It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of
lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake.
My room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from
its windows I could easily watch the goings and comings of the gentleman
whose movements were daily becoming of more and more interest to me.
For set it down to caprice--and men are often as capricious as women--or
account for it as you will, his restlessness at this period was truly
remarkable. Not a day that he did not spend his time in walking the
streets, and that not in his usual aimless gentlemanly fashion, but
eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed here and there, like a bird
seeking its prey. It would often be as late as five o’clock before he
came in, and if, as now frequently happened, he did not have company to
dinner, he was even known to start out again after seven o’clock and go
over the same ground as in the morning, looking with strained gaze, that
vainly endeavored to appear unconcerned, into the faces of the women
that he passed. I not unfrequently followed him at these times as much
for my own amusement as from any hope I had of coming upon anything that
should aid me in the work before me. But when he suddenly changed his
route of travel from a promenade in the fashionable thoroughfares of
Broadway and Fourteenth Street to a walk through Chatham Square and the
dark, narrow streets of the East side, I began to scent whom the prey
might be that he was seeking, and putting every other consideration
aside, regularly set myself to dog his steps, as only I, with my
innumerable disguises, knew how to do. For three separate days I kept at
his heels wherever he went, each day growing more and more astonished
if not to say hopeful, as I found myself treading the narrowest and most
disreputable streets of the city; halting at the shops of pawnbrokers;
peering into the back-rooms of liquor shops; mixing with the crowds that
infest the corner groceries at nightfall, and even slinking with hand on
the trigger of the pistol I carried in my pocket, up dark alleys where
every door that swung noiselessly to and fro as we passed, shut upon
haunts of such villainy as only is known to us of the police, or to
those good souls that for the sake of One whose example they follow, lay
aside their fears and sensitiveness to carry light into the dim pits of
this wretched world. At first I thought Mr. Blake might have some such
reason for the peculiar course he took. But his indifference to all
crowds where only men were collected, his silence where a word would
have been well received, convinced me it was a woman he was seeking and
that with an intentness which blinded him to the commonest needs of the
hour. I even saw him once in his hurry and abstraction, step across the
body of a child who had fallen face downward on the stones, and that
with an expression showing he was utterly unconscious of anything but an
obstacle in his path. The strangest part of it all was that he seemed to
have no fear. To be sure he took pains to leave his watch at home; but
with such a figure and carriage as he possessed, the absence of jewelry
could never deceive the eye for a moment as to the fact of his being
a man of wealth, and those he went among would do anything for money.
Perhaps, like me, he carried a pistol. At all events he shunned no spot
where either poverty lay hid or deviltry reigned, his proud stern head
bending to enter the lowest doors without a tremble of the haughty lips
that remained compressed as by an iron force; except when some poor
forlorn creature with flaunting head-gear, and tremulous hands,
attracted by his bearing would hastily brush against him, when he would
turn and look, perhaps speak, though what he said I always failed to
catch; after which he would hurry on as if possessed by seven devils.
The evenings of those three days were notable also. Two of them he
spent in the manner I have described; the third he went to the Windsor
House--where the Countess De Mirac had taken rooms--going up to the
ladies’ entrance and actually ringing the bell, only to start back and
walk up and down on the opposite side of the way, with his hands behind
his back, and his head bent, evidently deliberating as to whether he
should or should not carry out his original intention of entering. The
arrival of a carriage with the stately subject of his deliberations,
who from her elaborate costume had seemingly been to some kettledrum or
private reception, speedily put an end to his doubts. As the door opened
to admit her, I saw him cast one look at her heavily draped person, with
its snowy opera-cloak drawn tightly over the sweeping folds of her maize
colored silk, and shrink back with what sounded like a sigh of anger or
distrust, and without waiting for the closing of the door upon her, turn
toward home with a step that hesitated no longer.
The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go with
him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my window
from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I supposed
upon his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a long,
dull waiting for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses of Mrs.
Daniels’ troubled face as she appeared at one window or another of
the old-fashioned mansion before me. She seemed, too, to be unusually
restless, opening the windows and looking out with forlorn cranings of
her neck as if she too were watching for her master. Indeed I have
no doubt from what I afterwards learned, that she was in a state of
constant suspense during these days. Her frequent appearance at the
station house, where she in vain sought for some news of the girl in
whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed this. Only the day before I
gave myself up to my unreserved espionage of Mr. Blake, she had had an
interview with Mr. Gryce in which she had let fall her apprehensions
that the girl was dead, and asked whether if that were the case, the
police would be likely to come into a knowledge of the fact. Upon being
assured that if she had not been privately made way with, there was
every chance in their favor, she had grown a little calmer, but before
going away had so far forgotten herself as to intimate that if some
result was not reached before another fortnight had elapsed, she should
take the matter into her own hands and--She did not say what she would
do, but her looks were of a very menacing character. It was no wonder,
then, that her countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she
trod the halls of that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich
with bronzes and the glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing
suggestions of loss and wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze
from the windows for the coming of one whose footsteps were ever
delayed. She happened to be looking out, when after a longer stroll than
usual the master of the house returned. As he made his appearance at the
corner, I saw her hurriedly withdraw her head and hide herself behind
the curtain, from which position she watched him as with tired steps and
somewhat dejected mien, he passed up the steps and entered the house.
Not till the door closed upon him, did she venture to issue forth and
with a hurried movement shut the blinds and disappear. This anxiety on
her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough was I when on the next day
I found myself well enough to renew my operations. To ferret out this
mystery, if mystery it was,--I still found myself forced to admit the
possibility of there being none--had now become the one ambition of my
life; and all because it was not only an unusually blind one, but of a
nature that involved danger to my position as detective, I entered upon
it with a zest rare even to me who love my work and all it involves with
an undivided passion.
To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake shortly
after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship to me that
bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience, a long and
wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all probability at the
end but reiterated disappointment. But for once the fates had willed
it otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at the failure of his own
attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart to prosecute them than
usual I cannot say, but we had scarcely entered upon the lower end of
the Bowery, before he suddenly turned with a look of disgust, and
gazing hurriedly about him, hailed a Madison Avenue car that was rapidly
approaching. I was at that moment on the other side of the way, but I
hurried forward too, and signaled the same car. But just as I was on the
point of entering it I perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with
his eyes upon a girl that was hurrying past him with a basket on her
arm, regain the sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop
her. Of course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him
too closely after my late conspicuous attempt to enter it with him. But
from my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the girl,
who from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of any one
of the shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the four corners
within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for a few moments,
saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking. Reckless at this
sight of the consequences which might follow his detection of the part
I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was suddenly disconcerted by
observing him hurriedly separate from the girl and turn towards me with
intention as it were to regain the corner he had left. Weighing in an
instant the probable good to be obtained by following either party,
I determined to leave Mr. Blake for one day to himself, and turn my
attention to the girl he had addressed, especially as she was tall and
thin and bore herself with something like grace.
Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain
attempt to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown
five years older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now
flitting before me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her dress
to its minutest details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged and
uncouth it was. That Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen, clad
in a black alpaca frock, a striped shawl and a Bowery hat trimmed with
feathers, I could easily understand; but that this creature with her
faded calico dress, dingy cape thrown carelessly over her head, and
ragged basket, should arrest his attention, was a riddle to me. I
hastened forward with intent to catch a glimpse of her countenance if
possible; but she seemed to have acquired wings to her feet since her
interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd of hooting urchins that
were rushing from Centre Street after a broken wagon and runaway horse,
she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I soon saw that my only hope
of overtaking her lay in running. I accordingly quickened my steps when
those same hooting youngsters getting in the way of my feet, I tripped
up and--well, I own I retired from that field baffled. Not entirely so,
however. Just as I was going down, I caught sight of the girl tearing
away from a box of garbage on the curb-stone; and when order having
been restored, by which lofty statement I mean to say when your humble
servant had regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the fact that she had
effectually disappeared, I hurried to that box and succeeded in finding
hanging to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a piece of the old
calico frock of nameless color which I had been following a moment
before. Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory day’s
work, I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till--But
with all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.
When I came home that afternoon I found myself unexpectedly involved in
a matter that for the remainder of the day at least, prevented me from
further attending to the affair I had in hand. The next morning Mr.
Blake did not start out as usual, and at noon I received intimation
from Fanny that he was preparing to take a journey. Where, she could
not inform me, nor when, though she thought it probable he would take an
early train. Mrs. Daniels was feeling dreadfully, she informed me; and
the house was like a grave. Greatly excited at this unexpected move on
Mr. Blake’s part, I went home and packed my valise with something of the
spirit of her who once said, under somewhat different circumstances I
allow, “Whither thou goest I will go.”
The truth was, I had travelled so far and learned so little, that
my professional pride was piqued. That expression of Mr. Gryce still
rankled, and nothing could soothe my injured spirit now but success.
Accordingly when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the Hudson
River Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a small town
in the northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a spruce
young drummer, or what certainly appeared such, who by some strange
coincidence, wanted a ticket for the same place. The fact did not seem
in the least to surprise him, nor did he cast me a look beyond the
ordinary glance of one stranger at another. Indeed Mr. Blake had no
appearance of being a suspicious man, nor do I think at this time,
he had the remotest idea that he was either watched or followed; an
ignorance of the truth which I took care to preserve by taking my seat
in a different car from him and not showing myself again during the
whole ride from New York to Putney.