The clever detective was not the only person who was furtively engaged
in an eager search for the missing girl.
Otho Maury, although he had written falsely to St. George Beresford
that Floy was dead, had learned already, to his dismay, of her strange
disappearance.
He saw that matters were more complicated than ever.
Floy was alive, he felt sure, and he foreboded that she would be
turning up at some inopportune moment in Maybelle’s path, and blocking
her way to success with Beresford.
He guessed readily enough that Floy had become frightened at his
persecutions, and had hidden herself away from him, awaiting
Beresford’s return.
And at the bare thought of Beresford’s possessing the enchanting little
beauty, Otho’s jealous blood leaped like fire along his veins, and he
swore to himself that he would rather murder Floy with his own hands
than to witness her happiness with his splendid, noble rival.
Again he held a secret conference with his sister, and she raged with
anger when she learned of Floy’s escape from death.
“You have botched everything, and I shall lose the man I love, after
all!” she cried, stormily; and her brother, unmoved by her blame,
replied, coldly:
“Your chances certainly do not appear good at present; but I will
continue to do the best I can for your interests. But the game is in
fate’s hands, and will be hard won, if won at all.”
“If you could only find her and put her out of the way,” she muttered,
darkly.
“I will try,” he answered; and it was tacitly understood between them
that the contest against Floy’s life and honor was to be waged more
persistently than ever.
Let her but be found again, and Otho swore that he would make it
impossible for her to marry Beresford.
Oh, it was cruel, shameful, wicked, this terrible warfare against a
helpless orphan girl to whom life might otherwise have proved so bright
and fair!
It was a wonder that peaceful sleep could visit the pillows of the two
arch-plotters, Otho and Maybelle.
Yet the girl dreamed of a future wherein Floy should be swept from her
path and Beresford won at last, while Otho--well, as for Otho, the
future did not look so bright.
He loved Floy, and the plot against her, though he never swerved from
it, planted thorns in his own heart.
So he took up the quest for the hapless little beauty, and when all
inquiry failed in New York and Mount Vernon, he was obliged to consider
himself baffled.
“I wish I had the powers of an amateur detective,” he thought,
longingly; but he did not dare to employ one.
And he would have been startled if he had known that he was under the
espionage of the best private detective in New York.
For Mrs. Beresford’s clever employé in pursuing his search for Floy,
had informed himself first of all as to whether the young girl had a
lover.
He found out that Otho Maury had paid her marked attention, and while
he pursued his search for Floy he kept a careful eye on her lover.
And his first suspicion that Otho might know the girl’s whereabouts was
soon dissipated by finding out that Otho was as keenly on the alert as
himself.
So the mystery deepened.
Neither lover nor detective could find one trace of bonny Floy after
her flight from Bellevue that fateful twenty-first of May.
The detective went down to Mount Vernon and spent a week. He found out
everything about the girl, save and except that St. George Beresford
had been her accepted lover. That affair had been so brief that none
guessed it save Otho and Maybelle.
Floyd Landon, the detective, intercepted Mrs. Banks in one of her
visits to the cemetery, and in a casual way, introduced himself,
hoping to find out something more. She was quite willing to talk on
the beloved subject; but she could tell no more than the neighbors had
told already--the story of Suicide Place, and the pretty child the kind
carpenter had taken from her dead mother’s arms and brought to their
humble cottage to be their own thereafter.
“And,” sobbed the broken-hearted widow, looking down with streaming
eyes at the lonely grave, “we loved her just as dearly as if she had
been our own flesh and blood, and if my poor John knew what she has
come to now, I don’t believe he could rest in his grave.”
“It was very noble in you both to care for her as you did,” said Floyd
Landon; and a minute later he asked, thoughtfully: “In case of her
being proved dead, who will inherit Suicide Place?”
“I don’t know, sir--there are no relatives alive that I’m aware of. It
seemed like Floy was the last of her line.”
“And you do not believe that she has followed the example of her race
and cut herself off from life?”
Mrs. Banks shuddered.
“Oh, no, sir, I can not believe that she would do that. She always
laughed at the notion, and never showed any superstition but once.”
His persuasive gaze coaxed her to proceed with her confidences.
“It was the night before she went away to be a salesgirl in the great
city,” continued Mrs. Banks. “We sat up late talking, and sweet little
Floy said, humbly:
“‘There’s one thing I must confess to you, auntie: I’ve often disobeyed
your orders and gone into Suicide Place alone. Will you forgive me now?’
“‘Oh my dear, how could you venture near that terrible place?’ I cried,
in alarm. Then, seeing the paleness of her sweet face, I added: ‘I
forgive you, dear; but you must never venture near that place again.’
“‘No, I _never_ shall!’ cried Floy, with the greatest energy. Clasping
her pretty little hands together, she went on, tremblingly: ‘I went
there once too often, auntie, dear, and I found out the--the--I found
out that the old place is haunted, as people say, and I think I
understand the malign influence there that drives people to madness and
suicide.’
“I begged her to tell me all, but she refused, growing pale, and
trembling like a leaf in a storm, as she added:
“‘I must not tell any one. It is an accursed knowledge, and brings doom
on those who learn it--a terrible doom! Oh, I used to laugh at the
croakers, but now I know they were right. I have seen the horror that
haunts the place. I know the secret hidden in those old stone walls.
But it shall not destroy me, auntie, dear, for I will shun it like the
plague. Never will I cross that fatal threshold again; and if I am ever
rich enough, I shall have the house torn down stone by stone, and let
in the light of day on the earth it covers, so that there shall be no
more curse upon it!’”
“And she would tell you no more, madame?”
“Not one word more; and the next day she went away from me, my pretty
darling, to be lost in the mysteries of that wicked New York!” sobbed
the poor woman.
“Do you really believe that Suicide Place is haunted, Madame?”
“Oh, yes, sir, certainly. Every one says so; and lights have been seen
in the windows many a dark night, though the place hasn’t had a tenant
these nine years and more. ’Tis said that evil spirits haunt the place
and drive the tenants to madness or suicide.”
Her story was interesting, but it threw no light on the deep mystery of
Florence Fane’s fate.
So he went back to New York to tell his wealthy patron that he had
failed in his quest.
“I have learned all that was possible to find out about her,” he said.
“It is agreed by all who know her that she was lovely and fascinating
to a high degree. She had many admirers, but she had laughed at them in
her pretty, saucy fashion, and all believed that she was heart-whole
and fancy-free.”
He found Mrs. Beresford and Alva so strangely interested in the young
girl’s fate that he told them all he had heard at Mount Vernon of her
romantic story, and added:
“It seems likely that there is a stain of madness in the blood leading
ultimately to suicide. This young girl, inheriting this terrible taint,
and suffering an aberration of mind from her fall, may have fled from
the hospital straight to the cold embrace of the river.”
They shuddered, the two beautiful, high-born women, at his words, but
Mrs. Beresford said quickly:
“Although it is a plausible theory, there is one weak point in it.”
Landon looked at her inquiringly, and she said:
“If a strain of madness in the race led its members to suicide, why
did one who was alien to them--a hired man on the place, I think you
said--prove the victim in one decade?”
“That fact escaped my mind while I was speaking,” he replied, “so my
theory really has no ground to stand on. The horror-haunted house must
really have some malign influence, must be haunted, as the young girl
averred.”
“It is a strange story you have told us, Mr. Landon, and makes the
young girl more interesting to us than before. I hope you will not
entirely give up the search, for success would be liberally rewarded,”
said Mrs. Beresford, as she handed him a munificent check for his two
weeks’ services.
He bowed himself out, and then the mask of conventionality fell from
the proud woman’s face, and it grew sad to the verge of tears.
“Oh, my son, my son!” she sobbed under her breath, and the thought of
him was like a sword in her wounded heart.
She had that day received from St. George the sorrowful letter in which
he had renounced home and wealth for Love’s sake.
Bitter was her anger, deep the wound in her heart, as she read the
brief, manly words.
“He is stubborn, foolish!” she cried, as she flung the letter to Alva.
Her queenly daughter read it, and smiled her light, cynical smile.
“How brave he is, how loyal to his love! I see now that he was in
earnest, and I admire him more than ever!” she exclaimed.
“Alva!” reproachfully.
“I mean it all, mamma! I--I would not have my brother’s heart tortured
as mine was in my spring of youth.”
“Have we not humored every other whim, my darling?”
“You have been most indulgent, but----” and Alva broke off with a long,
quivering sigh.
She was thinking:
“Thou canst not restore me the depth and the truth
Of the dreams that came o’er me in earliest youth;
Their gloss is departed, their magic is flown,
And sad and faint-hearted I wander alone.”
“His father will be bitterly angry,” said Mrs. Beresford, sighing.
“Very likely,” Alva returned, indifferently.
“I am sorry you take sides with your brother against us,” stiffly.
Alva laughed drearily, then said, coldly:
“I glory in his independence!”