as altogether feminine. But he had something to say about the package
itself, which kept the good woman waiting, though a customer or two
demanded her attention.
"You'll think me a fussy old man," said he, "but I've worried about that
package all night. She needs a new dress so much, and I'm afraid you
didn't have the right address. I remember it now--it was--was----"
"Barford on the Hudson," she finished promptly. Evidently she begrudged
the time she was wasting on his imbecilities.
"That's it; that's it. 'Way up in the Catskills, isn't it?"
"I don't know. Those people are waiting, sir. I shall really----"
"One moment! I want to buy something more for her. But I'll send it
myself this time; I won't bother you again. Another dress, something
bright and prettier than anything she has. She'll forgive me. She'll be
glad to have it."
"I don't know, sir." The woman was really very much embarrassed. She was
honest to the core, and though she enjoyed seeing her goods disappear
from the shelves, it wasn't in her heart to take advantage of a man so
old as this. "I'm afraid she wouldn't be pleased. You see, it isn't a
fortnight since she bought and made up the one I sold her first, and she
thought that a great extravagance. Now with the gray----"
"Are you speaking of the blue one?"
"No, it wasn't blue."
"What color was it? Haven't you a bit left to show me? I should know
better what to do, then."
She pointed to a bolt of striped wool--a little gaudy for a woman whose
taste they had both been speaking of as inclined to the plain and somber.
"That? But that's bright enough. I've never seen her in that."
"She didn't like it. But something made her take it. She wore it when she
came in last."
"She did! Then I'm satisfied. Thankee all the same. Just give me a pair
of gloves for her, and I'll be getting on."
She picked out a pair for him, and he trotted away, mumbling cheerily to
himself as he passed between the counters. But once in his taxi again,
he concentrated all his thought on that bolt of striped dress-goods. The
colors were crimson and black, with a dot here and there of some lighter
shade! He took pains to fix it in his mind, for this was undoubtedly the
dress she fled in--an important clue to him, if this hunt should resolve
itself into a chase with doubling and redoubling of the escaping quarry.
He spent the next two hours in acquainting himself with the location and
some of the conditions of the town he now meant to visit. Though he could
not understand Madame Duclos' reason for taking the name of a woman so
well known as this Elvira Brown, there was something in this circumstance
and the fact that the person so styled had been at that moment at the
point of death, which called, as he felt, for personal investigation. He
hardly felt fit for any such purely speculative expedition as this;
especially as he must do without the companionship, to say nothing of the
assistance, of Sweetwater, whom he hardly felt justified in withdrawing
from the task he had given him. So he picked out a fellow named Perry;
and together they took the West Shore into Greene County, where they
stopped at a station from which a branch road ran to the small town
whither the package addressed to Elvira Brown had preceded them.
Accidents frequently determine our course, as well as turn us from the
one we had mapped out for ourselves. By accident I mean, in this case, an
actual one which had occurred on the branch road I have mentioned, by
which the trains were held up and further progress in that direction made
impossible. When this came to the knowledge of Mr. Gryce, he found it
necessary to choose between trusting himself to an automobile for the
rest of the journey, or of remaining all night in the town where the
train had stopped. A glance at the hills towering up between him and his
goal decided him to wait for the running of the trains next day; and
after an inquiry or two, he left the station on foot for the hotel to
which he had been recommended.
A philosopher, in many regards, Mr. Gryce quieted himself, under the
irritation of this annoyance, with the thought that in this world we do
not always know just what is best for us; and that the few hours of rest
thus forced upon him by the seemingly unfortunate break in his plans
might prove in the end to be the best thing that could happen to him. He
accordingly took a good room, enjoyed a good dinner and then sat down in
the lobby to have an equally good smoke. He chose a chair which gave him
a prospect of the river, and for a long time, while vaguely listening to
the talk about him, he feasted his eyes on the view and allowed some of
its calm to enter his perturbed spirit. But gradually, as he looked and
smoked, he found his attention caught, first by what a man was saying in
his rear, and secondly by something he saw intervening between himself
and the flow of shining river which had hitherto filled his eye.
The sentence which had roused him was one quite foreign to his thoughts
and seemingly of little importance to him or to anyone about. It was in
connection with a factory on the other side of the river, which was
running overtime, and had not help enough to fill its orders.
"It's women we want," he heard shouted out. "Young women, middle-aged
women, any sort of women who are anxious for steady work and good wages."
The emphasis with which this announcement was made perhaps gave it point;
at all events this one brief sentence sank into Mr. Gryce's ear just as
he began to notice a woman who sat with her back to him on the hotel
piazza.
He was not thinking of Madame Duclos at that moment; nor was there the
least thing about this woman to recall his secret quarry to mind. Yet
once his eyes had fallen on her, they remained there for several minutes.
Why?
Perhaps because she sat so unnaturally still. In all the time he stared
at her simple bonnet and decently clothed shoulders, the silhouette she
made against the silver band of the river did not change by an iota. He
had been agaze upon the landscape too, but he was sure that he had not
sat as still as this, and when, after an interval during which he had
turned to see what kind of man it was who had spoken so vigorously, he
wheeled back into place and glanced out again through his window, she was
there yet, hat, shoulders and all, immovable as an image and almost as
rigid.
Well, and what of it? There was surely nothing very remarkable in so
commonplace a fact; yet during the ensuing half-hour, during which he
gave, or tried to give, the greater part of his attention to the
political talk which followed the statements he had heard made in regard
to the needs of a certain factory, his eye would turn riverward from time
to time and always with a view to see if this woman had moved. And not
once did he detect the least change in her attitude.
"She will sit there all night," he muttered to himself; and after a while
his curiosity mounted to such a pitch that he got up and went out on the
piazza for one of his short strolls.
XXII
HE REMEMBERS
Just an ordinary woman, lost in a dream of some kind while awaiting her
departure on an out-going train!--or such was Detective Gryce's
conclusion as he hobbled slowly past her.
Why should he give her a moment's thought? Yet he did. He noticed her
dress and the way she held her hands, and the fact, not suspected before,
that she was not looking out at the landscape outspread before her eyes,
but down into her lap at her own hands clasped together in an unnaturally
tight grip. Then he straightway forgot her in the thought of that other
woman whose track he was following with such poor promise of success.
Madame Duclos' image was in his mind as plainly as if she sat before him
in place of this chance passenger. He knew the sort of hat she would wear
(or thought he did). He also knew the color of her dress. Had he not been
shown the piece of goods from which it had been taken? And had he not
understood her choice, bizarre as it was, and for this very reason, that
it was bizarre? Being a woman of subtle mind, she would reason that
since the police were seeking one of plain exterior and simple dress, a
gaudy frock would throw them off their guard and insure her immunity from
any close inspection. Therefore this striped material rather than the
plain black she so much preferred. Then her eyes! She would try to hide
the defect which particularized them, by the use of glasses or, at least,
by a very heavy veil. While her walk--well! she might successfully
conceal her halting step if she were not hurried. But he promised himself
that he would be very careful to see that any woman rousing his suspicion
should be given some reason for hurrying.
While thus musing, he had reached the farther end of the piazza. In
wheeling about to come back, the woman whose profile he now faced
attracted his eye again, in spite of himself, and he gave her another
idle thought. How absorbing was the subject upon which she was brooding,
and how deeply it affected her!
It struck him as he quietly repassed her that he had never seen a sadder
face. Then that impression passed from his mind, for he saw Perry coming
toward him with a pencil and telegram-blank in hand. He had decided to
let Sweetwater know where he could be reached that night, and Perry had
come for the message.
It must have been fully two hours later that Mr. Gryce, sitting down in
his former chair, looked up and found his view unobstructed to the river.
The woman had gone.
Just for the sake of saying something to Perry, who had drawn up beside
him, he remarked upon the fact, adding in explanation of his interest in
so small a matter:
"It's the thoughts and feelings of people which take hold of my curiosity
now. Human nature is a big book, a great book. I have only begun to
thumb it, and I'm an old man. Some people betray their emotions in one
way, some in another. Some are loudest when most troubled, and some are
so quiet one would think them dead. The woman I was watching there was
one of the quiet ones; her trouble was deep; that was apparent from her
outline--an outline which never varied."
"Yes, she's a queer duck. I saw her: I even did an errand for her--that
was before you sat down here."
"You did an errand for her?"
"Yes; she wanted a newspaper. Of course I was glad to get it for her, as
she said she was lame."
"Lame?"
"Yes; I suppose she spoke the truth. I didn't think of her being in any
special trouble, but I did think her an odd one. She seemed to be wearing
two dresses."
Mr. Gryce started and turned sharply toward him.
"What's that you say? What do you mean by that?"
"Why, this: when she stopped to get her money out of some hidden pocket,
she pulled up the skirt of her dress, and I saw another one under it.
Perhaps she thought that was the easiest way of carrying it. I noticed
that her suit-case was a small one."
"Describe that under-frock to me." Mr. Gryce's air and tone were
unaccountably earnest. "What was its color?"
"Why, reddish, I think. No, it had stripes in it and something like
spots. Do you suppose it was her petticoat?"
Mr. Gryce brought his hand down on his lame knee and did not seem to feel
it. "Find out where she's gone!" he cried. "No, I will do it myself."
And before the other could recover from his astonishment, he had started
for the piazza where he had just seen the proprietor of the hotel take
his seat.
"This comes from an old man's folly in thinking he could manage an affair
of this kind without help," he mumbled to himself as he went stumping
along. "Had I told Perry whom we were after and how he was to recognize
her, I should have spent my time talking with this woman instead of
staring at her. Two dresses! with the bright one under! Well, she's even
more subtle than I thought."
And by this time, having reached the man he sought, he put his question:
"Can you tell me anything about the woman who was sitting here? Who she
is and where she has gone?"
"The woman who was sitting here? Why, I should say she was a factory hand
and has gone to her work on the other side of the river."
"Her name? Do you know her name? I'm a detective from New York--one of
the regular police force. I'm in search of a woman not unlike the one
I saw here, though not, I am bound to state, a factory worker except on
compulsion."
"You are! A police detective, eh, and at your age! It must be a healthy
employment. But about this woman! I'm sorry, but I can't tell you
anything except that she came on the same train you did and wanted a boat
right away to take her across the river. You see, we've no ferry here,
and I told her so, and the only way she could get across was to wait for
Phil Jenkins, who was going over at five. She said she would wait, and
sat down here, refusing dinner, or even to enter the house. Perhaps she
wasn't hungry, and perhaps she didn't wish to register, eh?"
"Had her speech an accent? Did you take her for a foreign woman?"
"Yes, I did and I didn't. She spoke very well. She's not young, you
know?"
"I'm not looking for a young woman."
"Well, she's gone and you can't reach her to-night. There they are now,
see! about a quarter of the way across. That small boat just slipping
across the wake of the big one."
Mr. Gryce looked and saw that she was in the way of escape for to-night.
"When can I get over?" he asked.
"Not till Phil crosses again to-morrow noon."
"Meanwhile, she may go anywhere. I shall certainly lose her."
"Hardly. She's bound for the factory; you can just see the roof of
it above the trees a little to the right. She asked me all sorts of
questions about the work over there, and whether there were decent places
to live in within walking distance of the factory."
"Then she isn't lame? My woman is a trifle lame."
"So may this woman be, for all I know. I didn't see her on her feet, but
she carried no crutch--only a bag and an umbrella."
"A brown bag, neat like herself in appearance?"
"No. It was light in color and old. She herself was neat enough."
Mr. Gryce's brows came together. He was in a quandary. He felt convinced,
with a positiveness which surprised him, that in watching the withdrawal
of this small boat farther and farther toward the opposite shore, he was
watching the escape of Antoinette Duclos from his immediate interference.
Yet, circumstantial as were the proofs which had led him to this
conclusion, he felt that he would gladly welcome some further
corroboration of those proofs before risking the time and opportunity he
might lose in following the person of two skirts to her destination on
the other side of the Hudson. There were more reasons than one why he
could not afford to lose one unnecessary minute. An extra twinge or two
of rheumatism warned him that he was approaching the point of
disablement.
Moreover, of Mr. Gryce's secret fears there was one which loomed larger
than the others and held an impulsive, unconsidered movement in check.
He must have proof of her identity--which nevertheless he did not
question--before hazarding himself and the success of his undertaking
by a delay of so many additional hours. But what proof could he hope
to obtain under the circumstances in which he found himself placed?
Any appeal to Mrs. Edouard Duclos, by telephone or telegram, would
certainly fail of its purpose. Even if the neat black dress in which her
sister-in-law now traveled was one from her own wardrobe, he would find
it impossible to establish the fact in time to make his own decision. The
child--yes, he might worm that fact out of the child if he were where he
could reach her; but he was miles away; and besides, something within him
revolted from involving this child further in schemes honest enough from
his standpoint, but certainly not helpful to her. No, he would have to
trust his intuition, or--
He had thrown himself into a chair at the side of his host, but he rose
quickly as his musings reached this point. The proof he had been looking
for was his. In recalling the child to mind there had flashed upon his
inner vision an instantaneous picture of her appearance as she stooped to
pick up his stick in front of the drug-store. He saw again the bending
figure, the flushed cheeks and the flaxen locks surmounted by a little
hat. Ah! it was that little hat! The impression it had made upon him was
greater than he thought. He found that he remembered not only its
ribbons, but the bunches of curiously tinted flowers hanging down in
front. And these bunches, or some precisely like them, had been the
sole trimming of the hat he had been contemplating so long from the other
side of the window. The woman was Madame Duclos. These flowers had been
taken from the child's hat and pinned upon the aunt's; and it was their
familiar look which had given him, without any recognition of the reason,
his surety as to the latter's identity.
Calmed immensely by this assurance, he turned back to have another word
with the proprietor, now busily engaged with his newspaper.
"Will you be obliging enough to see that I'm given an opportunity for a
few words with this Phil Jenkins on his return?" he asked. "And if you
will be so good, respect my confidence till I am sure I have made no
mistake in thinking what I have of his passenger."
The proprietor nodded, and Mr. Gryce settled himself again inside to
watch for the rowboat's return.
What he learned that night from this man Jenkins calmed him still
further. The woman had acknowledged, on leaving him, that she was going
to seek work at the factory. "A little old for the job," the man
volunteered, "but spry. How she did clamber up that bank!"
It was enough; Mr. Gryce was satisfied, and engaged a seat in his small
boat for the following day.
XXIII
GIRLS, GIRLS! NOTHING BUT GIRLS!
The superintendent was puzzled and showed it. He listened to Mr. Gryce
with a shrug, saying that so many women had been taken on that day, that
he really couldn't remember whether any one of them answered to the given
description.
"There's the time-keeper's book. Look it over. All the names are there,"
he said.
Mr. Gryce did as he advised, but of course without finding there the name
of Antoinette Duclos or of anyone else of whom he had ever heard.
The next thing was for him to go through the factory itself and see if he
could pick her out from those already at work. This he was greatly averse
to doing; it would be too long and painful an effort for him, and he
could not trust Perry with any such piece of nice discrimination. How he
missed Sweetwater! How tempted he was to send for him! It was finally
decided that when the hour came for the departure of the whole dayshift,
he should take his stand where he could mark each employee as she
filed out.
A sorry attempt followed by as sorry a failure! He did not see one among
them who was over twenty-five years of age. But this did not mean the
end of all hope. There was the nightshift. Might she not be put on that?
A different man had charge at night. He would wait for this man's
appearance, present his cause to him and see what could be done.
Not much, he found, when the night superintendent finally entered the
office and he had the chance of introducing himself. Newer to authority
than the superintendent of the dayshift, he was also of a more active
temperament and much more self-assertive. He was not impressed by the
detective's years or even by his errand. It was a busy night, a very busy
night--new hands in every department. To take him through the building at
present was quite out of the question. Perhaps later it might be done;
but not now, not now.
With that the night superintendent bustled out. This was not very
encouraging, but Mr. Gryce did not despair. He had seen with what ease he
could look from the broad, rear window near which he stood, into the
rooms where rows upon rows of girls were already at work. Only a narrow
court divided him from these girls, and as the three stories of which the
factory was composed were all brilliantly lighted, he should have little
difficulty in picking out from among them the middle-aged woman who held
in her closed and mysterious hand the key to that formidable affair
threatening the honor of one of New York's most prominent men.
Before doing this, Mr. Gryce stopped to locate himself and recall if
possible the entire plan of the building. He was in what was called the
outer office. The inner one, used only by the president of the concern,
opened on his left. There was no one in the latter room at present, the
president seldom showing up at night. Another door led to the platform
outside, and a third one, located in the middle of the right-hand
partition, to a large vestibule or locker-room belonging exclusively to
the girls, which in its turn communicated with the work-rooms of the
factory running in unbroken continuity around a narrow central court.
He had been through this locker-room in the late afternoon. It was here
he had stood to watch the girls file out at the close of their day's
work. The exit for all employees was in one of the corners and out of
this Antoinette Duclos would have to pass when it came her turn to leave
the building--that is, if she were really in it, as he had every
reason to believe.
However, certainty on this point would relieve him from much of his
present impatience, and with this end in view he prepared to enter the
room again in the hope of spying among the various hats with which the
walls were hung the one with whose shape and trimming he was so well
acquainted.
But promising as this attempt looked, it was destined to immediate
failure. The room was not empty. He could hear girls whispering not a
dozen steps away, and anxious as he always was not to attract any
unnecessary attention to himself, he turned his back upon this door and
returned to the window from the broad view of which he anticipated so
much.
A brilliant scene awaited him. This building, built originally for other
purposes, had been hastily reconstructed for its present use in a manner
possibly open to criticism but which certainly gave those who worked in
it an abundance of light and air. The narrow columns supporting its three
stories were so inconspicuous at night when a blaze of electricity
dominated the whole, that it presented the appearance of being made
entirely of windows. One break and one only he observed in the double row
of lights encircling the courtyard. This was in a spot diagonally
opposite, where a space of several feet showed a dimness he failed to
understand. But as no workers appeared to be there, he passed the matter
over as one of no importance.
The task before him looked hopeless. In the first place there were the
three floors, with no faces visible above the first one. Then of the long
rectangle stretching out before him he could see but two sides, which
fact was further complicated by there being as many of the workers' faces
turned toward the outside of the building as toward the court. Yet having
determined upon his course, he was bound to see it through.
His position near the corner of the huge rectangle precluded his seeing
anyone working at his own end. He was obliged to pass them over. But of
those opposite, especially those directly so, he could take easy count.
They were all girls of fifteen or so, and could be passed over also
without more than a cursory glance. Further on he saw a row of older
women, and student as he was of human nature, there were faces among them
at which he was tempted to look twice, though once answered his purpose.
There was no Madame there.
Continuing his examination, he next encountered the space so
unaccountably darkened, and having skipped this, came upon a stretch of
benches displaying great activity. Only old hands seemed to be at work in
this section. Their method and despatch showed a training which made it
useless to look among them for one who had probably never worked before
amid the hum of machinery.
In the corner beyond he saw nobody, but when he came to look along the
end connecting the opposite rooms with those on his side, a different
scene awaited him. There every bench seemed occupied both back and front,
and mostly by newcomers, as was apparent from the anxious way the
superintendent moved about among them, explaining the work and directing
them with a zeal which not only attested his interest in the task but
showed how completely he had forgotten the man he had left behind him in
his office. Well, well, such is the way of the world! The old man saw
that he would have to depend upon himself, and realizing this, bent all
his energies to his present far-off inspection of these women, hoping
against hope that he would be able at least to tell the young from the
old.
Yes, he could do that, but the older women seemed to be in the majority;
and this perplexed him. It was all too distant for him to see clearly,
but he took heart of grace as he observed how the faces and figures he
was studying so closely were resolving themselves into mere silhouettes
under his gaze. For as I have already said, he had a quick eye for
outline, and felt sure that he could sufficiently recall that of the
woman whose head and shoulders had been so long under his eye that day,
to recognize it even among fifty others. But not one of them--not one of
them all--had the precise narrowness and rigidity of Madame Duclos'; and
after many painful minutes of renewed effort followed by renewed
disappointment he moved back from the window and sat down. There was one
thing you could always count on in Mr. Gryce, and that was his patience.
But it was a patience not without its breaks. Once he rose to look out
front to make sure he had not miscalculated the distance of this factory
from the river. Then after another period of waiting, he got thinking how
much he might discover if he could get one glimpse into that far corner
contiguous to that end of the rectangle where he had seen so many raw
workers receiving the assistance of the night superintendent. There was a
way of doing this of which he had not thought before. He had but to step
outside, walk the length of the platform where the loading of shipments
was going on, and look in at one of the great windows at the further end.
But when he came to make the attempt, he found himself plunged into such
a turmoil and the way so blocked by the loading of boxes and the backing
up and driving off of horses that he retreated precipitately. Rather than
encounter all this, he would await events from the inside. So he took his
old seat again and for another half-hour listened to the thump of
machinery and the squeak of a rusty elevator-brake which almost robbed
him of thought. He was even inclined to doze, when he suddenly became
aware of some change either in himself or in what lay about him.
Had the machinery stopped? No, it was not that.
The place seemed darker, yet it was still very light.
With a restless move, he rose heavily and peered again into the court.
Immediately it was evident what had occurred. The whole string of lights
in the third story had been shut off, and now those of the middle story
were following suit. Only the ground floor remained active with all its
lights at the maximum, and every belt moving.
At this unexpected narrowing down of his field of operations he felt
greatly relieved. He had dreaded those long walks through innumerable
rooms. He could manage circling the building once, but three times would
have been too much. In a mood of increased contentment, he started to
return to his seat, but found himself stayed by something he saw in what
had been but a dimly lighted space when he looked there last. It was now
as bright as the rest and showed him the figure of the superintendent
stooping over a woman, explaining to her some intricate manipulation of
the work in hand which was evidently quite new to her. He could see him
very plainly, but her figure was more or less hidden. Not for long
though. The superintendent passed on and she came into full view. It was
Antoinette Duclos. He was confident of this even before he noted her
dress. When his eyes fell on that, he was sure; there was no mistaking
the stripes and the dots. Antoinette Duclos! and she was where he could
reach her in five minutes--in fact as soon as the superintendent
returned. As he stood and watched her working quite assiduously but in
something like isolation, he felt as though ten years had slipped from
his age, and trifled with his pleasure as the rest of us do when we
behold a despaired-of goal loom suddenly in sight. Was she the woman he
had pictured in his mind's eye? Hardly. Yet there was an admirable
directness in her movements. From the way she went about things, he could
plainly see that she would master her duties in no time if Fate did not
interpose to prevent. It certainly was hard to interrupt her in her work
just when she was on the way to safety and competence. But there could be
no question of his duty, or of the claims of Mr. Roberts to whatever help
might accrue from an understanding of the relation of this woman to
events threatening his reputation with such utter destruction. Her story
might free him from all suspicion or it might actually determine his
guilt. Therefore her story must be had, and at once--if possible, this
very night.
But he must wait--wait for the coming of the superintendent. He felt safe
to do this. Meanwhile he was determined not to let this woman out of his
sight; so, drawing up a chair, he settled down within view of her active
figure, from which all rigidity had vanished in the interest she was
rapidly developing in her work. If he could have seen her countenance
more clearly, he would have been glad. There seemed to be a veil between
him and it, a hazy indistinctness which he found it difficult to
understand; but remembering that he was looking through two windows and
on a long diagonal, he accepted this slight drawback with equanimity and
was about to indulge in the comfort of a cigar when he saw the scene he
still held in view change, and change vividly, to the excitation of a
fresh interest and a still more careful watch.
A girl had approached Madame Duclos from some place quite out of sight,
and in passing her by, had slipped a note into her hand. The Frenchwoman
had taken it, but in a way indicating shock. The ease which had given
suppleness to her form and surety to all her movements was gone in an
instant, and from the furtive way in which she sought to read the
communication thus handed her Mr. Gryce saw that his own powers would
soon be taxed to keep him even with a situation changing thus from moment
to moment under his eye.
What did that note contain, and who could have taken advantage of the
arrival of some late-comer to slip it into her hand? Mr. Gryce found this
a very formidable question, and watched with ever-increasing anxiety to
see what effect these unknown words would have upon their recipient when
her opportunity came for reading them.
A startling one--of that he was presently a witness; for no sooner had
she taken in their import than she cast a hurried look about her and left
her place without fuss or flurry, but with an air of quiet determination
which Mr. Gryce felt confident covered a resolution which nothing could
balk.
She had not only left her bench but seemingly was in the act of leaving
the building. This, of course, it was for him to prevent, and he rose to
do so. It might be interesting to wait and watch her hurrying figure
threading its way to the locker-room through the double row of girls on
the opposite side of the court; but there were reasons why he wished to
reach that last mentioned room before she did; reasons which seemed good
enough to send him there without any further delay. If he could but
discover her hat among the many he had seen hanging on pegs in one of the
corners, how easy it would be for him to hold her back till he could make
her listen to the few words which must be said before he could allow her
to leave the building.
Quick of eye, if not of step, he had run in review the varying headgear
depending from those isolated pegs, before he had half-circled the
lockers. But hers he did not see. Could she have been given a locker on
this her first night? He did not think so; and approaching closer, he
looked again. The hat was there, but lying on the floor. Somebody had
knocked it down; perhaps the late-comer who had given her the letter.
Greatly gratified by the advantage he now indisputably held over her, he
picked up the hat and approached the door through which she must in
another minute emerge.
She did not come.
He waited and waited, and still she did not come. At last, driven by
impatience, he ventured to open the door he had previously hesitated to
touch and took a quick look in. Girls, girls! nothing but girls! No
Madame Duclos anywhere.
Something must have happened to interrupt her escape. Either she had been
caught in the attempt by the superintendent or by some one else of equal
authority. This, if bad for her, was also bad for him, as a quiet hold-up
in the manner he had planned was certainly better than the public one
which must now follow.
Sorry for her and sorry for himself, Mr. Gryce returned to the office
just as the superintendent entered from the opposite door. He thought the
latter looked a little queer, and in an instant he learned why.
"Was the woman you wanted a staid, elderly person, apparently a
foreigner?"
"Yes--of French birth, I am told."
"Well, I guess you were all right in distrusting her. She's gone--took a
notion that night work didn't agree with her and left without so much as
a 'By your leave!' She must have smelt you out in some uncanny way. Too
bad! She bade fair to be just the woman we wanted for a very nice part of
the work."
"Do you mean she's really out of the building--that you didn't stop
her----"
"I didn't know what she was up to, till she was gone. I----"
"But how did she get out? She didn't go by the employees' door for I
stood there on the watch. I had seen her receive a note----"
"A note? How? Who gave it to her?"
"Some girl."
"And you saw this? How could you? Been through the work-rooms?"
"No. I saw her from this window, as I was looking diagonally across the
court. She was in one of the opposite rooms over there----"
The superintendent broke into a hearty laugh.
"Fooled!" he cried. "You police detectives are a smart crowd, but our old
factory with its string of useless windows has led you astray for once.
You weren't looking into any one of the rooms over there. You were
looking at a reflection in that useless old window behind which the
elevator runs. That happens when the elevator running on that side is
down. I've seen it often and laughed in my sleeve at the chance it gives
me to observe on the sly how things are going on at certain benches. Many
a girl has got her discharge--But no matter about that. Come here.
"The room you think you see over there--you will notice that nobody is at
work in it now--is on this side of the building, and the woman you have
in chase escaped by the south delivery-door. We are loading cars to-night
from this side of the building, and she took a flying advantage of it.
Men give way to a woman. Though there's an order against any such use of
that door, you can't get one of them to hold onto a woman when she once
gets it into her head to skip the premises. But she can't have gone far.
This is a place of few houses and no big buildings besides the factory.
If you take pains to head her off at the station, you'll be safe for
to-night, and in the morning you can easily find her. Now I must go; but
first, what was her offense? Theft, eh?"
"No. This woman whom we have let slip through our fingers is Madame
Duclos, the mother of the girl shot in a New York museum. There is a big
reward out for her recovery and detention, and----"
The superintendent stood aghast.
"Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you say so at once? I'd have had the
whole troop file out before you. I'd have had----"
The detective caught at his hat.
"I wasn't aware that I had reached an age when I couldn't tell the
difference between a reflection and a reality," he growled, and hurried
out.
The town was a small one; and Perry would see that she didn't escape from
the station. Besides, she had fled without her hat. Surely, with all this
in his favor, he would soon be able to lay his hand upon her, if not
to-night, certainly before another day was at an end.
XXIV
FLIGHT
In leaving the building Mr. Gryce almost ran into the arms of Perry. In
his anxiety to be within call, the young detective had seated himself on
the steps outside and now stood ready for any emergency.
Mr. Gryce's spirits rose as he saw him there. The great door leading to
the elevator opened not twenty feet to the left of him. Perhaps Perry had
seen the woman and could tell which way she ran. Questions followed,
rapid and to the purpose. Perry had seen a woman flash by. But she seemed
to be in company with a man. He had not been able to see either clearly.
"Which way were they heading?" asked Mr. Gryce.
Perry told him.
It would look as though they were making for the station. Alarmed at the
idea, Mr. Gryce stepped down into the road and endeavored to pierce the
darkness in that direction. All he could see were the station lights.
Everything else was in shadow. The night hung over all, and had it not
been for the grinding of machinery in their rear, the silence would have
been just as marked.
"Perry, is the way rough between here and the station--I mean, rough for
me?"
"Not very, if you keep in the road."
"Run ahead, then, and learn how soon the next train is due--any train,
going north or going south--I don't care which. If it is soon, look
for a middle-aged woman in a striped dress, and if you can't prevent
her getting on, without a fracas, follow her yourself and never quit
her--telegraphing me at the first opportunity. Run."
Perry gave a leap and was soon swallowed up in the darkness which was
intense as soon as he had passed beyond the glare from the factory. Mr.
Gryce followed after, moving as quickly as he dared. It was not far to
the station platform, but in his anxiety it seemed a mile; nor did he
breathe with ease till he saw a flying shadow come between him and the
station lights and knew that Perry had reached the platform.
It was just at the hour when the fewest trains pass, and Mr. Gryce was
himself across the tracks and on the platform before a far-off whistle
warned him that one was approaching. Looking hastily around, he saw Perry
hurrying up behind him.
"No one," said he. "No such person around."
They waited. The train came in, stopped, took on two unimportant
passengers and rushed away north.
"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to stay here, Perry. It would be so
easy for her to board one of these night trains and buy a ticket from the
conductor."
But as he spoke he paused, and gripping Perry's arm, turned his ear to
listen.
"A boat," said he. "A small boat leaving shore."
It was so. They could hear the dip of the oars distinctly in the quiet
which had followed the departure of the train. No other sound but that
was in the air, and it struck cold upon one old heart.
"It is she! I'm sure of it," muttered Gryce.
"The man across the river has warned her--sent a boat for her, perhaps.
Run down to the point and see if there is anyone there who saw her go."
Perry slid into the night, and Mr. Gryce stood listening. The quiet dip
of the oars was growing fainter every instant. The boat was rapidly
withdrawing, carrying with it all hope of securing off-hand this
desirable witness.
To be sure, there was nothing very serious in this. He had only to
telephone across the river to have the woman detained till he could reach
her himself in the early morning. Yet he felt unaccountably disturbed and
anxious. For all his many experiences and a record which should have made
him immune from the ordinary disappointments of life, he had never, or so
it seemed to him, felt more thoroughly depressed or weary of the work
which had given him occupation for more years than he liked to number,
than in the few minutes of solitary waiting, with his face toward the
river and the sense of some impending doom settling slowly over his aged
heart.
But he was still too much the successful detective to allow his
disheartenment to be seen by his admiring subordinate. As the latter
approached, the old man's countenance brightened, and nothing could
have been more deceptive than the calmness he displayed when the fellow
reported that he had just been talking to a man who had recognized the
boat and the oarsman. It was the same boat and the same oarsman that had
brought them over earlier in the day. He had made an extra trip at this
most unusual hour, for the express purpose of taking this woman back.
"I suppose there is no possibility of your drumming up anyone to row us
over in time to catch them?"
"None in the least. I have inquired."
"Then follow me into the station. I have a few messages to send."
Among these messages was a peremptory one to Sweetwater.
Morning! and an early crossing to the other side. Here a surprise awaited
them. They found, on inquiry, that the man responsible for Madame's
flitting was not, as they had supposed, the hotel proprietor, but Phil
himself, the good-natured, easily-imposed-upon ferryman, on whose
sympathies she had worked during their first short passage from one shore
to the other. Perhaps a little money had helped to deepen this
impression; one never knows.
But this was not all. The woman was gone. She had fled the town on foot
before they were able to locate Phil, who had not made shore at his usual
place but at some point up the river about which they knew nothing. When
he finally showed up, it was almost daybreak.
"Where is he now?"
"At home, or ought to be."
"Show me the house."
In ten minutes the two were face to face.
The result was not altogether satisfactory to the detective. Though he
used all his skill in his manipulation of this kind-hearted ferryman, he
got very little from him but the plain fact that the woman insisted upon
taking to the road when she heard that the train-service had stopped;
that he could not persuade her to wait till daylight or to listen for a
moment to what he had to say of the danger and terrors awaiting her in
the darkness, and the awful loneliness of the hills. She didn't fear
nature even at its worst, and she knew these hills better than many who
had lived among them for years. She was bound to go, and she went.
This was six hours ago. Asked to explain the interest he had shown in
her, it soon became evident that he was in complete ignorance of her
identity. He had simply, on their first trip over, seen that she was
middle-aged, suffering and much too good and kind to be followed up by
enemies and wicked police officials. True, he had rowed them over in her
pursuit in the early part of the day, but that was because he had not
known their business. When on returning he had learned it, he made up
his mind to help her out with a warning even if it kept him up all night.
He had not expected to bring her back with him, but she had insisted upon
his doing so, saying that she had friends in the mountains who would look
after her. He saw that she was dreadfully in earnest, for she had not
stopped to get her hat and would not have had so much as an extra stitch
with her if she had not taken the precaution to hide a bag of things
somewhere in the bushes near the factory, in anticipation of some such
emergency. And he couldn't resist her. She made him think of a sister of
his who had had a dreadful time of it in the world and was now well out
of it, thank God!
When the ferryman heard that a reward of hundreds of dollars was waiting
for the man who succeeded in bringing her before the police officials in
New York, he betrayed some chagrin, but even this did not last. He was
soon declaring with heartfelt earnestness that he didn't care anything
about that. It was peace of mind he wanted, and not money.
When Mr. Gryce left him, it was with an even slower step than usual.
Peace of mind! How about his own peace of mind? Was he trailing this
poor unfortunate from pillar to post, for the reward it would bring him?
No. With his advancing years money had lost much of its attraction. Nor,
if he knew himself, was he particularly affected by the glory which
attends success. Duty, and duty only, drove him on--to elucidate his
problem and merit the confidence put in him by his superiors. If
suffering followed, that was not his fault; his business was to go ahead.
It was in this frame of mind that he prepared himself for the automobile
trip he saw before him.
There was no question in Mr. Gryce's mind now, as to this woman's
destination or whither he should be obliged to go in order to find her.
As he now saw into her mind, she had left New York with the intention of
hiding herself in the remote village to which she had ordered her mail
sent under the name of Elvira Brown, whom she evidently knew; but
hearing, either on the car or in the hotel, where she was detained, the
plea which was being made for workers in the factory on the east side of
the river, she had modified her plans to the extent already known, only
to return to her original intention as soon as the attempt to provide for
herself in this independent way had proved a failure.
He would proceed then in her wake, conscious of the fresh disappointment
which awaited her in the loss, through Miss Brown's sudden death, of the
asylum she counted upon. Could he have gone on foot like herself, he
might have been tempted to do so, for a trail is best followed slowly and
with ear and eye very close to the ground. But as this was beyond his
strength, he must wait till an automobile could be procured, and possibly
till Sweetwater should arrive--for Perry was no man for this job. There
were no automobiles in this small town, and it might be necessary to send
up or down the river some distance before one could be found capable of
carrying them over the precipitous road they would be obliged to take in
order to avoid the washout which had driven them to this extremity.
But all would come right in time; and with Sweetwater at his elbow, the
journey would be made and the woman caught, soon enough for him no doubt,
hard as he felt it to wait. Why so hard, he might have found it difficult
to say, since hitherto he had found it easy enough when the goal seemed
sure and it was only with time he had to reckon!
XXV
TERROR
A woman fleeing from publicity as one flies from death--a refined woman,
too, whose life had hitherto been passed in the open!
When Antoinette Duclos, after a night and morning of unprecedented
fatigue and extraordinary fears, with little to upbear her in the way of
food, stepped from the train which brought a few local passengers into
the quiet village of Rexam, she hardly would have been recognized by her
best friend, such marks may a few hours leave upon one battling with
untoward Fate in one supreme effort.
She seemed to realize this, for meeting more than one eye fixed
inquiringly upon her she drew down the veil wound about a sort of cap she
wore till it concealed not only her features but her throat which a
restless pulse had tightened almost to the exclusion of her breath. Ready
to drop, she yet made use of the little energy left her, to approach with
faltering steps a lumbering old vehicle waiting in the dust and smoke for
such passengers as might wish to be taken up Long Hill.
There was no driver in sight, but she did not hesitate to take her seat
inside. There was extra business at the station, for this was the first
train to come in for two days; and if anyone noticed her in the shadowy
recesses of the cumbrous old coach, nobody approached her; nor was she in
any way disturbed. When the driver did show himself, she was almost
asleep, but she woke up quickly enough when his good-natured face peered
in at her and she heard him ask where she wanted to go and whether she
had any baggage.
"I want to go up Long Hill and be set down at the first cross-road," she
said. "My baggage is here." And she pointed to the space at her feet.
But that space was empty; she had no baggage. She had dropped both bag
and umbrella at the side of the road after one of her long climbs under a
fitful moon and had not so much as thought of them since.
Now she remembered and flushed as she met the eyes of the man looking in
at her with his hand on his whiskers, smoothing them thoughtfully down
but saying nothing, though his countenance and expression showed him to
be one of the loquacious sort. If any smiles remained to her from the old
days, now was the time for one; but before she could twist her dry lips
into any such attempt, he had uttered a cheerful "All right" and turned
away to clamber up into his seat.
The relief was great, and she settled back, rejoicing in the fact that
they would soon be moving and that she was likely to be the sole
passenger. But she soon came to rue this fact, for the driver wanted to
talk and even made many abortive attempts that way. But she could not
fall in with his mood, and seeing this, he soon withheld all remarks
and bent his full energies to the task of urging his horses up the
interminable incline.
Houses, at which she scarcely looked, disappeared gradually from view,
and groups of spreading trees and patches of upland took their places,
deepening into the forest as they advanced. When halfway up, the farther
mountains, which had hitherto been hidden by nearer hills, burst into
view. Behind them the sun was setting, and the scene was glorious. If
she saw it at all, she gave no sign of pleasure or even of admiration.
Her head, which she had held straight up for the first quarter of a mile,
sank lower and lower as they clambered on; yet she gave no signs of
drowsiness--only of a mortal weariness which seemed to attack the very
springs of life. The pomp and pageantry of the heavens, burning with
all the pigments of the rainbow, failed to appeal to a soul shut within
dungeon bars. Rocks and mighty gorges darkling to the eye and stirring to
the imagination held no story for her; she looked neither to the right
nor to the left while the beauty lasted, much less when the last gleam
had faded from the mountain tops and a troop of leaden clouds, coming up
from the east, added their shadows to those of premature night.
The driver, who had been eying these clouds for some little time, felt
that he ought to speak if she did not. Pulling up his horses as though to
give them a breathing spell, he remarked over his shoulder with a strain
of anxiety in his voice:
"I hope your friends live near the top of the hill, missus. A storm is
coming up, and it's getting very dark. Will you have to walk far?"
"No, no," she assured him with a quick glance up and around her. "A
little way, a very little way!" Then she became quiet and absorbed again.
"I've got to go on," he broke in again as the top of the hill came in
sight. "I've a passenger for the eight-fifty train waiting for me more
than a mile along the road. I shall have to leave you after I set you
down."
"That's right; I expect that. I can take care of myself--don't worry. Not
but what you're very kind," she added after a moment, in her cultured
voice, with just enough trace of accent to make it linger sweetly in the
ear.
"Then here we are," he called back a moment later, jerking his horses to
a standstill and jumping down into the road. "Goin' east or goin' west?"
he asked as he took another glance at her frail and poorly protected
figure.
"This way," she answered, pointing east.
He stopped and stared at her.
"Nobody lives that way," he said, "--that is, nobody near enough for you
to reach shelter before the storm bursts."
"You are mistaken," she said, cringing involuntarily as the first big
clap of thunder rolled in endless echoes among the mountains. And turning
about, she started hurriedly into the shadows of the narrow cross-road.
He gave one glance back at his horses, the twitching of whose ears showed
nervousness, uttered some familiar word and launched out after the woman.
"Pardon me, missus," he cried, "but is it Miss Brown's you mean?"
The widow stopped, glanced back at him over her shoulder, made a quick,
protesting gesture and dashed on.
With a shake of his head and a muttered, "Well, women do beat the devil!"
he retraced his steps; and she proceeded on alone.
As the last sound of his horses' hoof-beats died out on the road, a
second clap of thunder seemed to bring heaven and earth together. She
scarcely looked up. She was approaching a little weather-beaten house
nestled among trees on the edge of a deep gorge. As her eyes fell on it,
her footsteps quickened, and lifting a hasty hand, she pulled off her
veil. A change quite indescribable, but real for all that, had taken
place in her worn and waxen features. Not joy, but a soft expectancy
relieved them from their extreme tension. If a friend awaited her, that
friend would have no difficulty in recognizing her now. But alas!
A few steps more, and she stood before the door. It had a desolate look;
the whole house had a desolate look, possibly because every shade was
drawn. But she did not notice this; she was too sure of her welcome.
Raising her hand to the knocker, she gave two sharp raps. Then she
waited. No answer from within--no sound of hurrying steps--only another
rumble in the sky and a quick rustling of the trees on either side of her
as if the wind which made the horizon black had sent an _avant-courieur_
over the hilltops.
"Elvira is out--gone to some church meeting or social gathering down in
the village. She will be back. But I won't wait. I will try and get in in
the old way. The storm may delay her indefinitely."
Leaving the door, which was raised only two steps above the road, she
walked to the corner of the house and stooping down, felt behind a
projecting stone for what she had certainly expected to find there--a key
to the front door.
But her hand came away empty.
Surprised, for this was not her first visit to this house (she had once
spent weeks there and knew the habits of its mistress well), she felt
again in the place where the key should be, and where she had so often
found it when her friend was out. But all to no avail. It was not there,
and presently she was in the road again staring at the closed-up front.
As she did so, these words left her lips:
"And she knew I might come at any minute!"
Tottering from fatigue, she caught at the trunk of a great tree which
held roof and wall in its embrace.
Why did it quiver? Why did the ground beneath her feet seem to rock and
all nature darken as with the falling of a pall. The storm was upon her.
It had rolled up with incredible swiftness and was about to break over
her head. With a shock she realized her position. No shelter, and the
storm of the season upon her! What should she do? There was no way of
getting into the house at the rear, for the bushes were too thick. She
must accept her fate, be drenched to the skin, perhaps smitten by the
next thunderbolt. But Antoinette Duclos was no coward, so far as physical
ills were concerned. She drew herself up straight against the trunk of
the tree, thinking that this, bad as it was, was better than shelter with
the enemy at the door. She would be calm, and she was fast growing so
when she suddenly became aware of a man standing very near and hunting
her out through the dusk.
She never knew why the scream which rose in her throat did not pass her
lips. Her terror was unspeakable, for she had heard no advance; indeed,
there was too much noise about her for that. But it was the silent terror
of despair, for she thought it was the man from whom she had made this
great effort at escape. But he soon proved to her he was not. It was just
the driver of the stagecoach, returned to see what had become of her. He
had feared to find her stricken down in the road, and when he saw her
clinging alone and in a maddened way to this tree, he made no bones of
speaking to her with all necessary plainness.
"I asked you if it was Missus Brown you had come to see," he called to
her through the din. "And you wouldn't answer."
"Why should I?" she shouted back. "Why do you speak like that? Has
anything happened to her?"
"Don't you know?"
"No, no--she was well when I heard from her last, and expecting me, or so
she wrote. Is she--she--"
"Dead, missus. We buried her last Tuesday. I'm sorry, but--"
Why finish? She was lying out before him, straight and stark in the road.
A bolt of lightning which at that moment tore its way through the heavens
brought into startling view her face, white with distraction, framed in a
mass of iron-gray locks released by her fall.
"Good heaven!" burst from the lips of the frightened man as he stooped to
lift her. "What am I going to do now?"
The thunder answered him, or rather it robbed him for the moment of all
thought. Peal after peal rattled over the neighboring peaks, rocking the
air on the uplands and filling his soul with dismay. But when quiet had
come again, hope returned with it. She was not only standing upright but
was crying in his ear:
"Can I get into the house? If I could stay there to-night, I could go
back to-morrow."
"I'll see that you get in, if I have to break in a window," he answered.
"But you're sure that you will not be afraid to stay out this terrible
storm in a house with no neighbors within half a mile?"
"I know the house. I have been here before, and if Elvira Brown could
face the storms of forty years from her solitary home, I can surely face
a single one, without losing my courage."
He said no more, but approaching the house, began to test such windows as
he could reach. He finally broke in a pane and released the latch; after
that, entrance was easy.
Yet after he had opened the way for her and she had stepped into the dim
interior, he felt loth to leave her. Duty called him away. The passenger
awaiting him up the road was a man he could not afford to disappoint; yet
he stood there longer than the occasion warranted, with the knob of the
door in hand, watching her struggle with the lamp, which she at last
succeeded in lighting. As the walls of the hall and her anxiously bending
figure burst into view, he uttered a quick "Good-by!"
She turned, smiled and tried to thank him, but the words failed to leave
her lips. A nearer and fiercer bolt had shot to earth at that instant,
striking a tree so near that the noise of its fall mingled with the crash
of the heavens. When it had ceased, he had gone. He could not face the
look with which she met this new catastrophe.
That look never again left her. When she saw herself in a glass, as she
presently did, on entering one of the rooms lamp in hand, she was
startled and muttered:
"My own mother would pass me by if she saw me now. I could go anywhere I
wished without fear or dread. Why did I leave New York?" And setting the
lamp down, she covered her face and wept.
The storm abated; a few minutes of fiercely pouring rain, and all was
over. She was left in ghastly quiet--a quiet which was almost worse than
the turmoil which had preceded it--to face her memories and accustom
herself to the thought that the solitary woman with whose life everything
she looked upon was so intimately connected was gone, never to pass
through these doors again or touch with deft and careful fingers the
infinite number of little belongings with which the house was filled.
For as yet nothing had been changed, nothing had been moved. How fitting
this was, Antoinette knew better than anybody else, perhaps, for she was
the only person whom Elvira Brown had ever allowed to spend any length of
time with her, and she could remember--alas! how vividly, in spite of the
one great fear forever gnawing at her heart--that an article, no matter
how small, when once given place in this house, held that place always
till broken or in some other way robbed of its usefulness. She looked at
her friend's pet chair standing just in the one spot where she had seen
it eight years before, and her heart swelled, and a tear rose in her eye.
But there was not time for another. A sense of the straits in which she
found herself placed by the death of this dependable friend returned upon
her in full force; the past retired into its old place, and the present,
with its maddening problems, seized upon her nerve and quelled her once
indomitable spirit.
The fate which had pursued her ever since she had left her happy home
in France had not spared her at this crisis. The storm, of so little
consequence to her, had roused the driver's sympathy. This had not only
fixed her image in his mind but given away her destination. All hope of
hiding herself among the mountains was therefore gone. She would have to
move on; but where? If she were but able to leave now, she might before
morning find some covert from which help might be given her for further
escape. But the condition of the roads, as well as her own weakness,
forbade that. She needed food: she needed sleep. Of food she would find
plenty, she was sure; but sleep! How could she sleep, with the promise
of the morrow before her? Yet she must; everything depended upon her
strength. How could she win that rest which alone would secure it.
Pausing in the midst of the hall whither her restless thought had driven
her, she stared in a fruitless inquiry at the wall confronting her. Her
mind, like her feet, was at a standstill. She could neither think nor
act. In fact, she was at the point of a nervous collapse, when slowly
from out the void there rose to her view and pierced its way into her
mind the outline of the door upon which she had been steadily looking but
without seeing it till now. Why did she start as it thus took on shape
before her? There was nothing strange or mysterious about it. It led
nowhere; it hid nothing, unless it was the yard upon which it directly
opened.
But that yard! She remembered it well. It was unlike any other she had
ever seen in this country or her own. It was small and semicircular; it
was shut in by a high board fence except at the extreme end, where it was
met by a swinging bridge topping a forty-foot chasm. That bridge led
through a sparsely wooded forest to a road running in a quite different
direction from the one by which the house was approached. As she strove
to recall her memories of it, she became more and more assured that her
one and only opportunity for a successful flight lay that way. Moved to
joy at the thought, she bowed her head for one wild moment in heartfelt
thankfulness and then quickly drew the bolts of the door which offered
her this happy deliverance.
She did not mean to seek escape to-night, but an irresistible impulse,
which quite robbed her of her judgment, drove her to take a look into the
yard and make sure for herself that the bridge was still there and
everything as she had last seen it.
But when with the help of the wind she pulled open the heavy door and
stood, throbbing under the force of the gale, on the shallow step
outside, she found herself confronted by a darkness so hollow and so
absolute that she felt as though she had stumbled into a pit. But instead
of retreating, if only to procure a lantern, she took the one step down
to the narrow walk which led through grass and flowers to the edge of the
plateau from which the bridge extended. Would she be satisfied now? No,
she must see the bridge, or if she could not see it, must feel it with
her foot or touch it with her hand. Once sure of its presence there, she
would return, take off her clothing and seek refreshment.
But how was she to find her way in such absolute darkness? Alone with the
dying tempest, now moaning in fitful gusts, now shrieking a last protest
in her ear, she stood peering helplessly before her. Already her arms had
gone out like those of a blind person loosed upon an unknown road. She
was conscious of a great fear. All the solitude of her position had
rushed upon her. She felt herself lost, forsaken; yet she had no idea of
turning back. If she could but find some support--something upon which
to lay her fingers. She thought of the fence, and her courage revived. If
she could but reach and follow that!
There were obstacles in her way. She was sure of this, for she remembered
some of them, and Elvira no more changed her garden than her house. But
with care she succeeded in getting around these, and soon she knew by the
lessened force of the wind that she was near, if not directly under, the
high fence upon which she depended for guidance. A few bushes--another
unexpected obstacle, followed by a bad stumble--separated her from the
contact for which she had reached; then by a final effort her fingers
found the boards and she went eagerly on, dragging herself through the
wet without knowing it, and only stopping with a sense of shock, when her
hand, sliding from the boards, fell groping about in midair with nothing
to grasp at. She had come to the end of the fence and was within a foot
of the bridge--if the bridge was still there.
But her fears on this score were few, and she felt about with hand and
foot till the former struck the rail at her side, and the latter the
narrow planking spanning the gorge.
She hesitated now. Who would not? But the impulse which had led her thus
far continued to urge her on. She stepped upon the bridge and proceeded
to cross it, clinging to the rail with a feverish clutch, and feeling
every board with her foot before venturing to trust her full weight upon
it. She found them seemingly firm, and when about halfway across she
stopped to listen for the roar of the mountain stream which she knew to
be rushing over its rocky bed some forty awesome feet below her.
She heard it, but the swish of the trees lining the gorge was in her
straining ears and half drowned its sullen sound. With feelings
impossible to describe, she tossed up her arms to the skies, where a
single brilliant star was looking through the mass of quickly flying,
quickly disintegrating clouds. Then she sought again the safety of the
guiding rail, and clinging desperately to it, took one more step and
stopped with a smothered shriek. The rail had snapped under her hand and
had gone tumbling down into the abyss. She heard it as it struck, or
thought she did, and for a moment stood breathless and fearing to move,
the world and all it held vanishing in semi-unconsciousness from heart
and mind. What was she but a trembling atom floating in an unknown void
on the fathomless sea of eternity! Then, as her mind steadied, she began
to feel once more the boards under her feet, and to hear the smiting
together of the great limbs wrestling in the depths of the forest. She
even caught such a homely sound as the violent slamming of the door she
had left unlatched behind her; and summoning up all her courage, which
was not small when she was released from her first surprise, she stepped
firmly backward till she felt the rail strong again under her clutch.
Then she turned resolutely and retraced her steps along the bridge and so
across the plateau to the house whose light had acted as a beacon to her
whenever the door blew wide enough to let the one inner beam be seen.
When she was inside again, she lingered for a long time in the darkening
hall, her slight form and whitened head leaning against the wall in a
desolation such as few hearts know. Then something within the woman
flared up in a rekindled flame, and she passed quickly into the room
where she had left her lamp burning; and blowing it out, she threw
herself down on a couch and tried to sleep.
An hour later the moon shone in upon her pale features and wild, staring
eyes upturned to meet it. Then it vanished, and she and the whole house
were given up again to darkness.
She had forgotten to eat, though the cupboards, in this well-stored
house, were quite full.
XXVI
THE FACE IN THE WINDOW
"Is this the place?"
"According to our instructions, yes. The first house after the first
turn to the right. We took the first turn, and this is the first house.
Romantic situation, eh? But a bit lonesome for a city chap? Shall I help
you down?"
While talking, Sweetwater, who was already in the road, held up his elbow
to Mr. Gryce, who slowly descended. It was early morning, and the glory
of sunshine was everywhere misleading the eye from the ravages of the
night before; yet neither of these two men wore an air in keeping with
the freshness of renewed life and the joyous aspect of exultant nature.
There seemed to be an oppression upon them both--a hesitation not common
to either, and to all appearance without cause.
To end what he probably considered a weakness, Sweetwater approached
the door staring somewhat blankly from the flat front of the primitive
old house whose privacy they were about to invade, and rapped on its
weather-beaten panels, first gently and then with quick insistence.
There was no response from within; no sound of movement; no token that he
had been so much as heard. Sweetwater turned and consulted his companion
before making another attempt.
"It's early. Perhaps she's not up yet," rejoined the old detective as he
painfully advanced. The storm of the preceding night had got into his
bones.
"I don't know. There's something uncanny about this silence. She ought to
be here; but I'm afraid she isn't." Sweetwater rapped again, this time
with decided vehemence.
Suddenly in one of the uncurtained windows a face appeared. They saw it,
and both drew a deep breath. The eyes were looking their way, but they
were like ghost's eyes. Without sight or speculation in them, they simply
looked; then the face slowly withdrew, growing ghastlier every minute,
and the window stared on, but the woman was gone. Yet the door did not
open.
"I hate to use force," objected Sweetwater.
Before answering, Mr. Gryce stepped to one side and cast a glance around
the corner of the house in the direction of the gorge opening in the
rear.
"There is something like a yard at the back," he announced, "but the
fence which shut it in is so high and so protected by means of prickly
underbrush that you would have difficulty in climbing it."
"Just so at this end," called out Sweetwater after a short run to the
left. "If we get in at all," he remarked on coming back, "it will have to
be by the window you see there with one pane knocked out."
"I don't like that; I don't like any of it. But we can't stay out here
any longer. The looks of the woman herself forbid it. We sha'n't forget
that hollow stare."
"They said the woman who lived here was dead."
"Yes. It's a bad business, Sweetwater. Rap once more, and then if she
doesn't come, throw up the window and climb in."
Sweetwater did as he was bid, and meeting with no more response than
before, thrust his hand through the hole made by the broken pane; and
finding the window had been left unlocked, he pushed it up and entered.
In another moment he appeared at the front door, where Mr. Gryce joined
him, and together they took their first look at the small but
surprisingly well-furnished interior.
The hall in which they stood was without staircase and had many of the
appointments of a room. Doors opened here and there along its length, and
in the rear they saw a closed one evidently leading into the yard. There
was no one within sight. One would have said that with the death and
carrying out of the owner of this little dwelling, all life had departed
from it. Yet these two men knew that life was there; and raising his
voice, Mr. Gryce called out in the least alarming way possible:
"Madame Duclos!" following this utterance of her name with an apology for
the intrusion and a prayer for one minute's interview.
Silence was his answer--no stir anywhere.
Apprehensive of they knew not what, the two detectives started
simultaneously, one for the door on their right, the other for that on
the left. When they met again in the ill-lighted hall, Mr. Gryce was
shaking his head, but Sweetwater had lifted a beckoning finger.
Unconsciously moderating his step, Mr. Gryce followed him through one
room to the door of another which he saw standing partly open.
Through the crack thus made between the hinges, they could get a very
fair glimpse of what was going on inside. They saw a bed, and a woman
kneeling beside this bed, her eyes upraised in prayer. The look which had
awed them at the window was gone, and in its place was one so high and so
full of religious faith that for an instant they were conscious of the
reversal of all their ideas.
But only for an instant; for while they waited, hesitating to break in
upon her evidently sincere devotions, she started to her feet and with a
half-insane look about her, disappeared from their view in the direction
of the hall.
Sweetwater was after her in a twinkling; but by the time he and Mr.
Gryce, each going his separate way, had themselves reached the hall, it
was to see the end door--the one giving upon the plateau--closing behind
her.
"Madame!" called out Sweetwater, bounding briskly in her wake.
Mr. Gryce said nothing but approached with hastening steps the door which
Sweetwater had left open behind him, and took a quick survey of the
fenced-in plateau, the bridge and the towering trees beyond, toward which
she seemed to be making.
"She cannot escape," was his ready conclusion; and he shouted to
Sweetwater to go easy.
Sweetwater, who was in the act of setting foot upon the bridge down which
she was running, slacked up at this command and presently stopped, for
she had stopped herself and was looking back from a spot about halfway
across, with the air of one willing, at last, to hear what they had to
say.
"Who are you?" she cried. "And what do you want of me?"
"Are you not Madame Duclos?"
"Yes, I am Antoinette Duclos."
"Then you must know why you are wanted by the police authorities of New
York. Your daughter--"
Her hand went up.
"I've nothing to say--nothing. Will you take that for your answer and let
me go?"
"Alas, madam, we cannot!" spoke up Mr. Gryce in his calm, benevolent way.
"Miss Duclos' death was of a nature demanding an inquest. Your testimony,
hard as it may be for you to give it, is necessary for a righteous
verdict. That is all we want--"
"It is too much!" she cried. And with a quick glance upward she took
another step or two along the bridge till she had reached the broken
rail; and before Sweetwater in his dismay could more than give a
horrified bound in her direction, she had made the fatal leap and was
gone from their sight into the gorge below.