An American Suffragette

by Isaac Newton Stevens

"Oh, she has told you, then?" Carroll asked.

"About Mrs. Bell's letter to her? Oh, yes, she told me to-night, just before you joined us; I thought you knew about it. Anyhow, it seems to be gone beyond recall. Don't you intend to invite me in? Well, of all the inhospitable persons! I'll see you in the morning," and lifting his hat he went on up the Avenue.

Carroll climbed the two flights slowly and unlocked her door. The suite across the hall had been vacated by a superstitious tenant the week after the murder, and the family immediately below had moved away that morning. As Carroll closed the door behind her she was conscious of a sense of oppression. It was not fear, which is a simple, concrete emotion, easily understood; it was not even so subtle as dread of any abstract thing, ghost or goblin damned. She gave her shoulders a little shake, as if the sensation were some tangible thing to be thrown off, and laying aside her hat and gloves she went through to the buffet kitchen and put the kettle on. She returned to the sitting-room and looked about her uneasily, and then put on a house gown and slippers, and arranged her tea-tray. There were but four rooms in the apartment, in addition to the kitchenette, and but one of them offered much in the way of light or ventilation, so Carroll lived in the front room, as Emma Bell had lived there; she worked there, as Emma Bell had worked; she looked upon the same nondescript blue wall paper, and the few pictures that relieved its monotony. With some misty idea, similar to that of the French "confrontation," she had brought none of her own books or belongings to disturb the suggestion of the room as it had been. There were three large windows, through which the city lights were beginning to shine; under one of these and across that end of the room was a divan, covered with a bright rug; opposite and against the other wall was a desk, with a chair before it, and bookshelves, and a corner cupboard which held a plentiful supply of tea-things. Between the two windows nearest it was a tea-table, which evidently served a double purpose, for underneath was a basketful of neatly folded sewing. By the table was the high-armed mission rocking-chair in which the dead woman had been found. Opposite was the little sewing-chair, usually occupied by Alice when she and her mother had supper together at the table, which had been a gift of Silvia's. Evidently it had been a fancy of Mrs. Bell's to set the chair for the child before she opened the fatal box, and Carroll had kept both chairs in their relative positions. The doorway into the alcove bedroom was concealed by a portière.

There was nothing in the desk now but some of Carroll's writing materials; everything in the room had been ransacked at the time of its mistress' death, and Silvia had herself searched carefully for anything that might afford a possible clue. Sometimes she even thought that some one, possessing a key, had entered the place and removed all evidence while that ghastly witness still sat in the chair, for there were no letters, no papers, nothing. Immediately after going there to stay, Carroll had gone over the tiny place with systematic care. There was no upholstered furniture in which anything could have been concealed; even the divan was a rattan affair; there were only rugs upon the floors. The mattress revealed nothing, and though she laboriously examined every picture, there was nothing concealed back of them or within the frames.

"Don't you think the letter was mailed?" Silvia asked her, and she had replied that while it probably had been, the chances were that a rough draft of it had been written, and preserved somewhere, and it was for this that she searched until it became evident that the slight resources of the flat were exhausted.

It was rather a poor little place, woefully lacking in the closets and cubby-holes so dear to women, and yet, as Carroll sat there in the child's place, with her second cup of strong tea getting cold beside her, she found herself looking at the other chair expectantly, and the empty desk seemed watching her; she was resentfully conscious that everything in that room knew the truth, everything save its human occupant with her keen mind, her active brain. The hours passed and still she sat there, waiting, waiting. There were the usual noises, commonplace and mysterious, to be found in vacant houses, but about nine o'clock she became conscious that there were sounds in the recently vacated flat below. Evidently the family had come back for some last articles which they had left behind. They were a quiet old couple with whom Carroll had exchanged greetings now and then on the stairs; the old lady had told her they were going to live with their daughter. Carroll roused herself and lit the gas, and a little while later there came a tap at the door. She was frightened for a second, the sound was so unexpected, and then with a laugh at her foolishness she went to the door and opened it, revealing an old man, her neighbor from the floor below. He held a rather heavy package in his arms, and explained, rather shamefacedly, that they had no high-chair, and when their little grandchild was brought to visit them Mrs. Bell had been accustomed to lend them her big dictionary. "Not bein' literary she didn't need it, and the very afternoon of the day she died I came up to borrow it, same as usual; she had stepped out, but the door was ajar, and the dictionary lying right on the end of the divan, so I took it, and when I brought it back after supper I couldn't get in, and after the trouble my wife wrapped it up and put it away for safe-keeping, Miss, and forgot it till we come to move," he finished breathlessly.

He put the package on the divan, and Carroll talked with him a few moments longer, and then locked the door upon his retreating form and went to the window, and stood there, looking out, yet seeing nothing. It was beginning to rain, and the cool, damp air was pleasant, but she shivered and turned back to the room that still kept its silent mistress' secret, as she had kept it, even in death. The little clock on the mantel struck ten, and there was a quick, light step on the stair, and a brisk knock at her door. As she opened it, Frank stood there, shaking the drops of water from his hat.

"I've had my walk," he said, "I've got over my gloom; I've lost my grouch, but I still have my appetite with me. Now come on, like a good fellow, and let's have supper."

"Oh, go away, Frank," she said, almost crying with vexation. "I was almost on the verge of something when you came."

"That's what I thought," he said cheerfully. "I said, 'She'll drink a pint of strong tea and sit there in the dark until the rugs begin to wiggle and the wall paper glowers at her.' You're on the verge of nervous prostration; that's what you're on the verge of, and nothing else. Now come along, or have I got to come over there and make you?" He noticed her negligee. "Put on your frock, and I'll wait, but hurry."