The people at the Rosemere are still foolishly trying to make a mystery of the murder, and refuse all information [etc., etc.].
To Dr. Charles K. Fortescue from Dr. Frederic Cowper, Beverley, L. I.
Sunday Evening, August 13th.
Dear Charley:
No sooner had I read in to-day’s paper that the body found in the Rosemere had been identified as that of Maurice Greywood, than I knew at once why you have taken such an interest in poor May. I see now that you have suspected from the first that the murdered man was not unknown to her, and your last letter, describing her “friend,” proves to me beyond doubt that you were ignorant of nothing but his name, for Greywood and no other answers exactly to that description. How you found out what you did, I can’t imagine; but remembering that your office window commands a view of the entrance to the building, I think it possible that you may have seen something from that point of vantage, which enabled you to put two and two together. But I wonder that I can feel any surprise at your having discovered the truth, when the truth itself is unbelievable!! May Derwent is incapable of killing any one—no matter what provocation she may have had. She is incapable of a dishonourable action, and above all things incapable of an intrigue. She is purity itself. I swear it. And yet what are the facts that confront us? A man, known to have been her professed suitor, is found dead in a room adjoining her apartment, dead with a wound through his heart—a wound, too, caused by a knitting-needle or hat-pin, as you yourself testified! And before trying to find out who killed him we must first think of some reasonable excuse for his having been at the Rosemere at all. How strange that he should happen to go to the building at the very time when May (who was supposed to be on her way to Bar Harbor, mind you!) was there also. Who was he calling on, if not on her?
Luckily, no one as yet seems to have thought of her in connection with Greywood’s death. My sister has, in fact, been wondering all day whom he could have been visiting when he met his tragic fate. But, sooner or later, the truth will become known, and then—? Even in imagination I can’t face that possibility.
And now, since you have discovered so much, and as I believe you to be as anxious as I am to help this poor girl, I am going to accede to your request and tell you all that I have been able to find out about the sad affair. I know that I run the risk of being misunderstood—even by you—and accused of unpardonable indiscretion. But it seems to me that in a case like this no ordinary rules hold good, and that in order to preserve a secret, one has sometimes to violate a confidence.
I have discovered—but I had better begin at the beginning, and tell you as accurately and circumstantially as possible how the following facts became known to me, so that you may be better able to judge of their value. Truth, after all, is no marble goddess, unchangeable, immovable, but a very chameleon taking the colour of her surroundings. A detached sentence, for instance, may mean a hundred things according to the when, where, and how of its utterance. But enough of apologies—Qui s’excuse, s’accuse.
So here goes.