, but I hope you won't take that into account."

So I told it step by step, while he listened silently, save for an occasional exclamation of astonishment.

"It's the most remarkable thing I ever heard," he said, when I had finished. "I don't wonder that you believed at first that it had some connection with the Lawrence affair."

"It was certainly a remarkable coincidence that they should happen together as they did."

"And the first affair is as deep a mystery as ever?"

"Godfrey says it's deeper than ever. I showed him Miss Lawrence's photograph as we came in on the train together, and after he'd looked at it, he said it was the strangest puzzle he'd ever encountered. It's absolutely unexplainable."

Mr. Royce smoked for a moment in silence.

"Of course there must be some explanation," he said, "and an adequate one. Marcia Lawrence wouldn't have run away without good and sufficient reason."

"No," I agreed, "but there's one thing certain—whatever the reason, it isn't of a nature to render the marriage impossible. She was probably overwrought when she wrote that note to Curtiss—something had upset her so suddenly and completely that she couldn't see clearly."

"How do you know that?"

"Don't you remember her mother's last words to me? She said it would be for Curtiss to decide."

"Yes, I remember. And I think there's no question as to what his decision will be."

"No," I agreed. "Most men would be glad to get Marcia Lawrence upon any terms."

"Not Curtiss—but then he's desperately in love. Maybe he'll be willing to recede a shade or two from his ideal."

"He won't have to recede," I asserted confidently. "She's spotless, whatever the secret."

"I hope so," agreed our junior slowly. "Well, they'll have to fight it out together when they meet on the other side. If I were Curtiss, I'd be mighty shaky about that meeting."

"And I. Of course," I added, "the whole mystery hinges on that letter from New York. Godfrey imagined he knew the contents, but the event showed how wide he was of the mark. He had a theory that the letter was written by a disreputable, blackmailing husband of the girl, whom she'd believed dead. That was his theory from the first—the only possible explanation, he called it. Then, when he found that a picturesque stranger had asked the way to the Kingdon cottage, he immediately concluded that the letter had appointed a rendezvous, and that Miss Lawrence had kept it. All of which was afterwards shown to be mere moonshine."

"Not the first part of it," Mr. Royce objected. "There's been nothing to disprove that."

"Nor anything to prove it."

"True—but it has a certain speciousness."

"Yes—all of Godfrey's theories have that. Do you remember what a perfect one he built up in the Holladay case, and how it fell to pieces? Well, I believe this is wilder yet. A look at Miss Lawrence's face will show you she hasn't any past of that kind. Godfrey himself admits that now."

My companion ran his fingers savagely through his hair.

"Of course I don't know anything about it," he said, "but I've already told you how the affair affects me. Trust me, Lester, there's some terrible secret just below the surface. I wanted to say as much to Curtiss, but didn't quite dare. That's why I shiver at the thought of that meeting. I pity him when he comes face to face with it. That reminds me—I found an old photograph of him the other day." He turned to his desk and, after a moment's search, brought out a card. "He gave it to me when we were chums together at college," he added, and handed it over to me.

It showed Curtiss as he was at twenty or twenty-one. The face was plumper than I knew it, and the skin much fairer. The hair was worn longer and the absence of beard or moustache revealed fully the singularly pure lines of the lower portion of the face—a poetic face, yet full of fire and vigour.

"We used to call him 'The Beaut.'," went on my companion. "I told you that he was rather girlish-looking. Well, see here—here he is as the soubrette, in a burlesque we got up in senior year."

He handed me a group picture including the whole company. The central figure was a charming girl, with admirable arms, hands, shoulders—an inimitable way of holding the head....

"Great Scott!" I shouted, springing to my feet. "Don't you see it? Don't you see it, man?"

"See it? See what, Lester?" repeated Mr. Royce, in amazement. "What's the matter, old fellow?"

"No, I haven't gone mad," I laughed, as he put a restraining hand on my arm. "It's the key to the mystery," I added, as calmly as I could. "I'm not going to tell you—I want you to see it for yourself. Come along."

He followed me down to the street without a word, though I could see how his hand trembled as he took down his hat. I myself was quivering from head to foot with excitement—with triumph. What a blind fool I had been not to suspect it long ago. Godfrey had never seen Curtiss, or he would have known the instant his eyes rested on that photograph!

Luckily, the journey was not a long one, or I could not have kept the secret.

"Sit there," I said, when we reached my room, and I motioned him to a chair near the table. I turned down the light and arranged my properties—let me confess at once to a secret liking for the dramatic—the unexpected. Then I turned up the light.

"Now look at them," I said, and pointed to the three photographs placed side by side before him.

He stared at them—at Marcia Lawrence; at Burr Curtiss, smooth-faced and girlish; at the soubrette....

I knew by the sudden deep breath he drew that he understood. There could be no mistaking. Feature for feature they would not match at all; but there was a tone, an expression, that little way of holding the head....

"Of course," he said slowly, at last. "Of course."

How easily it explained Marcia Lawrence's panic, her flight—there could be no marriage, no explanation—only flight!

"There's one crucial test," I said, glancing at my watch. "I'll make it this very evening."

An hour later, I was shown for the third time into the study of Dr. Schuyler at Elizabeth. He was sitting at his desk, just as I had found him once before.

"Ah, Mr. Lester," he began.

"Dr. Schuyler," I interrupted, "I've a photograph here which I'm very anxious for you to see. This is it—whose do you think it is?"

He took it with a glance of astonishment, moved over to the table, and held it beneath the rays of the lamp.

"Why," he faltered, "why—it reminds me very strongly of young Boyd Endicott, as he was when I knew him, thirty years ago."

My heart leaped.

"As a matter of fact, Dr. Schuyler," I said, "it's a photograph of Burr Curtiss, as he was ten years ago."

He stared at me for a moment without understanding, then I saw the light of comprehension in his eyes, and he sank heavily back into his chair.

"Poor woman!" he murmured hoarsely. "Poor woman!"

And all the way back to New York, I was wondering which of the women he had meant. Which was the more to be pitied—the woman who, thirty years before, had been whirled away from her lover by a trick of fortune; or the younger one, innocent and unsuspecting, discovering, only at the last moment, the horrible abyss yawning at her feet?

Which of the women had he meant?

CHAPTER XXV The Revelation

Neither Mr. Royce nor myself was quite equal to the routine work of the office next morning. We had solved the mystery, indeed; but so far from bringing us relief, the solution had brought us a terrible