The scene invited alarm,--that is, for so young a girl as Violet,
surveying it from an automobile some time after the stroke of midnight.
An unknown house at the end of a heavily shaded walk, in the open
doorway of which could be seen the silhouette of a woman’s form leaning
eagerly forward with arms outstretched in an appeal for help! It
vanished while she looked, but the effect remained, holding her to
her seat for one startled moment. This seemed strange, for she had
anticipated adventure. One is not summoned from a private ball to ride a
dozen miles into the country on an errand of investigation, without some
expectation of encountering the mysterious and the tragic. But Violet
Strange, for all her many experiences, was of a most susceptible nature,
and for the instant in which that door stood open, with only the memory
of that expectant figure to disturb the faintly lit vista of the
hall beyond, she felt that grip upon the throat which comes from an
indefinable fear which no words can explain and no plummet sound.
But this soon passed. With the setting of her foot to ground, conditions
changed and her emotions took on a more normal character. The figure of
a man now stood in the place held by the vanished woman; and it was not
only that of one she knew but that of one whom she trusted--a friend
whose very presence gave her courage. With this recognition came a
better understanding of the situation, and it was with a beaming eye and
unclouded features that she tripped up the walk to meet the expectant
figure and outstretched hand of Roger Upjohn.
“You here!” she exclaimed, amid smiles and blushes, as he drew her into
the hall.
He at once launched forth into explanations mingled with apologies for
the presumption he had shown in putting her to this inconvenience. There
was trouble in the house--great trouble. Something had occurred for
which an explanation must be found before morning, or the happiness
and honour of more than one person now under this unhappy roof would be
wrecked. He knew it was late--that she had been obliged to take a long
and dreary ride alone, but her success with the problem which had once
come near wrecking his own life had emboldened him to telephone to the
office and--“But you are in ball-dress,” he cried in amazement. “Did you
think--”
“I came from a ball. Word reached me between the dances. I did not go
home. I had been bidden to hurry.”
He looked his appreciation, but when he spoke it was to say:
“This is the situation. Miss Digby--”
“The lady who is to be married tomorrow?”
“Who hopes to be married tomorrow.”
“How, hopes?”
“Who will be married tomorrow, if a certain article lost in this house
tonight can be found before any of the persons who have been dining here
leave for their homes.”
Violet uttered an exclamation.
“Then, Mr. Cornell,” she began--
“Mr. Cornell has our utmost confidence,” Roger hastened to interpose.
“But the article missing is one which he might reasonably desire
to possess and which he alone of all present had the opportunity of
securing. You can therefore see why he, with his pride--the pride off
a man not rich, engaged to marry a woman who is--should declare that
unless his innocence is established before daybreak, the doors of St.
Bartholomew will remain shut to-morrow.”
“But the article lost--what is it?”
“Miss Digby will give you the particulars. She is waiting to receive
you,” he added with a gesture towards a half-open door at their right.
Violet glanced that way, then cast her looks up and down the hall in
which they stood.
“Do you know that you have not told me in whose house I am? Not hers, I
know. She lives in the city.”
“And you are twelve miles from Harlem. Miss Strange, you are in the Van
Broecklyn mansion, famous enough you will acknowledge. Have you never
been here before?”
“I have been by here, but I recognized nothing in the dark. What an
exciting place for an investigation!”
“And Mr. Van Broecklyn? Have you never met him?”
“Once, when a child. He frightened me then.”
“And may frighten you now; though I doubt it. Time has mellowed him.
Besides, I have prepared him for what might otherwise occasion him some
astonishment. Naturally he would not look for just the sort of lady
investigator I am about to introduce to him.”
She smiled. Violet Strange was a very charming young woman, as well as a
keen prober of odd mysteries.
The meeting between herself and Miss Digby was a sympathetic one. After
the first inevitable shock which the latter felt at sight of the beauty
and fashionable appearance of the mysterious little being who was to
solve her difficulties, her glance, which, under other circumstances,
might have lingered unduly upon the piquant features and exquisite
dressing of the fairy-like figure before her, passed at once to Violet’s
eyes, in whose steady depths beamed an intelligence quite at odds with
the coquettish dimples which so often misled the casual observer in his
estimation of a character singularly subtle and well-poised.
As for the impression she herself made upon Violet, it was the same she
made upon everyone. No one could look long at Florence Digby and not
recognize the loftiness of her spirit and the generous nature of her
impulses. In person she was tall and as she leaned to take Violet’s
hand, the difference between them brought out the salient points in
each, to the great admiration of the one onlooker.
Meantime, for all her interest in the case in hand, Violet could not
help casting a hurried look about her, in gratification of the curiosity
incited by her entrance into a house signalized from its foundation by
such a series of tragic events. The result was disappointing. The walls
were plain, the furniture simple. Nothing suggestive in either, unless
it was the fact that nothing was new, nothing modern. As it looked in
the days of Burr and Hamilton so it looked to-day, even to the rather
startling detail of candles which did duty on every side in place of
gas.
As Violet recalled the reason for this, the fascination of the past
seized upon her imagination. There was no knowing where this might have
carried her, had not the feverish gleam in Miss Digby’s eyes warned
her that the present held its own excitement. Instantly, she was all
attention and listening with undivided mind to that lady’s disclosures.
They were brief and to the following effect:
The dinner which had brought some half-dozen people together in this
house had been given in celebration of her impending marriage. But it
was also in a way meant as a compliment to one of the other guests, a
Mr. Spielhagen, who, during the week, had succeeded in demonstrating to
a few experts the value of a discovery he had made which would transform
a great industry.
In speaking of this discovery, Miss Digby did not go into particulars,
the whole matter being far beyond her understanding; but in stating its
value she openly acknowledged that it was in the line of Mr. Cornell’s
own work, and one which involved calculations and a formula which, if
prematurely disclosed, would invalidate the contract Mr. Spielhagen
hoped to make, and thus destroy his present hopes.
Of this formula but two copies existed. One was locked up in a safe
deposit vault in Boston, the other he had brought into the house on
his person, and it was the latter which was now missing, having been
abstracted during the evening from a manuscript of sixteen or more
sheets, under circumstances which she would now endeavour to relate.
Mr. Van Broecklyn, their host, had in his melancholy life but one
interest which could be at all absorbing. This was for explosives.
As consequence, much of the talk at the dinner-table had been on Mr.
Spielhagen’s discovery, and possible changes it might introduce into
this especial industry. As these, worked out from a formula kept secret
from the trade, could not but affect greatly Mr. Cornell’s interests,
she found herself listening intently, when Mr. Van Broecklyn, with an
apology for his interference, ventured to remark that if Mr. Spielhagen
had made a valuable discovery in this line, so had he, and one which he
had substantiated by many experiments. It was not a marketable one, such
as Mr. Spielhagen’s was, but in his work upon the same, and in the tests
which he had been led to make, he had discovered certain instances
he would gladly name, which demanded exceptional procedure to be
successful. If Mr. Spielhagen’s method did not allow for these
exceptions, nor make suitable provision for them, then Mr. Spielhagen’s
method would fail more times than it would succeed. Did it so allow and
so provide? It would relieve him greatly to learn that it did.
The answer came quickly. Yes, it did. But later and after some further
conversation, Mr. Spielhagen’s confidence seemed to wane, and before
they left the dinner-table, he openly declared his intention of looking
over his manuscript again that very night, in order to be sure that the
formula therein contained duly covered all the exceptions mentioned by
Mr. Van Broecklyn.
If Mr. Cornell’s countenance showed any change at this moment, she for
one had not noticed it; but the bitterness with which he remarked upon
the other’s good fortune in having discovered this formula of whose
entire success he had no doubt, was apparent to everybody, and naturally
gave point to the circumstances which a short time afterward associated
him with the disappearance of the same.
The ladies (there were two others besides herself) having withdrawn in
a body to the music-room, the gentlemen all proceeded to the library to
smoke. Here, conversation loosed from the one topic which had hitherto
engrossed it, was proceeding briskly, when Mr. Spielhagen, with nervous
gesture, impulsively looked about him and said:
“I cannot rest till I have run through my thesis again. Where can I find
a quiet spot? I won’t be long; I read very rapidly.”
It was for Mr. Van Broecklyn to answer, but no word coming from him,
every eye turned his way, only to find him sunk in one of those fits of
abstraction so well known to his friends, and from which no one who has
this strange man’s peace of mind at heart ever presumes to rouse him.
What was to be done? These moods of their singular host sometimes lasted
half an hour, and Mr. Spielhagen had not the appearance of a man of
patience. Indeed he presently gave proof of the great uneasiness he was
labouring under, for noticing a door standing ajar on the other side of
the room, he remarked to those around him:
“A den! and lighted! Do you see any objection to my shutting myself in
there for a few minutes?”
No one venturing to reply, he rose, and giving a slight push to the
door, disclosed a small room exquisitely panelled and brightly lighted,
but without one article of furniture in it, not even a chair.
“The very place,” quoth Mr. Spielhagen, and lifting a light
cane-bottomed chair from the many standing about, he carried it inside
and shut the door behind him.
Several minutes passed during which the man who had served at table
entered with a tray on which were several small glasses evidently
containing some choice liqueur. Finding his master fixed in one of his
strange moods, he set the tray down and, pointing to one of the glasses,
said:
“That is for Mr. Van Broecklyn. It contains his usual quieting powder.”
And urging the gentlemen to help themselves, he quietly left the room.
Mr. Upjohn lifted the glass nearest him, and Mr. Cornell seemed about to
do the same when he suddenly reached forward and catching up one farther
off started for the room in which Mr. Spielhagen had so deliberately
secluded himself.
Why he did all this--why, above all things, he should reach across the
tray for a glass instead of taking the one under his hand, he can no
more explain than why he has followed many another unhappy impulse.
Nor did he understand the nervous start given by Mr. Spielhagen at his
entrance, or the stare with which that gentleman took the glass from his
hand and mechanically drank its contents, till he saw how his hand had
stretched itself across the sheet of paper he was reading, in an open
attempt to hide the lines visible between his fingers. Then indeed the
intruder flushed and withdrew in great embarrassment, fully conscious
of his indiscretion but not deeply disturbed till Mr. Van Broecklyn,
suddenly arousing and glancing down at the tray placed very near his
hand remarked in some surprise: “Dobbs seems to have forgotten me.” Then
indeed, the unfortunate Mr. Cornell realized what he had done. It was
the glass intended for his host which he had caught up and carried into
the other room--the glass which he had been told contained a drug.
Of what folly he had been guilty, and how tame would be any effort at
excuse!
Attempting none, he rose and with a hurried glance at Mr. Upjohn who
flushed in sympathy at his distress, he crossed to the door he had
lately closed upon Mr. Spielhagen. But feeling his shoulder touched
as his hand pressed the knob, he turned to meet the eye of Mr. Van
Broecklyn fixed upon him with an expression which utterly confounded
him.
“Where are you going?” that gentleman asked.
The questioning tone, the severe look, expressive at once of displeasure
and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed to
stammer forth:
“Mr. Spielhagen is in here consulting his thesis. When your man brought
in the cordial, I was awkward enough to catch up your glass and carry it
in to. Mr. Spielhagen. He drank it and I--I am anxious to see if it did
him any harm.”
As he uttered the last word he felt Mr. Van Broecklyn’s hand slip from
his shoulder, but no word accompanied the action, nor did his host make
the least move to follow him into the room.
This was a matter of great regret to him later, as it left him for a
moment out of the range of every eye, during which he says he simply
stood in a state of shock at seeing Mr. Spielhagen still sitting there,
manuscript in hand, but with head fallen forward and eyes closed; dead,
asleep or--he hardly knew what; the sight so paralysed him.
Whether or not this was the exact truth and the whole truth, Mr. Cornell
certainly looked very unlike himself as he stepped back into Mr. Van
Broecklyn’s presence; and he was only partially reassured when that
gentleman protested that there was no real harm in the drug, and that
Mr. Spielhagen would be all right if left to wake naturally and without
shock. However, as his present attitude was one of great discomfort,
they decided to carry him back and lay him on the library lounge. But
before doing this, Mr. Upjohn drew from his flaccid grasp, the precious
manuscript, and carrying it into the larger room placed it on a remote
table, where it remained undisturbed till Mr. Spielhagen, suddenly
coming to himself at the end of some fifteen minutes, missed the sheets
from his hand, and bounding up, crossed the room to repossess himself of
them.
His face, as he lifted them up and rapidly ran through them with
ever-accumulating anxiety, told them what they had to expect.
The page containing the formula was gone!
Violet now saw her problem.