The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

XXVI

You may recall that my first thought in contemplating the coil in which we had all been caught by the alleged disappearance of the will supposed to contain my uncle’s final instructions, was that an inquiry including every person then in the house, should be made by some one in authority—Edgar, for instance—for the purpose of determining who was responsible for the same by a close investigation into the circumstances which made this crime possible. Little did I foresee at the time that such an inquiry, though shirked when it might have resulted in good, lay before us backed by the law and presided over by a public official.

But this fact was the first one to strike me, as convened in one of the large rooms in the City Hall, we faced the Coroner, in ignorance, most of us, of what such an inquiry portended and how much or how little of the truth it would bring to light.

I knew what I had to fear from my own story. I had told it once before and witnessed its effect. But how about Orpha’s? And Edgar’s? and that of the long row of servants, uneasy in body and perplexed in mind, from whose unwitting, if not unwilling lips some statement might fall which would fix suspicion or so shift it as to lead us into new lines of thought.

I had never been in a court-room before and though I knew that the formality as well as the seriousness of a trial would be lacking in a coroner’s inquest, I shivered at the prospect, for some one of the witnesses soon to be heard had something to hide and whether the discovery of the same or its successful suppression was most to be desired who could tell.

The testimony of the doctors, as well as much of general interest in connection with the case, fell on deaf ears so far as I was concerned. Orpha, clad in her mourning garments and heavily veiled, held all my thoughts. Even the elaborate questioning of the two lawyers who drew up the wills, the similarity and dissimilarity of which undoubtedly lay at the bottom of the dreadful crime we were assembled to inquire into, left me cold. In a way I heard what had passed between each of these men and the testator on the day of the signing. How Mr. Dunn, who had attended to my uncle’s law business for years, had recognized the desirability of his client making a new will under the changed conditions brought about by the reception into his family of a second nephew of whose claims upon a certain portion of his property he must wish to make some acknowledgment, received the detailed instructions sent him, with no surprise and followed them out to the letter, bringing the document with him for signature on the day and at the hour designated in the notes he had received from his client. The result was so satisfactory that no delay was made in calling in the witnesses to his signature and the signing of all three. What delay there was was caused by a little controversy in regard to his former will whose provisions differed in many respects from this one. Mr. Bartholomew wished to retain it,—the lawyer advised its destruction, the lawyer finally gaining the day. It being in Mr. Bartholomew’s possession at the time, the witness expected it to be brought out and burned before his eyes; but it was not, Mr. Bartholomew merely promising that this should be done before the day ended. Whether or not he kept his word, the lawyer could not say from any personal knowledge.

Mr. Jackson had much the same story to tell. He too had received a letter from Mr. Bartholomew, asking his assistance in the making of a new will, together with instructions for the same, scrupulously written out in full detail by the testator’s own hand on bits of paper carefully numbered. Asked to show these instructions, they were handed over and laid side by side with those already passed up by Mr. Dunn. I think they were both read; I hardly noticed; I only know that they were found to be exactly similar, with the one notable exception I need not mention. Of course the names of the witnesses differed.

What did reach my ear was a sentence uttered by Mr. Jackson as coming from my uncle when the will brought for his signature was unfolded before him. “You may be surprised,” Uncle had said, “at the tenor of my bequests and the man I have chosen to bear the heavy burden of a complicated heritage. I know what I am doing and all I ask of you and the two witnesses you have been kind enough to bring here from your office is silence till the hour comes when it will be your business to speak.”

This created a small hubbub among the people assembled, to many of whom it was probably the first word they had ever heard in my favor. During it and the sounding of the gavel calling them to order, my attention naturally was drawn in the direction of these men and women to whom my affairs seemed to be of so much importance. Alas! egotist that I was! They were not interested in me but in the case; and especially in anything which suggested an undue influence on my part over an enfeebled old man. Their antagonism to me was very evident, being heightened rather than lessened by the words just heard.

But there was one face I encountered which told a different story. Mr. Jackson had his own ideas and they were favorable to me. With a sigh of relief I turned my attention back to the heavily veiled figure of Orpha.

What was she thinking? How was she feeling? What interpretation might I reasonably put upon her movements, seeing that I lacked the key to her inmost mind. Witnesses came and went; but only as she swayed forward in her interest, or sank back in disappointment, did I take heed of their testimony or weigh in the scales of my own judgment the value or non-value of what they said.

For truth to say, I had heard nothing so far that was really new to me; nothing to solve certain points raised in my own mind; nothing that vied in interest with the slightest gesture or the least turn of the head of her who bore so patiently this marshalling before her in heavy phalanx facts so hideous as to bar out all sweeter memories.

But when in the midst of a sudden silence I heard my own name called, I started in dismay, all unprepared as I was to face this hostile throng. But it was not I whom they wanted, but Edgar. No one had glanced my way. To the people of C—— there was but one Edgar Quenton Bartholomew now that their chief citizen was gone.

The moment was a bitter one to me and I fear I showed it. But my good sense soon reasserted itself. Edgar was answering questions and I as well as others was there to learn; and to learn, I must listen.

“Your father and mother?”

“Both dead before I was five years old. Uncle Edgar then took me into his home.”

“Adopted you?”

“Not legally. But in every other respect he was a father to me, and I hope I was a son to him. But no papers were ever drawn up.”

“Did he ever call you Son?”

“I have no remembrance of his ever having done so. His favorite way of addressing me was Boy.”

A slight tremulousness in speaking this endearing name added to its effect. I gripped at my heart beneath my coat. Our uncle had used the same word in speaking to me—once.

“Did he ever talk to you of his intentions in regard to his property, and if so when?”

“Often, before I became of age.”

“And not since?”

“Oh, yes, since. But not so often. It did not seem necessary, we understood each other.”

“Mr. Bartholomew, did it never strike you as peculiar that your uncle, having a daughter, should have chosen his brother’s son as his heir?”

“No, sir. You see, as I said before, we understood each other.”

“Understood? How?”

“We never meant, he nor I, that his daughter should lose anything by my inheritance of his money.”

It was modestly, almost delicately said and had he loved her I could not but have admired him at that moment. But he did not love her, and to save my soul I could not help sending a glance her way. Would her head rise in proud acknowledgment of his worth or would it fall in shame at his hypocrisy? It fell, but then, I was honest enough to realize that the shame this bespoke might be that of a loving woman troubled at hearing her soul’s most sacred secrets thus bared before the public.

Anxious for her as well as for myself, I turned my eyes upon the crowd confronting us, and wondered at the softened looks I saw there. He had touched a chord of fine emotion in the breasts of these curiosity-mongers. It was no new story to them. It had been common gossip for years that he was to marry Orpha and so make her and himself equal heirs of this great fortune. But his bearing as he spoke,—the magnetism which carried home his lightest word—gave to the well-known romance a present charm which melted every heart.

I felt how impotent any words of mine would be to stem the tide of sympathy that was bearing him on and soon would sweep me out of sight.

But as, overwhelmed by this prospect, I cowered low in my seat, the thought came that these men and women whose dictum I feared were not the arbiters of my destiny. And I took a look at the jury and straightened in my seat. Surely I saw more than one honest face among the twelve and two or three that were more than ordinarily intelligent. I should stand some chance with them.

Meanwhile another question had been put.

“Did your uncle at any time ever suggest to you that under a change of circumstances he might change his mind?”

“Never, till the day before he died.”

“There was no break between you? No quarrel?”

“We did not always agree. I am not perfect—” With a smile he said this—“and it was only natural that he should express himself as not always satisfied with my conduct. But break? No. He loved me better than I deserved.”

“You have a cousin, a gentleman of the same name, now a resident in your house. Did the difference of opinion between yourself and uncle to which you acknowledge occur since or prior to this cousin’s entrance into the family?”

“Oh, I have memories of childish escapades not always approved of by my uncle. Nor have I always pleased him since I became a man. But the differences of opinion to which you probably allude became more frequent after the introduction amongst us of this second nephew; why, I hardly know. I do not blame my cousin for them.”

The subtle inflection with which this last was said was worthy of a master of innuendo. It may have been unconscious; it likely was, for Edgar is naturally open in his attacks rather than subtle. But conscious or unconscious it caused heads to wag and sly looks to pass from one to another with many a knowing wink. The interloper was to blame of course though young Mr. Bartholomew was too good to say so!

The Coroner probably had his own private opinions on this subject, for taking no notice of these wordless suggestions he proceeded to ask:

“Was your cousin ever present when these not altogether agreeable discussions occurred between yourself and uncle?”

“He was not. Uncle was not the kind of man to upbraid me in the presence of a relative. He thought I showed a growing love of money without much recognition of what it was really good for.”

“Ah! I see. Then that was the topic of these unfortunate conversations between you, and not the virtues or vices of your cousin.”

“We had one, perhaps two conversations on that subject; but many, many others on matters far from personal in which there was nothing but what was agreeable and delightful to us both.”

“Doubtless; what I want to bring out is whether from anything your uncle ever said to you, you had any reason to fear that you had been or might be supplanted in your uncle’s regard by this other man of his and your name. In other words whether your uncle ever intimated that he and not you might be made the chief beneficiary in a new will.”

“He never said it previous to the time I have mentioned.” There was a fiery look in Edgar’s eye as he emphasized this statement by a sharpness of tone strangely in contrast to the one he had hitherto used. “What he may have thought, I have no means of knowing. It was for him to judge between us.”

“Then, there has always existed the possibility of such a change? You must have known this even if you failed to talk on the subject.”

“Yes, I sometimes thought my uncle was moved by a passing impulse to make such a change; but I never believed it to be more than a passing impulse. He showed me too much affection. He spoke too frequently of days when I studied under his eye and took my pleasure in his company.”

“You acknowledge, then, that lately you yourself began to doubt his constancy to the old idea. Will you say what first led you to think that what you had regarded as a momentary impulse was strengthening into a positive determination?”

“Mr. Coroner, if you will pardon me I must take exception to that word positive. He could never have been positive at any time as to what he would finally do. Else why two wills? It was what I heard the servants say on my return from one of my absences which first made me question whether I had given sufficient weight to the possibility of my cousin’s influence over Uncle being strong and persistent enough to drive him into active measures. I allude of course to the visit paid him by his lawyer and the witnessing on the part of his man Clarke and his nurse Wealthy to a document they felt sure was a will. As it was well known throughout the house that one had already been drawn up in full accordance with the promises so often made me, they showed considerable feeling, and it was only natural that this should arouse mine, especially as that whole day’s proceedings, the coming of a second lawyer with two men whom nobody knew, was never explained or even alluded to in any conversation I afterwards held with my uncle. I thought it all slightly alarming but still I held to my faith in him. He was a sick man and might have crotchets.”

“At what time and from whom did you definitely hear the truth about that day’s proceedings—that two wills had been drawn up, alike in all respects save that in one you were named as the chief beneficiary and in the other your cousin from England?”

At this question, which evidently had power to trouble him, Edgar lost for the first time his air of easy confidence. Did he fear that he was about to incur some diminution of the good feeling which had hitherto upheld him in any statement he chose to make? I watched him very closely to see. But his answer hardly enlightened me.

The question, if you will remember, was when and where he received definite confirmation of what had been told him concerning two wills.

“In my uncle’s room the night before he died,” was his reply, uttered with a gloom wholly unnatural to him even in a time of trouble. “He had wished to see me and we were talking pleasantly enough, when he suddenly changed his tone and I heard what he had done and how my future hung on the whim of a moment.”

“Can you repeat his words?”

“I cannot. The impression they made is all that is left me. I was too agitated—too much taken aback—for my brain to work clearly or my memory to take in more than the great fact. You see it was not only my position as heir to an immense fortune I saw threatened; but the dearer hope it involved and what was as precious as all the rest, the loss of my past as I had conceived it, for I had truly believed that I stood next to his daughter in my uncle’s affections; too close indeed for any such tampering with my future prospects.”

He was himself again; shaken with feeling but winsome in voice, manner and speech. And it was the sincerity of his feeling which made him so. He had truly loved his uncle. No one could doubt that, not even myself who had truly loved him also.

“On what terms did you leave him? Surely you can remember that?”

Edgar’s eye flashed. As I noted it and the resolution which was fast overcoming the sadness which had distinguished his features up till now, I held my breath in apprehension, for here was something to fear.

“When I left him it was with a mind much more at ease than when he first showed me these two wills. For my faith in him had come back. He would burn one of those wills before he died, but it would not be the one which would put to shame by its destruction, him who had been as a child to him from the day of his early orphanage.”

The Coroner himself was startled by the effect made by these words upon the crowd, and probably blamed his own leniency in allowing this engaging witness to express himself so fully.

In a tone which sounded sharp enough in contrast to the mellow one which had preceded it, he said:

“That is what you thought. We had rather listen to facts.”

Edgar bowed, still gracious, still the darling of the men and women ranged before him, many of whom remembered his boyhood; while I sat rigid, realizing how fully I was at the mercy of his attractions and would continue to be till I had an opportunity to speak, and possibly afterwards, for prejudice raises a wall which nothing but time can batter down.

And Orpha? What of her? How was she taking all this? In my anxiety, I cast one look in her direction. To my astonishment she sat unveiled and was gazing at Edgar with an intentness which slowly but surely forced his head to turn and his eye to seek hers. An instant thus, then she pulled down her veil, and the flush just rising to his cheek was lost again in pallor.

Unconsciously the muscles of my hands relaxed; for some reason life had lost some of the poignant terror it had held for me a moment before. A drowning man will catch at straws; so will a lover; and I was both.

In the absorption which followed this glimpse of Orpha’s face so many days denied me, I lost the trend of the next few questions, and only realized that we were approaching the crux of the situation when I heard:

“You did not visit him again?”

“No.”

“Where did you go?”

“To my room.”

“Will you state to the jury just where your room is located?”

“On the same floor as Uncle’s, only further front and on the opposite side of the hall.”

“We have here a chart of that floor. Will you be good enough to step to it and indicate the two rooms you mention?”

Here, at a gesture from the Coroner, an official drew a string attached to a roll suspended on one of the walls and a rudely drawn diagram, large enough to be seen from all parts of the court-room, fell into view.[A]

[A] [A reduced copy of the plan will be found facing the title page of this book.]

Edgar was handed a stick with which he pointed out the two doors of his uncle’s room and those of his own.

What was coming?

“Mr. Bartholomew, will you now tell the jury what you did on returning to your room?”

“Nothing. I threw myself into a chair and just waited.”

“Waited for what?”

“To hear my cousin enter my uncle’s room.”

The bitterness with which he said this was so deftly hidden under an assumption of casual rejoinder, as only to be detected by one who was acquainted with every modulation of his fine voice.

“And did you hear this?”

“Very soon; as soon as he could come up from the lower hall where Clarke, my uncle’s man, had been sent to summon him.”

“If you heard this, you must also have heard when he left your uncle’s room.”

“I did.”

“Was the interview a long one?”

“I was sitting in front of the clock on my mantel-piece. He was in there just twenty minutes.”

I felt my breast heave, and straightening myself instinctively I met the concentrated gaze of a hundred pair of eyes leveled like one against me.

Did I smile? I felt like it; but if I did it must have expressed the irony with which I felt the meshes of the net in which I was caught tighten with every word which this man spoke.

The Coroner, who was the only person in the room who had not looked my way, went undeviatingly on.

“In what part of the house does this gentleman of whom we are speaking have his room?”

“On the same floor as mine; but further back at the end of a short hall.”

“Will you take the pointer from the officer and show the location of the second Mr. Bartholomew’s room?”

The witness did so.

“Did you hear in which direction your cousin went on leaving your uncle? Did he go immediately to his room?”

“He may have done so, but if he did, he did not stay long, for very soon I heard him return and proceed directly down stairs.”

“How long was he below?”

“A long time. I had moved from my seat and my eye was no longer on the clock so I cannot say how long.”

“Did you hear him when he came up for a second time?”

“Yes; he is not a light stepper.”

“Where did he go? Directly to his room?”

“No, he stopped on the way.”

“How, stopped on the way?”

“When he reached the top of the stairs he paused like one hesitating. But not for long. Soon I heard him coming in the direction of my room, pass it by and proceed to our uncle’s door—the one in front so little-used as to be negligible—where he lingered so long that I finally got up and peered from my own doorway to see what he was doing?”

“Was the hall dark?”

“Very.”

“Darker than usual?”

“Yes, much.”

“How was that? What had happened?”

“The electric light usually kept burning at my end of the hall had been switched off.”

“When? Before your cousin came up or after?”

“I do not know. It simply was not burning when I opened my door.”

“Will you say from which of the doors in your suite you were looking?”

“From the one marked C on the chart.”

“That, as the jury can see if they will look, is diagonally opposite the one at which the witness had heard his cousin pause. Will the witness now state if the hall was too dark at the time he looked out for him to see whether or not any one stood at his uncle’s door?”

“No, it was not too dark for that, owing to the light which shone in from the street through the large window you see there.”

“Enough, you say, to make your uncle’s door visible?”

“Quite enough.”

“And what did you see there? Your cousin standing?”

“No; he was gone.”

“How gone? Could he not have been in your uncle’s room?”

“Not then.”

“Why do you say ‘not then’?”

“Because while I looked I could hear his footsteps at the other end of the house rounding the corner where the main hall meets the little one in which his room is situated.”

My God! I had forgotten all this. I had been very anxious to know how Uncle had fared since I left him in such a state of excitement; whether he were sleeping or awake, and hoped by listening I should hear Wealthy’s step and so judge how matters were within. But a meaning sinister if not definite had been given to this natural impulse by the way Edgar’s voice fell as he uttered that word stopped; and from that moment I recognized him for my enemy, either believing in my guilt or wishing others to; in which latter case, it was for me to fight my battle with every weapon my need called for. But the conflict was not yet and “Patience” must still be my watch-word. But I held my breath as I waited for the next question.

“You say that you heard him moving down the hall. You did not see him at your uncle’s door?”

“No, I did not.”

“But you are confident he was there, previous to your looking out?”

“I am very sure that he was; my ear seldom deceives me.”

“Mr. Bartholomew, will you think carefully before you answer the following question. Was there any circumstance connected with this matter which will enable you to locate the hour at which you heard your cousin pass down the hall?”

He hesitated; he did not want to answer. Why? I would have given all that I possessed to know; but he only said:

“I did not look at my watch; I did not need to. The clock was striking three.”

“Three! The jury will note the hour.”

Why did he say that?—the jury will note the hour? My action was harmless. Everything I did that night was harmless. What did he mean then by the hour? The mystery of it troubled me—a mystery he was careful to leave for the present just where it was.

Returning to his direct investigation, the coroner led the witness back to the time preceding his entrance into the hall. “You were listening from your room; that room was dark, you were no longer watching the clock which had not yet struck; yet perhaps you can give us some idea of how long your cousin lingered at your uncle’s door before starting down the hall.”

“No, I should not like to do that.”

“Five minutes?”

“I cannot say.”

“Long enough to have entered that room and come out again?”

“You ask too much. I am not ready to swear to that.”

“Very good; I will not press you!” But the suggestion had been made. And for a purpose—a purpose linked with the mystery of which I have just spoken. Glancing at Mr. Jackson, I saw him writing in his little book. He had noted this too. I was not alone in my apprehension which, like a giant shadow thrown from some unknown quarter, was reaching slowly over to envelop me. When I was ready to listen again, it was to hear:

“What did you do then?”

“I went to bed.”

“Did you see or hear anything more of your cousin that night?”

“No, not till the early morning when we were all roused by the news which Wealthy brought to every door, that Uncle was very much worse and that the doctor should be sent for.”

“Tell us where it was you met him then.”

“In the hall near Uncle’s door—the one marked 2 on the chart.”

“How did he look? Was there anything peculiar in his appearance or manner?”

“He was fully dressed.”

“And you?”

“I had had no time to do more than wrap a dressing-gown about me.”

“At what time was this? You remember the hour no doubt?”

“Half past four in the morning; any one can tell you that.”

“And he was fully dressed. In morning clothes or evening?”

“In the ones he wore to dinner the night before.”

It was true; I had not gone to bed that night. There was too much on my mind. But to them it would look as if I had sat up ready for the expected alarm.

“Was he in these same clothes when you finally entered your uncle’s room?”

“Certainly; there was no time then for changing.”

These questions might have been addressed to me instead of to him. They would have been answered with as much truth; but the suggestiveness would have been lacking and in this I recognized my second enemy. I now knew that the Coroner was against me.

A few persons there may have recognized this fact also. But they were all too much in sympathy with Edgar to resent it. I made no show of doing so nor did I glance again at Orpha to see the effect on her of these attacks leveled at me with so much subtlety. I felt, in the humiliation of the moment, that unless I stood cleared of every suspicion, I could never look her again in the face.

Meanwhile the inquiry had reached the event for which all were waiting—the destruction of the one will and the acknowledgment by the dying man that the envelope which held the other was empty.

“Were you near enough to see the red mark on the one he had ordered burned?”

“Yes; I took note of it.”

“Had you seen it before?”

“Yes; when, in the interview of which I have spoken, my uncle showed me the two envelopes and informed me of their several contents.”

“Did he tell you or did you learn in any way which will was in the one marked with red?”

“No. I did not ask him and he did not say.”

“So when you saw it burning you did not know with certainty whether it was the will making you or your cousin his chief heir?”

“I did not.”

He said it firmly, but he said it with effort. Again, why?

The time to consider this was not now, for at this reply, expected though it was, a universal sigh swept through the house, carrying my thoughts with it. Emotion must have its outlet. The echo in my own breast was a silent one, springing from sources beyond the ken of the simple onlooker. We were approaching a critical part of the inquiry. The whereabouts of the missing document must soon come up. Should I be obliged to listen to further insinuations such as had just been made? Was it his plan to show that I was party to a fraud and knew where the missing will lay secreted,—where it would always lie secreted because it was in his favor and not in mine? It was possible; anything was possible. If I were really wise I would prepare myself for the unexpected; for the unexpected was what I probably should be called upon to face.

Yet it was not so, or I did not think it so, in the beginning.

Asked to describe his uncle’s last moments he did so shortly, simply, feelingly.

Then came the question for which I waited.

“Your uncle died, then, without a sign as to where the remaining will was to be found?”

“He did not have time. Death came instantly, leaving the words unsaid. It was a great misfortune.”

With a gesture of reproof, for he would not have it seem that he liked these comments, the Coroner pressed eagerly on:

“What of his looks? Did his features betray any emotion when he found that he could no longer speak?”

Edgar hesitated. It was the first time we had seen him do so and my heart beat in anticipation of a lie.

But again I did him an injustice. He did not want to answer—that we could all see—but when he did, he spoke the truth.

“He looked frightened, or so I interpreted his expression; and his head moved a little. Then all was over.”

In the silence which followed, a stifled sob was heard. We all knew from whom it came and every eye turned to the patient little figure in black who up till now had kept such strong control over her feelings.

“If Miss Bartholomew would like to retire into the adjoining room she is at liberty to do so,” came from the Coroner’s seat.

But she shook her head, murmuring quietly:

“Thank you, I will stay.”

I blessed her in my heart. Still neutral. Still resolute to hear and know all.

The inquiry went on.

“Mr. Bartholomew, did you search for that will?”

“Thoroughly. In a haphazard way at first, expecting to find it in some of the many drawers in his room. But when I did not, I went more carefully to work, I and my two faithful servants, who having been in personal attendance upon him all through his illness, knew his habits and knew the room. But even then we found nothing in any way suggestive of the document we were looking for.”

“And since?”

“The room has been in the hands of the police. I have not heard that they have been any more successful.”

There were more questions and more answers but I paid little attention to them. I was thinking of what had passed between the Inspector and myself at the time he visited me in my room. I have said little about it because a man is not proud of such an experience; but in the quiet way in which this especial official worked, he had made himself very sure before he left me that this document was neither on my person nor within the four walls of the room itself. This had been a part of the search. I tingled yet whenever I recalled the humiliation of that hour. I tingled at this moment; but rebuked myself as the mystery of the whole proceeding got a stronger hold upon my mind. Not with me, not with him, but somewhere! When would they reach the point where perhaps the solution lay? Five hours had elapsed between the time I left uncle and the rousing of the house at Wealthy’s hurried call. What had happened during those hours? Who could tell the tale—the whole tale, since manifestly that had never been fully related. Clarke? Wealthy? I knew what they had told the police, what they had confided to each other concerning their experience in the sick-room; but under oath, and with the shadow of crime falling across the lesser mystery what might not come to light under the probe of this prejudiced but undoubtedly honest Coroner?