It was Anne who brought me back to where I was. She suddenly stopped short, staring in front of her and then turned to me:
"Why, how can she be eloping with Reddy by the turnpike when Jim Donahue saw her get on the train?"
[IV]
When I come to the next day I can't make my story plain if I only tell what I saw and heard. I didn't even pick up the most important message in the tragedy. It came at half-past nine that night through the Corona Exchange and was sent from a pay station so there was no record of it, only Jack Reddy's word—but I'm going too fast; that belongs later.
What I've got to do is to piece things together as I got them from the gossip in the village, from the inquest, and from the New York papers. All I ask of you is to remember that I'm up against a stunt that's new to me and that I'm trying to get it over as clear as I can.
The best way is for me to put down first Sylvia's movements on that tragic Sunday.
About five in the afternoon Sylvia and Mrs. Fowler had tea in the library. When that was over—about half-past—Sylvia went away, saying she was going to her room to write letters, and her mother retired to hers for the nap she always took before dinner. What happened between then and the time when Mrs. Fowler sent the message to the Doctor I heard from Anne Hennessey. It was this way:
They had dinner late at Mapleshade—half-past seven—and when Sylvia didn't come down Mrs. Fowler sent up Harper to call her. He came back saying she wasn't in her room, and Mrs. Fowler, getting uneasy, went up herself, sending Harper to find Virginie Dupont. It wasn't long before they discovered that neither Sylvia nor Virginie were in the house.
When she realized this Mrs. Fowler was terribly upset. Sylvia's room was in confusion, the bureau drawers pulled out, the closet doors open. Anne not being there, Harper, who was scared at Mrs. Fowler's excitement, called Nora Magee, the chambermaid. She was a smart girl and saw pretty quickly that Sylvia had evidently left. The toilet things were gone from the dresser; the jewelry case was open and empty, only for a few old pieces of no great value. It was part of Nora's job to do up the room and she knew where Sylvia's Hudson seal coat hung in one of the closets. A glance showed her that was gone, also a gold-fitted bag that the Doctor had given his stepdaughter on her birthday.
All the servants knew of the quarreling and its cause and while Mrs. Fowler was moaning and hunting about helplessly, Nora went to the desk and opened it. There, lying careless as if it had been thrown in in a hurry, was Jack Reddy's letter. She gave a glance at it and handed it to Mrs. Fowler. With the letter in her hand Mrs. Fowler ran downstairs and telephoned to the Doctor.