Part 34 (1/2)
”What made you think of Morley and Withers?”
”Mr. Morley was in a raging temper with my sister when he left me--in connection with money matters. You know about that part of the affair?”
”Yes.”
”And George's voice is always like the one I heard. It's like that when he gets--used to get--into a temper with Enid.”
Bristow felt immensely relieved. He was so sure of his case against Perry Carpenter that he refused to consider anything tending to obscure his own theory.
”Are you still sure it was Mr. Morley or Mr. Withers?”
”I think now,” she answered, her voice hardly above a whisper, ”it was George Withers.”
”Why?”
”Let me explain again. I lay there, where I had fainted, for hours, until just a few minutes before you answered my call for help. I must have had a terrific shock. When I recovered consciousness, I stumbled into the living room and saw--saw Enid. Her--oh, Mr. Bristow!--the sight of her face, of her mouth, paralyzed my voice.
”I stood on the porch and tried to scream, but at first I couldn't. I only gasped and choked. I started down the steps, reached the bottom, and then found I could make myself heard. I ran back up the steps and stood there shrieking until I saw you coming. I suppose n.o.body had seen me go down the steps.”
”But that hasn't anything to do with Mr. Withers?”
”Yes--yes, it has. When I went down the porch steps, I saw something lying in the gra.s.s, on the upper side of the steps, the side toward your house.”
She slipped her hand under one of the pillows.
”It was this.”
She handed to Bristow an open-faced gold watch. He read on the back of it the initials, ”G. S. W.”
”It's George Withers' watch,” she said, ”and, when I found it, he had not been on this side of Manniston Road, according to the story he told you and the chief of police.”
Bristow was thinking intently, a frown creasing his forehead. He was wis.h.i.+ng that she had not found the watch. He reminded himself of the hysterical condition she had been in the day before. Perhaps, after all, this story was nothing but an unconscious invention--a fantasy which she thought to be the truth.
”Why did you refuse yesterday to tell me this; and why do you volunteer it now?” he inquired, holding her glance with a cold, level look.
”I'm afraid you won't understand,” she answered, a little smile lifting the corners of her mouth, a smile which, somehow, still had in it a great deal of sorrow. ”Yesterday I was still under the influence of the way I had lived all my life, subjugated, as it were, by the fact that my older sister was my father's favourite and by the further fact that my sister's personality was stronger than mine--at least, I had been taught to think so.
”I don't want you to think I didn't love my sister. I did; but it made a cry-baby out of me. I always relied on others--do you see? But now, that influence is gone. I'm my own mistress; and I know it. I can and must do what strikes me as right.”
Bristow, close student of human nature that he was, did understand. There flashed across his mind a pa.s.sage he had read in something by George Bernard Shaw: that n.o.body ever loses a friend or relative by death without experiencing some measure of relief.
”Yes; I see what you mean,” he a.s.sented; ”its an instance of submerged personality--something of that sort.”
”Mr. Braceway is working with you, isn't he?” she asked suddenly.
”Why, yes,” he replied, surprised.
”I thought,” she continued, ”that what I had seen would be of service to you and him. And I can't understand why father and George want all this secrecy. One would think they were afraid of finding out something--something to make them ashamed! What I want is to see the guilty man punished--that's all.”