No sooner had I read in to-day's paper that the body found in the
Rosemere had been identified as that of Maurice Greywood, than I
knew at once why you have taken such an interest in poor May. I see
now that you have suspected from the first that the murdered man
was not unknown to her, and your last letter, describing her
"friend," proves to me beyond doubt that you were ignorant of
nothing but his name, for Greywood and no other answers exactly to
that description. How you found out what you did, I can't imagine;
but remembering that your office window commands a view of the
entrance to the building, I think it possible that you may have
seen something from that point of vantage, which enabled you to put
two and two together. But I wonder that I can feel any surprise
at your having discovered the truth, when the truth itself is
unbelievable!! May Derwent is incapable of killing any one--no
matter what provocation she may have had. She is incapable of
a dishonourable action, and above all things incapable of an
intrigue. She is purity itself. I swear it. And yet what are the
facts that confront us? A man, known to have been her professed
suitor, is found dead in a room adjoining her apartment, dead
with a wound through his heart--a wound, too, caused by a
knitting-needle or hat-pin, as you yourself testified! And before
trying to find out who killed him we must first think of some
reasonable excuse for his having been at the Rosemere at all. How
strange that he should happen to go to the building at the very
time when May (who was supposed to be on her way to Bar Harbor,
mind you!) was there also. Who was he calling on, if not on her?
Luckily, no one as yet seems to have thought of her in connection
with Greywood's death. My sister has, in fact, been wondering all
day whom he could have been visiting when he met his tragic fate.
But, sooner or later, the truth will become known, and then--? Even
in imagination I can't face that possibility.
And now, since you have discovered so much, and as I believe you
to be as anxious as I am to help this poor girl, I am going to
accede to your request and tell you all that I have been able to
find out about the sad affair. I know that I run the risk of
being misunderstood--even by you--and accused of unpardonable
indiscretion. But it seems to me that in a case like this no
ordinary rules hold good, and that in order to preserve a secret,
one has sometimes to violate a confidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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