The Dead Letter · Part I · Chapter 1 6 (2/2)

We then went out upon the lawn. I took my companion to the tree beneath which I had stood, when that dark figure had approached, and passed me, to crouch beneath the window from which the death-candles shone. From this spot, the bay-window was not visible, that being at the back of the house and this on the side. Mr. Burton looked carefully about him, walking all over the lawn, going up under the parlor windows, and thence pursuing his way into the garden and around to the bay-window. It was quite natural to search closely in this precinct for some mark or footsteps, some crushed flowers, or broken branches, or scratches upon the wall, left by the thief, if he or she had made his or her entrance at this spot. Going over the ground thus, inch by inch, I observed a bit of white lawn, soiled and weather-beaten, lying under a rosebush a few feet from the window. I picked it up. It was a woman’s handkerchief, of fine lawn, embroidered along the edge with a delicate running vine, and a spray of flowers at the corner.

“One of the young ladies has dropped it, some time ago,” I said, “or it has blown across from the kitchen grass-plot, where the linen is put out to dry.”

Then I examined the discolored article more closely, and, involved in the graceful twinings of the spray of flowers, I saw worked the initials⁠—“L. S.”

“Leesy Sullivan,” said my companion, taking it from my hand.

“It seems too dainty an article for her ownership,” I said, at last, for, at first, I had been quite stupefied.

“A woman’s vanity will compass many things beyond her means. This thing she has embroidered with her own needle⁠—you remember, she is a proficient in the art.”

“Yes, I remember. She may have lost it Sunday night, during that visit which I observed; and the wind has blown it over into this spot.”

“You forget that there has been no rain since that night. This handkerchief has been beaten into the grass and earth by a violent rain. A thorn upon this bush has pulled it from her pocket as she passed, and the rain has set its mark upon it, to be used as a testimony against her.”

“The evidence seems to conflict. She can not be a man and woman both.”

“Why not?” was the quiet reply. “There may be a principal and an accomplice. A woman is a safer accomplice for a man than one of his own sex⁠—and vice versa.”

The face which I had seen, in its despair, the face of Leesy Sullivan, rose in my memory, full of passion, marked in every soft yet impressive lineament with slumbering power⁠—“such a nature,” I thought, “can be maddened into crime, but it will not consort with villainy.”

Mr. Burton put the handkerchief in the inside pocket of his coat, and we returned into the house. He inquired the names of the servants, none of whose initials corresponded with those we had found, nor could I recall any lady visitors of the family to whom the handkerchief might belong by virtue of its inscription. There was not the shadow of a doubt but that it had been the property of the sewing-girl. Some errand, secret and unlawful, had brought her to these grounds, and under this window. We now considered it proper to show the handkerchief to Mr. Argyll, and relate to him our grounds of suspicion against the girl. Mary and James were admitted to the council. The former said that she remembered Miss Sullivan; that she had been employed in the family, for a few days at a time, on several different occasions, but none of them recent. “We liked her sewing very much, and wanted to engage her for the next six weeks,” she added, with a sigh, “but on inquiring for her, learned that she was now employed in New York.”

“She must, then, have been perfectly familiar with the arrangement of the house, and with the habits of the family; as for instance, at what hour you dined. She might enter while the family were at table, since, had she been surprised by the entrance of a servant, or other person, she could affect to have called on an errand, and to be waiting for the young ladies,” remarked Mr. Burton.

The servants were then summoned, one at a time, and questioned as to whether they had observed any suspicious persons whatever about the house or grounds within a week. They were, of course, in a national state of high excitement, and immediately upon a question being put to them, answered every other imaginary case in the world but that, blessed themselves, called on the Virgin Mary, gave an account of all the beggars as called at the kitchen last year and the year afore, cried abundantly, and gave no coherent information.

“Ah, sure!” said Norah, the cook, “there was the blackin’-and-bluin’ man come around last Wednesday, and I tuk a bottle of the blue for the clothes. It’s a poor mimiry I have, sure, since I came across the say. Afore that I could recollect beyond anything, and the praste used to praise my rading. I think it was the tossin’ an’ rollin’ ov the ship upsot my brain. It was Saturday, it wur, and oh, Lordy, it is setting me all of a trimble a-thinkin’ of that day, and I see a little yeller dog a-stickin’ his nose into the kitching door, which was open about half, and says I, there’s vagabonds around sure, now, I knew by the dog, and I wint and looked out, and sure as me name’s Norah, there was an old lame man wid a stick a-pretinding to look for rags an’ bones in the alley to the stable, which I niver allows such about, as it’s against the master’s orthers, and I druv him off immajetly⁠—and that, I think, was Saturday two weeks now, but I won’t be sure; and I don’t mind nobody else but the chany-woman, wid her basket, which I don’t think it could have been her as done any thin’ bad, for she’s been round rig’ler, for a good while, and is a dacent-spoken body that I’ve had some dalin’s wid myself. I sowld her my old plaid gown for the matchbox of ebony that sits on the kitching-mantel now, and oh dear! but my heart’s dead broke, sure! Margaret and I daren’t set in the kitching of nights no more, unless Jim’s there, an’ I’ve woke up scr’aming two nights now⁠—och hone! and if I’d seed anything, I’d a told it long afore, which I wish I had, seein’ you’ve axed me, sir. It don’t do no good a-cooking delicacies which nobody eats no longer⁠—I wish I had never come to Amyriky, to see poor Miss Eleanor so tuk down!” and having relieved herself of the sympathy which she had been aching to express, without the opportunity, she threw her apron over her head, and sobbed after the manner of her people.

Margaret’s testimony was no more to the point than Norah’s. Mr. Burton let each one go on after her own heart, putting up with the tedious circumlocution, in the hope of some kernel of wheat in the bushel of chaff.

After a deluge of tears and interjections, Maggie did finally come out with a statement which arrested the attention of her listeners.

“I’ve never seen none gawking about as didn’t belong here⁠—not a living sowl. The howly Virgin prevint that iver I should see what Jim did⁠—it wasn’t a human being at all, but a wraith, and he seen it that very night. He niver told us of it, till the Tuesday night, as we sot talking about the funeral, and it frightened us so, we niver slept a wink till morning. Poor Jim’s worried with it, too; he pretinds he isn’t afraid of the livin’ nor dead, but it’s no shame to the best to stand in awe of the sperits, and I see he’s backward about going about the place, alone, after dark, and no wonder! Sure, he saw a ghost!”

“What was it like?”

“Sure, you’d best call him, and let him describe it for hisself⁠—it’ll make your blood run cold to think of sich things in a Christian family.”

Jim was summoned. His story, weeded out, was this: On Saturday evening, after tea, his mistress, Miss Eleanor, had asked him to go to the post-office for the evening mail. It was very dark and rainy. He lighted the lantern. As he went out the back gate, he stopped a minute and lifted his lantern to take a look about the premises, to see if there was anything left out which ought to be taken in from the storm. As he waved the light about, he saw something in the flower-garden, about six feet from the bay-window. It had the appearance of a woman; its face was white, its hair hung down on its shoulders; it stood quite still in the rain, just as if the water was not coming down by bucketfuls. It had very large, bright eyes, which shone when the candle threw the light on them, as if they had been made of fire. He was so frightened that he let his lantern fall, which did not happen to extinguish the candle, but when he lifted it up again, the wraith had vanished. He felt very queer about it, at the time; and next day, when the bad news came, he knew it was a warning. They often had such in the old country.

We did not undeceive Jim as to the character of the phantom. With the assurance that it probably would not come again, since its mission had been accomplished, and a caution not to make the girls in the kitchen too nervous about it, we dismissed him.