When he had gone, we all breathed more freely. Mr. Burton had yet much to say, for he wished to close this horrible business for ever. He took the surgical instrument which we had found in the tree, and fitted it to the piece which had been extracted from the body of the murdered man, and showed the family the initials of George Thorley upon it. He then produced the written confession of Thorley, which we all read for ourselves; but as it contained only, in a plain statement, the facts already given, I will not repeat them here. He then proceeded with the history of the Dead Letter, which, also, he had with him, and which proved to be in the same handwriting as the confession. In speaking of the curious manner in which this document had been lost, to be recovered in the right time by the right person, he seemed to consider it almost awfully providential.
From this he went on with a minute history of all the steps taken by both of us, our journey over the ocean, the wonderful success which waited upon patience, perseverance and energy, securing the final triumph of justice; and, to conclude with, he said,
“I NEVER ACCUSED YOU.”
“I owe, still, a good many explanations both to you, Mr. Argyll, and to Mr. Redfield. I can not lay before you the thousand subtle threads by which I trace the course of a pursuit like this, and which makes me successful as a detective; but I can account for some things which at times have puzzled both of you. In the first place there is about me a power not possessed by all—call it instinct, magnetism, clairvoyancy, or remarkable nervous and mental perception. Whatever it is, it enables me, often, to feel the presence of criminals, as well as of very good persons, poets, artists, or marked temperaments of any kind. The day on which this case was placed before me, it was brought by two young men, your nephew and this person now present. I had not been ten minutes with them when I began to perceive that the murderer was in the room with me; and before they had left me, I had decided which was the guilty man. But it would have been unpardonable rashness to denounce him without proof; by such a course I would throw him on the defensive, defeat the ends of justice, and overwhelm myself with denunciation. I waited and watched—I put him under surveillance. That night upon which he crossed the Brooklyn ferry to pay the money to the hired assassin, I was upon his track; I heard the angry dismay with which he accused Richard of following him, when the other met him upon this side. It was not very long after I began to investigate the case before he cautiously approached me, as he did you, with hints of the might-be-guilty party; he made me see how much to the interest of his friend Richard it would be if rivals were out of the way, and how desperately that person loved Miss Argyll. (Forgive me, friends, for using plain language—the whole truth must be told.) But I need not dwell on his method, for you must be familiar with it. I confess that he used consummate tact; if I had not read him from the first, I, too, might have been misled. He was not over-eager in the search for suspected persons, as the guilty almost always are. He did not suspect Miss Sullivan, as Richard did. I favored the pursuit of Miss Sullivan for two reasons; the first was to conceal my real suspicions; the next was, after finding her handkerchief in the garden, after the flight, and all those really strong grounds for supposing her connected with the murder, I began to think that she was connected with it, through some interest in James Argyll. I did not know but that she might have been attached to him—that the child she cared for might be his—you see I was totally in the dark as to all the details. I only took it for granted that James was guilty, and had to gather my proofs afterward. It was not until after my interview with Leesy, at Moreland villa, that I became convinced she had nothing to do with the murder, and that all her strange proceedings were the result of the grief she felt at the tragic death of one whom she secretly loved. When I had an interview with you on that same afternoon, I saw that James had poisoned your mind with suspicions of Mr. Redfield; for the same reason which had kept me silent so long—that is, that I should eventually undeceive you—I did not defend him, as I otherwise should. Apparently, I allowed the case to drop. It was only that I might follow it undisturbed. I had already fixed upon California as the retreat of the accomplice, and was about to start off in search of him when Richard appeared upon the scene with the dead-letter in his hand.
“From that hour I felt sure of perfect success. My only anxiety was that the marriage should not be consummated which would seal my mouth; for, if Mary had been married on my return, I should have considered it too late to reveal the truth. This made me very uneasy—not only for her sake, but because then I could not clear Mr. Redfield’s character to those friends who had cruelly wronged him. I kept my suspicions from him, although he was the partner of my investigations, for I was afraid that his impetuosity might cause him to do something indiscreet, and I did not want the guilty one alarmed until the net was spread for his feet. To-night, when I came here, I still further carried on my plan of allowing you to remain undecided until the last moment, for I counted on the sudden, overwhelming accusation having the effect to make the murderer confess—which it did. I wished Miss Sullivan to be present, not only to corroborate any points of my testimony in which she might be concerned, but that reparation might also be done her, for we have troubled and frightened her a great deal, poor thing, when her only fault has been too keen a perception of the nobility of that departed martyr, whose memory his friends cherish so sacredly. She has but a brief space to dwell on earth, and I thought it would comfort her to know that no one blames her for the pure devotion which has lighted her soul and consumed it like oil which burns away in perfume.”
Mr. Burton never meant to be poetical, but his perceptions were of that refined kind that he could not withhold from poor Leesy this little tribute to her noble folly. His words touched Eleanor; she was too high-minded to despise the fruitless offering of another and a humbler woman at the shrine before which she was privileged to minister; I believe in that hour she felt a sister’s interest in poor, lowly, but love-exalted Leesy Sullivan. She crossed over, took the wasted hand in her own, and pressed it tenderly. We all now perceived how much this dreadful evening had fatigued the invalid.
“She must go to bed at once,” said Eleanor; “I will call Nora, and have her placed in the room which opens out of ours, Mary.”
The young ladies retired to give their gentle attention to the sick girl; and both, before they went out, pressed my hand as they said good-night.