“So, when he didn’t show up for a couple of nights, she came to me. I told her to go to the police, but she had some sort of notion that he wouldn’t like that—and I dare say she didn’t like it herself. Bad for business—a thing like that in the newspapers, you know. So, just to please her, I got his door unlocked, and had a look at his room.”
“You found—”
“Well, the first thing I saw there was a pile of money on the table—about seventy-five dollars in bills, under a paper weight, and a half finished letter. No name—just began right off—‘I won’t wait any longer.’ But here’s the letter. You can see for yourself.”
Unbuttoning his overcoat, he took a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Ross. It read:
I won’t wait any longer. I am coming out to Stamford to-morrow, and if you refuse to see me this time, it will be the end. You’ve been putting me off with one lie after the other for all this time, and now it’s finished. I don’t know how you can be so damned cruel. Don’t you even want to see your own child? As for your husband—I have no more illusions about that. You’re sick of me. All you want is to get rid of me, and you don’t care how, either. Well, I don’t care. I’d be better off with a bullet through the head. It’s only the baby—
Here there were several words scratched out, and it began again:
Darling, my own girl, perhaps I’m wrong. I hope to God I am. Perhaps you are really doing your best, and thinking of what’s best for the child. Only, it’s been so long. I want you back so. I’ve got a little money saved. I can keep you both. I can work. I can make you happy, even if we are a bit poor. Darling, just let me see you and—
That was the end. Ross touched his tongue to his dry lips, and folded up the letter again. He dared not look at Donnelly, but he knew Donnelly was looking at him.
“Ives wrote that letter,” said Donnelly. “The way I figure it out is this. He began to write, and then he decided that, instead of sending a letter, he’d go. He must have been in a pretty bad state to leave all that money behind. But, of course, he meant to come back. Well, he didn’t. Aha! Here we are!”
The taxi stopped before the gates of “Day’s End,” and Donnelly, getting out, told the driver to wait for him. Then he set off with Ross, not along the drive, but across the lawn, behind the fir trees.