"It wasn't my business. He was a stranger and possibly mad. I didn't know what to do."
"What did you do?"
"Went home and kept quiet; my wife was very ill that night and I had my own cause for anxiety."
"You, however, read the papers next morning?"
"No, sir, nor for many days. My wife grew constantly worse and for a week I didn't leave her, not knowing but that every breath would be her last. I was dead to everything outside the sick-room and when she grew better, which was very gradually, we had to take her away, so that I had no opportunity of speaking of this occurrence to any one till a week ago, when some remark, published in connection with Mrs. Jeffrey's death, recalled that encounter on the bridge. I told a neighbor that I believed the man I had seen there was Mr. Jeffrey, and we looked up the papers and ran over them till we came upon his picture. That settled it, and I could no longer - being free from home anxieties now - hold my tongue and the police heard - "
"That will do, Mr. Gelston," broke in the major. "When we want you again, we will let you know, Durbin, see Mr. Gelston out"
I was left alone with the major and the district attorney.
There was a moment's silence, during which my own heart beat so loud that I was afraid they would hear it. Since taking up Miss Tuttle's cause I had never really believed in Mr. Jeffrey's innocence in spite of the alibi he had brought forward, and now I expected to hear these men utter the same conviction. The major was the first to speak. Addressing the district attorney, he remarked: "This will strengthen your case very materially. We have proof now that Mrs. Jeffrey's death was actually determined upon. If Miss Tuttle had not shot her, he would. I wonder if it was a relief to him on reaching his door to find that the deed was done."
I could not suppress my surprise.
"Miss Tuttle!" I repeated. "Is it so unmistakably evident that Mr. Jeffrey did not get to the Moore house in time to do the shooting himself?"
The major gave me a quick look.
"I thought you considered Miss Tuttle the guilty one."
I felt that the time had come to show my colors.
"I have changed my mind," said I. "I can give you no good reason for this; something in the woman herself, I suppose. She does not look nor act like a criminal. While not desirous of raising myself in opposition to the judgment of those so greatly my superior in all respects, I have had this feeling, and I am courageous enough to avow it. And yet, if Mr. Jeffrey could not have left the cemetery gates and reached the Moore house in time to fulfil all the conditions of this tragedy, the case does look black against the woman. She admits to having been there when the pistol was fired, unless - "
"Unless what? You have something new to tell us. That I have seen ever since you entered the room. What is it?"
I cast a glance at the door. Should I be able to finish my story before Durbin returned? I thought it possible, and, though still upset by this new evidence, which I could now see was not entirely in Miss Tuttle's favor, I spoke up with what spirit I might.
"I have just come from spending another night in the Moore house.
All the efforts heretofore made to exhaust its secrets have been founded upon a theory that has brought us nowhere. I had another in mind, and I was anxious to test it before resting from all further attempt to solve this riddle. And it has not failed me.
By pursuing a clue apparently so trivial that I allowed it to go neglected for weeks, I have come upon the key to the many mysterious crimes which have defiled the library hearthstone. And where do you think it lies? Not in the hearthstone itself and not in the floor under the settle; not, in fact, in the library at all, but in the picture hanging upstairs in the southwest chamber."
"The picture! that faded-out sketch, fit only for the garret?"
"Yes. To you and to most people surveying it, it is just what you say and nothing more. But to the initiated few - pray Heaven they may have been few - it is writing, conveying secret instructions.
The whole combination of curves which go to make up this sketch is a curious arrangement of words inscribed with the utmost care, in the smallest of characters. Viewed with a magnifying glass, the uncertain outlines of a shadowy face surmounted by a mass of piled-up hair resolve themselves into lines of writing, the words of which are quite intelligible and full of grim and unmistakable purpose. I have read those lines; and what is more, I have transcribed them into plain copy. Will you read them? They contain a most extraordinary confession; a confession that was manifestly intended as a warning, but which unfortunately has had very different results. It may explain the death of the man from Denver, even if it cast no light upon the other inexplicable features of the remarkable case we are considering."
As I spoke I laid open on the table before me the transcription of which I spoke. Instantly the two men bent over it. When they looked up again, their countenances showed not excitement only but appreciation; and in the one minute of triumph which I then enjoyed, all that had wounded or disturbed me in the past was forgotten.
"You are a man in a thousand," was the major's first enthusiastic comment; at which I was conscious of regretting, with very pardonable inconsistency, that Durbin had not returned in time to hear these words.
The major now proposed that we should go at once to the old house.
"A family secret like this does not crop up every day even in a city so full of surprises as Washington. We will hunt for the spring under the closet drawers and see what happens, eh? And on our way there" - here he turned to me "I should like to hear the particulars concerning the little clue just mentioned. By the way, Mr. Jeffrey's interest in this old drawing is now explained. He knew its diabolical secret."
This was self-evident, and my heart was heavy for Miss Tuttle, who seemed to be so deep in her brother-in-law's confidence.
