Then Hilda came in, a hysterical Hilda, wiping her eyes and holding out the letter. “She left it for him,” she sobbed. “His name’s on it. Oh, my God, Miss Pat, why ever did she do it?”

Bessie stood there, staring at the letter. Whatever she knew, she had not expected that. She even tried to take it from Hilda, but I reached out quietly and got it.

“I’ll take care of it. It’s for Tony,” I said. “If you like, you can call him and tell him it’s here.”

“Tell him yourself,” she said furiously, and went out of the room.

I think that letter almost broke Tony’s heart. They had been airing and cleaning Maud’s room, and Hilda had found it underneath her mattress. The envelope was addressed in her big sprawling hand, To my beloved son, and inside was the letter.

Tony darling—When you find this I will be gone. Try to understand, my dear, and do what you think best. I have loved you so much. So terribly, Tony. Some day when you have a child of your own you will realize what that means. Try to forgive me for what I have done, and don’t forget me, darling. God bless you and make you happy. Mother.

I was not with him when he read it. He took it up to his room, and for hours he stayed there. When at last he came downstairs he had it in his hand.

“Read it,” he said thickly. “See what you make of it.”

I read it, with a lump in my throat. Then I reread it.

“I don’t quite understand it,” I said.

“Neither do I. What am I to understand? That she killed herself? I don’t believe it.”

“Unless she was afraid of something,” I said.

“She was never afraid. Not in all her life.”

It was that night that somebody apparently got into the house again. We knew nothing about it until morning. Then Hilda reported that Maud’s room had been opened and searched. “Her clothes are every which way,” she said. “The drawers too. I don’t know what to make of it, miss.”

Nor did I, or Tony when he heard of it. The jewels had been taken from the safe and placed in a safe-deposit box in town, and Reynolds reported that the house had been closed as usual the night before, including the basement doors. Remembering those previous attempts of Bessie’s to get into Maud’s rooms, I suspected her. But I could not prove it, nor could I think of any reason for her doing it. The envelope was gone, if that was what she was after, and the rooms themselves had already been searched by the police.

Jim Conway surveyed the havoc grimly the next morning. “I’m going to put a guard inside the house,” he told Tony that day. “There’s some funny business going on, and I don’t like it. I’ve got a fellow named O’Brien. Not much on manners but hell on trouble. You can trust him.”