The Silver Shawl (3 page)

“And you’re engaged to be married?—How long
have you been engaged?”

“Three months,” said Randall. “We were going
to be married in a few weeks.”

“And you know nothing about her—where she was
born, where she lived or how?”

“Look, Mr. Edgerton, you don’t know what
you’re trying to do!” said Randall, putting his hands on the back
of a chair and leaning over it as though he had suddenly found a
need for support. “Charity’s not that kind of girl. She just isn’t.
And if there was anything she’d—if she’d ever been in any kind of
trouble, she would have told me.”

Edgerton shook his head doubtfully. “She
doesn’t seem to have told you much of anything.”

“Have you got a picture of that Taylor girl?”
said Andrew Royal abruptly, having caught a glimpse of the look on
Randall’s face.

“Unfortunately, no,” said Edgerton. “She
apparently never had her photograph taken. All we have is a general
description—a young woman between twenty and twenty-five years of
age, brunette, attractive, with a ladylike, genteel appearance and
manner.”

“Charity to the letter,” grumbled Royal under
his breath.

Edgerton glanced at Randall Morris, and then
addressed the sheriff. “Under the circumstances, if I could be
allowed to examine Miss Bradford’s home or lodgings, I might find
something that would conclusively prove or disprove my suggestion,
rather than pursuing this speculation; or possibly even find a clue
to her whereabouts.”

Royal raised his bushy eyebrows doubtfully,
but as Randall spun around with an expression of outrage he brought
them down grimly over his eyes again. Edgerton availed himself of
the perceived advantage. “I am entirely willing to place myself
under your direction, Sheriff, and to do only what you deem
appropriate. I do think this course would be the most useful.”

Sheriff Royal gave his usual exasperated
exhalation, and started to climb up out of his chair. “Well, you
won’t lose anything by it,” he said. “I don’t guess I’ve got any
objections, if Randall hasn’t.”

Edgerton turned with silent inquiry toward
Randall. The younger man stood irresolute for a few seconds, the
pain he felt reflected in his face, but he nodded shortly.

Andrew Royal gave a brief grunt of
acknowledgement. “I’d better go right along with you,” he said,
“and deal with the landlady. I reckon it’ll be better for
everybody’s feelings.”

* * *

Mrs. Henney, in a considerable state of
feeling herself, once more unlocked Charity’s door for them. She
remained in the doorway, her hands clasped nervously and her plump
face drawn together in a piteous expression, as the two men
surveyed the room. Andrew Royal, having turned about once with a
belligerent look on his face, planted himself in the center of the
room where he could keep an admonishing eye on the landlady and
watch the detective’s progress at the same time.

Edgerton knew his work. He raised the
window-shade with a light touch, and looked around at the room by
the better light. The single window was opposite the door; the head
of the bed against the wall to the right of the window. The
wardrobe stood against the right-hand wall, the mirrored bureau
against the left. There was a single straight-backed chair, a
braided rag rug on the floor and a few framed lithographs on the
walls.

Edgerton conducted his search deftly, rapidly
but without hurry. He examined the contents of the wardrobe,
investigating pockets and feeling along the seams of garments where
anything seemed likely to be concealed. He knelt to look beneath
the bed and turned back the rug (Mrs. Henney assuring him that
nothing could be hidden there, because she took it up to sweep
every Thursday and Miss Charity and everyone in the house knew it).
Then he turned his attention to the bureau. The agile fingers went
through the contents of the drawers, the detective’s gray eyes
focused and his face expressionless.

He came at the last to a packet of letters in
the topmost drawer, almost as if he had known all along that they
would be there, and purposely left them to the last so the find
would not distract his attention from any smaller matters in the
room. He separated them with a hand as practiced as if he, and not
Charity Bradford, had been accustomed to handle letters in a
post-office.

He glanced briefly at and then laid aside a
few short notes in a bold, slanting hand, signed “Randall.” There
were only a few more: a page of fine, stilted writing on questions
of silk and beading from Diana Lewis; another letter in a girl’s
hand from within Sour Springs. Lastly Edgerton singled out three
letters folded together, written on a different type of paper than
the others. He unfolded and read the first one, and a shadow came
over his forehead.

He glanced significantly at Andrew Royal, and
held out the letter. The sheriff drew nearer to him and read the
first few words. He looked into the detective’s eyes, and for once
there was no mask over his bleak, weathered face.

Edgerton gave him the three letters, and
while Royal was reading them over the detective folded the
love-letters and the rest of the small, innocuous correspondence
with considerate care, and laid them all back in the drawer.

* * *

The first letter ran:

Dear Miss Taylor,

I am writing to you in respect to the late
Mr. Faraday, which it would do both of us good to meet and discuss.
There are others besides myself who have an interest in that
gentleman’s affairs, but I think it would be more agreeable for you
and I to come to an understanding regarding our respective
interests before introducing these others into the discussion. I
wait for your answer, respectfully,

A. N.

Edgerton re-read this carefully, standing in
the dining-room of Mrs. Henney’s boarding-house, while Randall
Morris was reading with incomprehensible emotion the second of the
trio, which the sheriff had just handed to him:

Dear Miss Taylor,

I must insist that you give me a reply about
the concerns of Mr. Faraday about which I communicated with you
before. We do not accept your wish to avoid the subject, and want
you to agree to a meeting where we can settle the matters once and
for all. If you do not reply we will seek a personal answer. I will
see you soon.

A.N.

Both of these letters were written with an
apparent attempt at refinement, and a strenuous effort to convey a
definite idea in vague terms, but in a round, uneducated-looking
hand. The third, by contrast, had been printed, not written, and in
haste:

Mary,

There is an agent arrived from South. He may
have a tip on the Johnson things. You are not the only one who can
lose, so take no chances.

A.N.

“The ‘Johnson things’ are the pearls,” said
Edgerton. The three letters lay spread on the dining-room table.
“The lady from whom they were stolen was named Johnson. How these
people knew I was coming I don’t know, but they must have been
watching us while we’ve been watching them. It happened much as I
figured. These ‘others’ evidently wanted a share in the money from
the pearls, which Mary Taylor wasn’t disposed to share, even though
they sound like they were beginning to get quite insistent about
it. But it wouldn’t be in their interest for her to be apprehended,
either, so they warned her in time for her to slip away before my
arrival.”

Randall Morris had not spoken a word since
Royal first showed him the letters. The look of bewilderment,
disbelief and shock on his face was not without its effect on the
detective, who observed it with silent sympathy.

Now Randall turned to him with a remnant of
energy, a defensive look battling to regain control on his face.
“These don’t prove anything!” he said. “They don’t prove a thing.
Someone could have put them in her room.”

“Who?” said Andrew Royal in a voice hard with
sarcasm.

“None of these are in Charity’s handwriting,”
said Randall, his eyes fastened steadily on the detective’s quiet
face, as Edgerton looked down at the letters.

Edgerton inclined his head and admitted it.
“No, they’re not. But—”

“Then they don’t prove her connection with
those people. All you’ve got is that they were in her room. Why
couldn’t someone have planted them there?” He looked around at
Royal. “Sour Springs is a little town—everybody knows about
everything here. They notice the postmarks on everybody’s letters.
How could Charity have gotten these without anyone knowing about
it?”

“She worked at the post-office,” said Mrs.
Meade, who had come into the dining-room conference so
inconspicuously that none of the men had realized that she had been
sitting there for nearly the whole time.

Edgerton regarded this apparition, of a
kind-looking middle-aged lady in a brown dress, sitting with her
hands folded decorously across her lap, with his signature
expression of close attention modified by astonishment.

“I did not know that,” he said after a
moment. “I am much obliged, Mrs.—Miss—”

“Meade,” grunted Andrew Royal.

“Mrs.,” supplied Mrs. Meade, giving Edgerton
her kindest smile. Her eyes twinkled with warm humor, and the
detective smiled in spite of himself.

“Are you a friend of Mar—of Miss Bradford’s,
Mrs. Meade?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Meade. “My room is just
across the hall from hers, so naturally we see a good deal of each
other. She’s a very sweet girl—I’ve always been very fond of
her.”

“And yet—your remark about the
post-office—forgive me, but it seems to support my theory that Miss
Bradford is, in fact, Mary Taylor.”

“I didn’t say
that
,” said Mrs. Meade
with dismissive practicality. “I only noticed it. It
is
significant, I think.”

“Good Lord, you don’t mean to suggest she got
herself hired on there on purpose?” said Andrew Royal even more
crossly than was his wont.

“I think it means that…someone…thought of a
great many details,” said Mrs. Meade musingly, looking past
Edgerton at the opposite wall.

There was a few seconds’ silence, and then
Edgerton said, reaching for one of the letters on the table, “Was
there anything else that you noticed about these letters, Mrs.
Meade?”

“I thought it was amusing the way the writer
of the second letter varied between referring to himself as ‘I’ and
‘we’,” said Mrs. Meade, smiling again. “It made me imagine several
people gathered around a table, all trying to tell the writer what
to say and probably arguing among themselves as they did it.”

Edgerton laughed. “I did observe the varying
pronouns, but I hadn’t put quite such a vivid construction on them.
I do agree with you, though, Mrs. Meade—I believe there are a
number of people concerned in this.” He made a slight gesture with
the letter in his hand.

“Perhaps that is what makes it so difficult,”
said Mrs. Meade thoughtfully.

Edgerton looked attentively at her for a
moment, a curious look on his face, and then he seemed to recall
himself to his present task. He glanced down at the letter in his
hand, gathered the other two up from the table and folded them
together, and then he passed around the table and stopped by Andrew
Royal’s chair. “For the present,” he said in a quiet voice, “it
seems your investigation and mine have the same object, Sheriff. I
think it would be advantageous to us both to work together, at
least until Miss Bradford is found.”

Royal did not seem to hear for a moment. Then
he gave a sort of start, and with a grumble of acquiescence, he got
up from the table and pushed his chair back into its place with a
big booted foot in a manner that would have made Mrs. Henney’s eyes
pitifully round if she had been there to see.

* * *

Randall Morris sat alone at the table in the
empty kitchen, his head in his hands. He ran unsteady fingers
through his hair and drew a quivering breath. He was stunned by the
reality of all he had heard, but in his heart still clung to the
belief that somehow it was all wrong. Whatever the proofs, he could
not believe it.

Charity…his beautiful, dainty Charity, with
her deep brown eyes that shone up at him as though she had never
loved anyone so well before. Had all her goodness, her quiet charm
and modesty, been the playing of a part? He would never believe
that she had not truly loved him. But were the other things true? A
thief—a criminal? He pushed the thought of the man named John
Faraday far away from his mind; he could not bear that.

Mrs. Meade came into the kitchen. She cast a
look at the kettle on the back of the stove, thinking perhaps about
whether a cup of tea might be of any value in this situation, but
decided against it and sat down at the table. She looked at Randall
Morris, but he did not see or hear her, though he may have been
vaguely aware of her presence.

It was true—he knew practically nothing of
Charity’s past. That had never mattered to him before; he had never
given it a thought. Now he could not escape the idea. Had Charity
really been reserved—avoided the subject of her own life—or was it
only that he had never asked any questions?

He saw her now, her delicate figure and
profile outlined in soft moonlight as she had sat beside him on a
summer night in Mrs. Henney’s trim little garden outside the
boarding-house. A yellow glow came through the old lace curtains on
the open windows, accompanied by the flutter of the ladies’ voices
in the parlor, while all around them the moonlight, the clear
breath of the night air touched with the scent of the flowers, the
tiny pipings of crickets and the whisper of breezes and other night
insects, combined to make a night of such palpable loveliness that
for a while neither of them spoke, wanting only to be silent and
savor its rare beauty and the consciousness of each other’s
presence.