When their emotions were a little exhausted I led them to a sofa and sat down before them. They were motherless girls, and my heart, if hard, is not made of adamant or entirely unsusceptible to the calls of pity and friendship.
“Girls,” said I, “if you will be calm, I should like to ask you a few questions.”
“Ask us anything,” returned Isabella; “nobody has more right to our confidence than you.”
This was another of their exaggerated expressions, but I was so anxious to hear what they had to tell, I let it pass. So instead of rebuking them, I asked where their brother had been arrested, and found it had been at his rooms and in presence of themselves and Franklin. So I inquired further and learned that, so far as they knew, nothing had been discovered beyond what had come out at the inquest except that Howard’s trunks had been found packed, as if he had been making preparations for a journey when interrupted by the dreadful event which had put him into the hands of the police. As there was a certain significance in this, the girls seemed almost as much impressed by it as I was, but we did not discuss it long, for I suddenly changed my manner, and taking them both by the hand, asked if they could keep a secret.
“Secret?” they gasped.
“Yes, a secret. You are not the girls I should confide in ordinarily; but this trouble has sobered you.”
“O, we can do anything,” began Isabella; and “Only try us,” murmured Caroline.
But knowing the volubility of the one and the weakness of the other, I shook my head at their promises, and merely tried to impress them with the fact that their brother’s safety depended upon their discretion. At which they looked very determined for poppets, and squeezed my hands so tightly that I wished I had left off some of my rings before engaging in this interview.
When they were quiet again and ready to listen I told them my plans. They were surprised, of course, and wondered how I could do anything towards finding out the real murderer of their sister-in-law; but seeing how resolved I looked, changed their tone and avowed with much feeling their perfect confidence in me and in the success of anything I might undertake.
This was encouraging, and ignoring their momentary distrust, I proceeded to say:
“But for me to be successful in this matter, no one must know my interest in it. You must pay me no visits, give me no confidences, nor, if you can help it, mention my name before any one, not even before your father and brother. So much for precautionary measures, my dears; and now for the active ones. I have no curiosity, as I think you must see, but I shall have to ask you a few questions which under other circumstances would savor more or less of impertinence. Had your sister-in-law any special admirers among the other sex?”
“Oh,” protested Caroline, shrinking back, while Isabella’s eyes grew round as a frightened child’s. “None that we ever heard of. She wasn’t that kind of a woman, was she, Belle? It wasn’t for any such reason papa didn’t like her.”
“No, no, that would have been too dreadful. It was her family we objected to, that’s all.”
“Well, well,” I apologized, tapping their hands reassuringly, “I only asked—let me now say—from curiosity, though I have not a particle of that quality, I assure you.”
“Did you think—did you have any idea—” faltered Caroline, “that—”
“Never mind,” I interrupted. “You must let my words go in one ear and out of the other after you have answered them. I wish”—here I assumed a brisk air—“that I could go through your parlors again before every trace of the crime perpetrated there has been removed.”