"So much the better. I wish her to regard me as a lawyer simply. State to her as formally as you choose who I am, and that I desire to see her on business."
I seated myself in the library; placed pen and ink, and some legal-looking documents, selected at random, before me. Red tape and the formal pomp of law constitute half its force with women and men of Louisa's calibre. I had hardly arranged myself and my materials when the door slowly opened, and she entered. She was alarmed, yet wary. To see a naturally hearty, merry little body subjected for years to this nervous strain, with a tragic idea forced into a brain meant to be busied only with dress, cookery, or babies, appeared to me a pitiful thing.
"Miss Waring?" reducing the ordinary courtesies to a curt, grave nod. "Be seated, if you please." I turned over my papers slowly, and then looked up at her. I had, I saw, none of the common feminine shrewdness to deal with; need expect no subtle devices of concealment; no clever doublings; nothing but the sheer obstinacy which is an unintellectual woman's one resource. I would ignore it and her—boldly assume full possession of the ground at the first word.
"My errand to this house, Miss Waring, is in part the investigation of a murder in 1854, of which you were the sole witness—that of Houston Simms——"
I stopped. The change in her face appalled me. She had evidently not expected so direct an attack. In fact, Beardsley told me afterward that it was the first time the subject had been broached to her in plain words. However, she made no reply, and I proceeded in the same formal tone:
"I shall place before you the facts which are in my possession, and require your assent to such as are within your knowledge. On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 5, 1854, Houston Simms left the Pine Valley station, carrying a valise containing a large sum of money. You——"
She had been sitting on the other side of the table, looking steadily at me. She rose now. She wore a blue morning dress, with lace ruffles and other little fooleries in which women delight, and I remember being shocked with the strange contrast between this frippery and the speechless dread and misery of her face. She gained control of her voice with difficulty.
"Who has said that I was a witness of the murder?" she gasped. "I always explained that I was in another part of the wood. I went to aunty Huldah——"
"Pray do not interrupt me, Miss Waring. I am aware that you were the witness—the sole witness—in this matter." (She did not contradict me. I was right in my first guess—she had been alone with the murderer.) "On returning from your nurse's cabin you left the direct path and followed the sound of angry voices to the gorge by Mill's spring——"
"I did not go to play the spy. He lied when he said that," she cried feebly. "I heard the steps, and thought Colonel Merrick had come to search for me."