'I DISLIKE A MYSTERY.'
I had not meant to do it, but while I stood there with her clear brown
eyes, not repellent but fearless and full of dignity, fixed upon my
face in polite but guarded inquiry, the determination suddenly seized
me to be as frank and truthful in dealing with this frank and truthful
woman as I had a right to be.
I had meant to return the bag, ask her pardon for tampering with its
contents, and say no more; only keeping as much as possible an eye to
her welfare and safety if I saw it menaced. Now I meant something
more; and so, while she held my card in daintily gloved fingers and
looked at me with level, questioning eyes, I said, with the thought of
the approaching brunette underlying my words:
'Miss Jenrys, I am the person who was of some small assistance a few
days ago when you came near incurring serious injury at the hands of a
pair of Turks and a sedan-chair.' I saw a look of remembrance, if not
of recognition, flash into her face, and I hurried on. 'I do not
mention this as entitling me to your notice, but I ask you to accept
my word as that of one having no personal motive save the desire to
serve you, and to listen to me for a few moments.'
She was scanning my face nervously, and now she said:
'I do not recall your face, though I remember the circumstance to
which you refer. If you are the gentleman who held back that reckless
foreigner with a strong arm, and so saved me from something more
serious than a little pain in the shoulder, I am certainly your
debtor, and I am glad of this opportunity to thank you.'
A little back of the place where she stood, in a corner, hemmed in on
one side by a long glass case of exhibits of various sorts, was an
armchair, placed there, doubtless, for the ease of the person in
charge of said case and its contents. There was no such person
present, however, at that hour, and I pointed toward the chair, and
said:
'If you will kindly take that seat, so that I may not feel that I am
compelling you to stand, I will not detain you long.'
She turned toward the seat, looked at it, at me, and finally beyond me
and across the room, as if debating, and half inclined to pass me and
escape; and then I saw a sudden withdrawal of the eyes and a
compression of the lips, slight but perceptible. She turned as if in
haste, almost, and seated herself in the chair, first turning it
toward the windows so that her back would be toward the interior of
the room, and then, to my surprise, she beckoned me, with a
half-smile, to a place upon the window-seat, which would narrowly
serve this purpose.
I had not once looked back or about me, but I did not flatter myself
that my words alone had won for me this graciousness; she had seen
the little brunette, and desired to avoid her.
'Thank you,' I said, when we were both seated. 'I will now come to the
point at once. You must know, then, that after you had passed on and
out of sight in the crowd I discovered at my very feet--so close that
no one had ventured to pick it up, if anyone had seen it in that
crowd--a black leather bag--a chatelaine, I think you ladies call it.'
'Oh! you found my bag?' The look of reserve was lost in a quick and
charming smile. 'I am very glad!'
'I found it, and I tried to follow you and restore it, but you had
disappeared.'
'I had indeed; in at the first gate, which happened to be the Javanese
Village.'
'That explains my failure. I had given up my search, and was about to
go on my way, when I was approached by a young lady, a small person
with dark eyes and wearing a large plumed sailor-hat, who explained
that she was a friend to the lady whose bag I had in my hand, that she
had seen me pick it up, and would now restore it to her.'
'And you gave it to her?'
'Was it not right?'
'The person was an impostor.'
'Is it possible? And yet two days after, as you were entering the
grounds, and I was about to approach you, I saw this same person greet
you, seemingly, and walk on in your company. It made a coward of me. I
dared not approach in the face of a friend of yours whom I had treated
as an impostor.'
'How do you mean?'
'I mean that I doubted the person, and refused to give her the bag.'
And I hurriedly made confession, telling her how at last I was forced
to read first her friend's letter and then her own, in order to learn
her name, and that then her address was still a mystery. 'I had but
one chance of finding you,' I concluded. 'You had informed your friend
that your apartments were conveniently near the Fifty-seventh Street
entrance.'
'Oh! Indeed!' I had seen the quick colour flash into her face at my
mention of the letters, and of having read them, and the restraint was
once more evident in face and voice when she said:
'I thank you, sir; but the contents of the bag--it was hardly worth
the trouble you have taken to restore it--that is----'
'I have it with me, Miss Jenrys, and when I am sure that we are not
under surveillance I will place it in your hands; and now I owe it to
myself to make my own conduct in this affair and my present position
clearer. At first it was with me a simple matter of returning a lost
article to a lady. Failing to overtake you, I might perhaps have
turned it over to some guard but for the interference of the brunette,
who at once put me on the defensive and aroused my suspicion. It
somehow seemed to me that the young person was more than commonly
anxious to possess your bag, and then it occurred to me that the bag
might contain something or some information that she especially wished
to possess. My interest was aroused, and then I took the liberty of
examining your bag, and having done so, I determined at least to
attempt to return it to you, and to ask you to pardon the liberty I
had taken with your correspondence.'
'I suppose anyone would have done the same,' she said, rather coldly.
'What I do not comprehend is why you did not return the bag to me in
the presence of this person, of whom you might have warned me.'
'It is that which I am about to explain,' I replied gravely. 'And I
must, for the sake of others whose interests I represent, ask you to
regard what I am now about to tell you as a confidence made necessary
because of the circumstances. Miss Jenrys, the card in your hand bears
my real name, but few know me by it, because I so often bear others,
as one of the necessities of my profession. I am known here to those
who know me at all as one of those secret service men you have no
doubt heard or read of. In other words----'
'A detective?' She bent forward and scanned my face narrowly.
'When I saw you in company with the little brunette, as I have since
called her for want of a better title, I was at first amazed and
inclined to doubt my own sagacity; but when--I am making a clean
breast of it, Miss Jenrys--when I followed you, doubtful what course
to pursue, I saw you joined by a gentleman, and I saw the brunette
slip away from you as she would hardly have done, as you would hardly
have allowed her to do, had she been friend or acquaintance. I am
enrolled here as a "special," but I came, in company with another,
with a definite object in view. Within these grounds are several
persons under suspicion, and whom we are hoping to capture and
convict, and when I tell you that only yesterday I learned that this
same little brunette who claimed your property and friendship was seen
in company with two suspected persons, you will hardly wonder that
what I had attempted to do from purest courtesy from one stranger to
another, and that other a lady, I felt impelled to do from a sense of
duty, as well as desire to save one whom I had seen to be alone, and
who might, for aught I could tell, be menaced by some unsuspected
danger.'
There was no fear on her face, only a slightly troubled look, as she
asked:
'What do you mean?'
'Simply that it is my duty to warn you, and to ask you if you know of
any reason why you should be followed, or watched, or menaced by any
manner of danger?'
'No'--she slowly shook her fair head--'no reason whatever.'
'And may I ask you about this person, this brunette? I would not say
'this woman.''
She started slightly, and leaned toward me.
'Is she here still?' she whispered.
I turned my head and cast a deliberate glance around the room.
'I do not see her,' I said; 'but she may be below, with an eye on the
staircase.'
'It's more than likely. It's little I can tell you,' she said. 'She
ran up to me that morning at the gate, her face beaming and her hand
held out, and when she was close to me, and I drew away from her, she
began the most profuse apologies: she was very near-sighted, and she
had mistaken me for an old acquaintance she had not seen for some
time; then she kept on by my side, prattling about her "mamma," who
had not been able to leave the hotel since they came; of her dread of
being alone, and her eagerness to see the Fair. She had hoped, when
she saw me, that she had found someone who would let her "just follow
along, so that she would not feel so much alone," etc. I did not like
her volubility, yet I could see no way, short of absolute rudeness, of
shaking her off. When I met a New York acquaintance, down near the
lake shore, she quite surprised me by quietly slipping away. Do you
think----' She paused, and arose with a quick, easy grace which seemed
inherent. 'Will you come down and be introduced to my aunt?' she
asked. 'I have great confidence in her judgment of--gentlemen, and she
ought to know this; that is, if you can give me the time.'
'My time is entirely yours,' I declared recklessly, 'and nothing would
give me more pleasure than to pay my entirely sincere respects to
that lovely woman I saw in your company, and who, I am almost certain,
saw me playing the spy upon her niece.'
She smiled as she moved toward the stairway, at the head of which she
turned and paused a moment.
'Do you think she will approach us?' she asked.
'I can't imagine what she will do.'
'But she will see you, and----'
I think the smile on my face stopped her.
'You did not recognise me,' I said. 'She may not.'
She looked into my face keenly, and then a quick look of intelligence
flashed into her eyes.
'Oh!' It was all she said, but it meant much. She took a step
downward, and turned again. 'Of course I must not enlighten my aunt?'
'If you are willing to let it lie between us two--at first?'
'Certainly,' she said gravely, and went on down the stairs.
At the landing, half-way down, where the staircase turned to right and
left, I saw, over her shoulder, a little dark figure standing in the
west doorway.
'Turn to the right,' I said, over her shoulder. '"The longest way
round," you know.'
She nodded, and without a glance in the other direction went down the
east side, turned at the foot to wait for me with the air of one quite
absorbed in an agreeable companion, and we went out at the door facing
the Minnesota Building and the morning sun. As we stepped outside I
paused in my turn.
'One word, if you will allow it. I may have to learn more of this
person. It may make difficulties for me, and--who knows?--perhaps for
you, if she imagines that you know her for--what she is. Or guesses,
as she might----'
'What you are?' she interposed. 'You may trust me.'
We turned at the corner, and came once more to the west side and the
little arbour. As we rounded the corner my companion suddenly slipped
her little hand beneath my elbow, giving it at the same time a
significant little pressure. The brunette, having doubtless watched
our progress through the window, was coming down the steps and
straight toward us.
For just a passing moment I knew how Miss Jenrys looked to the friends
who knew her, and whom she knew best. She was smiling and preoccupied
as we stepped within the inclosure.
'See,' she said, hastening her own steps and mine, with a bright look
toward the benches, 'there is auntie.'
The little brunette was almost abreast of us, and my companion's
smiling gaze was still fixed upon the figure under the vines; then she
turned her head, and, just at the place where we could turn from the
walk, let her eyes turn toward the figure just opposite us.
It was charmingly done. Just as she made a step in the direction of
the arbour her eyes fell quite naturally upon the face of the
brunette. 'Good-morning,' she said smilingly, and with a little nod of
her head. But there was no slackening of her steps; with the words on
her lips we were off the walk, and crossing the grass to the place,
not ten paces away, where the sweet-faced Quakeress sat, knitting and
looking her surprise.
'Auntie, I have brought you a new acquaintance,' Miss Jenrys said, in
a voice slightly raised; and then, looking after the retreating figure
of the brunette and seeing that she was quite out of hearing, she
added, 'and I have found my bag.'
I took the bag from my pocket, where it had grown to seem a quite
familiar bulk, and laid it in her lap, and she began at once to
narrate to the wondering Quakeress the adventures of the little bag.
She heard it through, with here and there a soft little exclamation of
wonder, and I saw that she was slightly deaf, and quite given to
misunderstanding and miscalling words and phrases.
'Thee has been very lucky, my dear,' the good soul said when Miss
Jenrys had done, 'and the young man has been at great pains to restore
thy reticule. It was hardly worth so much trouble, do you think?'
'Not in actual value perhaps, auntie, but it contained one or two
little keepsakes that I valued'--she breathed a little fluttering
sigh--'for the sake of the giver.'
'Is that why thee has mourned the loss of the little bag so much, and
said so many unkind things about those poor benighted men of Turkey?
Then, indeed, I must add my thanks to thine.' And she turned and
extended to me a soft slim hand, ungloved and delicately veined; and
then she began to question me about the Fair and the things I had
seen, showing in her questions and comments a singular mixture of
innocent unworldliness, and native shrewdness, and mother wit.
In the midst of our talk Miss Jenrys broke in with a low, quick
exclamation, which caused us to cease and turn toward her.
'Mr. Masters,' she said, in a low tone, 'our friend the brunette is
looking over from the gallery windows of the Dakota Building--see! the
one next the corner, toward the bridge. She does not make herself
needlessly conspicuous, and it was only by the peculiar shade her
figure threw, as she stood at one side--the eastern side--that I was
drawn to observe her. My eyes are very strong--I am sure I am not
mistaken.'
'It is only what I expected,' I replied. 'She will wait, no doubt,
until she gets an opportunity to speak with you. Evidently she has
some object in view, something to learn from you, or something to tell
you. I would give something to know what it is.'
She looked at me a moment with thoughtful eyes. I had purposely
spoken in a guarded tone, and when she answered it was in the same
manner.
'Would it help you to learn her object?'
'It might, and it might give us a hint as to their reasons for
following you.'
'Their reasons? Do you think----' She stopped abruptly.
'I don't know what to think, Miss Jenrys. It looked as if this person
were following you on the day you lost your bag, and I am convinced
that she is in some way connected with two or more men who are more
than suspected of being offenders against the law. Miss Jenrys, do you
know of any reason why you should be watched--followed? Have you an
enemy? Are you in anyone's way?'
Instead of answering, she turned to the elder lady, who had been
listening like one who but half comprehends.
'Auntie, you heard me say that Mr. Masters has strong reasons for
thinking that the young woman who just passed us, and who has forced
herself upon my notice, and tried to claim my bag, is loitering about
now for the purpose of speaking to me?'
'I heard thee: yes, June, surely I did, and I cannot understand the
thing at all.'
'Nor do we, Aunt Ann.' She turned to me again. 'I am getting the fever
for investigation,' she said, slightly smiling. 'I am not alarmed at
what you have told me, but I do not doubt it, and if you think it
best, if it will help you, I will give that young woman a chance to
ease her mind to me. I will leave you here with Aunt Ann, and go,
under her eyes, to the building next to this, on to the Washington
House, and give her a chance to follow.'
I waited for the elder lady to speak, and my own surprise was great at
her brave proposition--for it was brave, braver than she knew; and I
was asking myself if I had the right to let her go to meet--an
adventuress at the least, a criminal possibly. But her aunt gave the
decisive word.
'My dear June, thee knows I do not like a mystery. If anything is to
be learned concerning this person's strange conduct, we should find it
out, and end the following and spying, else it will not be safe for
thee to come here alone, even by day.'
'Fie! Aunt Ann--with all these guards and half the world looking on?
Then I had better go, Mr. Masters.'
'If you will.'
'Have you any advice or instructions to give me?'
'I think you will know how to proceed. Only it might be well to let
her talk, if she will.'
'Certainly.'
'And, Miss Jenrys, let me beg of you, do not go away from this
immediate vicinity, and do not walk upon the streets with this person
if it can be avoided. Above all, do not make a further appointment
with her.'
'I will be discreet. Good-bye for a short time, Aunt Ann.' She dropped
the newly-returned bag into her aunt's lap and went away, as lithe and
careless-seeming as the veriest pleasure-seeker.
She looked up and down at the windows of the South Dakota House and
then walked deliberately in.