Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/350

340 better than a prisoner here, go and come, keep silence or speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an unhappy creature, whom I took in for the most unselfish of motives, has chanced to die in my house!"

"Just so!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce; "it is very unjust. But perhaps we can right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This sudden death ought to be easily explained. You say you had no poison in the house?"

"No, sir."

"And that the girl never went out?"

"Never, sir."

"And that no one has ever been here to see her?"

"No one, sir."

"So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had wished?"

"No, sir."

"Unless," he added suavely, "she had it with her when she came here?"

"That could n’t have been, sir. She brought no baggage; and as for her pocket, I know everything there was in it, for I looked."

"And what did you find there?"

"Some money in bills, more than you would have expected such a girl to have, some loose pennies, and a common handkerchief."

"Well, then, it is proved the girl did n’t die of poison, there being none in the house."

He said this in so convinced a tone she was deceived. "That is just what I have been telling Mr. Raymond," giving me a triumphant look.

"Must have been heart disease," he went on, "You say she was well yesterday?"

"Yes, sir; or seemed so."