I might step out for a minute, but when I came back her clothes were
missing and she was gone. She must have slipped out at the front door
while Dan was in the back hall. I don't see how ever she had the
strength to do it."
Nor did I. But I did not stop to reason about it; there was too much to
be done. Rushing on, I entered the room I had left in such high hopes a
few hours before. Emptiness was before me, and I realized what it was to
be baffled at the moment of success. But I did not waste an instant in
inactivity. I searched the closets and pulled open the drawers; found
her coat and hat gone, but not Mrs. Van Burnam's brown skirt, though the
purse had been taken out of the pocket.
"Is her bag here?" I asked.
Yes, it was in its old place under the table; and on the wash-stand and
bureau were the simple toilet articles I had been told she had brought
there. In what haste she must have fled to leave these necessities
behind her!
But the greatest shock I received was the sight of the knitting-work,
with which I had so inconsiderately meddled the evening before, lying in
ravelled heaps on the table, as if torn to bits in a frenzy. This was a
proof that the fever was yet on her; and as I contemplated this fact I
took courage, thinking that one in her condition would not be allowed to
run the streets long, but would be picked up and put in some hospital.
In this hope I began my search. Miss Althorpe, who came in just as I was
about to leave the house, consented to telephone to Police Headquarters
a description of the girl, with a request to be notified if such a
person should be found in the streets or on the docks or at any of the
station-houses that night. "Not," I assured her, as we left the
telephone and I prepared to say good-bye for the day, "that you need
expect her to be brought back to this house, for I do not mean that she
shall ever darken your doors again. So let me know if they find her, and
I will relieve you of all further responsibility in the matter."
Then I started out.
To name the streets I traversed or the places I visited that day, would
take more space than I would like to devote to the subject. Dusk came,
and I had failed in obtaining the least clue to her whereabouts; evening
followed, and still no trace of the fugitive. What was I to do? Take Mr.
Gryce into my confidence after all? That would be galling to my pride,
but I began to fear I should have to submit to this humiliation when I
happened to think of the Chinaman. To think of him once was to think of
him twice, and to think of him twice was to be conscious of an
irresistible desire to visit his place and find out if any one but
myself had been there to inquire after the lost one's clothes.
Accompanied by Lena, I hurried away to Third Avenue. The laundry was
near Twenty-seventh Street. As we approached I grew troubled and
unaccountably expectant. When we reached it I understood my excitement
and instantly became calm. For there stood Miss Oliver, gazing like one
under a spell through the lighted window-panes into the narrow shop
where the owner bent over his ironing. She had evidently stood there
some time, for a small group of half-grown lads were watching her with
every symptom of being about to break into a mischievous display of
curiosity. Her hands, which were without gloves, were pressed against
the glass, and her whole attitude showed an intensity of fatigue which
would have laid her on the ground had she not been sustained by an equal
intensity of purpose.
Sending Lena for a carriage, I approached the poor creature and drew her
forcibly from the window.
"Do you want anything here?" I asked. "I will go in with you if you do."
She surveyed me with strange apathy, and yet with a certain sort of
relief too. Then she slowly shook her head.
"I don't know anything about it. My head swims and everything looks
queer, but some one or something sent me to this place."
"Come in," I urged, "come in for a minute." And half supporting her,
half dragging her, I managed to get her across the threshold and into
the Chinaman's shop.
Immediately a dozen faces were pressed where hers had been.
The Chinaman, a stolid being, turned as he heard the little bell tinkle
which announced a customer.
"Is this the lady who left the clothes here a few nights ago?" I asked.
He stopped and stared, recognizing me slowly, and remembering by degrees
what had passed between us at our last interview.
"You tellee me lalee die; how him lalee when lalee die?"
"The lady is not dead; I made a mistake. Is this the lady?"
"Lalee talk; I no see face, I hear speak."
"Have you seen this man before?" I inquired of my nearly insensible
companion.
"I think so in a dream," she murmured, trying to recall her poor
wandering wits back from some region into which they had strayed.
"Him lalee!" cried the Chinaman, overjoyed at the prospect of getting
his money. "Pletty speak, I knowee him. Lalee want clo?"
"Not to-night. The lady is sick; see, she can hardly stand." And
overjoyed at this seeming evidence that the police had failed to get
wind of my interest in this place, I slipped a coin into the Chinaman's
hand, and drew Miss Oliver away towards the carriage I now saw drawing
up before the shop.
Lena's eyes when she came up to help me were a sight to see. They
seemed to ask who this girl was and what I was going to do with her. I
answered the look by a very brief and evidently wholly unexpected
explanation.
"This is your cousin who ran away," I remarked. "Don't you recognize
her?"
Lena gave me up then and there; but she accepted my explanation, and
even lied in her desire to carry out my whim.
"Yes, ma'am," said she, "and glad I am to see her again." And with a
deft push here and a gentle pull there, she succeeded in getting the
sick woman into the carriage.
The crowd, which had considerably increased by this time, was beginning
to flock about us with shouts of no little derision. Escaping it as best
I could, I took my seat by the poor girl's side, and bade Lena give the
order for home. When we left the curb-stone behind, I felt that the last
page in my adventures as an amateur detective had closed.
But I counted without my cost. Miss Oliver, who was in an advanced stage
of fever, lay like a dead weight on my shoulder during the drive down
the avenue, but when we entered the Park and drew near my house, she
began to show such signs of violent agitation that it was with
difficulty that the united efforts of Lena and myself could prevent her
from throwing herself out of the carriage door which she had somehow
managed to open.
As the carriage stopped she grew worse, and though she made no further
efforts to leave it, I found her present impulses even harder to contend
with than the former. For now she would not be pushed out or dragged
out, but crouched back moaning and struggling, her eyes fixed on the
stoop, which is not unlike that of the adjoining house; till with a
sudden realization that the cause of her terror lay in her fear of
re-entering the scene of her late terrifying experiences, I bade the
coachman drive on, and reluctantly, I own, carried her back to the house
she had left in the morning.
And this is how I came to spend a second night in Miss Althorpe's
hospitable mansion.
XXVIII.
TAKEN ABACK.
One incident more and this portion of my story is at an end. My poor
patient, sicker than she had been the night before, left me but little
leisure for thought or action disconnected with my care for her. But
towards morning she grew quieter, and finding in an open drawer those
tangled threads of yarn of which I have spoken, I began to rewind them,
out of a natural desire to see everything neat and orderly about me. I
had nearly finished my task when I heard a strange noise from the bed.
It was a sort of gurgling cry which I found hard to interpret, but which
only stopped when I laid my work down again. Manifestly this sick girl
had very nervous fancies.
When I went down to breakfast the next morning, I was in that complacent
state of mind natural to a woman who feels that her abilities have
asserted themselves and that she would soon receive a recognition of the
same at the hands of the one person for whose commendation she had
chiefly been working. The identification of Miss Oliver by the Chinaman
was the last link in the chain connecting her with the Mrs. James Pope
who had accompanied Mr. Van Burnam to his father's house in Gramercy
Park, and though I would fain have had the murdered woman's rings to
show, I was contented enough with the discoveries I had made to wish for
the hour which would bring me face to face with the detective.
But a surprise awaited me at the breakfast table in the shape of a
communication from that gentleman. It had just been brought from my
house by Lena, and it ran thus:
"DEAR MISS BUTTERWORTH:
"Pardon our interference. _We_ have found the rings which you
think so conclusive an evidence of guilt against the person
secreting them; and, _with your permission_ [this was basely
underlined], Mr. Franklin Van Burnam will be in custody to-day.
"I will wait upon you at ten.
"Respectfully yours,
"EBENEZAR GRYCE."
_Franklin Van Burnam!_ Was I dreaming? _Franklin_ Van Burnam accused of
this crime and in custody! What did it mean? I had found no evidence
against Franklin Van Burnam.
_BOOK III_.
THE GIRL IN GRAY.
XXIX.
AMELIA BECOMES PEREMPTORY.
"Madam, I hope I see you satisfied?"
This was Mr. Gryce's greeting as he entered my parlor on that memorable
morning.
"Satisfied?" I repeated, rising and facing him with what he afterwards
described as a stony glare.
"Pardon me! I suppose you would have been still more satisfied if we had
waited for _you_ to point out the guilty man to _us_. But you must make
some allowances for professional egotism, Miss Butterworth. We really
could not allow you to take the initiatory step in a matter of such
importance."
"Oh!" was my sole response; but he has since told me that there was a
great deal in that _oh_; so much, that even he was startled by it.
"You set to-day for a talk with me," he went on; "probably relying upon
what you intended to assure yourself of yesterday. But our discovery at
the same time as yourself of the rings in Mr. Van Burnam's office, need
not interfere with your giving us your full confidence. The work you
have done has been excellent, and we are disposed to give you
considerable credit for it."
"Indeed!"
I had no choice but to thus indulge in ejaculations. The communication
he had just made was so startling, and his assumption of my complete
understanding of and participation in the discovery he professed to have
made, so puzzling, that I dared not venture beyond these simple
exclamations, lest he should see the state of mind into which he had
thrown me, and shut up like an oyster.
"We have kept counsel over what we have found," the wary old detective
continued, with a smile, which I wish I could imitate, but which
unhappily belongs to him alone. "I hope that you, or your maid, I should
say, have been equally discreet."
My maid!
"I see you are touched; but women find it so hard to keep a secret. But
it does not matter. To-night the whole town will know that the older and
not the younger brother has had these rings in his keeping."
"It will be nuts for the papers," I commented; then making an effort, I
remarked: "You are a most judicious man, Mr. Gryce, and must have other
reasons than the discovery of these rings for your threatened arrest of
a man of such excellent repute as Silas Van Burnam's eldest son. I
should like to hear them, Mr. Gryce. I should like to hear them very
much."
My attempt to seem at ease under these embarrassing conditions must have
given a certain sharpness to my tone; for, instead of replying, he
remarked, with well simulated concern and a fatherly humoring of my
folly peculiarly exasperating to one of my temperament: "You are
displeased, Miss Butterworth, because we did not let _you_ find the
rings."
"Perhaps; but we were engaged in an open field. I could not expect the
police to stand aside for me."
"Exactly! Especially when you have the secret satisfaction of having put
the police on the track of these jewels."
"How?"
"We were simply fortunate in laying our hands on them first. You, or
your maid rather, showed us where to look for them."
Lena again.
I was so dumfounded by this last assertion, I did not attempt to reply.
Fortunately, he misinterpreted my silence and the "stony glare" with
which it was accompanied.
"I know that it must seem to you altogether too bad, to be tripped up at
the moment of your anticipated triumph. But if apologies will suffice to
express our sense of presumption, then I pray you to accept them, Miss
Butterworth, both on my own part and on that of the Superintendent of
Police."
I did not understand in the least what he was talking about, but I
recognized the sarcasm of his final expression, and had spirit enough to
reply:
"The subject is too important for any more nonsense. Whereabouts in
Franklin Van Burnam's desk were these rings found, and how do you know
that his brother did not put them there?"
"Your ignorance is refreshing, Miss Butterworth. If you will ask a
certain young girl dressed in gray, upon what object connected with Mr.
Van Burnam's desk she laid her hands yesterday morning, you will have
an answer to your first question. The second one is still more easily
answered. Mr. Howard Van Burnam did not conceal the rings in the Duane
Street office for the reason that he has not been in that office since
his wife was killed. Regarding this fact we are as well advised as
yourself. Now you change color, Miss Butterworth. But there is no
necessity. For an amateur you have made less trouble and fewer mistakes
than were to be expected."
Worse and worse! He was patronizing me now, and for results I had done
nothing to bring about. I surveyed him in absolute amazement. Was he
amusing himself with me, or was he himself deceived as to the nature and
trend of my late investigations. This was a question to settle, and at
once; and as duplicity had hitherto proved my best weapon in dealing
with Mr. Gryce, I concluded to resort to it in this emergency. Clearing
my brow, I regarded with a more amenable air the little Hungarian vase
he had taken up on entering the room, and into which he had been talking
ever since he thought it worth while to compliment its owner.
"I do not wish," said I, "to be published to the world as the discoverer
of Franklin Van Burnam's guilt. But I do want credit with the police, if
only because one of their number has chosen to look upon my efforts with
disdain. I mean you, Mr. Gryce; so, if you are in earnest"--he smiled at
the vase most genially--"I will accept your apologies just so far as you
honor me with your confidence. I know you are anxious to hear what
evidence I have collected, or you would not be wasting time on me this
busy morning."
"Shrewd!" was the short ejaculation he shot into the mouth of the vase
he was handling.
"If that term of admiration is intended for me," I remarked, "I am sure
I am only too sensible of the honor. But flattery has never succeeded in
making me talk against my better judgment. I may be shrewd, but a fool
could see what you are after this morning. Compliment me when I have
deserved it. I can wait."
"I begin to think that what you withhold so resolutely has more than
common value, Miss Butterworth. If this is so, I must not be the only
one to listen to your explanations. Is not that a carriage I hear
stopping? I am expecting Inspector Z----. If that is he you have been
wise to delay your communications till he came."
A carriage _was_ stopping, and it was the Inspector who alighted from
it. I began to feel my importance in a way that was truly gratifying,
and cast my eyes up at the portrait of my father with a secret longing
that its original stood by to witness the verification of his prophecy.
But I was not so distracted by these thoughts as not to make one attempt
to get something from Mr. Gryce before the Inspector joined us.
"Why do you speak to me of my maid in one breath and of a girl in gray
in another? Did you think Lena----"
"Hush!" he enjoined, "we will have ample opportunities to discuss this
subject later."
"Will we?" thought I. "We will discuss nothing till I know more
positively what you are aiming at."
But I showed nothing of this determination in my face. On the contrary,
I became all affability as the Inspector entered, and I did the honors
of the house in a way I hope my father would have approved of, had he
been alive and present.
Mr. Gryce continued to stare into the vase.
"Miss Butterworth,"--it was the Inspector who was speaking,--"I have
been told that you take great interest in the Van Burnam murder, and
that you have even gone so far as to collect some facts in connection
with it which you have not as yet given to the police."
"You have heard correctly," I returned. "I have taken a deep interest in
this tragedy, and have come into possession of some facts in reference
to it which as yet I have imparted to no living soul."
Mr. Gryce's interest in my poor little vase increased marvellously.
Seeing this, I complacently continued:
"I could not have accomplished so much had I indulged in a confidant.
Such work as I have attempted depends for its success upon the secrecy
with which it is carried on. That is why amateur work is sometimes more
effective than professional. No one suspected me of making inquiries,
unless it was this gentleman, and he was forewarned of my possible
interference. I told him that in case Howard Van Burnam was put under
arrest, I should take it upon myself to stir up matters; and I have."
"Then you do not believe in Mr. Van Burnam's guilt? Not even in his
complicity, I suppose?" ventured the Inspector.
"I do not know anything about his complicity; but I do not believe the
stroke given to his wife came from his hand."
"I see, I see. You believe it the work of his brother."
I stole a look at Mr. Gryce before replying. He had turned the vase
upside down, and was intently studying its label; but he could not
conceal his expectation of an affirmative answer. Greatly relieved, I
immediately took the position I had resolved upon, and calmly but
vigorously observed:
"What I believe, and what I have learned in support of my belief, will
sound as well in your ears ten minutes hence as now. Before I give you
the result of such inquiries as I have been enabled to make, I require
to know what evidence you have yourself collected against the gentleman
you have just named, and in what respect it is as criminating as that
against his brother?"
"Is not that peremptory, Miss Butterworth? And do you think us called
upon to part with all or any of the secrets of our office? We have
informed you that we have new and startling evidence against the older
brother; should not that be sufficient for you?"
"Perhaps so if I were an assistant of yours, or even in your employ. But
I am neither; I stand alone, and although I am a woman and unused to
this business, I have earned, as I think you will acknowledge later, the
right to some consideration on your part. I cannot present the facts I
have to relate in a proper manner till I know just how the case stands."
"It is not curiosity that troubles Miss Butterworth--Madam, I said it
was not curiosity--but a laudable desire to have the whole matter
arranged with precision," dropped now in his dryest tones from the
detective's lips.
"Mr. Gryce has a most excellent understanding of my character," I
gravely observed.
The Inspector looked nonplussed. He glanced at Mr. Gryce and he glanced
at me, but the smile of the former was inscrutable, and my expression,
if I showed any, must have betrayed but little relenting.
"If called as a witness, Miss Butterworth,"--this was how he sought to
manage me,--"you will have no choice in the matter. You will be
compelled to speak or show contempt of court."
"That is true," I acknowledged. "But it is not what I might feel myself
called upon to say then, but what I can say now, that is of interest to
you at this present moment. So be generous, gentlemen, and satisfy my
curiosity, for such Mr. Gryce considers it, in spite of his assertions
to the contrary. Will it not all come out in the papers a few hours
hence, and have I not earned as much at your hands as the reporters?"
"The reporters are our bane. Do not liken yourself to the reporters."
"Yet they sometimes give you a valuable clue."
Mr. Gryce looked as if he would like to disclaim this, but he was a
judicious soul, and merely gave a twist to the vase which I thought
would cost me that small article of vertu.
"Shall we humor Miss Butterworth?" asked the Inspector.
"We will do better," answered Mr. Gryce, setting the vase down with a
precision that made me jump; for I am a worshipper of _bric-à-brac_, and
prize the few articles I own, possibly beyond their real value. "We will
treat her as a coadjutor, which, by the way, she says she is not, and by
the trust we place in her, secure that discretionary use of our
confidence which she shows with so much spirit in regard to her own."
"Begin then," said I.
"I will," said he, "but first allow me to acknowledge that you are the
person who first put us on the track of Franklin Van Burnam."
XXX.
THE MATTER AS STATED BY MR. GRYCE.
I had exhausted my wonder, so I accepted this statement with no more
display of surprise than a grim smile.
"When you failed to identify Howard Van Burnam as the man who
accompanied his wife into the adjacent house, I realized that I must
look elsewhere for the murderer of Louise Van Burnam. You see I had more
confidence in the excellence of your memory than you had yourself, so
much indeed that I gave you more than one chance to exercise it, having,
by certain little methods I sometimes employ, induced different moods in
Mr. Van Burnam at the time of his several visits, so that his bearing
might vary, and you have every opportunity to recognize him for the man
you had seen on that fatal night."
"Then it was he you brought here each time?" I broke in.
"It was he."
"Well!" I ejaculated.
"The Superintendent and some others whom I need not mention,"--here Mr.
Gryce took up another small object from the table,--"believed implicitly
in his guilt; conjugal murder is so common and the causes which lead to
it so frequently puerile. Therefore I had to work alone. But this did
not cause me any concern. _Your_ doubts emphasized mine, and when you
confided to me that you had seen a figure similar to the one we were
trying to identify, enter the adjoining house on the evening of the
funeral, I made immediate inquiries and discovered that the gentleman
who had entered the house right after the four persons described by you
was _Franklin Van Burnam_. This gave me a definite clue, and this is why
I say that it was you who gave me my first start in this matter."
"Humph!" thought I to myself, as with a sudden shock I remembered that
one of the words which had fallen from Miss Oliver's lips during her
delirium had been this very name of Franklin.
"I had had my doubts of this gentleman before," continued the detective,
warming gradually with his subject. "A man of my experience doubts every
one in a case of this kind, and I had formed at odd times a sort of side
theory, so to speak, into which some little matters which came up during
the inquest seemed to fit with more or less nicety; but I had no real
justification for suspicion till the event of which I speak. That you
had evidently formed the same theory as myself and were bound to enter
into the lists with me, put me on my mettle, madam, and with your
knowledge or without it, the struggle between us began."
"So your disdain of me," I here put in with a triumphant air I could not
subdue, "was only simulated? I shall know what to think of you
hereafter. But don't stop, go on, this is all deeply interesting to me."
"I can understand that. To proceed then; my first duty, of course, was
to watch _you_. You had reasons of your own for suspecting this man, so
by watching you I hoped to surprise them."
"Good!" I cried, unable to entirely conceal the astonishment and grim
amusement into which his continued misconception of the trend of my
suspicions threw me.