“Nice, cheerful little place!” observed Donnelly, looking about him.
Ross said nothing. He had not even dared hope for such a stroke of
luck as that Eddy and the little girl should be gone, yet the silence
in this dim, damp, little house troubled him. Where and why had they
gone?
“We’ll just take a look around,” said Donnelly.
He opened a door beside him, revealing a dark and empty room. He
flashed an electric torch across it; nothing there but the bare floor
and the four walls. He closed the door and went along the passage, and
opened the door of the next room. The shutter was broken here, and one
of the window panes, and the rain was blowing in, making a pool on the
floor that gleamed darkly when the flash light touched it.
That door, too, he closed, with a sort of polite caution, as if he
didn’t want to disturb any one. Then he looked into the room at the
end of the passage. This was evidently the kitchen, for there was a
sink there, and a built-in dresser. He turned on the taps; no water.
“Now we’ll just take a look upstairs,” he said, in a subdued tone.
He mounted the stairs with remarkable lightness for so heavy a man;
but Ross took no such precaution. Indeed, he wanted to make a noise.
He did not like the silence in this house.
Donnelly opened the door facing the stairs. One shutter had been
thrown back, and the room was filled with the gray light of the rainy
afternoon. And, lying on the floor, Ross saw a white flannel rabbit.
It lay there, quite alone, its one pink glass eye staring up at the
ceiling, and round its middle was a bedraggled bit of blue ribbon
which Ross remembered very well.
“Now, what’s this?” said Donnelly.
He picked up the rabbit, frowning a little; he turned it this way and
that, he fingered its sash. And, to Ross, there was something
grotesque and almost horrible in the sight of the burly fellow with a
cigar in one corner of his mouth, and an intent frown on his red face,
holding that rabbit.
“It’s a clew, isn’t it?” he inquired, with mock respect.
Donnelly glanced at him quickly. Then he put the rabbit into the
pocket of his overcoat, from which its long ears protruded
ludicrously.
“Come on!” he said.
The next door was locked, and here Donnelly displayed his professional
talents. Before Ross could quite see what he was at, he had taken
something from his pocket; he bent forward, and almost at once the
lock clicked, and he opened the door.
It seemed to Ross that nothing could have been more eloquent of crime,
of shameful secrecy and misery, than that room. There was a wretched
little makeshift bed against one wall, made up of burlap bags and a
ragged portiére; there was a box on which stood a lantern, an empty
corned beef tin, and a crushed and sodden packet of cigarettes. There
was nothing else.
With a leaden heart, he looked at Donnelly, and saw him very grave.
“Come on!” he said, again.
And they went on, into every corner of that house that was so empty
and yet so filled with questions. They found nothing more. Some one
had been here, and some one had gone; that was all.
Donnelly led the way back to the room where that some one had been.
“Now we’ll see if we can find some more clews here,” he said. “Like
the fellows in the story books.”
He took up the packet of cigarettes and went over to the window with
it. But, instead of examining the object in his hand, his glance was
arrested by something outside, and he stood staring straight before
him so long that Ross came up beside him, to see for himself.
From this upper window there was an unexpectedly wide vista of empty
fields, still white with snow, and houses tiny in the distance, and a
belt of woodland, dark against the gray sky; all deserted and desolate
in the steady fall of sleet. What else?
Directly before the house was the road, where the taxi waited, the
driver inside. Across the road the land ran downhill in a steep slope,
washed bare of any trace of snow, and at its foot was a pond, a somber
little sheet of water, shivering under the downpour. But there was
nobody in sight, nothing stirred. What else? What was Donnelly looking
at?
“I think—” said Donnelly. “I guess I’ll just go out and mooch around a
little before it gets dark. Just to get the lay of the land. _You_
don’t want to come—in this weather. You just wait here. I won’t keep
you long.”
Ross did want to go with him, everywhere, and to see everything that
he saw, but he judged it unwise to say so. He stood where he was,
listening to the other’s footsteps quietly descending; he heard the
front door close softly, and a moment later he saw Donnelly come out
into the road and cross it, with a wave of his hand toward the taxi
driver, and begin to descend the steep slope toward the pond.
“What’s he going there for?” thought Ross. “What does he think—”
Before he had finished the question, the answer sprang up in his mind.
Donnelly had not found Ives in the cottage, so he was going to look
for him down there. Suppose he found him?
“No!” thought Ross. “It’s—impossible. I—I’m losing my nerve.”
To tell the truth, he was badly shaken. He was ready to credit
Donnelly with superhuman powers, to believe that he could see things
invisible to other persons, that he could, simply by looking out of
the window, trace the whole course of a crime.
“I’ve got to do something,” he thought. “Now is my chance. I can give
him the slip now.”
But he was a good seven or eight miles from “Day’s End.” Well, why
couldn’t he hurry down, jump into the taxi, and order the driver to
set off at once? Long before Donnelly could find any way of escape
from this desolate region, he could get back to the house and warn
Amy. And, in doing so, he would certainly antagonize Donnelly, and
confirm any suspicions he might already have.
“No,” he thought. “He’s not sure about Amy now. And I don’t believe
he’s got anything against me. I can’t afford to run away. He hasn’t
found anything yet that definitely connects Amy with the—the case.”
But when he did?
Donnelly had reached the bottom of the slope now, and was sauntering
along the edge of the pond, hands in his pockets. He had in nowise the
air of a sleuth hot upon a scent, but to Ross his leisurely progress
suggested an alarming confidence. He knew—what didn’t he know? And
Ross, the guilty one, knew nothing at all. In angry desperation, he
turned away from the window.
“All right!” he said, aloud. “I’ll have a look for clews myself!”
And, without the slightest difficulty, he found all the clews he
wanted.
The makeshift bed was the only place in the room where anything could
be hidden; he lifted up the portiére that lay over the bags, and there
he found a shabby pocketbook in which were the papers of the missing
Martin Ives.
Everything was there—everything one could want. There was a savings
bank book, there were two or three letters, and there was a little
snapshot of Amy, on the back of which was written: “To Marty—so that
he won’t forget.”
Ross looked at that photograph for a long time. He was not expert
enough to recognize that the costume was somewhat outmoded, but he did
know that this picture had been taken some time ago, because Amy was
so different. It showed her standing on a beach, with the wind blowing
her hair and her skirts, her head a little thrown back, and on her
face the jolliest smile—a regular schoolgirl grin.
It hurt him, the sight of that laughing, dimpled, little ghost from
the past. He remembered her as he had seen her today, still smiling,
still lovely, but so changed. She was reckless now, haunted now, even
in her most careless moments.
He opened the top letter; it bore the date of last Monday, but no
address. It read:
Dear Mr. Ives:
Amy has asked me to reply to your letter of a month ago. I
scarcely need to tell you how greatly it distressed her.
If you should come to the house publicly now, everything
she has tried to do would be ruined. She had hoped that
you would wait patiently, but as you refuse to do so, she
has consented to see you.
She wants to see Lily as well, and, although there is a
great deal of risk in this, if you will follow my
directions, I think we can manage. Telephone to the nurse
with whom the child is boarding to bring her to the
station at Greenwich by the train leaving New York at 7.20
A.M. on Tuesday and Eddy will meet her there. You can take
an early afternoon train to Stamford. Take a taxi there
and go up the Post Road to Bonnifer Lane, a little past
the Raven Inn. There is a new church being built on the
corner. Turn down here, and stop at the first house, about
half a mile from the main road. You will find the little
girl there, and I shall be there, waiting for you, between
three and five, and we can make arrangements for you to
see Amy.
Remember, Mr. Ives, that Amy trusts you to do _nothing_
until you have seen her.
Respectfully yours,
Amanda Jones.
Ross folded up the letter. Yes; nobody could ask for a much better
clew. He took out another letter, but before opening it, he glanced
out of the window. And he saw Donnelly coming back.
He put the wallet into his pocket, and went to the head of the stairs.
A great lassitude had come upon him; he felt physically exhausted. His
doubt—and his hope—were ended now.
Donnelly came in quietly, and advanced to the foot of the stairs. It
was not possible to read his face by that dim light, but his voice was
very grave.
“Come on!” he said.
“Find anything?” asked Ross.
Donnelly was silent for a moment.
“I’ve finished,” he said, at last.
“What—” began Ross.
“I’ve finished,” Donnelly repeated, almost gently. “It’s up to the
police now. We’ll have that pond dragged.”
Ross, too, was silent for a moment.
“All right!” he said. “I’ll just get my hat.”
He turned back into the room; Donnelly waited for him below. In a few
minutes Ross joined him, and they got into the cab.