Slighted love or, At her heart's expense
servant, I got the body safely out of the house, and we took it to
the river and threw it in. Then, returning, we took up the parlor
carpet, and hurriedly removed all traces of the crime. Then I went
up-stairs again to see after you. To my horror, you were gone in your
night-dress, leaving your clothing all there.”
“I am at times a somnambulist. I must have gone away in my sleep and
walked the long distance to Boston without waking,” explained Italy.
“Yes, that must have been the way. I often wandered what became of you,
and, oh, I was so thankful you did not betray what had happened and
send the police here!” cried Mrs. Smith.
“I ought to have done so,” answered Italy sternly. Then her voice grew
tremulous as she asked:
“You did not think I committed the murder, did you?”
“Laws, no, miss, for to tell you the truth, I saw it done myself.”
“You?” cried Italy, in wonder; and the housekeeper replied:
“Yes, miss; to tell the truth, I was peeping through that keyhole there
into the very room where you were, and I saw a woman’s face at the
window, saw her raise a pistol and fire. I rushed into the room. There
lay Mr. Severn dead, and you in a faint.”
“Did you know the woman?”
“No, miss; she was a perfect stranger to me, although I would be sure
to know her face if I ever saw it again.”
“What if I tell you that your master, Mr. Seabright, married that
murderess to-night?”
“Oh, miss, I could not believe you!”
“But it is true. I recognized her face, and it was Mrs. Dunn. But
I kept silence, because I thought she did it to save me from that
villain.”
“Oh, I wish my master had known it. He never would have married that
wicked woman.”
“Your master is very wicked himself. It is because of some suspected
villainy of his that I am here to-night,” answered Italy, coming
suddenly to the point, and before Mrs. Smith could remonstrate, she
continued:
“You are in my power, Mrs. Smith, for the widow of Harold Severn has
offered a large reward for information that would lead to the discovery
of her husband’s murderer. If I should tell her what I know, it would
bring you and your doings into terrible notoriety. Remember, you
acted a very dishonorable part, claiming to be Mrs. Gardner, a very
well-known Boston lady.”
“Oh, miss, I did wrong. For God’s sake don’t expose me!” whined the
housekeeper, falling abjectly on her knees before her accuser.
“Upon only one condition will I spare you,” Italy answered sternly.
“Oh, miss, if there is anything I can do for you?”
“There is one very simple thing,” Italy told her; adding:
“In this house Percy Seabright has one locked room of which you keep
the key. Give me admission to that room, let me search for something
that is hidden there, and whether I find it or not, your secret shall
be safe with me!”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MRS. VALE IS VINDICATED.
The housekeeper’s face grew lividly pale at these words.
“Oh, miss, you don’t know what you’re asking. Mr. Seabright would kill
me!”
“Your master is on the sea now, and will not return for many months. He
need never know.”
“But indeed, miss, there’s nothing of interest in the room--only
rubbish. Please ask me something else to do for you.”
“It is this, or nothing. And if you refuse, this house will be reported
to the police as a gambling-den. It will be raided and searched!”
Mrs. Smith read deadly earnest in the pale, stern young face. She rose
up, shuddering:
“Will you promise me one thing if I let you have the key?” she asked
wildly. “You will go in alone, and never tell what you saw in there?
Oh, heavens, it would ruin my poor master! And I promised his mother
on her dying bed to look after her son, to shield his secret from the
world!”
The woman wrung her hands in a sort of impotent despair. Her terror
only made Italy more anxious.
“Yes, I will go in alone, and I will promise not to reveal anything you
don’t wish me to,” she cried. “I will tell you the truth, Mrs. Smith.
I simply want to find a little book that I believe Mr. Seabright has
hidden away. It belongs to my mother, and she wants it very much.”
“Oh, if that is all,” began the woman, “perhaps I can find it for you.
What is the title?”
“I must search for it myself,” the girl answered resolutely, and, with
a long-drawn sigh, the woman yielded the point.
“Come, then,” she said abruptly, and, after returning a moment to her
friends in the parlor, Italy followed her up-stairs to her own room.
She was trembling with excitement. She felt herself on the eve of a
terrible discovery of some sort.
Mrs. Smith went to a secrétaire in her room, pushed back what seemed to
be a hidden or secret drawer, and took out a brass key. With this she
unlocked a door across the room and left Italy a moment, saying:
“Wait till I light the gas.”
She carried in a step-ladder and lighted a gas-jet near up to the
ceiling, then came back and said with sullen acquiescence:
“You may come in now.”
And with a wildly throbbing heart Italy stepped over the threshold of
the mysterious chamber.
Mrs. Smith quickly closed the door, and they were alone together.
Italy raised her eyes and gazed curiously around her. The next moment a
cry of startled comprehension escaped her lips:
“I was right. Percy Seabright is a maniac!”
The room in which she stood was one of those small padded chambers
used to imprison the violently insane to prevent them from injuring
themselves in their paroxysms of madness. It was devoid of furniture
with the exception of a large cushioned chair that stood before a small
secrétaire similar to the one in Mrs. Smith’s room. This was piled with
a quantity of dilapidated-looking books, from all of which the backs
had been stripped.
“Percy Seabright is a maniac!” repeated Italy, and Mrs. Smith cried out
remonstratingly:
“Oh, no, Miss Vale, you’re quite mistaken. The room was like this when
he bought the house. The former owner had an insane wife that he kept
in here.”
Italy did not take the trouble to tell the woman that she was speaking
falsely. She was eagerly turning over the books, and pulling open the
little drawers in search of the diary. She looked around at the woman.
“There must be a secret drawer in this secrétaire, the same as in
yours. Open it,” she commanded.
Mrs. Smith touched a hidden spring, and a little drawer shot out
instantly. Lying in it was a small book bound in dark velvet, clasped
in gold, and lettered in gilt: “Diary.”
At that moment the peal of the door-bell resounded loudly through the
house. Mrs. Smith gave a violent start.
“Heavens, what does that mean? I must go instantly. Miss Vale, you
cannot leave for a moment or two until I return. Will you have the
goodness to lock yourself into this room until I return?”
“I warn you not to attempt any treachery toward me, madam. My friends
are here, remember,” Italy said warningly.
“I swear I mean you no harm. I am frightened for your safety, that is
all. But I must go and see about that new arrival,” and she darted out,
leaving the girl alone. Italy sprang to follow, but Mrs. Smith was too
quick. The door slammed, the key clicked in the lock on the other side.
She was a prisoner. For a moment her heart stood still with terror.
Then reason came to her aid.
“She will have to release me presently. My friends will not leave the
house without me.”
She flew back to the open drawer of the secrétaire, snatched up the
diary, and sank tremblingly into the cushioned chair. Alas! the golden
clasp of the book was locked, and the key missing.
She remembered with a thrill of horror that she had seen among the
trinkets on Percy Seabright’s watch-chain a tiny golden key. He had
laughingly told Alys Audenreid, when she asked about it, that it was
the key to a mystery.
“It is the key to Aunt Ione’s locked bracelet, I think,” returned Alys,
and though he had denied it no one believed it.
But now Italy guessed at the fatal truth. It was the key to the diary,
and he had carried it away with him across the ocean. Desperate with
impatience, she tugged at the lock, pulling with all the strength of
her little hands. The rivets on one side of the clasp yielded, the side
of it flew loose, the book opened its closely written pages to her
eager eyes.
On the flyleaf she read, in her father’s writing, his name, Ronald
Vale. And then a low groan of horror came from her livid lips.
She had identified the missing diary not only by her father’s name, but
by gruesome spots here and there on the pages--spots that looked like
red rust, but that she guessed too truly were her father’s blood.
“The diary was lying by your father’s elbow when I parted from him. It
must have been there when he was murdered,” her mother had said to her
more than once.
She shuddered all over and looked at her white fingers as though she
expected to see stains of blood on their fairness, then she opened the
book and began to read at random the paragraphs that caught her eyes.
Among the first entries, mention was made of Ronald Vale’s first
meeting with, and growing friendship for, the man who had proved his
fate.
“We are congenial souls--brothers,” wrote Ronald Vale. “I did
not believe it was possible to love a man as fondly as I love
Percy Seabright. He is a most charming companion, bright, witty,
intellectual. He has been everywhere, although still so very young; he
has read everything; he is a poet in feeling, and a gifted amateur
actor. But I own he has one fault: He is continually boasting of his
conquests over women, and to listen to Percy, one might believe that
every woman of his acquaintance, married and single, is in love with
him.
“He is fascinating, I know, but I think his vanity misleads him. He
mistakes kindness for love. In fact, a very beautiful young girl told
me recently that she detested Mr. Seabright from the first minute she
saw him, and that he made her think of a serpent. I would not tell him
this for anything, for I can fancy how those bright, dark eyes would
flash with anger at the thought that any woman did not admire him.
“We are planning a tour of Europe together, and sail next week. I am
quite sure that my dear brother, as Percy makes me call him, will be a
very charming traveling-companion.”
Italy was trembling so violently that the pages slipped from under the
little finger that held them down and she lost the place where she was
reading.
She opened it again farther on, and at the very top of the page this
entry stared her in the face:
“London, Eng., Aug. 25th, 18--. I have made a shocking discovery that
has almost prostrated me. My dear friend Percy is mentally unbalanced.”
A cry of wonder came from Italy’s lips:
“So papa really knew it, then! Yet all this time the world has been in
ignorance of this secret!”
She read on with eager eyes the continuation of the diary:
“It is dreadful, dreadful! Percy is possessed of a suicidal mania.
Three times since we came abroad he has attempted to end his own life,
and but for my vigilance would now be dead. I am miserable over him.
The story of this trip abroad is as weird and strange as a romance.
The doctors tell me I must take him home, and----”
“Oh,” cried Italy, looking up, with a start, from her reading, for the
key had clicked in the lock, and the door opened.
She looked up, expecting to see Mrs. Smith, but the next moment she
sprang from her seat with an uncontrollable shriek of fear. It was
not the housekeeper, it was her master, Percy Seabright, and when he
saw Italy Vale sitting there reading her father’s diary, a shriek of
maniacal fury burst from his lips, and he sprang forward, clutching her
throat in a grasp of steel.
* * * * *