to watch his fellow tenant as long as the latter’s shade remained up.
When it fell, he rose and took a few steps up and down, but not with the
celerity and precision which usually accompanied his movements. Doubt
disturbed his mind and impeded his activity. He had caught a fair
glimpse of Brotherson’s face as he approached the window, and though
it continued to show abstraction, it equally displayed serenity and a
complete satisfaction with the present if not with the future. Had he
mistaken his man after all? Was his instinct, for the first time in his
active career, wholly at fault?
He had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his quarry in the privacy
of his own room, at home with his thoughts and unconscious of any
espionage, and how had he found him? Cheerful, and natural in all his
movements.
But the evening was young. Retrospect comes with later and more lonely
hours. There will be opportunities yet for studying this impassive
countenance under much more telling and productive circumstances than
these. He would await these opportunities with cheerful anticipation.
Meanwhile, he would keep up the routine watch he had planned for this
night. Something might yet occur. At all events he would have exhausted
the situation from this standpoint.
And so it came to pass that at an hour when all the other hard-working
people in the building were asleep, or at least striving to sleep, these
two men still sat at their work, one in the light, the other in the
darkness, facing each other, consciously to the one, unconsciously
to the other, across the hollow well of the now silent court. Eleven
o’clock! Twelve! No change on Brotherson’s part or in Brotherson’s room;
but a decided one in the place where Sweetwater sat. Objects which had
been totally indistinguishable even to his penetrating eye could now be
seen in ever brightening outline. The moon had reached the open space
above the court, and he was getting the full benefit of it. But it was
a benefit he would have been glad to dispense with. Darkness was like
a shield to him. He did not feel quite sure that he wanted this shield
removed. With no curtain to the window and no shade, and all this
brilliance pouring into the room, he feared the disclosure of his
presence there, or, if not that, some effect on his own mind of those
memories he was more anxious to see mirrored in another’s discomfiture
than in his own.
Was it to escape any lack of concentration which these same memories
might bring, that he rose and stepped to the window? Or was it under one
of those involuntary impulses which move us in spite of ourselves to do
the very thing our judgment disapproves?
No sooner had he approached the sill than Mr. Brotherson’s shade flew
way up and he, too, looked out. Their glances met, and for an instant
the hardy detective experienced that involuntary stagnation of the blood
which follows an inner shock. He felt that he had been recognised. The
moonlight lay full upon his face, and the other had seen and known him.
Else, why the constrained attitude and sudden rigidity observable in
this confronting figure, with its partially lifted hand? A man like
Brotherson makes no pause in any action however trivial, without a
reason. Either he had been transfixed by this glimpse of his enemy on
watch, or daring thought! had seen enough of sepulchral suggestion in
the wan face looking forth from this fatal window to shake him from
his composure and let loose the grinning devil of remorse from its iron
prison-house? If so, the movement was a memorable one, and the hazard
quite worth while. He had gained--no! he had gained nothing. He had been
the fool of his own wishes. No one, let alone Brotherson, could have
mistaken his face for that of a woman. He had forgotten his newly-grown
beard. Some other cause must be found for the other’s attitude. It
savoured of shock, if not fear. If it were fear, then had he roused an
emotion which might rebound upon himself in sharp reprisal. Death had
been known to strike people standing where he stood; mysterious death of
a species quite unrecognisable. What warranty had he that it would not
strike him, and now? None.
Yet it was Brotherson who moved first. With a shrug of the shoulder
plainly visible to the man opposite, he turned away from the window and
without lowering the shade began gathering up his papers for the night,
and later banking up his stove with ashes.
Sweetwater, with a breath of decided relief, stepped back and threw
himself on the bed. It had really been a trial for him to stand there
under the other’s eye, though his mind refused to formulate his fear, or
to give him any satisfaction when he asked himself what there was in the
situation suggestive of death to the woman or harm to himself.
Nor did morning light bring counsel, as is usual in similar cases. He
felt the mystery more in the hubbub and restless turmoil of the day than
in the night’s silence and inactivity. He was glad when the stroke of
six gave him an excuse to leave the room, and gladder yet when in doing
so, he ran upon an old woman from a neighbouring room, who no sooner saw
him than she leered at him and eagerly remarked:
“Not much sleep, eh? We didn’t think you’d like it. Did you see
anything?”
Now this gave him the one excuse he wanted.
“See anything?” he repeated, apparently with all imaginable innocence.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Don’t you know what happened in that room?”
“Don’t tell me!” he shouted out. “I don’t want to hear any nonsense. I
haven’t time. I’ve got to be at the shop at seven and I don’t feel very
well. What did happen?” he mumbled in drawing off, just loud enough
for the woman to hear. “Something unpleasant I’m sure.” Then he ran
downstairs.
At half past six he found the janitor. He was, to all appearance, in a
state of great excitement and he spoke very fast.
“I won’t stay another night in that room,” he loudly declared, breaking
in where the family were eating breakfast by lamplight. “I don’t want
to make any trouble and I don’t want to give my reasons; but that room
don’t suit me. I’d rather take the dark one you talked about yesterday.
There’s the money. Have my things moved to-day, will ye?”
“But your moving out after one night’s stay will give that room a bad
name,” stammered the janitor, rising awkwardly. “There’ll be talk and I
won’t be able to let that room all winter.”
“Nonsense! Every man hasn’t the nerves I have. You’ll let it in a week.
But let or not let, I’m going front into the little dark room. I’ll get
the boss to let me off at half past four. So that’s settled.”
He waited for no reply and got none; but when he appeared promptly at a
quarter to five, he found his few belongings moved into a middle room on
the fourth floor of the front building, which, oddly perhaps, chanced to
be next door to the one he had held under watch the night before.
The first page of his adventure in the Hicks Street tenement had been
turned, and he was ready to start upon another.
XVII. IN WHICH A BOOK PLAYS A LEADING PART
When Mr. Brotherson came in that night, he noticed that the door of
the room adjoining his own stood open. He did not hesitate. Making
immediately for it, he took a glance inside, then spoke up with a
ringing intonation:
“Halloo! coming to live in this hole?”
The occupant a young man, evidently a workman and somewhat sickly if one
could judge from his complexion--turned around from some tinkering he
was engaged in and met the intruder fairly, face to face. If his jaw
fell, it seemed to be from admiration. No other emotion would have so
lighted his eye as he took in the others proportions and commanding
features. No dress--Brotherson was never seen in any other than the
homeliest garb in these days--could make him look common or akin to
his surroundings. Whether seen near or far, his presence always caused
surprise, and surprise was what the young man showed, as he answered
briskly:
“Yes, this is to be my castle. Are you the owner of the buildings? If
so--”
“I am not the owner. I live next door. Haven’t I seen you before, young
man?”
Never was there a more penetrating eye than Orlando Brotherson’s. As he
asked this question it took some effort on the part of the other to hold
his own and laugh with perfect naturalness as he replied:
“If you ever go up Henry Street it’s likely enough that you’ve seen me
not once, but many times. I’m the fellow who works at the bench next the
window in Schuper’s repairing shop. Everybody knows me.”
Audacity often carries the day when subtler means would fail. Brotherson
stared at the youth, then ventured another question:
“A carpenter, eh?”
“Yes, and I’m an A1 man at my job. Excuse my brag. It’s my one card of
introduction.”
“I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you somewhere else than in Schuper’s shop. Do
you remember me?”
“No, sir; I’m sorry to be imperlite but I don’t remember you at all.
Won’t you sit down? It’s not very cheerful, but I’m so glad to get out
of the room I was in last night that this looks all right to me. Back
there, other building,” he whispered. “I didn’t know, and took the room
which had a window in it; but--” The stop was significant; so was his
smile which had a touch of sickliness in it, as well as humour.
But Brotherson was not to be caught.
“You slept in the building last night? In the other half, I mean?”
“Yes, I--slept.”
The strong lip of the other man curled disdainfully.
“I saw you,” said he. “You were standing in the window overlooking the
court. You were not sleeping then. I suppose you know that a woman died
in that room?”
“Yes; they told me so this morning.”
“Was that the first you’d heard of it?”
“Sure!” The word almost jumped at the questioner. “Do you suppose I’d
have taken the room if--”
But here the intruder, with a disdainful grunt, turned and went out,
disgust in every feature,--plain, unmistakable, downright disgust, and
nothing more!
This was what gave Sweetwater his second bad night; this and a certain
discovery he made. He had counted on hearing what went on in the
neighbouring room through the partition running back of his own closet.
But he could hear nothing, unless it was the shutting down of a window,
a loud sneeze, or the rattling of coals as they were put on the fire.
And these possessed no significance. What he wanted was to catch the
secret sigh, the muttered word, the involuntary movement. He was too far
removed from this man still.
How should he manage to get nearer him--at the door of his mind--of
his heart? Sweetwater stared all night from his miserable cot into the
darkness of that separating closet, and with no result. His task looked
hopeless; no wonder that he could get no rest.
Next morning he felt ill, but he rose all the same, and tried to get
his own breakfast. He had but partially succeeded and was sitting on
the edge of his bed in wretched discomfort, when the very man he was
thinking of appeared at his door.
“I’ve come to see how you are,” said Brotherson. “I noticed that you did
not look well last night. Won’t you come in and share my pot of coffee?”
“I--I can’t eat,” mumbled Sweetwater, for once in his life thrown
completely off his balance. “You’re very kind, but I’ll manage all
right. I’d rather. I’m not quite dressed, you see, and I must get to
the shop.” Then he thought--“What an opportunity I’m losing. Have I
any right to turn tail because he plays his game from the outset with
trumps? No, I’ve a small trump somewhere about me to lay on this trick.
It isn’t an ace, but it’ll show I’m not chicane.” And smiling, though
not with his usual cheerfulness, Sweetwater added, “Is the coffee all
made? I might take a drop of that. But you mustn’t ask me to eat--I just
couldn’t.”
“Yes, the coffee is made and it isn’t bad either. You’d better put on
your coat; the hall’s draughty.” And waiting till Sweetwater did so, he
led the way back to his own room. Brotherson’s manner expressed perfect
ease, Sweetwater’s not. He knew himself changed in looks, in bearing, in
feeling, even; but was he changed enough to deceive this man on the very
spot where they had confronted each other a few days before in a keen
moral struggle? The looking-glass he passed on his way to the table
where the simple breakfast was spread out, showed him a figure so unlike
the alert, business-like chap he had been that night, that he felt
his old assurance revive in time to ease a situation which had no
counterpart in his experience.
“I’m going out myself to-day, so we’ll have to hurry a bit,” was
Brotherson’s first remark as they seated themselves at table. “Do you
like your coffee plain or with milk in it?”
“Plain. Gosh! what pictures! Where do you get ‘em? You must have a lot
of coin.” Sweetwater was staring at the row of photographs, mostly of
a very high order, tacked along the wall separating the two rooms. They
were unframed, but they were mostly copies of great pictures, and the
effect was rather imposing in contrast to the shabby furniture and the
otherwise homely fittings.
“Yes, I’ve enough for that kind of thing,” was his host’s reply. But the
tone was reserved, and Sweetwater did not presume again along this line.
Instead, he looked well at the books piled upon the shelves under these
photographs, and wondered aloud at their number and at the man who could
waste such a lot of time in reading them. But he made no more direct
remarks. Was he cowed by the penetrating eye he encountered whenever he
yielded to the fascination exerted by Mr. Brotherson’s personality and
looked his way? He hated to think so, yet something held him in check
and made him listen, open-mouthed, when the other chose to speak.
Yet there was one cheerful moment. It was when he noticed the careless
way in which those books were arranged upon their shelves. An idea had
come to him. He hid his relief in his cup, as he drained the last drops
of the coffee which really tasted better than he had expected.
When he returned from work that afternoon it was with an auger under his
coat and a conviction which led him to empty out the contents of a small
phial which he took down from a shelf. He had told Mr. Gryce that he was
eager for the business because of its difficulties, but that was when
he was feeling fine and up to any game which might come his way. Now he
felt weak and easily discouraged. This would not do. He must regain his
health at all hazards, so he poured out the mixture which had given him
such a sickly air. This done and a rude supper eaten, he took up his
auger. He had heard Mr. Brotherson’s step go by. But next minute he
laid it down again in great haste and flung a newspaper over it. Mr.
Brotherson was coming back, had stopped at his door, had knocked and
must be let in.
“You’re better this evening,” he heard in those kindly tones which so
confused and irritated him.
“Yes,” was the surly admission. “But it’s stifling here. If I have to
live long in this hole I’ll dry up from want of air. It’s near the
shop or I wouldn’t stay out the week.” Twice this day he had seen
Brotherson’s tall figure stop before the window of this shop and look in
at him at his bench. But he said nothing about that.
“Yes,” agreed the other, “it’s no way to live. But you’re alone.
Upstairs there’s a whole family huddled into a room just like this. Two
of the kids sleep in the closet. It’s things like that which have made
me the friend of the poor, and the mortal enemy of men and women who
spread themselves over a dozen big rooms and think themselves ill-used
if the gas burns poorly or a fireplace smokes. I’m off for the evening;
anything I can do for you?”
“Show me how I can win my way into such rooms as you’ve just talked
about. Nothing less will make me look up. I’d like to sleep in one
to-night. In the best bedroom, sir. I’m ambitious; I am.”
A poor joke, though they both laughed. There Mr. Brotherson passed
on, and Sweetwater listened till he was sure that his too attentive
neighbour had really gone down the three flights between him and the
street. Then he took up his auger again and shut himself up in his
closet.
There was nothing peculiar about this closet. It was just an ordinary
one with drawers and shelves on one side, and an open space on the other
for the hanging up of clothes. Very few clothes hung there at present;
but it was in this portion of the closet that he stopped and began to
try the wall of Brotherson’s room, with the butt end of the tool he
carried.
The sound seemed to satisfy him, for very soon he was boring a hole at
a point exactly level with his ear; but not without frequent pauses
and much attention given to the possible return of those departed
foot-steps. He remembered that Mr. Brotherson had a way of coming back
on unexpected errands after giving out his intention of being absent for
hours.
Sweetwater did not want to be caught in any such trap as that; so he
carefully followed every sound that reached him from the noisy halls.
But he did not forsake his post; he did not have to. Mr. Brotherson had
been sincere in his good-bye, and the auger finished its job and was
withdrawn without any interruption from the man whose premises had been
thus audaciously invaded.
“Neat as well as useful,” was the gay comment with which Sweetwater
surveyed his work, then laid his ear to the hole. Whereas previously he
could barely hear the rattling of coals from the coal-scuttle, he was
now able to catch the sound of an ash falling into the ash-pit.
His next move was to test the depth of the partition by inserting his
finger in the hole he had made. He found it stopped by some obstacle
before it had reached half its length, and anxious to satisfy himself
of the nature of this obstacle, he gently moved the tip of his finger to
and fro over what was certainly the edge of a book.
This proved that his calculations had been correct and that the opening
so accessible on his side, was completely veiled on the other by the
books he had seen packed on the shelves. As these shelves had no other
backing than the wall, he had feared striking a spot not covered by a
book. But he had not undertaken so risky a piece of work without first
noting how nearly the tops of the books approached the line of the shelf
above them, and the consequent unlikelihood of his striking the space
between, at the height he planned the hole. He had even been careful to
assure himself that all the volumes at this exact point stood far enough
forward to afford room behind them for the chips and plaster he
must necessarily push through with his auger, and also--important
consideration--for the free passage of the sounds by which he hoped to
profit.
As he listened for a moment longer, and then stooped to gather up the
debris which had fallen on his own side of the partition, he muttered,
in his old self-congratulatory way:
“If the devil don’t interfere in some way best known to himself,
this opportunity I have made for myself of listening to this arrogant
fellow’s very heartbeats should give me some clew to his secret. As soon
as I can stand it, I’ll spend my evenings at this hole.”
But it was days before he could trust himself so far. Meanwhile their
acquaintance ripened, though with no very satisfactory results. The
detective found himself led into telling stories of his early home-life
to keep pace with the man who always had something of moment and solid
interest to impart. This was undesirable, for instead of calling out
a corresponding confidence from Brotherson, it only seemed to make his
conversation more coldly impersonal.
In consequence, Sweetwater suddenly found himself quite well and one
evening, when he was sure that his neighbour was at home, he slid softly
into his closet and laid his ear to the opening he had made there. The
result was unexpected. Mr. Brotherson was pacing the floor, and talking
softly to himself.
At first, the cadence and full music of the tones conveyed nothing to
our far from literary detective. The victim of his secret machinations
was expressing himself in words, words;--that was the point which
counted with him. But as he listened longer and gradually took in
the sense of these words, his heart went down lower and lower till it
reached his boots. His inscrutable and ever disappointing neighbour was
not indulging in self-communings of any kind. He was reciting poetry,
and what was worse, poetry which he only half remembered and was trying
to recall;--an incredible occupation for a man weighted with a criminal
secret.
Sweetwater was disgusted, and was withdrawing in high indignation from
his vantage-point when something occurred of a startling enough nature
to hold him where he was in almost breathless expectation.
The hole which in the darkness of the closet was always faintly visible,
even when the light was not very strong in the adjoining room, had
suddenly become a bright and shining loop-hole, with a suggestion
of movement in the space beyond. The book which had hid this hole
on Brotherson’s side had been taken down--the one book in all those
hundreds whose removal threatened Sweetwater’s schemes, if not himself.
For an instant the thwarted detective listened for the angry shout
or the smothered oath which would naturally follow the discovery by
Brotherson of this attempted interference with his privacy.
But all was still on his side of the wall. A rustling of leaves could
be heard, as the inventor searched for the poem he wanted, but nothing
more. In withdrawing the book, he had failed to notice the hole in the
plaster back of it. But he could hardly fail to see it when he came to
put the book back. Meantime, suspense for Sweetwater.
It was several minutes before he heard Mr. Brotherson’s voice again,
then it was in triumphant repetition of the lines which had escaped his
memory. They were great words surely and Sweetwater never forgot them,
but the impression which they made upon his mind, an impression so
forcible that he was able to repeat them, months afterward to Mr. Gryce,
did not prevent him from noting the tone in which they were uttered, nor
the thud which followed as the book was thrown down upon the floor.
“Fool!” The word rang out in bitter irony from his irate neighbour’s
lips. “What does he know of woman! Woman! Let him court a rich one and
see--but that’s all over and done with. No more harping on that string,
and no more reading of poetry. I’ll never,--” The rest was lost in his
throat and was quite unintelligible to the anxious listener.
Self-revealing words, which an instant before would have aroused
Sweetwater’s deepest interest! But they had suddenly lost all force
for the unhappy listener. The sight of that hole still shining brightly
before his eyes had distracted his thoughts and roused his liveliest
apprehensions. If that book should be allowed to lie where it had
fallen, then he was in for a period of uncertainty he shrank from
contemplating. Any moment his neighbour might look up and catch sight of
this hole bored in the backing of the shelves before him. Could the man
who had been guilty of submitting him to this outrage stand the strain
of waiting indefinitely for the moment of discovery? He doubted it, if
the suspense lasted too long.
Shifting his position, he placed his eye where his ear had been. He
could see very little. The space before him, limited as it was to the
width of the one volume withdrawn, precluded his seeing aught but what
lay directly before him. Happily, it was in this narrow line of vision
that Mr. Brotherson stood. He had resumed work upon his model and was
so placed that while his face was not visible, his hands were, and
as Sweetwater watched these hands and noticed the delicacy of their
manipulation, he was enough of a workman to realise that work so fine
called for an undivided attention. He need not fear the gaze shifting,
while those hands moved as warily as they did now.
Relieved for the moment, he left his post and, sitting down on the edge
of his cot, gave himself up to thought.
He deserved this mischance. Had he profited properly by Mr. Gryce’s
teachings, he would not have been caught like this; he would have
calculated not upon the nine hundred and ninety-nine chances of that
book being left alone, but upon the thousandth one of its being the very
one to be singled out and removed. Had he done this,--had he taken pains
to so roughen and discolour the opening he had made, that it would look
like an ancient rat hole instead of showing a clean bore, he would have
some answer to give Brotherson when he came to question him in regard to
it. But now the whole thing seemed up! He had shown himself a fool
and by good rights ought to acknowledge his defeat and return to
Headquarters. But he had too much spirit for that. He would rather--yes,
he would rather face the pistol he had once seen in his enemy’s hand.
Yet it was hard to sit here waiting, waiting--Suddenly he started
upright. He would go meet his fate--be present in the room itself when
the discovery was made which threatened to upset all his plans. He was
not ashamed of his calling, and Brotherson would think twice before
attacking him when once convinced that he had the Department behind him.
“Excuse me, comrade,” were the words with which he endeavoured to
account for his presence at Brotherson’s door. “My lamp smells so, and
I’ve made such a mess of my work to-day that I’ve just stepped in for a
chat. If I’m not wanted, say so. I don’t want to bother you, but you do
look pleasant here. I hope the thing I’m turning over in my head--every
man has his schemes for making a fortune, you know--will be a success
some day. I’d like a big room like this, and a lot of books, and--and
pictures.”
Craning his neck, he took a peep at the shelves, with an air of open
admiration which effectually concealed his real purpose. What he
wanted was to catch one glimpse of that empty space from his present
standpoint, and he was both astonished and relieved to note how narrow
and inconspicuous it looked. Certainly, he had less to fear than he
supposed, and when, upon Mr. Brotherson’s invitation, he stepped into
the room, it was with a dash of his former audacity, which gave him,
unfortunately, perhaps, a quick, strong and unexpected likeness to his
old self.
But if Brotherson noticed this, nothing in his manner gave proof of the
fact. Though usually averse to visitors, especially when employed as at
present on his precious model, he quite warmed towards his unexpected
guest, and even led the way to where it stood uncovered on the table.
“You find me at work,” he remarked. “I don’t suppose you understand any
but your own?”
“If you mean to ask if I understand what you’re trying to do there, I’m
free to say that I don’t. I couldn’t tell now, off-hand, whether it’s an
air-ship you’re planning, a hydraulic machine or--or--” He stopped, with
a laugh and turned towards the book-shelves. “Now here’s what I like.
These books just take my eye.”
“Look at them, then. I like to see a man interested in books. Only, I
thought if you knew how to handle wire, I would get you to hold this end
while I work with the other.”
“I guess I know enough for that,” was Sweetwater’s gay rejoinder. But
when he felt that communicating wire in his hand and experienced for
the first time the full influence of the other’s eye, it took all his
hardihood to hide the hypnotic thrill it gave him. Though he smiled
and chatted, he could not help asking himself between whiles, what had
killed the poor washerwoman across the court, and what had killed Miss
Challoner. Something visible or something invisible? Something which
gave warning of attack, or something which struck in silence. He found
himself gazing long and earnestly at this man’s hand, and wondering
if death lay under it. It was a strong hand, a deft, clean-cut member,
formed to respond to the slightest hint from the powerful brain
controlling it. But was this its whole story. Had he said all when he
had said this?
Fascinated by the question, Sweetwater died a hundred deaths in his
awakened fancy, as he followed the sharp short instructions which fell
with cool precision from the other’s lips. A hundred deaths, I say, but
with no betrayal of his folly. The anxiety he showed was that of one
eager to please, which may explain why on the conclusion of his task,
Mr. Brotherson gave him one of his infrequent smiles and remarked, as he
buried the model under its cover, “You’re handy and you’re quiet at your
job. Who knows but that I shall want you again. Will you come if I call
you?”
“Won’t I?” was the gay retort, as the detective thus released, stooped
for the book still lying on the floor. “Paolo and Francesca,” he read,
from the back, as he laid it on the table. “Poetry?” he queried.
“Rot,” scornfully returned the other, as he moved to take down a bottle
and some glasses from a cupboard let into another portion of the wall.
Sweetwater taking advantage of the moment, sidled towards the shelf
where that empty space still gaped with the tell-tale hole at the back.
He could easily have replaced the missing book before Mr. Brotherson
turned. But the issue was too doubtful. He was dealing with no
absent-minded fool, and it behooved him to avoid above all things
calling attention to the book or to the place on the shelf where it
belonged.
But there was one thing he could do and did. Reaching out a finger as
deft as Brotherson’s own, he pushed a second volume into the place of
the one that was gone. This veiled the auger-hole completely; a fact
which so entirely relieved his mind that his old smile came back like
sunshine to his lips, and it was only by a distinct effort that he kept
the dancing humour from his eyes as he prepared to refuse the glass
which Brotherson now brought forward:
“None of that!” said he. “You mustn’t tempt me. The doctor has shut down
on all kinds of spirits for two months more, at least. But don’t let me
hinder you. I can bear to smell the stuff. My turn will come again some
day.”
But Brotherson did not drink. Setting down the glass he carried, he took
up the book lying near, weighed it in his hand and laid it down again,
with an air of thoughtful inquiry. Then he suddenly pushed it towards
Sweetwater. “Do you want it?” he asked.
Sweetwater was too taken aback to answer immediately. This was a move he
did not understand. Want it, he? What he wanted was to see it put back
in its place on the shelf. Did Brotherson suspect this? The supposition
was incredible; yet who could read a mind so mysterious?
Sweetwater, debating the subject, decided that the risk of adding to any
such possible suspicion was less to be dreaded than the continued threat
offered by that unoccupied space so near the hole which testified so
unmistakably of the means he had taken to spy upon this suspected man’s
privacy. So, after a moment of awkward silence, not out of keeping with
the character he had assumed, he calmly refused the present as he had
the glass.
Unhappily he was not rewarded by seeing the despised volume restored to
its shelf. It still lay where its owner had pushed it, when, with some
awkwardly muttered thanks, the discomfited detective withdrew to his own
room.
XVIII. WHAT AM I TO DO NOW
Early morning saw Sweetwater peering into the depths of his closet. The
hole was hardly visible. This meant that the book he had pushed across
it from the other side had not been removed.
Greatly re-assured by the sight, he awaited his opportunity, and as soon
as a suitable one presented itself, prepared the hole for inspection by
breaking away its edges and begriming it well with plaster and old dirt.
This done, he left matters to arrange themselves; which they did, after
this manner.
Mr. Brotherson suddenly developed a great need of him, and it became a
common thing for him to spend the half and, sometimes, the whole of the
evening in the neighbouring room. This was just what he had worked for,
and his constant intercourse with the man whose secret he sought to
surprise should have borne fruit. But it did not. Nothing in the eager
but painstaking inventor showed a distracted mind or a heavily-burdened
soul. Indeed, he was so calm in all his ways, so precise and so
self-contained, that Sweetwater often wondered what had become of the
fiery agitator and eloquent propagandist of new and startling doctrines.
Then, he thought he understood the riddle. The model was reaching its
completion, and Brotherson’s extreme interest in it and the confidence
he had in its success swallowed up all lesser emotions. Were the
invention to prove a failure--but there was small hope of this. The man
was of too well-poised a mind to over-estimate his work or miscalculate
its place among modern improvements. Soon he would reach the goal of
his desires, be praised, feted, made much of by the very people he now
professedly scorned. There was no thoroughfare for Sweetwater here.
Another road must be found; some secret, strange and unforeseen method
of reaching a soul inaccessible to all ordinary or even extraordinary
impressions.
Would a night of thought reveal such a method? Night! the very word
brought inspiration. A man is not his full self at night. Secrets which,
under the ordinary circumstances of everyday life, lie too deep
for surprise, creep from their hiding-places in the dismal hours
of universal quiet, and lips which are dumb to the most subtle of
questioners break into strange and self-revealing mutterings when sleep
lies heavy on ear and eye and the forces of life and death are released
to play with the rudderless spirit.
It was in different words from these that Sweetwater reasoned, no doubt,
but his conclusions were the same, and as he continued to brood over
them, he saw a chance--a fool’s chance, possibly, (but fools sometimes
win where wise men fail) of reaching those depths he still believed in,
notwithstanding his failure to sound them.
Addressing a letter to his friend in Twenty-ninth Street, he awaited
reply in the shape of a small package he had ordered sent to the corner
drug-store. When it came, he carried it home in a state of mingled hope
and misgiving. Was he about to cap his fortnight of disappointment by
another signal failure; end the matter by disclosing his hand; lose all,
or win all by an experiment as daring and possibly as fanciful as were
his continued suspicions of this seemingly upright and undoubtedly busy
man?
He made no attempt to argue the question. The event called for the
exercise of the most dogged elements in his character and upon these he
must rely. He would make the effort he contemplated, simply because he
was minded to do so. That was all there was to it. But any one noting
him well that night, would have seen that he ate little and consulted
his watch continually. Sweetwater had not yet passed the line where work
becomes routine and the feelings remain totally under control.
Brotherson was unusually active and alert that evening. He was
anxious to fit one delicate bit of mechanism into another, and he
was continually interrupted by visitors. Some big event was on in
the socialistic world, and his presence was eagerly demanded by one
brotherhood after another. Sweetwater, posted at his loop-hole,
heard the arguments advanced by each separate spokesman, followed by
Brotherson’s unvarying reply: that when his work was done and he had
proved his right to approach them with a message, they might look to
hear from him again; but not before. His patience was inexhaustible,
but he showed himself relieved when the hour grew too late for further
interruption. He began to whistle--a token that all was going well
with him, and Sweetwater, who had come to understand some of his moods,
looked forward to an hour or two of continuous work on Brotherson’s part
and of dreary and impatient waiting on his own. But, as so many times
before, he misread the man. Earlier than common--much earlier, in fact,
Mr. Brotherson laid down his tools and gave himself up to a restless
pacing of the floor. This was not usual with him. Nor did he often
indulge himself in playing on the piano as he did to-night, beginning
with a few heavenly strains and ending with a bang that made the
key-board jump. Certainly something was amiss in the quarter where peace
had hitherto reigned undisturbed. Had the depths begun to heave, or
were physical causes alone responsible for these unwonted ebullitions of
feeling?
The question was immaterial. Either would form an excellent preparation
for the coup planned by Sweetwater; and when, after another hour of
uncertainty, perfect silence greeted him from his neighbour’s room, hope
had soared again on exultant wing, far above all former discouragements.
Mr. Brotherson’s bed was in a remote corner from the loop-hole made by
Sweetwater; but in the stillness now pervading the whole building, the
latter could hear his even breathing very distinctly. He was in a deep
sleep.
The young detective’s moment had come.
Taking from his breast a small box, he placed it on a shelf close
against the partition. An instant of quiet listening, then he touched
a spring in the side of the box and laid his ear, in haste, to his
loop-hole.
A strain of well-known music broke softly, from the box and sent its
vibrations through the wall.
It was answered instantly by a stir within; then, as the noble air
continued, awakening memories of that fatal instant when it crashed
through the corridors of the Hotel Clermont, drowning Miss Challoner’s
cry if not the sound of her fall, a word burst from the sleeping man’s
lips which carried its own message to the listening detective.
It was Edith! Miss Challoner’s first name, and the tone bespoke a shaken
soul.
Sweetwater, gasping with excitement, caught the box from the shelf and
silenced it. It had done its work and it was no part of Sweetwater’s
plan to have this strain located, or even to be thought real. But its
echo still lingered in Brotherson’s otherwise unconscious ears; for
another “Edith!” escaped his lips, followed by a smothered but forceful
utterance of these five words, “You know I promised you--”
Promised her what? He did not say. Would he have done so had the music
lasted a trifle longer? Would he yet complete his sentence? Sweetwater
trembled with eagerness and listened breathlessly for the next sound.
Brotherson was awake. He was tossing in his bed. Now he has leaped
to the floor. Sweetwater hears him groan, then comes another silence,
broken at last by the sound of his body falling back upon the bed and
the troubled ejaculation of “Good God!” wrung from lips no torture could
have forced into complaint under any daytime conditions.
Sweetwater continued to listen, but he had heard all, and after some
few minutes longer of fruitless waiting, he withdrew from his post. The
episode was over. He would hear no more that night.
Was he satisfied? Certainly the event, puerile as it might seem to
some, had opened up strange vistas to his aroused imagination. The words
“Edith, you know I promised you--” were in themselves provocative of
strange and doubtful conjectures. Had the sleeper under the influence
of a strain of music indissolubly associated with the death of Miss
Challoner, been so completely forced back into the circumstances and
environment of that moment that his mind had taken up and his lips
repeated the thoughts with which that moment of horror was charged?
Sweetwater imagined the scene--saw the figure of Brotherson hesitating
at the top of the stairs--saw hers advancing from the writing-room, with
startled and uplifted hand--heard the music--the crash of that great
finale--and decided, without hesitation, that the words he had just
heard were indeed the thoughts of that moment. “Edith, you know I
promised you--” What had he promised? What she received was death!
Had this been in his mind? Would this have been the termination of the
sentence had he wakened less soon to consciousness and caution?
Sweetwater dared to believe it. He was no nearer comprehending the
mystery it involved than he had been before, but he felt sure that he
had been given one true and positive glimpse into this harassed soul
which showed its deeply hidden secret to be both deadly and fearsome;
and happy to have won his way so far into the mystic labyrinth he had
sworn to pierce, he rested in happy unconsciousness till morning when--
Could it be? Was it he who was dreaming now, or was the event of the
night a mere farce of his own imagining? Mr. Brotherson was whistling
in his room, gaily and with ever increasing verve, and the tune which
filled the whole floor with music was the same grand finale from William
Tell which had seemed to work such magic in the night. As Sweetwater
caught the mellow but indifferent notes sounding from those lips of
brass, he dragged forth the music-box he held hidden in his coat pocket,
and flinging it on the floor stamped upon it.
“The man is too strong for me,” he cried. “His heart is granite; he
meets my every move. What am I to do now?”
XIX. THE DANGER MOMENT
For a day Sweetwater acknowledged himself to be mentally crushed,
disillusioned and defeated. Then his spirits regained their poise. It
would take a heavy weight indeed to keep them down permanently.
His opinion was not changed in regard to his neighbour’s secret guilt. A
demeanour of this sort suggested bravado rather than bravery to the ever
suspicious detective. But he saw, very plainly by this time, that he
would have to employ more subtle methods yet ere his hand would touch
the goal which so tantalisingly eluded him.
His work at the bench suffered that week; he made two mistakes. But by
Saturday night he had satisfied himself that he had reached the point
where he would be justified in making use of Miss Challoner’s letters.
So he telephoned his wishes to New York, and awaited the promised
developments with an anxiety we can only understand by realising how
much greater were his chances of failure than of success. To ensure the
latter, every factor in his scheme must work to perfection. The medium
of communication (a young, untried girl) must do her part with all the
skill of artist and author combined. Would she disappoint them? He did
not think so. Women possess a marvellous adaptability for this kind of
work and this one was French, which made the case still more hopeful.
But Brotherson! In what spirit would he meet the proposed advances?
Would he even admit the girl, and, if he did, would the interview bear
any such fruit as Sweetwater hoped for? The man who could mock the
terrors of the night by a careless repetition of a strain instinct
with the most sacred memories, was not to be depended upon to show
much feeling at sight of a departed woman’s writing. But no other hope
remained, and Sweetwater faced the attempt with heroic determination.
The day was Sunday, which ensured Brotherson’s being at home. Nothing
would have lured Sweetwater out for a moment, though he had no reason
to expect that the affair he was anticipating would come off till early
evening.
But it did. Late in the afternoon he heard the expected steps go by
his door--a woman’s steps. But they were not alone. A man’s accompanied
them. What man? Sweetwater hastened to satisfy himself on this point by
laying his ear to the partition.
Instantly the whole conversation became audible. “An errand? Oh, yes,
I have an errand!” explained the evidently unwelcome intruder, in her
broken English. “This is my brother Pierre. My name is Celeste; Celeste
Ledru. I understand English ver well. I have worked much in families.
But he understands nothing. He is all French. He accompanies me
for--for the--what you call it? les convenances. He knows nothing of the
beesiness.”
Sweetwater in the darkness of his closet laughed in his gleeful
appreciation.
“Great!” was his comment. “Just great! She has thought of everything--or
Mr. Gryce has.”
Meanwhile, the girl was proceeding with increased volubility.
“What is this beesiness, monsieur? I have something to sell--so you
Americans speak. Something you will want much--ver sacred, ver precious.
A souvenir from the tomb, monsieur. Will you give ten--no, that is too
leetle--fifteen dollars for it? It is worth--Oh, more, much more to
the true lover. Pierre, tu es bete. Teins-tu droit sur ta chaise. M.
Brotherson est un monsieur comme il faut.”
This adjuration, uttered in sharp reprimand and with but little of the
French grace, may or may not have been understood by the unsympathetic
man they were meant to impress. But the name which accompanied them--his
own name, never heard but once before in this house, undoubtedly caused
the silence which almost reached the point of embarrassment, before he
broke it with the harsh remark:
“Your French may be good, but it does not go with me. Yet is it more
intelligible than your English. What do you want here? What have you in
that bag you wish to open; and what do you mean by the sentimental trash
with which you offer it?”
“Ah, monsieur has not memory of me,” came in the sweetest tones of
a really seductive voice. “You astonish me, monsieur. I thought you
knew--everybody else does--Oh, tout le monde, monsieur, that I was Miss
Challoner’s maid--near her when other people were not--near her the very
day she died.”
A pause; then an angry exclamation from some one. Sweetwater thought
from the brother, who may have misinterpreted some look or gesture on
Brotherson’s part. Brotherson himself would not be apt to show surprise
in any such noisy way.
“I saw many things--Oh many things--” the girl proceeded with an
admirable mixture of suggestion and reserve. “That day and other days
too. She did not talk--Oh, no, she did not talk, but I saw--Oh, yes,
I saw that she--that you--I’ll have to say it, monsieur, that you were
tres bons amis after that week in Lenox.”
“Well?” His utterance of this word was vigorous, but not tender. “What
are you coming to? What can you have to show me in this connection that
I will believe in for a moment?”
“I have these--is monsieur certaine that no one can hear? I wouldn’t
have anybody hear what I have to tell you, for the world--for all the
world.”
“No one can overhear.”
For the first time that day Sweetwater breathed a full, deep breath.
This assurance had sounded heartfelt. “Blessings on her cunning young
head. She thinks of everything.”
“You are unhappy. You have thought Miss Challoner cold;--that she had
no response for your ver ardent passion. But--” these words were uttered
sotto voce and with telling pauses “--but--I--know--ver much better
than that. She was ver proud. She had a right; she was no poor girl like
me--but she spend hours--hours in writing letters she--nevaire send.
I saw one, just once, for a leetle minute; while you could breathe so
short as that; and began with Cheri, or your English for that, and ended
with words--Oh, ver much like these: You may nevaire see these lines,
which was ver interesting, veree so, and made one want to see what she
did with letters she wrote and nevaire mail; so I watch and look,
and one day I see them. She had a leetle ivory box--Oh, ver nice, ver
pretty. I thought it was jewels she kept locked up so tight. But, non,
non, non. It was letters--these letters. I heard them rattle, rattle,
not once but many times. You believe me, monsieur?”
“I believe you to have taken every advantage possible to spy upon your
mistress. I believe that, yes.”
“From interest, monsieur, from great interest.”
“Self-interest.”
“As monsieur pleases. But it was strange, ver strange for a grande dame
like that to write letters--sheets on sheets--and then not send them,
nevaire. I dreamed of those letters--I could not help it, no; and when
she died so quick--with no word for any one, no word at all, I
thought of those writings so secret, so of the heart, and when no one
noticed--or thought about this box, or--or the key she kept shut tight,
oh, always tight in her leetle gold purse, I--Monsieur, do you want
to see those letters?” asked the girl, with a gulp. Evidently his
appearance frightened her--or had her acting reached this point of
extreme finish? “I had nevaire the chance to put them back. And--and
they belong to monsieur. They are his--all his--and so beautiful! Ah,
just like poetry.”
“I don’t consider them mine. I haven’t a particle of confidence in you
or in your story. You are a thief--self-convicted; or you’re an agent of
the police whose motives I neither understand nor care to investigate.
Take up your bag and go. I haven’t a cent’s worth of interest in its
contents.”
She started to her feet. Sweetwater heard her chair grate on the painted
floor, as she pushed it back in rising. The brother rose too, but more
calmly. Brotherson did not stir. Sweetwater felt his hopes rapidly dying
down--down into ashes, when suddenly her voice broke forth in pants:
“And Marie said--everybody said--that you loved our great lady; that
you, of the people, common, common, working with the hands, living with
men and women working with the hands, that you had soul, sentiment--what
you will of the good and the great, and that you would give your eyes
for her words, si fines, si spirituelles, so like des vers de poete.
False! false! all false! She was an angel. You are--read that!” she
vehemently broke in, opening her bag and whisking a paper down before
him. “Read and understand my proud and lovely lady. She did right to
die. You are hard--hard. You would have killed her if she had not--”
“Silence, woman! I will read nothing!” came hissing from the strong
man’s teeth, set in almost ungovernable anger. “Take back this letter,
as you call it, and leave my room.”
“Nevaire! You will not read? But you shall, you shall. Behold another!
One, two, three, four!” Madly they flew from her hand. Madly she
continued her vituperative attack. “Beast! beast! That she should pour
out her innocent heart to you, you! I do not want your money, Monsieur
of the common street, of the common house. It would be dirt. Pierre, it
would be dirt. Ah, bah! je m’oublie tout a fait. Pierre, il est bete. Il
refuse de les toucher. Mais il faut qu’il les touche, si je les laisse
sur le plancher. Va-t’en! Je me moque de lui. Canaille! L’homme du
peuple, tout a fait du peuple!”
A loud slam--the skurrying of feet through the hall, accompanied by the
slower and heavier tread of the so-called brother, then silence,
and such silence that Sweetwater fancied he could catch the sound of
Brotherson’s heavy breathing. His own was silenced to a gasp. What a
treasure of a girl! How natural her indignation! What an instinct she
showed and what comprehension! This high and mighty handling of a most
difficult situation and a most difficult man, had imposed on Brotherson,
had almost imposed upon himself. Those letters so beautiful, so
spirituelle! Yet, the odds were that she had never read them, much less
abstracted them. The minx! the ready, resourceful, wily, daring minx!
But had she imposed on Brotherson? As the silence continued, Sweetwater
began to doubt. He understood quite well the importance of his
neighbour’s first movement. Were he to tear those letters into shreds!
He might be thus tempted. All depended on the strength of his present
mood and the real nature of the secret which lay buried in his heart.
Was that heart as flinty as it seemed? Was there no place for doubt or
even for curiosity, in its impenetrable depths? Seemingly, he had
not moved foot or hand since his unwelcome visitors had left. He was
doubtless still staring at the scattered sheets lying before him;
possibly battling with unaccustomed impulses; possibly weighing deeds
and consequences in those slow moving scales of his in which no man
could cast a weight with any certainty how far its even balance would be
disturbed.
There was a sound as of settling coal. Only at night would one expect to
hear so slight a sound as that in a tenement full of noisy children.
But the moment chanced to be propitious, and it not only attracted the
attention of Sweetwater on his side of the wall, but it struck the ear
of Brotherson also. With an ejaculation as bitter as it was impatient,
he roused himself and gathered up the letters. Sweetwater could hear
the successive rustlings as he bundled them up in his hand. Then came
another silence--then the lifting of a stove lid.
Sweetwater had not been wrong in his secret apprehension. His
identification with his unimpressionable neighbour’s mood had shown him
what to expect. These letters--these innocent and precious outpourings
of a rare and womanly soul--the only conceivable open sesame to the
hard-locked nature he found himself pitted against, would soon be
resolved into a vanishing puff of smoke.
But the lid was thrust back, and the letters remained in hand. Mortal
strength has its limits. Even Brotherson could not shut down that lid
on words which might have been meant for him, harshly as he had repelled
the idea.
The pause which followed told little; but when Sweetwater heard the man
within move with characteristic energy to the door, turn the key and
step back again to his place at the table, he knew that the danger
moment had passed and that those letters were about to be read, not
casually, but seriously, as indeed their contents merited.
This caused Sweetwater to feel serious himself. Upon what result might
he calculate? What would happen to this hardy soul, when the fact he
so scornfully repudiated, was borne in upon him, and he saw that the
disdain which had antagonised him was a mere device--a cloak to hide the
secret heart of love and eager womanly devotion? Her death--little as
Brotherson would believe it up till now--had been his personal loss
the greatest which can befall a man. When he came to see this--when the
modest fervour of her unusual nature began to dawn upon him in these
self-revelations, would the result be remorse, or just the deadening
and final extinction of whatever tenderness he may have retained for her
memory?
Impossible to tell. The balance of probability hung even. Sweetwater
recognised this, and clung, breathless, to his loop-hole. Fain would he
have seen, as well as heard.
Mr. Brotherson read the first letter, standing. As it soon became public
property, I will give it here, just as it afterwards appeared in the
columns of the greedy journals:
“Beloved:
“When I sit, as I often do, in perfect quiet under the stars,
and dream that you are looking at them too, not for hours as I
do, but for one full moment in which your thoughts are with me as
wholly as mine are with you, I feel that the bond between us,
unseen by the world, and possibly not wholly recognised by
ourselves, is instinct with the same power which links together
the eternities.
“It seems to have always been; to have known no beginning, only a
budding, an efflorescence, the visible product of a hidden but
always present reality. A month ago and I was ignorant, even, of
your name. Now, you seem the best known to me, the best understood,
of God’s creatures. One afternoon of perfect companionship--one
flash of strong emotion, with its deep, true insight into each
other’s soul, and the miracle was wrought. We had met, and
henceforth, parting would mean separation only, and not the
severing of a mutual bond. One hand, and one only, could do that
now. I will not name that hand. For us there is nought ahead but
life.
“Thus do I ease my heart in the silence which conditions impose
upon us. Some day I shall hear your voice again, and then-”
The paper dropped from the reader’s hand. It was several minutes before
he took up another.
This one, as it happened, antedated the other, as will appear on reading
it:
“My friend:
“I said that I could not write to you--that we must wait. You
were willing; but there is much to be accomplished, and the
silence may be long. My father is not an easy man to please, but
he desires my happiness and will listen to my plea when the right
hour comes. When you have won your place--when you have shown
yourself to be the man I feel you to be, then my father will
recognise your worth, and the way will be cleared, despite the
obstacles which now intervene.
“But meantime! Ah, you will not know it, but words will rise
--the heart must find utterance. What the lip cannot utter, nor
the looks reveal, these pages shall hold in sacred trust for you
till the day when my father will place my hand in yours, with
heart-felt approval.
“Is it a folly? A woman’s weak evasion of the strong silence of
man? You may say so some day; but somehow, I doubt it--I doubt
it.”
The creaking of a chair;--the man within had seated himself. There was
no other sound; a soul in turmoil wakens no echoes. Sweetwater envied
the walls surrounding the unsympathetic reader. They could see. He could
only listen.
A little while; then that slight rustling again of the unfolding sheet.
The following was read, and then the fourth and last:
“Dearest:
“Did you think I had never seen you till that day we met in Lenox?
I am going to tell you a secret--a great, great secret--such a
one as a woman hardly whispers to her own heart.
“One day, in early summer, I was sitting in St. Bartholomew’s
Church on Fifth Avenue, waiting for the services to begin. It
was early and the congregation was assembling. While idly
watching the people coming in, I saw a gentleman pass by me up
the aisle, who made me forget all the others. He had not the
air of a New Yorker; he was not even dressed in city style, but
as I noted his face and expression, I said way down in my heart,
‘That is the kind of man I could love; the only man I have ever
seen who could make me forget my own world and my own people.’
It was a passing thought, soon forgotten. But when in that hour
of embarrassment and peril on Greylock Mountain, I looked up into
the face of my rescuer and saw again that countenance which so
short a time before had called into life impulses till then
utterly unknown, I knew that my hour was come. And that was why
my confidence was so spontaneous and my belief in the future so
absolute.
“I trust your love which will work wonders; and I trust my own,
which sprang at a look but only gathered strength and permanence
when I found that the soul of the man I loved bettered his outward
attractions, making the ideal of my foolish girlhood seem as
unsubstantial and evanescent as a dream in the glowing noontide.”
“My Own:
“I can say so now; for you have written to me, and I have the
dancing words with which to silence any unsought doubt which might
subdue the exuberance of these secret outpourings.
“I did not expect this. I thought that you would remain as silent
as myself. But men’s ways are not our ways. They cannot exhaust
longing in purposeless words on scraps of soulless paper, and I am
glad that they cannot. I love you for your impatience; for your
purpose, and for the manliness which will win for you yet all that
you covet of fame, accomplishment and love. You expect no reply,
but there are ways in which one can keep silent and yet speak.
Won’t you be surprised when your answer comes in a manner you have
never thought of?”
XX. CONFUSION
In his interest in what was going on on the other side of the wall,
Sweetwater had forgotten himself. Daylight had declined, but in the
darkness of the closet this change had passed unheeded. Night itself
might come, but that should not force him to leave his post so long as
his neighbour remained behind his locked door, brooding over the words
of love and devotion which had come to him, as it were from the other
world.
But was he brooding? That sound of iron clattering upon iron!
That smothered exclamation and the laugh which ended it! Anger and
determination rang in that laugh. It had a hideous sound which prepared
Sweetwater for the smell which now reached his nostrils. The letters
were burning; this time the lid had been lifted from the stove with
unrelenting purpose. Poor Edith Challoner’s touching words had met,
a different fate from any which she, in her ignorance of this man’s
nature,--a nature to which she had ascribed untold perfections--could
possibly have conceived.
As Sweetwater thought of this, he stirred nervously in the darkness,
and broke into silent invective against the man who could so insult the
memory of one who had perished under the blight of his own coldness
and misunderstanding. Then he suddenly started back surprised and
apprehensive. Brotherson had unlocked his door, and was coming rapidly
his way. Sweetwater heard his step in the hall and had hardly time
to bound from his closet, when he saw his own door burst in and found
himself face to face with his redoubtable neighbour, in a state of such
rage as few men could meet without quailing, even were they of his own
stature, physical vigour and prowess; and Sweetwater was a small man.
However, disappointment such as he had just experienced brings with it a
desperation which often outdoes courage, and the detective, smiling with
an air of gay surprise, shouted out:
“Well, what’s the matter now? Has the machine busted, or tumbled into
the fire or sailed away to lands unknown out of your open window?”
“You were coming out of that closet,” was the fierce rejoinder. “What
have you got there? Something which concerns me, or why should your face
go pale at my presence and your forehead drip with sweat? Don’t think
that you’ve deceived me for a moment as to your business here. I
recognised you immediately. You’ve played the stranger well, but you’ve
a nose and an eye nobody could forget. I have known all along that I
had a police spy for a neighbour; but it didn’t faze me. I’ve nothing to
conceal, and wouldn’t mind a regiment of you fellows if you’d only
play a straight game. But when it comes to foisting upon me a parcel of
letters to which I have no right, and then setting a fellow like you to
count my groans or whatever else they expected to hear, I have a right
to defend myself, and defend myself I will, by God! But first, let me be
sure that my accusations will stand. Come into this closet with me. It
abuts on the wall of my room and has its own secret, I know. What is it?
I have you at an advantage now, and you shall tell.”
He did have Sweetwater at an advantage, and the detective knew it and
disdained a struggle which would have only called up a crowd, friendly
to the other but inimical to himself. Allowing Brotherson to drag him
into the closet, he stood quiescent, while the determined man who held
him with one hand, felt about with the other over the shelves and along
the partitions till he came to the hole which had offered such a happy
means of communication between the two rooms. Then, with a laugh
almost as bitter in tone as that which rang from Brotherson’s lips, he
acknowledged that business had its necessities and that apologies from
him were in order; adding, as they both stepped out into the rapidly
darkening room:
“We’ve played a bout, we two; and you’ve come out ahead. Allow me to
congratulate you, Mr. Brotherson. You’ve cleared yourself so far as I am
concerned. I leave this ranch to-night.”
The frown had come back to the forehead of the indignant man who
confronted him.
“So you listened,” he cried; “listened when you weren’t sneaking under
my eye! A fine occupation for a man who can dove-tail a corner like an
adept. I wish I had let you join the brotherhood you were good enough to
mention. They would know how to appreciate your double gifts and how
to reward your excellence in the one, if not in the other. What did the
police expect to learn about me that they should consider it necessary
to call into exercise such extraordinary talents?”
“I’m not good at conundrums. I was given a task to perform, and I
performed it,” was Sweetwater’s sturdy reply. Then slowly, with his eye
fixed directly upon his antagonist, “I guess they thought you a man.
And so did I until I heard you burn those letters. Fortunately we have
copies.”
“Letters!” Fury thickened the speaker’s voice, and lent a savage gleam
to his eye. “Forgeries! Make believes! Miss Challoner never wrote the
drivel you dare to designate as letters. It was concocted at Police
Headquarters. They made me tell my story and then they found some one
who could wield the poetic pen. I’m obliged to them for the confidence
they show in my credulity. I credit Miss Challoner with such words as
have been given me to read here to-day? I knew the lady, and I know
myself. Nothing that passed between us, not an event in which we
were both concerned, has been forgotten by me, and no feature of our
intercourse fits the language you have ascribed to her. On the contrary,
there is a lamentable contradiction between facts as they were and the
fancies you have made her indulge in. And this, as you must acknowledge,
not only proves their falsity, but exonerates Miss Challoner from all
possible charge of sentimentality.”
“Yet she certainly wrote those letters. We had them from Mr. Challoner.
The woman who brought them was really her maid. We have not deceived you
in this.”
“I do not believe you.”
It was not offensively said; but the conviction it expressed was
absolute. Sweetwater recognised the tone, as one of truth, and inwardly
laid down his arms. He could never like the man; there was too much
iron in his fibre; but he had to acknowledge that as a foe he was
invulnerable and therefore admirable to one who had the good sense to
appreciate him.
“I do not want to believe you.” Thus did Brotherson supplement his
former sentence. “For if I were to attribute those letters to her, I
should have to acknowledge that they were written to another man than
myself. And this would be anything but agreeable to me. Now I am going
to my room and to my work. You may spend the rest of the evening or the
whole night, if you will, listening at that hole. As heretofore, the
labour will be all yours, and the indifference mine.”
With a satirical play of feature which could hardly be called a smile,
he nodded and left the room.
XXI. A CHANGE
“It’s all up. I’m beaten on my own ground.” Thus confessed Sweetwater,
in great dejection, to himself. “But I’m going to take advantage of
the permission he’s just given me and continue the listening act. Just
because he told me to and just because he thinks I won’t. I’m sure
it’s no worse than to spend hours of restless tossing in bed, trying to
sleep.”
But our young detective did neither.
As he was putting his supper dishes away, a messenger boy knocked at his
door and handed him a note. It was from Mr. Gryce and ran thus:
“Steal off, if you can, and as soon as you can, and meet me in
Twenty-ninth Street. A discovery has been made which alters the whole
situation.”
XXII. O. B. AGAIN
“What’s happened? Something very important. I ought to hope so after
this confounded failure.”
“Failure? Didn’t he read the letters?”
“Yes, he read them. Had to, but--”
“Didn’t weaken? Eh?”
“No, he didn’t weaken. You can’t get water out of a millstone. You may
squeeze and squeeze; but it’s your fingers which suffer, not it. He
thinks we manufactured those letters ourselves on purpose to draw him.”
“Humph! I knew we had a reputation for finesse, but I didn’t know that
it ran that high.”
“He denies everything. Said she would never have written such letters to
him; even goes so far to declare that if she did write them--(he must
be strangely ignorant of her handwriting) they were meant for some
other man than himself. All rot, but--” A hitch of the shoulder conveyed
Sweetwater’s disgust. His uniform good nature was strangely disturbed.
But Mr. Gryce’s was not. The faint smile with which he smoothed with an
easy, circling movement, the already polished top of his ever
present cane conveyed a secret complacency which called up a flash of
discomfiture to his greatly irritated companion.
“He says that, does he? You found him on the whole tolerably
straightforward, eh? A hard nut; but hard nuts are usually sound ones.
Come, now! prejudice aside, what’s your honest opinion of the man you’ve
had under your eye and ear for three solid weeks? Hasn’t there been the
best of reasons for your failure? Speak up, my boy. Squarely, now.”
“I can’t. I hate the fellow. I hate any one who makes me look
ridiculous. He--well, well, if you’ll have it, sir, I will say this
much. If it weren’t for that blasted coincidence of the two deaths
equally mysterious, equally under his eye, I’d stake my life on his
honesty. But that coincidence stumps me and--and a sort of feeling I
have here.”
It is to be hoped that the slap he gave his breast, at this point,
carried off some of his superfluous emotion. “You can’t account for a
feeling, Mr. Gryce. The man has no heart. He’s as hard as rocks.”
“A not uncommon lack where the head plays so big a part. We can’t hang
him on any such argument as that. You’ve found no evidence against him?”
“N--no.” The hesitating admission was only a proof of Sweetwater’s
obstinacy.
“Then listen to this. The test with the letters failed, because what he
said about them was true. They were not meant for him. Miss Challoner
had another lover.”
“Only another? I thought there were a half-dozen, at least.”
“Another whom she favoured. The letters found in her possession--not
the ones she wrote herself, but those which were written to her over the
signature O. B. were not all from the same hand. Experts have been busy
with them for a week, and their reports are unanimous. The O. B. who
wrote the threatening lines acknowledged to by Orlando Brotherson, was
not the O. B. who penned all of those love letters. The similarity in
the writing misled us at first, but once the doubt was raised by Mr.
Challoner’s discovery of an allusion in one of them which pointed to
another writer than Mr. Brotherson, and experts had no difficulty in
reaching the decision I have mentioned.”
“Two O. B.s! Isn’t that incredible, Mr. Gryce?”
“Yes, it is incredible; but the incredible is not the impossible. The
man you’ve been shadowing denies that these expressive effusions of Miss
Challoner were meant for him. Let us see, then, if we can find the man
they were meant for.”
“The second O. B.?”
“Yes.”
Sweetwater’s face instantly lit up.
“Do you mean that I--after my egregious failure--am not to be kept on
the dunce’s seat? That you will give me this new job?”
“Yes. We don’t know of a better man. It isn’t your fault, you said it
yourself, that water couldn’t be squeezed out of a millstone.”
“The Superintendent--how does he feel about it?”
“He was the first one to mention you.”
“And the Inspector?”
“Is glad to see us on a new tack.”
A pause, during which the eager light in the young detective’s eye
clouded over. Presently he remarked:
“How will the finding of another O. B. alter Mr. Brotherson’s position?
He still will be the one person on the spot, known to have cherished
a grievance against the victim of this mysterious killing. To my mind,
this discovery of a more favoured rival, brings in an element of motive
which may rob our self-reliant friend of some of his complacency. We may
further, rather than destroy, our case against Brotherson by locating a
second O.B.”
Mr. Gryce’s eyes twinkled.
“That won’t make your task any more irksome,” he smiled. “The loop we
thus throw out is as likely to catch Brotherson as his rival. It all
depends upon the sort of man we find in this second O. B.; and whether,
in some way unknown to us, he gave her cause for the sudden and
overwhelming rush of despair which alone supports this general theory of
suicide.”
“The prospect grows pleasing. Where am I to look for my man?”
“Your ticket is bought to Derby, Pennsylvania. If he is not employed in
the great factories there, we do not know where to find him. We have no
other clew.”
“I see. It’s a short journey I have before me.”
“It’ll bring the colour to your cheeks.”
“Oh, I’m not kicking.”
“You will start to-morrow.”
“Wish it were to-day.”
“And you will first inquire, not for O. B., that’s too indefinite; but
for a young girl by the name of Doris Scott. She holds the clew; or
rather she is the clew to this second O. B.”
“Another woman!”
“No, a child;--well, I won’t say child exactly; she must be sixteen.”
“Doris Scott.”
“She lives in Derby. Derby is a small place. You will have no trouble
in finding this child. It was to her Miss Challoner’s last letter was
addressed. The one--”
“I begin to see.”
“No, you don’t, Sweetwater. The affair is as blind as your hat; nobody
sees. We’re just feeling along a thread. O. B.’s letters--the real
O. B., I mean, are the manliest effusions possible. He’s no more of
a milksop than this Brotherson; and unlike your indomitable friend he
seems to have some heart. I only wish he’d given us some facts; they
would have been serviceable. But the letters reveal nothing except
that he knew Doris. He writes in one of them: ‘Doris is learning to
embroider. It’s like a fairy weaving a cobweb!’ Doris isn’t a very
common name. She must be the same little girl to whom Miss Challoner
wrote from time to time.”
“Was this letter signed O. B.?”
“Yes; they all are. The only difference between his letters and
Brotherson’s is this: Brotherson’s retain the date and address; the
second O. B.’s do not.”
“How not? Torn off, do you mean?”
“Yes, or rather, neatly cut away; and as none of the envelopes were
kept, the only means by which we can locate the writer is through this
girl Doris.”
“If I remember rightly Miss Challoner’s letter to this child was free
from all mystery.”
“Quite so. It is as open as the day. That is why it has been mentioned
as showing the freedom of Miss Challoner’s mind five minutes before that
fatal thrust.”
Sweetwater took up the sheet Mr. Gryce pushed towards him and re-read
these lines:
“Dear Little Doris:
“It is a snowy night, but it is all bright inside and I feel no
chill in mind or body. I hope it is so in the little cottage in
Derby; that my little friend is as happy with harsh winds blowing
from the mountains as she was on the summer day she came to see
me at this hotel. I like to think of her as cheerful and beaming,
rejoicing in tasks which make her so womanly and sweet. She is
often, often in my mind.
“Affectionately your friend,
“EDITH A. CHALLONER.”
“That to a child of sixteen!”
“Just so.”
“D-o-r-i-s spells something besides Doris.”
“Yet there is a Doris. Remember that O. B. says in one of his letters,
‘Doris is learning to embroider.’”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“So you must first find Doris.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And as Miss Challoner’s letter was directed to Derby, Pennsylvania, you
will go to Derby.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything more?”
“I’ve been reading this letter again.”
“It’s worth it.”
“The last sentence expresses a hope.”
“That has been noted.”
Sweetwater’s eyes slowly rose till they rested on Mr. Gryce’s face:
“I’ll cling to the thread you’ve given me. I’ll work myself through the
labyrinth before us till I reach HIM.”
Mr. Gryce smiled; but there was more age, wisdom and sympathy for
youthful enthusiasm in that smile than there was confidence or hope.