“Mrs. Fairbrother has been murdered and her diamond stolen! Lock the doors!”
II.
THE GLOVES
I must have remained insensible for many minutes, for when I returned to full
consciousness the supper-room was empty and the two hundred guests I had left
seated at table were gathered in agitated groups about the hall. This was what
I first noted; not till afterward did I realize my own situation. I was lying
on a couch in a remote corner of this same hall and beside me, but not looking
at me, stood my lover, Mr. Durand.
How he came to know my state and find me in the general disturbance I did not
stop to inquire. It was enough for me at that moment to look up and see him so
near. Indeed, the relief was so great, the sense of his protection so
comforting that I involuntarily stretched out my hand in gratitude toward him,
but, failing to attract his attention, slipped to the floor and took my stand
at his side. This roused him and he gave me a look which steadied me, in spite
of the thrill of surprise with which I recognized his extreme pallor and a
certain peculiar hesitation in his manner not at all natural to it.
Meanwhile, some words uttered near us were slowly making their way into my
benumbed brain. The waiter who had raised the first alarm was endeavoring to
describe to an importunate group in advance of us what he had come upon in that
murderous alcove.
“I was carrying about a tray of ices,” he was saying, “and seeing the lady
sitting there, went up. I had expected to find the place full of gentlemen, but
she was all alone, and did not move as I picked my way over her long train. The
next moment I had dropped ices, tray and all. I bad come face to face with her
and seen that she was dead. She had been stabbed and robbed. There was no
diamond on her breast, but there was blood.”
A hubbub of disordered sentences seasoned with horrified cries followed this
simple description. Then a general movement took place in the direction of the
alcove, during which Mr. Durand stooped to my ear and whispered:
“We must get out of this. You are not strong enough to stand such excitement.
Don’t you think we can escape by the window over there?”
“What, without wraps and in such a snowstorm?” I protested. “Besides, uncle
will be looking for me. He came with me, you know.”
An expression of annoyance, or was it perplexity, crossed Mr. Durand’s face,
and he made a movement as if to leave me.
“I must go,” he began, but stopped at my glance of surprise and assumed a
different air—one which became him very much better. “Pardon me, dear, I
will take you to your uncle. This—this dreadful tragedy, interrupting so
gay a scene, has quite upset me. I was always sensitive to the sight, the
smell, even to the very mention of the word blood.”
So was I, but not to the point of cowardice. But then I had not just come from
an interview with the murdered woman. Her glances, her smiles, the lift of her
eyebrows were not fresh memories to me. Some consideration was certainly due
him for the shock he must be laboring under. Yet I did not know how to keep
back the vital question.
“Who did it? You must have heard some one say.”
“I have heard nothing,” was his somewhat fierce rejoinder. Then, as I made a
move, “What you do not wish to follow the crowd there?”
“I wish to find my uncle, and he is in that crowd.”
Mr. Durand said nothing further, and together we passed down the hall. A
strange mood pervaded my mind. Instead of wishing to fly a scene which under
ordinary conditions would have filled me with utter repugnance, I felt a desire
to see and hear everything. Not from curiosity, such as moved most of the
people about me, but because of some strong instinctive feeling I could not
understand; as if it were my heart which had been struck, and my fate which was
trembling in the balance.
We were consequently among the first to hear such further details as were
allowed to circulate among the now well-nigh frenzied guests. No one knew the
perpetrator of the deed nor did there appear to be any direct evidence
calculated to fix his identity. Indeed, the sudden death of this beautiful
woman in the midst of festivity might have been looked upon as suicide, if the
jewel had not been missing from her breast and the instrument of death removed
from the wound. So far, the casual search which had been instituted had failed
to produce this weapon; but the police would be here soon and then something
would be done. As to the means of entrance employed by the assassin, there
seemed to be but one opinion. The alcove contained a window opening upon a
small balcony. By this he had doubtless entered and escaped. The long plush
curtains which, during the early part of the evening, had remained looped back
on either side of the casement, were found at the moment of the crime’s
discovery closely drawn together. Certainly a suspicious circumstance. However,
the question was one easily settled. If any one had approached by the balcony
there would be marks in the snow to show it. Mr. Ramsdell had gone out to see.
He would be coming back soon.
“Do you think this a probable explanation of the crime?” I demanded of Mr.
Durand at this juncture. “If I remember rightly this window overlooks the
carriage drive; it must, therefore, be within plain sight of the door through
which some three hundred guests have passed to-night. How could any one climb
to such a height, lift the window and step in without being seen?”
“You forget the awning.” He spoke quickly and with unexpected vivacity. “The
awning runs up very near this window and quite shuts it off from the sight of
arriving guests. The drivers of departing carriages could see it if they
chanced to glance back. But their eyes are usually on their horses in such a
crowd. The probabilities are against any of them having looked up.” His brow
had cleared; a weight seemed removed from his mind. “When I went into the
alcove to see Mrs. Fairbrother, she was sitting in a chair near this window
looking out. I remember the effect of her splendor against the snow sifting
down in a steady stream behind her. The pink velvet—the soft green of the
curtains on either side—her brilliants—and the snow for a
background! Yes, the murderer came in that way. Her figure would be plain to
any one outside, and if she moved and the diamond shone—Don’t you see
what a probable theory it is? There must be ways by which a desperate man might
reach that balcony. I believe—”
How eager he was and with what a look he turned when the word came filtering
through the crowd that, though footsteps had been found in the snow pointing
directly toward the balcony, there was none on the balcony itself, proving, as
any one could see, that the attack had not come from without, since no one
could enter the alcove by the window without stepping on the balcony.
“Mr. Durand has suspicions of his own,” I explained determinedly to myself. “He
met some one going in as he stepped out. Shall I ask him to name this person?”
No, I did not have the courage; not while his face wore so stern a look and was
so resolutely turned away.
The next excitement was a request from Mr. Ramsdell for us all to go into the
drawing-room. This led to various cries from hysterical lips, such as, “We are
going to be searched!” “He believes the thief and murderer to be still in the
house!” “Do you see the diamond on me?” “Why don’t they confine their
suspicions to the favored few who were admitted to the alcove?”
“They will,” remarked some one close to my ear.
But quickly as I turned I could not guess from whom the comment came. Possibly
from a much beflowered, bejeweled, elderly dame, whose eyes were fixed on Mr.
Durand’s averted face. If so, she received a defiant look from mine, which I do
not believe she forgot in a hurry.
Alas! it was not the only curious, I might say searching glance I surprised
directed against him as we made our way to where I could see my uncle
struggling to reach us from a short side hall. The whisper seemed to have gone
about that Mr. Durand had been the last one to converse with Mrs. Fairbrother
prior to the tragedy.
In time I had the satisfaction of joining my uncle. He betrayed great relief at
the sight of me, and, encouraged by his kindly smile, I introduced Mr. Durand.
My conscious air must have produced its impression, for he turned a startled
and inquiring look upon my companion, then took me resolutely on his own arm,
saying:
“There is likely to be some unpleasantness ahead for all of us. I do not think
the police will allow any one to go till that diamond has been looked for. This
is a very serious matter, dear. So many think the murderer was one of the
guests.”
“I think so, too,” said I. But why I thought so or why I should say so with
such vehemence, I do not know even now.
My uncle looked surprised.
“You had better not advance any opinions,” he advised. “A lady like yourself
should have none on a subject so gruesome. I shall never cease regretting
bringing you here tonight. I shall seize on the first opportunity to take you
home. At present we are supposed to await the action of our host.”
“He can not keep all these people here long,” I ventured.
“No; most of us will be relieved soon. Had you not better get your wraps so as
to be ready to go as soon as he gives the word?”
“I should prefer to have a peep at the people in the drawing-room first,” was
my perverse reply. “I don’t know why I want to see them, but I do; and, uncle,
I might as well tell you now that I engaged myself to Mr. Durand this
evening—the gentleman with me when you first came up.”
“You have engaged yourself to—to this man—to marry him, do you
mean?”
I nodded, with a sly look behind to see if Mr. Durand were near enough to hear.
He was not, and I allowed my enthusiasm to escape in a few quick words.
“He has chosen me,” I said, “the plainest, most uninteresting puss in the whole
city.” My uncle smiled. “And I believe he loves me; at all events, I know that
I love him.”
My uncle sighed, while giving me the most affectionate of glances.
“It’s a pity you should have come to this understanding to-night,” said he.
“He’s an acquaintance of the murdered woman, and it is only right for you to
know that you will have to leave him behind when you start for home. All who
have been seen entering that alcove this evening will necessarily be detained
here till the coroner arrives.”
My uncle and I strolled toward the drawing-room and as we did so we passed the
library. It held but one occupant, the Englishman. He was seated before a
table, and his appearance was such as precluded any attempt at intrusion, even
if one had been so disposed. There was a fixity in his gaze and a frown on his
powerful forehead which bespoke a mind greatly agitated. It was not for me to
read that mind, much as it interested me, and I passed on, chatting, as if I
had not the least desire to stop.
I can not say how much time elapsed before my uncle touched me on the arm with
the remark:
“The police are here in full force. I saw a detective in plain clothes look in
here a minute ago. He seemed to have his eye on you. There he is again! What
can he want? No, don’t turn; he’s gone away now.”
Frightened as I had never been in all my life, I managed to keep my head up and
maintain an indifferent aspect. What, as my uncle said, could a detective want
of me? I had nothing to do with the crime; not in the remotest way could I be
said to be connected with it; why, then, had I caught the attention of the
police? Looking about, I sought Mr. Durand. He had left me on my uncle’s coming
up, but had remained, as I supposed, within sight. But at this moment he was
nowhere to be seen. Was I afraid on his account? Impossible; yet—
Happily just then the word was passed about that the police had given orders
that, with the exception of such as had been requested to remain to answer
questions, the guests generally should feel themselves at liberty to depart.
The time had now come to take a stand and I informed my uncle, to his evident
chagrin, that I should not leave as long as any excuse could be found for
staying.
He said nothing at the time, but as the noise of departing carriages gradually
lessened and the great hall and drawing-rooms began to wear a look of desertion
he at last ventured on this gentle protest:
“You have more pluck, Rita, than I supposed. Do you think it wise to stay on
here? Will not people imagine that you have been requested to do so? Look at
those waiters hanging about in the different doorways. Run up and put on your
wraps. Mr. Durand will come to the house fast enough as soon as he is released.
I give you leave to sit up for him if you will; only let us leave this place
before that impertinent little man dares to come around again,” he artfully
added.
But I stood firm, though somewhat moved by his final suggestion; and, being a
small tyrant in my way, at least with him, I carried my point.
Suddenly my anxiety became poignant. A party of men, among whom I saw Mr.
Durand, appeared at the end of the hall, led by a very small but self-important
personage whom my uncle immediately pointed out as the detective who had twice
come to the door near which I stood. As this man looked up and saw me still
there, a look of relief crossed his face, and, after a word or two with another
stranger of seeming authority, he detached himself from the group he had
ushered upon the scene, and, approaching me respectfully enough, said with a
deprecatory glance at my uncle whose frown he doubtless understood:
“Miss Van Arsdale, I believe?”