Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/42

34 and the other servants all agreed that, being naturally left-handed like, he always went to the left hand side of the bed, so as he could get to feed her with a spoon. He was very bad with his right hand. Couldn’t handle a spoon with it no more than some of us could with the left. Nurse said she had seen him try once or twice, which he always spilled everything. I mean of course with his right hand. He was handy enough with his left. When I heard this I began to suspect we might be on a false scent. This is the way I looked at it. The glove, as I told you, was lying on the floor by the right side of the bed, so as anybody who dropped it must have been standing on that side which it’s the natural side to go to as being nearest the door. The paper was close to it, just under the same side of the bed. Now I took it as pretty clear prisoner hadn’t put that paper there for the purpose, but if he’d done it at all, he had dropped it by accident in giving the stuff. I fancy, too, he’d naturally be particularly careful in giving that sort of stuff not to spill it about the place, so he’d be pretty well sure to take his best hand to it. In that case he’d have dropped it on the left hand side of the bed—not the right. Still, of course it might have got blown across, or, for the matter of that, kicked, though that was not very likely, as the bed was a wide one, and put in a sort of recess like, quite out of any sort of draught. So I thought I’d have another look at the place, and, poking about under the bed, I found a long narrow box, which the servants told me was full of bows and arrows, and hadn’t been moved out of its place since they first came to the house. It took up the whole length of the bed within a foot or so, and lay right along the middle on the floor. There was a mark along the floor that showed how long it had been there. A bit of paper like that never could have got blown right over that without touching it if there had been ever such a draught. When I’d got so far, I fancied things began to look very queer, so I got the bed shifted out of its place altogether. The coffin was in the way, and I got that moved to one side of the room, and pulled the bed right clear of the box. As we shifted the coffin I thought I saw some thing like a piece of paper under the flannel shroud. I said nothing at the time, but waited till the undertaker’s men were out of the room and I was alone. I then opened the shroud and found a small folded paper. It was put just under the hands, which were crossed over the bosom of the corpse. I opened it and found a lock of hair, which I saw directly was Mr. Anderton’s, and there were a few words in writing which I copied down in my note-book, and then I put the hair and the paper and all back where I found them. The writing was, “Pray for me, darling, pray for me.” I knew the hand at once for Mr. Anderton’s. His writing is very remarkable, by reason, I suppose, of being so left-handed. Of course that wasn’t evidence, but somehow I got an idea out of it that a man wouldn’t go on in that way with his wife just after he’d been and murdered her. It struck me that that would be against nature, leastways if he was in his right mind. After I had finished with the coffin I took a look at the box. As I expected, the top was covered ever so thick with dust, and it was pretty clear that, at all events, the bit of paper had never lain atop of it. I put a piece just like it on to try and blew it off again, and it made a great mark and got all dirty. The paper picked up by the nurse was quite clean, or very nearly so. Putting all this together I came pretty nigh a conclusion that, at all events, it wasn’t Mr. Anderton as had dropped the paper there. The sides of the box were also dusty, but there were marks on them like as if a brush or a broom had brushed against them. I put the box and the bed back into their places, and went down to question the housemaid. I found that she had put the room tidy the day Mrs. Anderton died, and had passed a short hair-broom under the bed as there were several things lying about. She said she was quite sure there was no bit of paper there then, as she had stooped down and looked under. I tried with the same broom, and you couldn’t reach the box without stooping, as she said. I then inquired who had been in the room between the time of the death and the finding of the paper. No one had been there but the nurse, the doctor, the housemaid, and Baron R**. I was determined to hunt it out if possible. I questioned the nurse and the housemaid—on the quiet, not to excite suspicion—but felt pretty clear they knew nothing more about it; and when next Baron R** came I sounded him about different points. He did not seem to know that Mr. Anderton was so left-handed, nor could I get any information from him on the subject. He didn’t seem at first to see what I was driving at, and, of course, I didn’t mean he should, but after a while I saw he had struck out the same idea as I had about the place where the paper was found, though I had not meant to let him into that. He seemed quite struck of a heap by it. I fancied at the moment that he turned regularly pale, but he was just blowing his nose with a large yellow silk handkerchief, and I could not be sure. He said nothing to me of what he had guessed, nor did I to him. I like to keep those things as quiet as I can, particularly from parties’ friends. I have not been able to get any further clue, but I am convinced that something is to be made out of that paper business yet. I generally know a scent when I get on one, and my notion is that I am on one now. I did not see the Baron again till the evening before Mr. Anderton made away with himself. He came then in a great hurry, and insisted on seeing the prisoner. I said I would ask, but did not expect he could, as Mr. Anderton would see or speak to no one. He seemed to be in a sad state, partly with exhaustion after waiting on his wife so long, and partly with the worry of having this hanging over him He was a very sensitive gentleman, and seemed to take it more to heart than any one I ever saw. He wouldn’t see any one, not even his lawyer. When I told him about the Baron, however, he said he might come in, and they were together half-an-hour or more. I did not hear anything that passed. When the Baron came out he took