A Woman Named Smith

by Marie Conway Oemler

"This is the Horror that we have—felt!" I babbled. "She's been sitting here—by herself—all the time—" and my voice failed me, remembering that dark and anguished sense of guilt and ruin, of unease and terror, that at times fell upon one in the night like a smothering garment. Cold drops came upon my forehead, when I reflected that we had been living under the same roof with This, and we all unknowing. And I began to whimper: "I cannot stay even one night more under the same roof with her. I cannot! I cannot!"

"Sophy," said Nicholas Jelnik's quiet voice, "I brought you here because I relied upon your courage, your common sense, and your charity."

I gulped. In the most matter-of-fact manner, he gave me another whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed magic qualities for that perfume.

Mr. Jelnik said gently: "Had you been other than you are, I would not have dared call you to my aid to-night. But when I discovered the real thief—and she Jessamine Hynds—I could not bear that any other eyes than yours should see her as she is. And—I want you to be with me when I find the jewels."

The jewels? I blinked at him. Immersed in the tragedy of the woman Jessamine, her piteous fate had put all thought of everything save herself out of my mind.

"Shooba hid them, between a night and a morning. Shooba brought her here, between a night and a morning. Where should the jewels be but here?"

At his words the grim and mocking ghost of that terrible old African, who had been whipped for falling into trances, and who had so tragically revenged himself and his slighted mistress, seemed to rise behind all that remained of her.

"Yes, he would put them where she could keep watch over them. Why should she come here, make her way through those dreadful passages, save for that? Think of her stealing out of her room in the dead of night, coming alive to what she knew was her tomb, shutting that door upon herself—" I looked at the tarnished cup, and hoped that the witch doctor's potion had given her a speedy sleep. I looked at the blackened candelabrum, and wondered whether that candle had gone out before she had, or whether her head had fallen upon her arm, and she had died wide-eyed in the black, black dark. The cold grue shook me again, and I beat my hands together for terror and pity.

"Do not think of that!" said Mr. Jelnik. "Death rectifies human wrongs, and all of them have long, long since been healed of their hurts. Come, let us find the jewels. We are losing time."

We opened the cabinets first. They held papers that had been precious in their day—old deeds, old charters and grants, with the king's seals and the signatures of the Lords Proprietors upon them; correspondence, a casual glance at which showed Revolutionary activities—a hanging matter once, but harmless enough now; a box of foreign coins, all gold; a charge, in medieval Latin, on fine parchment, which exquisitely illuminated initial letters; a plain silver chalice and a patten; some threadbare robes and regalia, and a gavel; a most carefully done chart of the Hynds family, ending, however, with Colonel James Hampden Hynds himself; two letters, and a miniature of Charles the First; letters signed, "Yours, B. Franklin," "Yours, John Hancock"; several from "Geo. Washington."