The Woman in the Alcove Part 4

For a moment he seemed to lose heart, then he lifted his head again, and looked as handsome as when he pleaded for my hand in the little conservatory.

"You have that right," said he; "besides, weakness at such a time, and under such an exigency, is little short of wrong. It was unmanly in me to endeavor to secrete these gloves; more than unmanly for me to choose for their hiding-place the recesses of an article belonging exclusively to yourself. I acknowledge it, Rita, and shall meet only my just punishment if you deny me in the future both your sympathy and regard.

But you must let me a.s.sure you and these gentlemen also, one of whom can make it very unpleasant for me, that consideration for you, much more than any miserable anxiety about myself, lay at the bottom of what must strike you all as an act of unpardonable cowardice. From the moment I learned of this woman's murder in the alcove, where I had visited her, I realized that every one who had been seen to approach her within a half-hour of her death would be subjected to a more or less rigid investigation, and I feared, if her gloves were found in my possession, some special attention might be directed my way which would cause you unmerited distress. So, yielding to an impulse which I now recognize as a most unwise, as well as unworthy one, I took advantage of the bustle about us, and of the insensibility into which you had fallen, to tuck these miserable gloves into the bag I saw lying on the floor at your side. I do not ask your pardon. My whole future life shall be devoted to winning that; I simply wish to state a fact."

"Very good!" It was the inspector who spoke; I could not have uttered a word to save my life. "Perhaps you will now feel that you owe it to this young lady to add how you came to have these gloves in your possession?"

"Mrs. Fairbrother handed them to me."

"Handed them to you?"

"Yes, I hardly know why myself. She asked me to take care of them for her. I know that this must strike you as a very peculiar statement.

It was my realization of the unfavorable effect it could not fail to produce upon those who beard it, which made me dread any interrogation on the subject. But I a.s.sure you it was as I say. She put the gloves into my hand while I was talking to her, saying they incommoded her."

"And you?"

"Well, I held them for a few minutes, then I put them in my pocket, but quite automatically, and without thinking very much about it. She was a woman accustomed to have her own way. People seldom questioned it, I judge."

Here the tension about my throat relaxed, and I opened my lips to speak.

But the inspector, with a glance of some authority, forestalled me.

"Were the gloves open or rolled up when she offered them to you?"

"They were rolled up."

"Did you see her take them off?"

"a.s.suredly."

"And roll them up?"

"Certainly."

"After which she pa.s.sed them over to you?"

"Not immediately. She let them lie in her lap for a while."

"While you talked?"

Mr. Durand bowed.

"And looked at the diamond?"

Mr. Durand bowed for the second time.

"Had you ever seen so fine a diamond before?"

"No."

"Yet you deal in precious stones?"

"That is my business."

"And are regarded as a judge of them?"

"I have that reputation."

"Mr. Durand, would you know this diamond if you saw it?"

"I certainly should."

"The setting was an uncommon one, I hear."

"Quite an unusual one."

The inspector opened his hand.

"Is this the article?"

"Good G.o.d! Where--"

"Don't you know?"

"I do not."

The inspector eyed him gravely.

"Then I have a bit of news for you. It was hidden in the gloves you took from Mrs. Fairbrother. Miss Van Arsdale was present at their unrolling."

Do we live, move, breathe at certain moments? It hardly seems so. I know that I was conscious of but one sense, that of seeing; and of but one faculty, that of judgment. Would he flinch, break down, betray guilt, or simply show astonishment? I chose to believe it was the latter feeling only which informed his slowly whitening and disturbed features.

Certainly it was all his words expressed, as his glances flew from the stone to the gloves, and back again to the inspector's face.

"I can not believe it. I can not believe it." And his hand flew wildly to his forehead.

"Yet it is the truth, Mr. Durand, and one you have now to face. How will you do this? By any further explanations, or by what you may consider a discreet silence?"

"I have nothing to explain,--the facts are as I have stated."

The inspector regarded him with an earnestness which made my heart sink.

"You can fix the time of this visit, I hope; tell us, I mean, just when you left the alcove. You must have seen some one who can speak for you."

"I fear not."

Why did he look so disturbed and uncertain?

"There were but few persons in the hall just then," he went on to explain. "No one was sitting on the yellow divan."

"You know where you went, though? Whom you saw and what you did before the alarm spread?"