While Mrs. Jenkins was concluding this speech, Helen had been writing with a pencil on a slip of paper. As the poor woman finished speaking she burst into a flood of tears, and seemed so thoroughly overcome that Helen judged it better that Thornton Carey should leave the room; and Helen motioned him to do so. As he passed by her, she placed in his hand the paper on which she had been writing. Immediately on gaining the library he opened it, and read these words: 'As sure as God is in heaven, Trenton Warren is the man who has murdered my husband.'
Thornton Carey read the paper, but made no comment on its contents. His mind was too full to find any utterance just then; he too, as he had listened to Mrs. Jenkins's narrative, had become impressed with the idea that Trenton Warren might in some way be mixed up with the terrible matter to the discovery of which he had pledged himself. But he was a man; and one, moreover, with a calm judicial mind, accustomed to weigh matters with deliberation, and not to leap hastily at conclusions. He passed out of the room, and out of the house; he thought it better not to allow himself the chance of any farther discussion of the subject with Helen until he had fully thought it out by himself. That was Thornton Carey's great secret of work; he held that there was no problem so knotty that it could not finally be 'thought out' if due time were given to the process. Education and circumstances had made him self-reliant; and he believed that in most instances more could be done by his own unaided wits, when duly applied to the solution of a difficulty, than by a discussion with others, in which the proposition of various schemes would tend to divert the mind from the due consideration of any explanation, no matter how striking or original.
Out of the house he went, then, and on descending the stoop, instead of going down town as usual, he turned sharply to his left, and walked away up Fifth-avenue at a swinging pace. Just at that time of day the avenue was alive with people, some in search of pleasure, some in search of health, who had come out to enjoy the soft mild weather, and on foot and on horseback, in buggies, coupés, and open carriages were making their way to Central Park. Scarcely one of these persons but was attracted by the tall slight figure of the young man, who hurried along with seven-league stride among them, but not of them, evidently enwrapt in his own cogitation. The valetudinarians envied his free step and the ease with which he carried himself; the pleasure-seekers made their little jokes to each other about him as a philosopher, a student, an eccentric, perhaps a madman. Thornton Carey heard none of their remarks, and if he had, he would not have heeded them. He did not see the people who whirled by him in carriages; he was scarcely aware of the presence of those whose coat-sleeves he brushed in his onward flight. While the human hive was still buzzing around him, he could not give himself up to the luxury of untrammelled thought; with all this whirling of wheels and clacking of horses' hoofs sounding in his ears, he could not concentrate his mind upon working out the problem which he had set himself. When once he found himself within the limits of the Central Park, he turned rapidly out of the fashionable promenade, and striking across a green expanse, dived into a shrubbery, the narrow path through which was entirely deserted; and there, unseen and alone, Thornton Carey, walking up and down, commenced his self-appointed task of 'thinking it out.'
Could it be possible, in the exercise of that woman's instinct which, without any possibility of explanation, without any apparent rhyme or reason, is so often exactly correct, that Helen Griswold had hit upon the truth when she stated that Trenton Warren was the murderer of her husband? He, Thornton Carey, must allow that some faint suspicion had been engendered in his mind as Mrs. Jenkins's narrative proceeded; but now was the time for him to sift and winnow the evidence which it contained, and to come to his own straightforward conclusion. In the first place, was the woman speaking the truth? He thought that might be clearly answered in the affirmative. She was under obligations to Helen, of whom she professed to be very fond, to whom indeed she had previously shown a certain amount of fidelity and devotion, and there was an air of veracity about her which, to him, was convincing. The facts which she narrated she had received from her husband; and then the question arose, was he to be believed? This was plainly a very different matter. According to his wife's own showing, he had been early in life mixed up in some dishonest transactions, the memory of which clung to him in after years, and prevented his getting respectable employment. Would not such a man, tabooed, disgraced, kept down by his own brother, in order that he might use him for an instrument in his dirty work--would not such a man be likely to tell lies for his own advantage? Granted; but what advantage had he in this instance? He and his wife were one; she was his confidante; she knew the power which his brother held over him; why then should he attempt to deceive her in the way in which that power was exercised? No; upon a clear review of all the circumstances, Thornton Carey was compelled to admit that the story told by Mrs. Jenkins was probably true, and that while Jenkins was personating him at Chicago, Trenton Warren had gone to London.
He would have been in England, then, at the time of the murder: so far, that was in favour of Helen's hypothesis. It agreed, too, with the idea proclaimed with so much earnestness by Bryan Duval, that the necessity for the crime had originated in New York and not in England. The question of motive was, however, above all others, the one which would require to be clearly and calmly examined, and Bryan Duval, with his leanings towards the picturesque and the dramatic, was, Thornton Carey thought, hardly the man to decide upon it. If Warren had taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him by Alston Griswold to pillage his friend to any considerable extent, if he, on his own account, had been engaged in any schemes or speculations in direct opposition to those in which he was ostensibly in partnership with Griswold, then there would have been some slight reason, some shadow of pretext for imagining that it would have been to his advantage to silence his friend and prevent his own exposure. But that Warren, a business man, and not a bravo, would risk the vast penalty accruing to the crime of murder for the sake of accomplishing such a result--a phase of civilisation by no means uncommon in New York commercial circles--was what Thornton Carey could not and would not believe. Still the mystery of Warren's being in London at the time when even those in his employ believed him to be in Chicago, and the fact of his having induced his brother to personate him in the latter place, in order to throw all inquiries off the scent, was so suspicious, that Carey deemed it right at once to make Bryan Duval acquainted with Mrs. Jenkins's story, and with the result of his deliberations thereon. So he came out of the shrubbery far less eager and impetuous than he had entered it, and walked down at a quiet pace to the Fifth-avenue Hotel.
On entering Mr. Duval's room, he found that gentleman lying at full length upon the sofa, wrapped in a gorgeous blue-silk dressing-gown faced with red, and his feet encased in Turkish slippers. It was Mr. Duval's habit to indulge in an hour's siesta before going down to his theatrical duties, and Thornton Carey was afraid that he had interrupted the popular favourite while thus refreshing himself; but Mr. Duval, hearing the door open, raised his head, and seeing who was there, called to his friend to come in.
'Sit down,' he said, 'and smoke a quiet cigar. I was not asleep; I have been reading that diary of poor Mrs. Griswold's all day, and I had just laid it down and shut my eyes to reflect upon two or three points which struck me as curious. I find,' continued Mr. Duval, slightly stretching himself, 'that to close the eyes conduces very much to reflection, and is occasionally anything but disagreeable.'
'I have been engaged nearly all day in consideration of the same subject,' said Carey, 'and I came to see if you had a few moments to devote to its discussion with me.'
'A few moments, my dear fellow!' said Bryan, raising himself up on his elbow to look at the clock, 'a couple of hours! The enlightened citizens of this great republic do not expect to see their cultivated entertainer before nearly eight o'clock--it is now little more than five--so that I shall have ample time to hear you talk, to interpose maybe a few humble suggestions, and to get down to the theatre with the greatest ease. Proceed now; I am all attention.'
Thus encouraged, Thornton Carey began the narration of the day's experiences. When he began to describe his arrival at Mrs. Griswold's, it was obvious to him that the great actor, notwithstanding his professions of interest, was scarcely so attentive, or indeed so wide awake, as he might have been; he kept up indeed a continuous refrain of 'Hum!' and 'Ah!' and 'Dear me!' but his eyes were closed, perhaps for the advantage of deeper thinking, his lower jaw relapsed, and a soothing sound issued from his nose. When, however, Thornton came to relate the accident which had happened to the train, and the death of the supposed Trenton Warren, his companion roused in an instant. As he proceeded to describe the terror which had seized Mrs. Jenkins, the exclamation which she had uttered, and the fainting fit which had ensued, Bryan's interest grew more and more intense. He sat upright upon the sofa, leaning eagerly forward and drinking in every word; and at length, when Thornton Carey had come to the end of Mrs. Jenkins's confession, and had revealed the message which Helen had given him on the slip of paper, to the effect that Trenton Warren was the murderer of her husband, Bryan Duval brought his hand down heavily on the table, and cried in a hoarse voice, 'By God, she's right!'