Let us take another look.” and I hastened towards the door.
“You won’t find it,” said Mr. Gryce at my elbow. “I have looked.
There is nothing but a pile of burned paper in the corner.
By the way, what could that have been?” he asked of Mrs. Belden.
“I don’t know, sir.
She hadn’t anything to burn unless it was the letter.”
“We will see about that,” I muttered, hurrying up-stairs and bringing down the wash-bowl with its contents. “If the letter was the one I saw in your hand at the post-office, it was in a yellow envelope.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yellow envelopes burn differently from white paper.
I ought to be able to tell the tinder made by a yellow envelope when I see it. Ah, the letter has been destroyed; here is a piece of the envelope,” and I drew out of the heap of charred scraps a small bit less burnt than the rest, and held it up.
“Then there is no use looking here for what the letter contained,” said Mr. Gryce, putting the wash-bowl aside. “We will have to ask you, Mrs. Belden.”
“But I don’t know.
It was directed to me, to be sure; but Hannah told me, when she first requested me to teach her how to write, that she expected such a letter, so I didn’t open it when it came, but gave it to her just as it was.”
“You, however, stayed by to see her read it?”
“No, sir; I was in too much of a flurry.
Mr. Raymond had just come and I had no time to think of her.
My own letter, too, was troubling me.”
“But you surely asked her some questions about it before the day was out?”
“Yes, sir, when I went up with her tea things; but she had nothing to say.
Hannah could be as reticent as any one I ever knew, when she pleased.
She didn’t even admit it was from her mistress.”
“Ah! then you thought it was from Miss Leavenworth?”
“Why, yes, sir; what else was I to think, seeing that mark in the corner?
Though, to be sure, it might have been put there by Mr. Clavering,” she thoughtfully added.
“You say she was cheerful yesterday; was she so after receiving this letter?”
“Yes, sir; as far as I could see.
I wasn’t with her long; the necessity I felt of doing something with the box in my charge—but perhaps Mr. Raymond has told you?”
Mr. Gryce nodded.
“It was an exhausting evening, and quite put Hannah out of my head, but—”
“Wait!” cried Mr. Gryce, and beckoning me into a corner, he whispered, “Now comes in that experience of Q’s.
While you are gone from the house, and before Mrs. Belden sees Hannah again, he has a glimpse of the girl bending over something in the corner of her room which may very fairly be the wash-bowl we found there.
After which, he sees her swallow, in the most lively way, a dose of something from a bit of paper.
Was there anything more?”
“No,” said I.
“Very well, then,” he cried, going back to Mrs. Belden. “But—”
“But when I went up-stairs to bed, I thought of the girl, and going to her door opened it.
The light was extinguished, and she seemed asleep, so I closed it again and came out.”
“Without speaking?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you notice how she was lying?”
“Not particularly.
I think on her back.”
“In something of the same position in which she was found this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that is all you can tell us, either of her letter or her mysterious death?”
“All, sir.”
Mr. Gryce straightened himself up.
“Mrs. Belden,” said he, “you know Mr. Clavering’s handwriting when you see it?”
“I do.”
“And Miss Leavenworth’s?”