X. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
At an early hour the next morning, Sweetwater stood before the coroner’s
desk, urging a plea he feared to hear refused. He wished to be present
at the interview soon to be held with Mr. Brotherson, and he had no good
reason to advance why such a privilege should be allotted him.
“It’s not curiosity,” said he. “There’s a question I hope to see
settled. I can’t communicate it--you would laugh at me; but it’s an
important one, a very important one, and I beg that you will let me sit
in one of the corners and hear what he says. I won’t bother and I’ll
be very still, so still that he’ll hardly notice me. Do grant me this
favour, sir.”
The coroner, who had had some little experience with this man, surveyed
him with a smile less forbidding than the poor fellow expected.
“You seem to lay great store by it,” said he; “if you want to sort those
papers over there, you may.”
“Thank you. I don’t understand the job, but I promise you not to
increase the confusion. If I do; if I rattle the leaves too loudly, it
will mean, ‘Press him further on this exact point,’ but I doubt if I
rattle them, sir. No such luck.”
The last three words were uttered sotto voce, but the coroner heard him,
and followed his ungainly figure with a glance of some curiosity, as he
settled himself at the desk on the other side of the room.
“Is the man--” he began, but at this moment the man entered, and Dr.
Heath forgot the young detective, in his interest in the new arrival.
Neither dressed with the elegance known to the habitues of the Clermont,
nor yet in the workman’s outfit in which he had thought best to appear
before the Associated Brotherhood, the newcomer advanced, with an aspect
of open respect which could not fail to make a favourable impression
upon the critical eye of the official awaiting him. So favourable,
indeed, was this impression that that gentleman half rose, infusing a
little more consideration into his greeting than he was accustomed to
show to his prospective witnesses. Such a fearless eye he had seldom
encountered, nor was it often his pleasure to confront so conspicuous a
specimen of physical and intellectual manhood.
“Mr. Brotherson, I believe,” said he, as he motioned his visitor to sit.
“That is my name, sir.”
“Orlando Brotherson?”
“The same, sir.”
“I’m glad we have made no mistake,” smiled the doctor. “Mr. Brotherson,
I have sent for you under the supposition that you were a friend of the
unhappy lady lately dead at the Hotel Clermont.”
“Miss Challoner?”
“Certainly; Miss Challoner.”
“I knew the lady. But--” here the speaker’s eye took on a look as
questioning as that of his interlocutor--“but in a way so devoid of
all publicity that I cannot but feel surprised that the fact should be
known.”
At this, the listening Sweetwater hoped that Dr. Heath would ignore
the suggestion thus conveyed and decline the explanation it apparently
demanded. But the impression made by the gentleman’s good looks had been
too strong for this coroner’s proverbial caution, and, handing over the
slip of a note which had been found among Miss Challoner’s effects by
her father, he quietly asked:
“Do you recognise the signature?”
“Yes, it is mine.”
“Then you acknowledge yourself the author of these lines?”
“Most certainly. Have I not said that this is my signature?”
“Do you remember the words of this note, Mr. Brotherson?”
“Hardly. I recollect its tenor, but not the exact words.”
“Read them.”
“Excuse me, I had rather not. I am aware that they were bitter and
should be the cause of great regret. I was angry when I wrote them.”
“That is evident. But the cause of your anger is not so clear, Mr.
Brotherson. Miss Challoner was a woman of lofty character, or such was
the universal opinion of her friends. What could she have done to a
gentleman like yourself to draw forth such a tirade?”
“You ask that?”
“I am obliged to. There is mystery surrounding her death;--the kind of
mystery which demands perfect frankness on the part of all who were near
her on that evening, or whose relations to her were in any way peculiar.
You acknowledge that your friendship was of such a guarded nature that
it surprised you greatly to hear it recognised. Yet you could write her
a letter of this nature. Why?”
“Because--” the word came glibly; but the next one was long in
following. “Because,” he repeated, letting the fire of some strong
feeling disturb for a moment his dignified reserve, “I offered myself to
Miss Challoner, and she dismissed me with great disdain.”
“Ah! and so you thought a threat was due her?”
“A threat?”
“These words contain a threat, do they not?”
“They may. I was hardly master of myself at the time. I may have
expressed myself in an unfortunate manner.”
“Read the words, Mr. Brotherson. I really must insist that you do so.”
There was no hesitancy now. Rising, he leaned over the table and read
the few words the other had spread out for his perusal. Then he slowly
rose to his full height, as he answered, with some slight display of
compunction:
“I remember it perfectly now. It is not a letter to be proud of. I
hope--”
“Pray finish, Mr. Brotherson.”
“That you are not seeking to establish a connection between this letter
and her violent death?”
“Letters of this sort are often very mischievous, Mr. Brotherson. The
harshness with which this is written might easily rouse emotions of
a most unhappy nature in the breast of a woman as sensitive as Miss
Challoner.”
“Pardon me, Dr. Heath; I cannot flatter myself so far. You overrate my
influence with the lady you name.”
“You believe, then, that she was sincere in her rejection of your
addresses?”
A start, too slight to be noted by any one but the watchful Sweetwater,
showed that this question had gone home. But the self-poise and mental
control of this man were perfect, and in an instant he was facing the
coroner again, with a dignity which gave no clew to the disturbance
into which his thoughts had just been thrown. Nor was this disturbance
apparent in his tones when he made his reply:
“I have never allowed myself to think otherwise. I have seen no reason
why I should. The suggestion you would convey by such a question is
hardly welcome, now. I pray you to be careful in your judgment of such a
woman’s impulses. They often spring from sources not to be sounded even
by her dearest friends.”
Just; but how cold! Dr. Heath, eyeing him with admiration rather than
sympathy, hesitated how to proceed; while Sweetwater, peering up from
his papers, sought in vain for some evidence of the bereaved lover
in the impressive but wholly dispassionate figure of him who had just
spoken. Had pride got the better of his heart? or had that organ always
been subordinate to the will in this man of instincts so varying, that
at one time he impressed you simply as a typical gentleman of leisure;
at another, as no more than a fiery agitator with powers absorbed by,
if not limited to the one cause he advocated; and again--and this seemed
the most contradictory of all--just the ardent inventor, living in a
tenement, with Science for his goddess and work always under his hand?
As the young detective weighed these possibilities and marvelled over
the contradictions they offered, he forgot the papers now lying
quiet under his hand. He was too interested to remember his own
part--something which could not often be said of Sweetwater.
Meantime, the coroner had collected his thoughts. With an apology for
the extremely personal nature of his inquiry, he asked Mr. Brotherson
if he would object to giving him some further details of his
acquaintanceship with Miss Challoner; where he first met her and under
what circumstances their friendship had developed.
“Not at all,” was the ready reply. “I have nothing to conceal in the
matter. I only wish that her father were present that he might listen to
the recital of my acquaintanceship with his daughter. He might possibly
understand her better and regard with more leniency the presumption
into which I was led by my ignorance of the pride inherent in great
families.”
“Your wish can very easily be gratified,” returned the official,
pressing an electric button on his desk.
“Mr. Challoner is in the adjoining room.” Then, as the door
communicating with the room he had mentioned swung ajar and stood
so, Dr. Heath added, without apparent consciousness of the dramatic
character of this episode, “You will not need to raise your voice beyond
its natural pitch. He can hear perfectly from where he sits.”
“Thank you. I am glad to speak in his presence,” came in undisturbed
self-possession from this not easily surprised witness. “I shall relate
the facts exactly as they occurred, adding nothing and concealing
nothing. If I mistook my position, or Miss Challoner’s position, it
is not for me to apologise. I never hid my business from her, nor the
moderate extent of my fortune. If she knew me at all, she knew me for
what I am; a man of the people who glories in work and who has risen
by it to a position somewhat unique in this city. I feel no lack of
equality even with such a woman as Miss Challoner.”
A most unnecessary preamble, no doubt, and of doubtful efficacy in
smoothing his way to a correct understanding with the deeply bereaved
father. But he looked so handsome as he thus asserted himself and made
so much of his inches and the noble poise of his head--though cold of
eye and always cold of manner--that those who saw, as well as heard him,
forgave this display of egotism in consideration of its honesty and the
dignity it imparted to his person.
“I first met Miss Challoner in the Berkshires,” he began, after a moment
of quiet listening for any possible sound from the other room. “I had
been on the tramp, and had stopped at one of the great hotels for a
seven days’ rest. I will acknowledge that I chose this spot at the
instigation of a relative who knew my tastes and how perfectly they
might be gratified there. That I should mingle with the guests may not
have been in his thought, any more than it was in mine at the beginning
of my stay. The panorama of beauty spread out before me on every side
was sufficient in itself for my enjoyment, and might have continued
so to the end if my attention had not been very forcibly drawn on one
memorable morning to a young lady--Miss Challoner--by the very earnest
look she gave me as I was crossing the office from one verandah to
another. I must insist on this look, even if it shock the delicacy of my
listeners, for without the interest it awakened in me, I might not have
noticed the blush with which she turned aside to join her friends on the
verandah. It was an overwhelming blush which could not have sprung from
any slight embarrassment, and, though I hate the pretensions of those
egotists who see in a woman’s smile more than it by right conveys, I
could not help being moved by this display of feeling in one so gifted
with every grace and attribute of the perfect woman. With less caution
than I usually display, I approached the desk where she had been
standing and, meeting the eyes of the clerk, asked the young lady’s
name. He gave it, and waited for me to express the surprise he expected
it to evoke. But I felt none and showed none. Other feelings had seized
me. I had heard of this gracious woman from many sources, in my life
among the suffering masses of New York, and now that I had seen her and
found her to be not only my ideal of personal loveliness but seemingly
approachable and not uninterested in myself, I allowed my fancy to soar
and my heart to become touched. A fact which the clerk now confided to
me naturally deepened the impression. Miss Challoner had seen my name in
the guest-book and asked to have me pointed out to her. Perhaps she had
heard my name spoken in the same quarter where I had heard hers. We have
never exchanged confidences on the subject, and I cannot say. I can only
give you my reason for the interest I felt in Miss Challoner and why I
forgot, in the glamour of this episode, the aims and purposes of a not
unambitious life and the distance which the world and the so-called
aristocratic class put between a woman of her wealth and standing and a
simple worker like myself.
“I must be pardoned. She had smiled upon me once, and she smiled again.
Days before we were formally presented, I caught her softened look
turned my way, as we passed each other in hall or corridor. We were
friends, or so it appeared to me, before ever a word passed between us,
and when fortune favoured us and we were duly introduced, our minds met
in a strange sympathy which made this one interview a memorable one
to me. Unhappily, as I then considered it, this was my last day at
the hotel, and our conversation, interrupted frequently by passing
acquaintances, was never resumed. I exchanged a few words with her by
way of good-bye but nothing more. I came to New York, and she remained
in Lenox. A month after and she too came to New York.”
“This good-bye--do you remember it? The exact language, I mean?”
“I do; it made a great impression on me. ‘I shall hope for our further
acquaintance,’ she said. ‘We have one very strong interest in common.’
And if ever a human face spoke eloquently, it was hers at that moment.
The interest, as I understood it, was our mutual sympathy for our
toiling, half-starved, down-trodden brothers and sisters in the lower
streets of this city; but the eloquence--that I probably mistook. I
thought it sprang from personal interest, and it gave me courage to
pursue the intention which had taken the place of every other feeling
and ambition by which I had hitherto been moved. Here was a woman in a
thousand; one who could make a man of me indeed. If she could ignore
the social gulf between us, I felt free to take the leap. Cowardice had
never been a fault of mine. But I was no fool even then. I realised that
I must first let her see the manner of man I was and what life meant
to me and must mean to her if the union I contemplated should become an
actual fact. I wrote letters to her, but I did not give her my address
or even request a reply. I was not ready for any word from her. I am not
like other men and I could wait. And I did, for weeks, then I suddenly
appeared at her hotel.”
The change of voice--the bitterness which he infused into this final
sentence made every one look up. Hitherto he had spoken calmly, almost
monotonously, as if no present heart-beat responded to this tale of
vanished love; but with the words, “Then I suddenly appeared at her
hotel,” he showed himself human again, and betrayed a passion which
though curbed was of the fiery quality, befitting his extraordinary
attributes of mind and person.
“This was when?” put in Dr. Heath, anxious to bridge the pause which
must have been very painful to the listening father.
“The week after Thanksgiving. I did not see her the first day, and only
casually the second. But she knew I was in the building, and when I came
upon her one evening seated at the very desk in the mezzanine which we
all have such bitter cause to remember, I could not forbear expressing
myself in a way she could not misunderstand. The result was of a kind to
drive a man like myself to an extremity of self-condemnation and rage.
She rose up as if insulted, and flung me one sentence and one sentence
only before she hailed the elevator and left my presence. A cur could
not have been dismissed with less ceremony.”
“That is not like my daughter. What was the sentence you allude to? Let
me hear the very words.” Mr. Challoner had come forward and now stood
awaiting his reply, a dignified but pathetic figure, which all must view
with respect.
“I hate the memory of them, but since you demand it, I will repeat them
just as they fell from her lips,” was Mr. Brotherson’s bitter retort.
“She said, ‘You of all men should recognise the unseemliness of these
proposals. Had your letters given me any hint of the feelings you have
just expressed, you would never have had this opportunity of approaching
me.’ That was all; but her indignation was scathing. Ladies who have
supped exclusively off silver, show a fine scorn for the common ware of
the cottager.”
Mr. Challoner bowed. “There is some mistake,” said he. “My daughter
might be averse to your addresses, but she would never show indignation
to any aspirant for her hand, simply on account of extraneous
conditions. She had wide sympathies--wider than I often approved.
Something in your conduct or the confidence you showed shocked her nicer
sense; not your lack of the luxuries she often misprised. This much
I feel obliged to say, out of justice to her character, which was
uniformly considerate.”
“You have seen her with men of her own world and yours,” was the harsh
response. “She had another side to her nature for the man of a different
sphere. And it killed my love--that you can see--and led to my sending
her the injudicious letter with which you have confronted me. The hurt
bull utters one bellow before he dies. I bellowed, and bellowed loudly,
but I did not die. I’m my own man still and mean to remain so.”
The assertive boldness--some would call it bravado--with which he thus
finished the story of his relations with the dead heiress, seemed to
be more than Mr. Challoner could stand. With a look of extreme pain and
perplexity he vanished from the doorway, and it fell to Dr. Heath to
inquire:
“Is this letter--a letter of threat you will remember--the only
communication which passed between you and Miss Challoner after this
unfortunate passage of arms at the Clermont?”
“Yes. I had no wish to address her again. I had exhausted in this one
outburst whatever humiliation I felt.”
“And she? Did she give no sign, make you no answer?”
“None whatever.” Then, as if he found it impossible to hide this hurt to
his pride, “She did not even seem to consider me worthy the honour of an
added rebuke. Such arrogance is, no doubt, commendable in a Challoner.”
This time his bitterness did not pass unrebuked by the coroner:
“Remember the grey hairs of the only Challoner who can hear you, and
respect his grief.”
Mr. Brotherson bowed.
“I have finished,” said he. “I shall have nothing more to say on the
subject.” And he drew himself up in expectation of the dismissal he
evidently thought pending.
But the coroner was not done with him by any means. He had a theory in
regard to this lamentable suicide which he hoped to establish by this
man’s testimony, and, in pursuit of this plan, he not only motioned to
Mr. Brotherson to reseat himself, but began at once to open a fresh line
of examination by saying:
“You will pardon me, if I press this matter. I have been given to
understand that notwithstanding your break with Miss Challoner, you have
kept up your visits to the Clermont and were even on the spot at the
time of her death.”
“On the spot?”
“In the hotel, I mean.”
“There you are right; I was in the hotel.”
“At the time of her death?”
“Very near the time. I remember hearing some disturbance in the lobby
behind me, just as I was passing out at the Broadway entrance.”
“You did, and did not return?”
“Why should I return? I am not a man of much curiosity. There was no
reason why I should connect a sudden alarm in the lobby of the Clermont
with any cause of special interest to myself.”
This was so true and the look which accompanied the words was so frank
that the coroner hesitated a moment before he said:
“Certainly not, unless--well, to be direct, unless you had just seen
Miss Challoner and knew her state of mind and what was likely to follow
your abrupt departure.”
“I had no interview with Miss Challoner.”
“But you saw her? Saw her that evening and just before the accident?”
Sweetwater’s papers rattled; it was the only sound to be heard in that
moment of silence. Then--“What do you mean by those words?” inquired Mr.
Brotherson, with studied composure. “I have said that I had no interview
with Miss Challoner. Why do you ask me then, if I saw her?”
“Because I believe that you did. From a distance possibly, but yet
directly and with no possibility of mistake.”
“Do you put that as a question?”
“I do. Did you see her figure or face that night?”
“I did.”
Nothing--not even the rattling of Sweetwater’s papers--disturbed the
silence which followed this admission.
“From where?” Dr. Heath asked at last.
“From a point far enough away to make any communication between us
impossible. I do not think you will require me to recall the exact
spot.”
“If it were one which made it possible for her to see you as clearly
as you could see her, I think it would be very advisable for you to say
so.”
“It was--such--a spot.”
“Then I think I can locate it for you, or do you prefer to locate it
yourself?”
“I will locate it myself. I had hoped not to be called upon to mention
what I cannot but consider a most unfortunate coincidence. As a
gentleman you will understand my reticence and also why it is a matter
of regret to me that with an acumen worthy of your position, you should
have discovered a fact which, while it cannot explain Miss Challoner’s
death, will drag our little affair before the public, and possibly give
it a prominence in some minds which I am sure does not belong to it.
I met Miss Challoner’s eye for one instant from the top of the little
staircase running up to the mezzanine. I had yielded thus far to an
impulse I had frequently combated, to seek by another interview to
retrieve the bad effect which must have been made upon her by my angry
note. I knew that she frequently wrote letters in the mezzanine at this
hour, and got as far as the top of the staircase in my effort to join
her. But got no further. When I saw her on her feet, with her face
turned my way, I remembered the scorn with which she had received my
former heart-felt proposals and, without taking another step forward, I
turned away from her and fled down the steps and so out of the building
by the main entrance. She saw me, for her hand flew up with a startled
gesture, but I cannot think that my presence on the same floor with her
could have caused her to strike the blow which terminated her life.
Why should I? No woman sacrifices her life out of mere regret for the
disdain she has shown a man she has taken no pains to understand.”
His tone and his attitude seemed to invite the concurrence of Dr. Heath
in this statement. But the richness of the one and the grace of the
other showed the handsome speaker off to such advantage that the coroner
was rather inclined to consider how a woman, even of Miss Challoner’s
fine taste and careful breeding, might see in such a situation much
for regret, if not for active despair and the suicidal act. He gave no
evidence of his thought, however, but followed up the one admission
made by Mr. Brotherson which he and others must naturally view as of the
first importance.
“You saw Miss Challoner lift her hand, you say. Which hand, and what was
in it? Anything?”
“She lifted her right hand, but it would be impossible for me to tell
you whether there was anything in it or not. I simply saw the movement
before I turned away. It looked like one of alarm to me. I felt that she
had some reason for this. She could not know that it was in repentance I
came rather than in fulfilment of my threat.”
A sigh from the adjoining room. Mr. Brotherson rose, as he heard it,
and in doing so met the clear eye of Sweetwater fixed upon his own. Its
language was, no doubt, peculiar and it seemed to fascinate him for a
moment, for he started as if to approach the detective, but forsook
this intention almost immediately, and addressing the coroner, gravely
remarked:
“Her death following so quickly upon this abortive attempt of mine at an
interview startled me by its coincidence as much as it does you. If in
the weakness of her woman’s nature, it was more than this--if the scorn
she had previously shown me was a cloak she instinctively assumed to
hide what she was not ready to disclose, my remorse will be as great as
any one here could wish. But the proof of all this will have to be very
convincing before my present convictions will yield to it. Some other
and more poignant source will have to be found for that instant’s
impulsive act than is supplied by this story of my unfortunate
attachment.”
Dr. Heath was convinced, but he was willing to concede something to
the secret demand made upon him by Sweetwater, who was bundling up his
papers with much clatter.
Looking up with a smile which had elements in it he was hardly conscious
of perhaps himself, he asked in an off-hand way:
“Then why did you take such pains to wash your hands of the affair the
moment you had left the hotel?”
“I do not understand.”
“You passed around the corner into--street, did you not?”
“Very likely. I could go that way as well as another.”
“And stopped at the first lamp-post?”
“Oh, I see. Someone saw that childish action of mine.”
“What did you mean by it?”
“Just what you have suggested. I did go through the pantomime of washing
my hands of an affair I considered definitely ended. I had resisted an
irrepressible impulse to see and talk with Miss Challoner again, and
was pleased with my firmness. Unaware of the tragic blow which had just
fallen, I was full of self-congratulations at my escape from the charm
which had lured me back to this hotel again and again in spite of my
better judgment, and I wished to symbolise my relief by an act of which
I was, in another moment, ashamed. Strange that there should have been
a witness to it. (Here he stole a look at Sweetwater.) Stranger still,
that circumstances by the most extraordinary of coincidences, should
have given so unforeseen a point to it.”
“You are right, Mr. Brotherson. The whole occurrence is startling and
most strange. But life is made up of the unexpected, as none know better
than we physicians, whether our practice be of a public or private
character.”
As Mr. Brotherson left the room, the curiosity to which he had yielded
once before, led him to cast a glance of penetrating inquiry behind him
full at Sweetwater, and if either felt embarrassment, it was not the
hunted but the hunter.
But the feeling did not last.
“I’ve simply met the strongest man I’ve ever encountered,” was
Sweetwater’s encouraging comment to himself. “All the more glory if
I can find a joint in his armour or a hidden passage to his cold,
secretive heart.”
XI. ALIKE IN ESSENTIALS
“Mr. Gryce, I am either a fool or the luckiest fellow going. You must
decide which.”
The aged detective, thus addressed, laid down his evening paper and
endeavoured to make out the dim form he could just faintly discern
standing between him and the library door.
“Sweetwater, is that you?”
“No one else. Sweetwater, the fool, or Sweetwater, much too wise for his
own good. I don’t know which. Perhaps you can find out and tell me.”
A grunt from the region of the library table, then the sarcastic remark:
“I’m just in the mood to settle that question. This last failure to my
account ought to make me an excellent judge of another’s folly. I’ve
meddled with the old business for the last time, Sweetwater. You’ll have
to go it lone from now on. The Department has no more work for Ebenezar
Gryce, or rather Ebenezar Gryce will make no more fool attempts to
please them. Strange that a man don’t know when his time has come to
quit. I remember low I once scored Yeardsley for hanging on after he had
lost his grip; and here am I doing the same thing. But what’s the matter
with you? Speak out, my boy. Something new in the wind?”
“No, Mr. Gryce; nothing new. It’s the same old business. But, if what
I suspect is true, this same old business offers opportunities for
some very interesting and unusual effort. You’re not satisfied with the
coroner’s verdict in the Challoner case?”
“No. I’m satisfied with nothing that leaves all ends dangling. Suicide
was not proved. It seemed the only presumption possible, but it was not
proved. There was no blood-stain on that cutter-point.”
“Nor any evidence that it had ever been there.”
“No. I’m not proud of the chain which lacks a link where it should be
strongest.”
“We shall never supply that link.”
“I quite agree with you.”
“That chain we must throw away.”
“And forge another?”
Sweetwater approached and sat down.
“Yes; I believe we can do it; yet I have only one indisputable fact for
a starter. That is why I want you to tell me whether I’m growing daft or
simply adventurous. Mr. Gryce, I don’t trust Brotherson. He has pulled
the wool over Dr. Heath’s eyes and almost over those of Mr. Challoner.
But he can’t pull it over mine. Though he should tell a story ten times
more plausible than the one with which he has satisfied the coroner’s
jury, I would still listen to him with more misgiving than confidence.
Yet I have caught him in no misstatement, and his eye is steadier than
my own. Perhaps it is simply a deeply rooted antipathy on my part, or
the rage one feels at finding he has placed his finger on the wrong man.
Again it may be--”
“What, Sweetwater?”
“A well-founded distrust. Mr. Gryce, I’m going to ask you a question.”
“Ask away. Ask fifty if you want to.”
“No; the one may involve fifty, but it is big enough in itself to hold
our attention for a while. Did you ever hear of a case before, that in
some of its details was similar to this?”
“No, it stands alone. That’s why it is so puzzling.”
“You forget. The wealth, beauty and social consequence of the present
victim has blinded you to the strong resemblance which her case bears to
one you know, in which the sufferer had none of the worldly advantages
of Miss Challoner. I allude to--”
“Wait! the washerwoman in Hicks Street! Sweetwater, what have you got up
your sleeve? You do mean that Brooklyn washerwoman, don’t you?”
“The same. The Department may have forgotten it, but I haven’t. Mr.
Gryce, there’s a startling similarity in the two cases if you study the
essential features only. Startling, I assure you.”
“Yes, you are right there. But what if there is? We were no more
successful in solving that case than we have been in solving this. Yet
you look and act like a hound which has struck a hot scent.” The young
man smoothed his features with an embarrassed laugh.
“I shall never learn,” said he, “not to give tongue till the hunt is
fairly started. If you will excuse me we’ll first make sure of the
similarity I have mentioned. Then I’ll explain myself. I have some notes
here, made at the time it was decided to drop the Hicks Street case as a
wholly inexplicable one. As you know, I never can bear to say ‘die,’
and I sometimes keep such notes as a possible help in case any such
unfinished matter should come up again. Shall I read them?”
“Do. Twenty years ago it would not have been necessary. I should have
remembered every detail of an affair so puzzling. But my memory is no
longer entirely reliable. So fire away, my boy, though I hardly see your
purpose or what real bearing the affair in Hicks Street has upon the
Clermont one. A poor washerwoman and the wealthy Miss Challoner! True,
they were not unlike in their end.”
“The connection will come later,” smiled the young detective, with that
strange softening of his features which made one at times forget his
extreme plainness. “I’m sure you will not consider the time lost if
I ask you to consider the comparison I am about to make, if only as a
curiosity in criminal annals.”
And he read:
“‘On the afternoon of December Fourth, 1910, the strong and persistent
screaming of a young child in one of the rooms of a rear tenement in
Hicks Street, Brooklyn, drew the attention of some of the inmates and
led them, after several ineffectual efforts to gain an entrance, to
the breaking in of the door which had been fastened on the inside by an
old-fashioned door-button.
“‘The tenant whom all knew for an honest, hard-working woman, had not
infrequently fastened her door in this manner, in order to safeguard her
child who was abnormally active and had a way of rattling the door open
when it was not thus secured. But she had never refused to open before,
and the child’s cries were pitiful.
“‘This was no longer a matter of wonder, when, the door having been
wrenched from its hinges, they all rushed in. Across a tub of steaming
clothes lifted upon a bench in the open window, they saw the body of
this good woman, lying inert and seemingly dead; the frightened child
tugging at her skirts. She was of a robust make, fleshy and fair, and
had always been considered a model of health and energy, but at the
sight of her helpless figure, thus stricken while at work, the one cry
was ‘A stroke! till she had been lifted off and laid upon the floor.
Then some discoloration in the water at the bottom of the tub led to a
closer examination of her body, and the discovery of a bullet-hole in
her breast directly over the heart.
“‘As she had been standing with face towards the window, all crowded
that way to see where the shot had come from. As they were on the fourth
storey it could not have come from the court upon which the room looked.
It could only have come from the front tenement, towering up before
them some twenty feet away. A single window of the innumerable ones
confronting them stood open, and this was the one directly opposite.
“‘Nobody was to be seen there or in the room beyond, but during the
excitement, one man ran off to call the police and another to hunt up
the janitor and ask who occupied this room.
“‘His reply threw them all into confusion. The tenant of that room was
the best, the quietest and most respectable man in either building.
“‘Then he must be simply careless and the shot an accidental one. A rush
was made for the stairs and soon the whole building was in an uproar.
But when this especial room was reached, it was found locked and on the
door a paper pinned up, on which these words were written: Gone to New
York. Will be back at 6:30! Words that recalled a circumstance to
the janitor. He had seen the gentleman go out an hour before. This
terminated all inquiry in this direction, though some few of the excited
throng were for battering down this door just as they had the other one.
But they were overruled by the janitor, who saw no use in such wholesale
destruction, and presently the arrival of the police restored order
and limited the inquiry to the rear building, where it undoubtedly
belonged.’
“Mr. Gryce,” (here Sweetwater laid by his notes that he might address
the old gentleman more directly), “I was with the boys when they made
their first official investigation. This is why you can rely upon the
facts as here given. I followed the investigation closely and missed
nothing which could in any way throw light on the case. It was a
mysterious one from the first, and lost nothing by further inquiry into
the details.
“The first fact to startle us as we made our way up through the crowd
which blocked halls and staircases was this:--A doctor had been
found and, though he had been forbidden to make more than a cursory
examination of the body till the coroner came, he had not hesitated
to declare after his first look, that the wound had not been made by a
bullet but by some sharp and slender weapon thrust home by a powerful
hand. (You mark that, Mr. Gryce.) As this seemed impossible in face of
the fact that the door had been found buttoned on the inside, we did
not give much credit to his opinion and began our work under the obvious
theory of an accidental discharge of some gun from one of the windows
across the court. But the doctor was nearer right than we supposed. When
the coroner came to look into the matter, he discovered that the wound
was not only too small to have been made by the ordinary bullet, but
that there was no bullet to be found in the woman’s body or anywhere
else. Her heart had been reached by a thrust and not by a shot from a
gun. Mr. Gryce, have you not heard a startling repetition of this report
in a case nearer at hand?
“But to go back. This discovery, so important if true, was as yet--that
is, at the time of our entering the room,--limited to the off-hand
declaration of an irresponsible physician, but the possibility
it involved was of so astonishing a nature that it influenced us
unconsciously in our investigation and led us almost immediately into a
consideration of the difficulties attending an entrance into, as well as
an escape from, a room situated as this was.
“Up three flights from the court, with no communication with the
adjoining rooms save through a door guarded on both sides by heavy
pieces of furniture no one person could handle, the hall door buttoned
on the inside, and the fire-escape some fifteen feet to the left, this
room of death appeared to be as removed from the approach of a murderous
outsider as the spot in the writing-room of the Clermont where Miss
Challoner fell.
“Otherwise, the place presented the greatest contrast possible to that
scene of splendour and comfort. I had not entered the Clermont at that
time, and no, such comparison could have struck my mind. But I have
thought of it since, and you, with your experience, will not find it
difficult to picture the room where this poor woman lived and worked.
Bare walls, with just a newspaper illustration pinned up here and there,
a bed--tragically occupied at this moment--a kitchen stove on which a
boiler, half-filled with steaming clothes still bubbled and foamed,--an
old bureau,--a large pine wardrobe against an inner door which we
later found to have been locked for months, and the key lost,--some
chairs--and most pronounced of all, because of its position directly
before the window, a pine bench supporting a wash-tub of the old sort.
“As it was here the woman fell, this tub naturally received the closest
examination. A board projected from its further side, whither it had
evidently been pushed by the weight of her falling body; and from its
top hung a wet cloth, marking with its lugubrious drip on the boards
beneath the first heavy moments of silence which is the natural
accompaniment of so serious a survey. On the floor to the right lay a
half-used cake of soap just as it had slipped from her hand. The window
was closed, for the temperature was at the freezing-point, but it had
been found up, and it was put up now to show the height at which it had
then stood. As we all took our look at the house wall opposite, a sound
of shouting came up from below. A dozen children were sliding on barrel
staves down a slope of heaped-up snow. They had been engaged in this
sport all the afternoon and were our witnesses later that no one had
made a hazardous escape by means of the ladder of the fire-escape,
running, as I have said, at an almost unattainable distance towards the
left.
“Of her own child, whose cries had roused the neighbours, nothing was to
be seen. The woman in the extreme rear had carried it off to her room;
but when we came to see it later, no doubt was felt by any of us that
this child was too young to talk connectedly, nor did I ever hear that
it ever said anything which could in any way guide investigation.
“And that is as far as we ever got. The coroner’s jury brought in a
verdict of death by means of a stab from some unknown weapon in the hand
of a person also unknown, but no weapon was ever found, nor was it ever
settled how the attack could have been made or the murderer escape under
the conditions described. The woman was poor, her friends few, and the
case seemingly inexplicable. So after creating some excitement by its
peculiarities, it fell of its own weight. But I remembered it, and in
many a spare hour have tried to see my way through the no-thoroughfare
it presented. But quite in vain. To-day, the road is as blind as ever,
but--” here Sweetwater’s face sharpened and his eyes burned as he leaned
closer and closer to the older detective--“but this second case, so
unlike the first in non-essentials but so exactly like it in just those
points which make the mystery, has dropped a thread from its tangled
skein into my hand, which may yet lead us to the heart of both. Can you
guess--have you guessed--what this thread is? But how could you without
the one clew I have not given you? Mr. Gryce, the tenement where
this occurred is the same I visited the other night in search of Mr.
Brotherson. And the man characterised at that time by the janitor as the
best, the quietest and most respectable tenant in the whole building,
and the one you remember whose window opened directly opposite the spot
where this woman lay dead, was Mr. Dunn himself, or, in other words, our
late redoubtable witness, Mr. Orlando Brotherson.”
XII. Mr. GRYCE FINDS AN ANTIDOTE FOR OLD AGE
“I thought I should make you sit up. I really calculated upon doing so,
sir. Yes, I have established the plain fact that this Brotherson was
near to, if not in the exact line of the scene of crime in each of these
extraordinary and baffling cases. A very odd coincidence, is it not?”
was the dry conclusion of our eager young detective.
“Odd enough if you are correct in your statement. But I thought it was
conceded that the man Brotherson was not personally near,--was not even
in the building at the time of the woman’s death in Hicks Street; that
he was out and had been out for hours, according to the janitor.”
“And so the janitor thought, but he didn’t quite know his man. I’m
not sure that I do. But I mean to make his acquaintance and make it
thoroughly before I let him go. The hero--well, I will say the possible
hero of two such adventures--deserves some attention from one so
interested in the abnormal as myself.”
“Sweetwater, how came you to discover that Mr. Dunn of this ramshackle
tenement in Hicks Street was identical with the elegantly equipped
admirer of Miss Challoner?”
“Just this way. The night before Miss Challoner’s death I was brooding
very deeply over the Hicks Street case. It had so possessed me that I
had taken this street in on my way from Flatbush; as if staring at the
house and its swarming courtyard was going to settle any such question
as that! I walked by the place and I looked up at the windows. No
inspiration. Then I sauntered back and entered the house with the fool
intention of crossing the courtyard and wandering into the rear building
where the crime had occurred. But my attention was diverted and my mind
changed by seeing a man coming down the stairs before me, of so fine
a figure that I involuntarily stopped to look at him. Had he moved a
little less carelessly, had he worn his workman’s clothes a little less
naturally, I should have thought him some college bred man out on a
slumming expedition. But he was entirely too much at home where he was,
and too unconscious of his jeans for any such conclusion on my part, and
when he had passed out I had enough curiosity to ask who he was.
“My interest, you may believe, was in no wise abated when I learned that
he was that highly respectable tenant whose window had been open at the
time when half the inmates of the two buildings had rushed up to his
door, only to find a paper on it displaying these words: Gone to New
York; will be back at 6:30. Had he returned at that hour? I don’t think
anybody had ever asked; and what reason had I for such interference now?
But an idea once planted in my brain sticks tight, and I kept thinking
of this man all the way to the Bridge. Instinctively and quite against
my will, I found myself connecting him with some previous remembrance in
which I seemed to see his tall form and strong features under the stress
of some great excitement. But there my memory stopped, till suddenly as
I was entering the subway, it all came back to me. I had met him the
day I went with the boys to investigate the case in Hicks Street. He was
coming down the staircase of the rear tenement then, very much as I
had just seen him coming down the one in front. Only the Dunn of to-day
seemed to have all his wits about him, while the huge fellow who
brushed so rudely by me on that occasion had the peculiar look of a
man struggling with horror or some other grave agitation. This was not
surprising, of course, under the circumstances. I had met more than one
man and woman in those halls who had worn the same look; but none of
them had put up a sign on his door that he had left for New York and
would not be back till 6:30, and then changed his mind so suddenly that
he was back in the tenement at three, sharing the curiosity and the
terrors of its horrified inmates.
“But the discovery, while possibly suggestive, was not of so pressing a
nature as to demand instant action; and more immediate duties coming up,
I let the matter slip from my mind, to be brought up again the next day,
you may well believe, when all the circumstances of the death at the
Clermont came to light and I found myself confronted by a problem very
nearly the counterpart of the one then occupying me.
“But I did not see any real connection between the two cases, until, in
my hunt for Mr. Brotherson, I came upon the following facts: that he was
not always the gentleman he appeared: that the apartment in which he was
supposed to live was not his own but a friend’s; and that he was only
there by spells. When he was there, he dressed like a prince and it was
while so clothed he ate his meals in the cafe of the Hotel Clermont.
“But there were times when he had been seen to leave this apartment in a
very different garb, and while there was no one to insinuate that he was
slack in paying his debts or was given to dissipation or any overt vice,
it was generally conceded by such as casually knew him, that there was
a mysterious side to his life which no one understood. His friend--a
seemingly candid and open-minded gentleman--explained these
contradictions by saying that Mr. Brotherson was a humanitarian and
spent much of his time in the slums. That while so engaged he naturally
dressed to suit the occasion, and if he was to be criticised at all,
it was for his zeal which often led him to extremes and kept him to his
task for days, during which time none of his up-town friends saw him.
Then this enthusiastic gentleman called him the great intellectual light
of the day, and--well, if ever I want a character I shall take pains to
insinuate myself into the good graces of this Mr. Conway.
“Of Brotherson himself I saw nothing. He had come to Mr. Conway’s
apartment the night before--the night of Miss Challoner’s death, you
understand but had remained only long enough to change his clothes.
Where he went afterwards is unknown to Mr. Conway, nor can he tell us
when to look for his return. When he does show up, my message will be
given him, etc., etc. I have no fault to find with Mr. Conway.
“But I had an idea in regard to this elusive Brotherson. I had heard
enough about him to be mighty sure that together with his other
accomplishments he possessed the golden tongue and easy speech of an
orator. Also, that his tendencies were revolutionary and that for all
his fine clothes and hankering after table luxuries and the like, he
cherished a spite against wealth which made his words under certain
moods cut like a knife. But there was another man, known to us of the
---- Precinct, who had very nearly these same gifts, and this man was
going to speak at a secret meeting that very evening. This we had been
told by a disgruntled member of the Associated Brotherhood. Suspecting
Brotherson, I had this prospective speaker described, and thought I
recognised my man. But I wanted to be positive in my identification, so
I took Anderson with me, and--but I’ll cut that short. We didn’t see the
orator and that ‘go’ went for nothing; but I had another string to
my bow in the shape of the workman Dunn who also answered to the
description which had been given me; so I lugged poor Anderson over into
Hicks Street.
“It was late for the visit I proposed, but not too late, if Dunn was
also the orator who, surprised by a raid I had not been let into, would
be making for his home, if only to establish an alibi. The subway was
near, and I calculated on his using it, but we took a taxicab and so
arrived in Hicks Street some few minutes before him. The result you
know. Anderson recognised the man as the one whom he saw washing his
hands in the snow outside of the Clermont, and the man, seeing himself
discovered, owned himself to be Brotherson and made no difficulty about
accompanying us the next day to the coroner’s office.
“You have heard how he bore himself; what his explanations were and how
completely they fitted in with the preconceived notions of the Inspector
and the District Attorney. In consequence, Miss Challoner’s death is
looked upon as a suicide--the impulsive act of a woman who sees the man
she may have scouted but whom she secretly loves, turn away from her in
all probability forever. A weapon was in her hand--she impulsively used
it, and another deplorable suicide was added to the melancholy list. Had
I put in my oar at the conference held in the coroner’s office; had
I recalled to Dr. Heath the curious case of Mrs. Spotts, and then
identified Brotherson as the man whose window fronted hers from the
opposite tenement, a diversion might have been created and the outcome
been different. But I feared the experiment. I’m not sufficiently in
with the Chief as yet, nor yet with the Inspector. They might not have
called me a fool--you may; but that’s different--and they might have
listened, but it would doubtless have been with an air I could not have
held up against, with that fellow’s eyes fixed mockingly on mine. For
he and I are pitted for a struggle, and I do not want to give him the
advantage of even a momentary triumph. He’s the most complete master
of himself of any man I ever met, and it will take the united brain
and resolution of the whole force to bring him to book--if he ever is
brought to book, which I doubt. What do you think about it?”
“That you have given me an antidote against old age,” was the ringing
and unexpected reply, as the thoughtful, half-puzzled aspect of the old
man yielded impulsively to a burst of his early enthusiasm. “If we can
get a good grip on the thread you speak of, and can work ourselves along
by it, though it be by no more than an inch at a time, we shall yet make
our way through this labyrinth of undoubted crime and earn for ourselves
a triumph which will make some of these raw and inexperienced young
fellows about us stare. Sweetwater, coincidences are possible. We run
upon them every day. But coincidence in crime! that should make work for
a detective, and we are not afraid of work. There’s my hand for my end
of the business.”
“And here’s mine.”
Next minute the two heads were closer than ever together, and the
business had begun.
XIII. TIME, CIRCUMSTANCE, AND A VILLAIN’S HEART
“Our first difficulty is this. We must prove motive. Now, I do not think
it will be so very hard to show that this Brotherson cherished feelings
of revenge towards Miss Challoner. But I have to acknowledge right here
and now that the most skillful and vigourous pumping of the janitor
and such other tenants of the Hicks Street tenement as I have dared to
approach, fails to show that he has ever held any communication with
Mrs. Spotts, or even knew of her existence until her remarkable death
attracted his attention. I have spent all the afternoon over this, and
with no result. A complete break in the chain at the very start.”
“Humph! we will set that down, then, as so much against us.”
“The next, and this is a bitter pill too, is the almost insurmountable
difficulty already recognised of determining how a man, without
approaching his victim, could manage to inflict a mortal stab in her
breast. No cloak of complete invisibility has yet been found, even by
the cleverest criminals.”
“True. The problem is such as a nightmare offers. For years my dreams
have been haunted by a gnome who proposes just such puzzles.”
“But there’s an answer to everything, and I’m sure there’s an answer to
this. Remember his business. He’s an inventor, with startling ideas. So
much I’ve seen for myself. You may stretch probabilities a little in
his case; and with this conceded, we may add by way of off-set to the
difficulties you mention, coincidences of time and circumstance, and
his villainous heart. Oh, I know that I am prejudiced; but wait and see!
Miss Challoner was well rid of him even at the cost of her life.”
“She loved him. Even her father believes that now. Some lately
discovered letters have come to light to prove that she was by no means
so heart free as he supposed. One of her friends, it seems, has also
confided to him that once, while she and Miss Challoner were sitting
together, she caught Miss Challoner in the act of scribbling capitals
over a sheet of paper. They were all B’s with the exception of here
and there a neatly turned O, and when her friend twitted her with her
fondness for these two letters, and suggested a pleasing monogram, Miss
Challoner answered, ‘O. B. (transferring the letters, as you see) are
the initials of the finest man in the world.’”
“Gosh! has he heard this story?”
“Who?”
“The gentleman in question.”
“Mr. Brotherson?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so. It was told me in confidence.”
“Told you, Mr. Gryce? Pardon my curiosity.”
“By Mr. Challoner.”
“Oh! by Mr. Challoner.”
“He is greatly distressed at having the disgraceful suggestion
of suicide attached to his daughter’s name. Notwithstanding the
circumstances,--notwithstanding his full recognition of her secret
predilection for a man of whom he had never heard till the night of
her death, he cannot believe that she struck the blow she did,
intentionally. He sent for me in order to inquire if anything could
be done to reinstate her in public opinion. He dared not insist that
another had wielded the weapon which laid her low so suddenly, but
he asked if, in my experience, it had never been known that a woman,
hyper-sensitive to some strong man’s magnetic influence, should so
follow his thought as to commit an act which never could have arisen
in her own mind, uninfluenced. He evidently does not like Brotherson
either.”
“And what--what did you--say?” asked Sweetwater, with a halting
utterance and his face full of thought.
“I simply quoted the latest authority on hypnotism that no person
even in hypnotic sleep could be influenced by another to do what was
antagonistic to his natural instincts.”
“Latest authority. That doesn’t mean a final one. Supposing that it was
hypnotism! But that wouldn’t account for Mrs. Spotts’ death. Her wound
certainly was not a self-inflicted one.”
“How can you be sure?”
“There was no weapon found in the room, or in the court. The snow
was searched and the children too. No weapon, Mr. Gryce, not even a
paper-cutter. Besides--but how did Mr. Challoner take what you said? Was
he satisfied with this assurance?”
“He had to be. I didn’t dare to hold out any hope based on so
unsubstantial a theory. But the interview had this effect upon me.
If the possibility remains of fixing guilt elsewhere than on Miss
Challoner’s inconsiderate impulse, I am ready to devote any amount of
time and strength to the work. To see this grieving father relieved from
the worst part of his burden is worth some effort and now you know why
I have listened so eagerly to you. Sweetwater, I will go with you to the
Superintendent. We may not gain his attention and again we may. If we
don’t--but we won’t cross that bridge prematurely. When will you be
ready for this business?”
“I must be at Headquarters to-morrow.”
“Good, then let it be to-morrow. A taxicab, Sweetwater. The subway for
the young. I can no longer manage the stairs.”
XIV. A CONCESSION
“It is true; there seems to be something extraordinary in the
coincidence.”
Thus Mr. Brotherson, in the presence of the Inspector.
“But that is all there is to it,” he easily proceeded. “I knew Miss
Challoner and I have already said how much and how little I had to do
with her death. The other woman I did not know at all; I did not even
know her name. A prosecution based on grounds so flimsy as those you
advance would savour of persecution, would it not?”
The Inspector, surprised by this unexpected attack, regarded the speaker
with an interest rather augmented than diminished by his boldness. The
smile with which he had uttered these concluding words yet lingered on
his lips, lighting up features of a mould too suggestive of command to
be associated readily with guilt. That the impression thus produced was
favourable, was evident from the tone of the Inspector’s reply:
“We have said nothing about prosecution, Mr. Brotherson. We hope to
avoid any such extreme measures, and that we may the more readily do
so, we have given you this opportunity to make such explanations as the
situation, which you yourself have characterised as remarkable, seems to
call for.”
“I am ready. But what am I called upon to explain? I really cannot see,
sir. Knowing nothing more about either case than you do, I fear that I
shall not add much to your enlightenment.”
“You can tell us why with your seeming culture and obvious means, you
choose to spend so much time in a second-rate tenement like the one in
Hicks Street.”
Again that chill smile preceding the quiet answer:
“Have you seen my room there? It is piled to the ceiling with books.
When I was a poor man, I chose the abode suited to my purse and my
passion for first-rate reading. As I grew better off, my time became
daily more valuable. I have never seen the hour when I felt like moving
that precious collection. Besides, I am a man of the people. I like the
working class, and am willing to be thought one of them. I can find time
to talk to a hard-pushed mechanic as easily as to such members of the
moneyed class as I encounter on stray evenings at the Hotel Clermont. I
have led--I may say that I am leading--a double life; but of neither am
I ashamed, nor have I cause to be. Love drove me to ape the gentleman
in the halls of the Clermont; a broad human interest in the work of the
world, to live as a fellow among the mechanics of Hicks Street.”
“But why make use of one name as a gentleman of leisure and quite a
different one as the honest workman?”
“Ah, there you touch upon my real secret. I have a reason for keeping my
identity quiet till my invention is completed.”
“A reason connected with your anarchistic tendencies?”
“Possibly.” But the word was uttered in a way to carry little
conviction. “I am not much of an anarchist,” he now took the trouble to
declare, with a careless lift of his shoulders. “I like fair play, but
I shall never give you much trouble by my manner of insuring it. I have
too much at stake. My invention is dearer to me than the overthrow of
present institutions. Nothing must stand in the way of its success, not
even the satisfaction of inspiring terror in minds shut to every other
species of argument. I have uttered my last speech; you can rely on me
for that.”
“We are glad to hear it, Mr. Dunn. Physical overthrow carries more than
the immediate sufferer with it.”
If this were meant as an irritant, it did not act successfully. The
social agitator, the political demagogue, the orator whose honeyed tones
had rung with biting invective in the ears of the United Brotherhood of
the Awl, the Plane and the Trowel, simply bowed and calmly waited for
the next attack.
Perhaps it was of a nature to surprise even him.
“We have no wish,” continued the Inspector, “to probe too closely into
concerns seemingly quite removed from the main issue. You say that you
are ready, nay more, are even eager to answer all questions. You will
probably be anxious then to explain away a discrepancy between your word
and your conduct, which has come to our attention. You were known to
have expressed the intention of spending the afternoon of Mrs. Spotts’
death in New York and were supposed to have done so, yet you were
certainly seen in the crowd which invaded that rear building at the
first alarm. Are you conscious of possessing a double, or did you fail
to cross the river as you expected to?”
“I am glad this has come up.” The tone was one of self-congratulation
which would have shaken Sweetwater sorely had he been admitted to this
unofficial examination. “I have never confided to any one the story of
my doings on that unhappy afternoon, because I knew of no one who would
take any interest in them. But this is what occurred. I did mean to
go to New York and I even started on my walk to the Bridge at the hour
mentioned. But I got into a small crowd on the corner of Fulton Street,
in which a poor devil who had robbed a vendor’s cart of a few oranges,
was being hustled about. There was no policeman within sight, and so I
busied myself there for a minute paying for the oranges and dragging
the poor wretch away into an alley, where I could have the pleasure of
seeing him eat them. When I came out of the alley the small crowd had
vanished, but a big one was collecting up the street very near my home.
I always think of my books when I see anything suggesting fire, and
naturally I returned, and equally naturally, when I heard what had
happened, followed the crowd into the court and so up to the poor
woman’s doorway. But my curiosity satisfied, I returned at once to the
street and went to New York as I had planned.”
“Do you mind telling us where you went in New York?”
“Not at all. I went shopping. I wanted a certain very fine wire, for
an experiment I had on hand, and I found it in a little shop in Fourth
Avenue. If I remember rightly, the name over the door was Grippus. Its
oddity struck me.”
There was nothing left to the Inspector but to dismiss him. He had
answered all questions willingly, and with a countenance inexpressive of
guile. He even indulged in a parting shot on his own account, as full of
frank acceptance of the situation as it was fearless in its attack.
As he halted in the doorway before turning his back upon the room, he
smiled for the third time as he quietly said:
“I have ceased visiting my friend’s apartment in upper New York. If you
ever want me again, you will find me amongst my books. If my invention
halts and other interests stale, you have furnished me this day with a
problem which cannot fail to give continual occupation to my energies.
If I succeed in solving it first, I shall be happy to share my knowledge
with you. Till then, trust the laws of nature. No man when once on the
outside of a door can button it on the inside, nor could any one without
the gift of complete invisibility, make a leap of over fifteen feet from
the sill of a fourth story window on to an adjacent fire escape, without
attracting the attention of some of the many children playing down
below.”
He was half-way out the door, but his name quickly spoken by the
Inspector drew him back.
“Anything more?” he asked.
The Inspector smiled.
“You are a man of considerable analytic power, as I take it, Mr.
Brotherson. You must have decided long ago how this woman died.”
“Is that a question, Inspector?”
“You may take it as such.”
“Then I will allow myself to say that there is but one common-sense view
to take of the matter. Miss Challoner’s death was due to suicide; so
was that of the washerwoman. But there I stop. As for the means--the
motive--such mysteries may be within your province but they are totally
outside mine! God help us all! The world is full of misery. Again I wish
you good-day.”
The air seemed to have lost its vitality and the sun its sparkle when he
was gone.
“Now, what do you think, Gryce?”
The old man rose and came out of his corner.
“This: that I’m up against the hardest proposition of my lifetime.
Nothing in the man’s appearance or manner evinces guilt, yet I believe
him guilty. I must. Not to, is to strain probability to the point of
breakage. But how to reach him is a problem and one of no ordinary
nature. Years ago, when I was but little older than Sweetwater, I had
just such a conviction concerning a certain man against whom I had even
less to work on than we have here. A murder had been committed by an
envenomed spring contained in a toy puzzle. I worked upon the conscience
of the suspect in that case, by bringing constantly before his eyes
a facsimile of that spring. It met him in the folded napkin which he
opened at his restaurant dinner. He stumbled upon it in the street,
and found it lying amongst his papers at home. I gave him no relief and
finally he succumbed. He had been almost driven mad by remorse. But this
man has no conscience. If he is not innocent as the day, he’s as hard as
unquarried marble. He might be confronted with reminders of his crime
at every turn without weakening or showing by loss of appetite or
interrupted sleep any effect upon his nerves. That’s my opinion of
the gentleman. He is either that, or a man of uncommon force and
self-restraint.”
“I’m inclined to believe him the latter.”
“And so give the whole matter the go-by?”
“Possibly.”
“It will be a terrible disappointment to Sweetwater.”
“That’s nothing.”
“And to me.”
“That’s different. I’m disposed to consider you, Gryce--after all these
years.”
“Thank you; I have done the state some service.”
“What do you want? You say the mine is unworkable.”
“Yes, in a day, or in a week, possibly in a month. But persistence and
a protean adaptability to meet his moods might accomplish something.
I don’t say will, I only say might. If Sweetwater had the job, with
unlimited time in which to carry out any plan he may have, or even for
a change of plans to suit a changed idea, success might be his, and both
time, effort and outlay justified.”
“The outlay? I am thinking of the outlay.”
“Mr. Challoner will see to that. I have his word that no reasonable
amount will daunt him.”
“But this Brotherson is suspicious. He has an inventor’s secret to hide,
if none other. We can’t saddle him with a guy of Sweetwater’s appearance
and abnormal loquaciousness.”
“Not readily, I own. But time will bring counsel. Are you willing to
help the boy, to help me and possibly yourself by this venture in the
dark? The Department shan’t lose money by it; that’s all I can promise.”
“But it’s a big one. Gryce, you shall have your way. You’ll be the only
loser if you fail; and you will fail; take my word for it.”
“I wish I could speak as confidently to the contrary, but I can’t. I can
give you my hand though, Inspector, and Sweetwater’s thanks. I can meet
the boy now. An hour ago I didn’t know how I was to do it.”
XV. THAT’S THE QUESTION
“How many times has he seen you?”
“Twice.”
“So that he knows your face and figure?”
“I’m afraid so. He cannot help remembering the man who faced him in his
own room.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Damned unfortunate; but one must expect some sort of a handicap in a
game like this. Before I’m done with him, he’ll look me full in the face
and wonder if he’s ever seen me before. I wasn’t always a detective. I
was a carpenter once, as you know, and I’ll take to the tools again. As
soon as I’m handy with them I’ll hunt up lodgings in Hicks Street. He
may suspect me at first, but he won’t long; I’ll be such a confounded
good workman. I only wish I hadn’t such pronounced features. They’ve
stood awfully in my way, Mr. Gryce. I don’t like to talk about my
appearance, but I’m so confounded plain that people remember me. Why
couldn’t I have had one of those putty faces which don’t mean anything?
It would have been a deuced sight more convenient.”
“You’ve done very well as it is.”
“But I want to do better. I want to deceive him to his face. He’s
clever, this same Brotherson, and there’s glory to be got in making a
fool of him. Do you think it could be done with a beard? I’ve never worn
a beard. While I’m settling back into my old trade, I can let the hair
grow.”
“Do. It’ll make you look as weak as water. It’ll be blonde, of course.”
“And silky and straggling. Charming addition to my beauty. But it’ll
take half an inch off my nose, and it’ll cover my mouth, which means a
lot in my case. Then my complexion! It must be changed naturally. I’ll
consult a doctor about that. No sort of make-believe will go with this
man. If my eyes look weak, they must really be so. If I walk slowly
and speak huskily, it must be because I cannot help it. I can bear the
slight inconvenience of temporary ill-health in a cause like this; and
if necessary the cough will be real, and the headache positive.
“Sweetwater! We’d better give the task to another man--to someone
Brotherson has never seen and won’t be suspicious of?”
“He’ll be suspicious of everybody who tries to make friends with him
now; only a little more so with me; that’s all. But I’ve got to meet
that, and I’ll do it by being, temporarily, of course, exactly the man
I seem. My health will not be good for the next few weeks, I’m sure of
that. But I’ll be a model workman, neat and conscientious with just a
suspicion of dash where dash is needed. He knows the real thing when he
sees it, and there’s not a fellow living more alive to shams. I won’t be
a sham. I’ll be it. You’ll see.”
“But the doubt. Can you do all this in doubt of the issue?”
“No; I must have confidence in the end, and I must believe in his guilt.
Nothing else will carry me through. I must believe in his guilt.”
“Yes, that’s essential.”
“And I do. I never was surer of anything than I am of that. But I’ll
have the deuce of a time to get evidence enough for a grand jury. That’s
plainly to be seen, and that’s why I’m so dead set on the business. It’s
such an even toss-up.”
“I don’t call it even. He’s got the start of you every way. You can’t
go to his tenement; the janitor there would recognise you even if he
didn’t.”
“Now I will give you a piece of good news. They’re to have a new janitor
next week. I learned that yesterday. The present one is too easy. He’ll
be out long before I’m ready to show myself there; and so will the
woman who took care of the poor washerwoman’s little child. I’d not have
risked her curiosity. Luck isn’t all against us. How does Mr. Challoner
feel about it?”
“Not very confident; but willing to give you any amount of rope.
Sweetwater, he let me have a batch of letters written by his daughter
which he found in a secret drawer. They are not to be read, or
even opened, unless a great necessity arises. They were written for
Brotherson’s eye--or so the father says--but she never sent them; too
exuberant perhaps. If you ever want them--I cannot give them to you
to-night, and wouldn’t if I could,--don’t go to Mr. Challoner--you must
never be seen at his hotel--and don’t come to me, but to the little
house in West Twenty-ninth Street, where they will be kept for you,
tied up in a package with your name on it. By the way, what name are you
going to work under?”
“My mother’s--Zugg.”
“Good! I’ll remember. You can always write or even telephone to
Twenty-ninth Street. I’m in constant communication with them there, and
it’s quite safe.”
“Thanks. You’re sure the Superintendent is with me?”
“Yes, but not the Inspector. He sees nothing but the victim of a strange
coincidence in Orlando Brotherson.”
“Again the scales hang even. But they won’t remain so. One side is bound
to rise. Which? That’s the question, Mr. Gryce.”
XVI. OPPOSED
There was a new tenant in the Hicks Street tenement. He arrived late one
afternoon and was shown two rooms, one in the rear building and another
in the front one. Both were on the fourth floor. He demurred at the
former, thought it gloomy but finally consented to try it. The other, he
said, was too expensive. The janitor--new to the business--was not much
taken with him and showed it, which seemed to offend the newcomer, who
was evidently an irritable fellow owing to ill health.
However, they came to terms as I have said, and the man went away,
promising to send in his belongings the next day. He smiled as he said
this and the janitor who had rarely seen such a change take place in
a human face, looked uncomfortable for a moment and seemed disposed to
make some remark about the room they were leaving. But, thinking better
of it, locked the door and led the way downstairs. As the prospective
tenant followed, he may have noticed, probably did, that the door they
had just left was a new one--the only new thing to be seen in the whole
shabby place.
The next night that door was locked on the inside. The young man had
taken possession. As he put away the remnants of a meal he had cooked
for himself, he cast a look at his surroundings, and imperceptibly
sighed. Then he brightened again, and sitting down on his solitary
chair, he turned his eyes on the window which, uncurtained and without
shade, stared open-mouthed, as it were, at the opposite wall rising high
across the court.
In that wall, one window only seemed to interest him and that was on a
level with his own. The shade of this window was up, but there was no
light back of it and so nothing of the interior could be seen. But his
eye remained fixed upon it, while his hand, stretched out towards the
lamp burning near him, held itself in readiness to lower the light at a
minute’s notice.
Did he see only the opposite wall and that unillumined window? Was there
no memory of the time when, in a previous contemplation of those dismal
panes, he beheld stretching between them and himself, a long, low bench
with a plain wooden tub upon it, from which a dripping cloth beat out
upon the boards beneath a dismal note, monotonous as the ticking of a
clock?
One might judge that such memories were indeed his, from the rapid
glance he cast behind him at the place where the bed had stood in those
days. It was placed differently now.
But if he saw, and if he heard these suggestions from the past, he was
not less alive to the exactions of the present, for, as his glance
flew back across the court, his finger suddenly moved and the flame
it controlled sputtered and went out. At the same instant, the window
opposite sprang into view as the lamp was lit within, and for several
minutes the whole interior remained visible--the books, the work-table,
the cluttered furniture, and, most interesting of all, its owner and
occupant. It was upon the latter that the newcomer fixed his attention,
and with an absorption equal to that he saw expressed in the countenance
opposite.
But his was the absorption of watchfulness; that of the other of
introspection. Mr. Brotherson--(we will no longer call him Dunn even
here where he is known by no other name)--had entered the room clad
in his heavy overcoat and, not having taken it off before lighting his
lamp, still stood with it on, gazing eagerly down at the model occupying
the place of honour on the large centre table. He was not touching
it,--not at this moment--but that his thoughts were with it, that his
whole mind was concentrated on it, was evident to the watcher across
the court; and, as this watcher took in this fact and noticed the loving
care with which the enthusiastic inventor finally put out his finger to
re-arrange a thread or twirl a wheel, his disappointment found utterance
in a sigh which echoed sadly through the dull and cheerless room. Had he
expected this stern and self-contained man to show an open indifference
to work and the hopes of a lifetime? If so, this was the first of the
many surprises awaiting him.