The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

“But my first glance towards the little stand reassured me. They were still there. There was no mistaking those stiff dark envelopes; and, greatly heartened, I stepped to the bedside and took my first look at him. He was lying with closed eyes, panting a little but otherwise peaceful. I spoke his name and held out the little shawl. As he took it he smiled. I shall never forget that smile, never. Had it been meant for me I would have fallen on my knees, and told him what I had done, but it was for that young wife of his, dead for some seventeen years now; and the delight I saw in it hardened rather than softened me and gave me courage to keep silent.

“He was ready now to have those papers put away, and drawing the key to the little drawer from under the pillow, he handed it to me and watched me while I lifted the whole pile of business documents and put them back in the place from which they had been taken; and as nothing in his manner showed that he felt the least suspicion that any of these papers had been tampered with, I was very glad to see them put away for the night. I remember thinking as I gave him back the key that nothing must hinder me from seeking an early opportunity to urge Mr. Edgar to exert himself to win his uncle’s favor back. I knew that he could if he tried; and, satisfied so far, I was almost happy.

“Now we know that your uncle himself had tampered with them while I was gone that good half hour after the little shawl. He had taken out one of the wills from its envelope and carried it—he who could hardly stand—down that concealed stairway to the box dangling from one of the walls below. But how could I dream of anything so inconceivable as that—I who had been in and out of that room and up and down the main staircase for fifteen years without a suspicion that the Presence which sometimes haunted that spot was actual and not imaginary. I thought that all was well for the night at least and was bustling about when he suddenly called me.

“Running to his bedside, I found him well enough but in a very earnest mood. ‘Wealthy,’ he said, ‘I am old and I am weak. I no longer trust myself. The doctor said when he left to-day that I had two full weeks before me; but who knows; a whiff of air may blow me away at any minute, and the thing I want done might go undone and infinite trouble ensue. I am resolved to act as though my span of life was that of a day instead of a fortnight. To-morrow morning we will have the children all in and I will wind up the business which will set everything right. And lest I should not feel as well then as I do now, I will tell you before I sleep just what I want you to do.’ And then he explained about the bowl and the candles which I was to put on the stand when the time came and made it all so clear that I was now thoroughly convinced that it was really his intention to have Miss Orpha burn the will he had not had the courage to burn himself, and this speedily,—probably in the early morning.

“I stared at him, stupefied. What if they looked at the will before they burned it. This, Mr. Edgar would be likely to do, and give himself away in his surprise and so spoil all. I must hinder that; and when Mr. Bartholomew fell into a doze I crept to Mr. Edgar’s room, putting out the lights as I went, and, finding him awake, I told him what I had done and said that he need not worry if we found his uncle in the same mind in the morning as now and ordered the will burned which was in the marked envelope, for that was the one which should be burned and which he would himself burn if he were the man he used to be and had not been influenced by a stranger. Meaning you, sir, of course. God forgive me.”

“So he knew!” I burst forth, leaping to my feet in my excitement. “That’s why he took it all so calmly. Why from that day to this he has found it so difficult to meet my eye. Why he has followed me, seeming to want to speak—to tell me something—”

I did not go on—a thousand questions were rising in my mind. I cast a quick glance at Mr. Jackson and saw that he was startled too and waited, with every confidence in his judgment, for him to say what was in his mind.

“At what time was this?” he asked, leaning forward and forcing her to meet his eye.

“I don’t know.” She tried to shun his gaze; her hands began to tremble. “I didn’t take any notice. I just ran to his room and back; I had enough to think of without looking at clocks.”

“Was it before you heard the glass set back on the shelf?”