said and did was so unexpected and so convincing in its sincerity, I
felt moved by her even against my better judgment. I pitied her and yet
I dared not urge her on to speak, lest I should fail in my task of
making her well. I therefore confined myself to a few haphazard
expressions of sympathy and encouragement, and left her in the hands of
the nurse.
Next day Mr. Gryce called.
"Your patient is better," said he.
"Much better," was my cheerful reply. "This afternoon she will be able
to leave the house."
"Very good; have her down at half-past three and I will be in front with
a carriage."
"I dread it," I cried; "but I will have her there."
"You are beginning to like her, Miss Butterworth. Take care! You will
lose your head if your sympathies become engaged."
"It sits pretty firmly on my shoulders yet," I retorted; "and as for
sympathies, you are full of them yourself. I saw how you looked at her
yesterday."
"Bah, _my_ looks!"
"You cannot deceive me, Mr. Gryce; you are as sorry for the girl as you
can be; and so am I too. By the way, I do not think I should speak of
her as a girl. From something she said yesterday I am convinced she is a
married woman; and that her husband----"
"Well, madam?"
"I will not give him a name, at least not before your scheme has been
carried out. Are you ready for the undertaking?"
"I will be this afternoon. At half-past three she is to leave the house.
Not a minute before and not a minute later. Remember."
XXXV.
A RUSE.
It was a new thing for me to enter into any scheme blindfold. But the
past few weeks had taught me many lessons and among them to trust a
little in the judgment of others.
Accordingly I was on hand with my patient at the hour designated, and,
as I supported her trembling steps down the stairs, I endeavored not to
betray the intense interest agitating me, or to awaken by my curiosity
any further dread in her mind than that involved by her departure from
this home of bounty and good feeling, and her entrance upon an unknown
and possibly much to be apprehended future.
Mr. Gryce was awaiting us in the lower hall, and as he caught sight of
her slender figure and anxious face his whole attitude became at once so
protecting and so sympathetic, I did not wonder at her failure to
associate him with the police.
As she stepped down to his side he gave her a genial nod.
"I am glad to see you so far on the road to recovery," he remarked. "It
shows me that my prophecy is correct and that in a few days you will be
quite yourself again."
She looked at him wistfully.
"You seem to know so much about me, doctor, perhaps you can tell me
where they are going to take me."
He lifted a tassel from a curtain near by, looked at it, shook his head
at it, and inquired quite irrelevantly:
"Have you bidden good-bye to Miss Althorpe?"
Her eyes stole towards the parlors and she whispered as if half in awe
of the splendor everywhere surrounding her:
"I have not had the opportunity. But I should be sorry to go without a
word of thanks for her goodness. Is she at home?"
The tassel slipped from his hand.
"You will find her in a carriage at the door. She has an engagement out
this afternoon, but wishes to say good-bye to you before leaving."
"Oh, how kind she is!" burst from the girl's white lips; and with a
hurried gesture she was making for the door when Mr. Gryce stepped
before her and opened it.
Two carriages were drawn up in front, neither of which seemed to possess
the elegance of so rich a woman's equipage. But Mr. Gryce appeared
satisfied, and pointing to the nearest one, observed quietly:
"You are expected. If she does not open the carriage door for you, do
not hesitate to do it yourself. She has something of importance to say
to you."
Miss Oliver looked surprised, but prepared to obey him. Steadying
herself by the stone balustrade, she slowly descended the steps and
advanced towards the carriage. I watched her from the doorway and Mr.
Gryce from the vestibule. It seemed an ordinary situation, but
something in the latter's face convinced me that interests of no small
moment depended upon the interview about to take place.
But before I could decide upon their nature or satisfy myself as to the
full meaning of Mr. Gryce's manner, she had started back from the
carriage door and was saying to him in a tone of modest embarrassment:
"There is a gentleman in the carriage; you must have made some mistake."
Mr. Gryce, who had evidently expected a different result from his
stratagem, hesitated for a moment, during which I felt that he read her
through and through; then he responded lightly:
"I made a mistake, eh? Oh, possibly. Look in the other carriage, my
child."
With an unaffected air of confidence she turned to do so, and I turned
to watch her, for I began to understand the "scheme" at which I was
assisting, and foresaw that the emotion she had failed to betray at the
door of the first carriage might not necessarily be lacking on the
opening of the second.
I was all the more assured of this from the fact that Miss Althorpe's
stately figure was very plainly to be seen at that moment, not in the
coach Miss Oliver was approaching, but in an elegant victoria just
turning the corner.
My expectations were realized; for no sooner had the poor girl swung
open the door of the second hack, than her whole body succumbed to a
shock so great that I expected to see her fall in a heap on the
pavement. But she steadied herself up with a determined effort, and with
a sudden movement full of subdued fury, jumped into the carriage and
violently shut the door just as the first carriage drove off to give
place to Miss Althorpe's turn-out.
"Humph!" sprang from Mr. Gryce's lips in a tone so full of varied
emotions that it was with difficulty I refrained from rushing down the
stoop to see for myself who was the occupant of the coach into which my
late patient had so passionately precipitated herself. But the sight of
Miss Althorpe being helped to the ground by her attendant lover,
recalled me so suddenly to my own anomalous position on her stoop, that
I let my first impulse pass and concerned myself instead with the
formation of those apologies I thought necessary to the occasion. But
those apologies were never uttered. Mr. Gryce, with the infinite tact he
displays in all serious emergencies, came to my rescue, and so
distracted Miss Althorpe's attention that she failed to observe that she
had interrupted a situation of no small moment.
Meanwhile the coach containing Miss Oliver had, at a signal from the
wary detective, drawn off in the wake of the first one, and I had the
doubtful satisfaction of seeing them both roll down the street without
my having penetrated the secret of either.
A glance from Mr. Stone, who had followed Miss Althorpe up the stoop,
interrupted Mr. Gryce's flow of eloquence, and a few minutes later I
found myself making those adieux which I had hoped to avoid by departing
in Miss Althorpe's absence. Another instant and I was hastening down the
street in the direction taken by the two carriages, one of which had
paused at the corner a few rods off.
But, spry as I am for one of my settled habits and sedate character, I
found myself passed by Mr. Gryce; and when I would have accelerated my
steps, he darted forward quite like a boy and, without a word of
explanation or any acknowledgment of the mutual understanding which
certainly existed between us, leaped into the carriage I was endeavoring
to reach, and was driven away. But not before I caught a glimpse of Miss
Oliver's gray dress inside.
Determined not to be baffled by this man, I turned about and followed
the other carriage. It was approaching a crowded part of the avenue, and
in a few minutes I had the gratification of seeing it come to a
standstill only a few feet from the curb-stone. The opportunity thus
afforded me of satisfying my curiosity was not to be slighted. Without
pausing to consider consequences or to question the propriety of my
conduct, I stepped boldly up in front of its half-lowered window and
looked in. There was but one person inside, and that person was Franklin
Van Burnam.
What was I to conclude from this? That the occupant of the other
carriage was Howard, and that Mr. Gryce now knew with which of the two
brothers Miss Oliver's memories were associated.
_BOOK IV._
THE END OF A GREAT MYSTERY.
XXXVI.
THE RESULT.
I was as much surprised at this result of Mr. Gryce's scheme as he was,
and possibly I was more chagrined. But I shall not enter into my
feelings on the subject, or weary you any further with my conjectures.
You will be much more interested, I know, in learning what occurred to
Mr. Gryce upon entering the carriage holding Miss Oliver.
He had expected, from the intense emotion she displayed at the sight of
Howard Van Burnam (for I was not mistaken as to the identity of the
person occupying the carriage with her), to find her flushed with the
passions incident upon this meeting, and her companion in a condition of
mind which would make it no longer possible for him to deny his
connection with this woman and his consequently guilty complicity in a
murder to which both were linked by so many incriminating circumstances.
But for all his experience, the detective was disappointed in this
expectation, as he had been in so many others connected with this case.
There was nothing in Miss Oliver's attitude to indicate that she had
unburdened herself of any of the emotions with which she was so
grievously agitated, nor was there on Mr. Van Burnam's part any deeper
manifestation of feeling than a slight glow on his cheek, and even that
disappeared under the detective's scrutiny, leaving him as composed and
imperturbable as he had been in his memorable inquisition before the
Coroner.
Disappointed, and yet in a measure exhilarated by this sudden check in
plans he had thought too well laid for failure, Mr. Gryce surveyed the
young girl more carefully, and saw that he had not been mistaken in
regard to the force or extent of the feelings which had driven her into
Mr. Van Burnam's presence; and turning back to that gentleman, was about
to give utterance to some very pertinent remarks, when he was
forestalled by Mr. Van Burnam inquiring, in his old calm way, which
nothing seemed able to disturb:
"Who is this crazy girl you have forced upon me? If I had known I was to
be subjected to such companionship I should not have regarded my outing
so favorably."
Mr. Gryce, who never allowed himself to be surprised by anything a
suspected criminal might do or say, surveyed him quietly for a moment,
then turned towards Miss Oliver.
"You hear what this gentleman calls you?" said he.
Her face was hidden by her hands, but she dropped them as the detective
addressed her, showing a countenance so distorted by passion that it
stopped the current of his thoughts, and made him question whether the
epithet bestowed upon her by their somewhat callous companion was
entirely unjustified. But soon the something else which was in her face
restored his confidence in her sanity, and he saw that while her reason
might be shaken it was not yet dethroned, and that he had good cause to
expect sooner or later some action from a woman whose misery could wear
an aspect of such desperate resolution.
That he was not the only one affected by the force and desperate
character of her glance became presently apparent, for Mr. Van Burnam,
with a more kindly tone than he had previously used, observed quietly:
"I see the lady is suffering. I beg pardon for my inconsiderate words. I
have no wish to insult the unhappy."
Never was Mr. Gryce so nonplussed. There was a mingled courtesy and
composure in the speaker's manner which was as far removed as possible
from that strained effort at self-possession which marks suppressed
passion or secret fear; while in the vacant look with which she met
these words there was neither anger nor scorn nor indeed any of the
passions one would expect to see there. The detective consequently did
not force the situation, but only watched her more and more attentively
till her eyes fell and she crouched away from them both. Then he said:
"You can name this gentleman, can you not, Miss Oliver, even if he does
not choose to recognize _you_?"
But her answer, if she made one, was inaudible, and the sole result
which Mr. Gryce obtained from this venture was a quick look from Mr. Van
Burnam and the following uncompromising words from his lips:
"If you think this young girl knows me, or that I know her, you are
greatly mistaken. She is as much of a stranger to me as I am to her,
and I take this opportunity of saying so. I hope my liberty and good
name are not to be made dependent upon the word of a miserable waif like
this."
"Your liberty and your good name will depend upon your innocence,"
retorted Mr. Gryce, and said no more, feeling himself at a disadvantage
before the imperturbability of this man and the silent, non-accusing
attitude of this woman, from the shock of whose passions he had
anticipated so much and obtained so little.
Meantime they were moving rapidly towards Police Headquarters, and
fearing that the sight of that place might alarm Miss Oliver more than
was well for her, he strove again to rouse her by a kindly word or so.
But it was useless. She evidently tried to pay attention and follow the
words he used, but her thoughts were too busy over the one great subject
that engrossed her.
"A bad case!" murmured Mr. Van Burnam, and with the phrase seemed to
dismiss all thought of her.
"A bad case!" echoed Mr. Gryce, "but," seeing how fast the look of
resolution was replacing her previous aspect of frenzy, "one that will
do mischief yet to the man who has deceived her."
The stopping of the carriage roused her. Looking up, she spoke for the
first time.
"I want a police officer," she said.
Mr. Gryce, with all his assurance restored, leaped to the ground and
held out his hand.
"I will take you into the presence of one," said he; and she, without a
glance at Mr. Van Burnam, whose knee she brushed in passing, leaped to
the ground, and turned her face towards Police Headquarters.
XXXVII.
"TWO WEEKS!"
But before she was well in, her countenance changed.
"No," said she, "I want to think first. Give me time to think. I dare
not say a word without thinking."
"Truth needs no consideration. If you wish to denounce this man----"
Her look said she did.
"Then now is the time."
She gave him a sharp glance; the first she had bestowed upon him since
leaving Miss Althorpe's.
"You are no doctor," she declared. "Are you a police-officer?"
"I am a detective."
"Oh!" and she hesitated for a moment, shrinking from him with very
natural distrust and aversion. "I have been in the toils then without
knowing it; no wonder I am caught. But I am no criminal, sir; and if you
are the one most in authority here, I beg the privilege of a few words
with you before I am put into confinement."
"I will take you before the Superintendent," said Mr. Gryce. "But do you
wish to go alone? Shall not Mr. Van Burnam accompany you?"
"Mr. Van Burnam?"
"Is it not he you wish to denounce?"
"I do not wish to denounce any one to-day."
"What do you wish?" asked Mr. Gryce.
"Let me see the man who has power to hold me here or let me go, and I
will tell him."
"Very well," said Mr. Gryce, and led her into the presence of the
Superintendent.
She was at this moment quite a different person from what she had been
in the carriage. All that was girlish in her aspect or appealing in her
bearing had faded away, evidently forever, and left in its place
something at once so desperate and so deadly, that she seemed not only a
woman but one of a very determined and dangerous nature. Her manner,
however, was quiet, and it was only in her eye that one could see how
near she was to frenzy.
She spoke before the Superintendent could address her.
"Sir," said she, "I have been brought here on account of a fearful crime
I was unhappy enough to witness. I myself am innocent of that crime,
but, so far as I know, there is no other person living save the guilty
man who committed it, who can tell you how or why or by whom it was
done. One man has been arrested for it and another has not. If you will
give me two weeks of complete freedom, I will point out to you which is
the veritable man of blood, and may Heaven have mercy on his soul!"
"She is mad," signified the Superintendent in by-play to Mr. Gryce.
But the latter shook his head; she was not mad yet.
"I know," she continued, without a hint of the timidity which seemed
natural to her under other circumstances, "that this must seem a
presumptuous request from one like me, but it is only by granting it
that you will ever be able to lay your hand on the murderer of Mrs. Van
Burnam. For I will never speak if I cannot speak in my own way and at my
own time. The agonies I have suffered must have some compensation.
Otherwise I should die of horror and my grief."
"And how do you hope to gain compensation by this delay?" expostulated
the Superintendent. "Would you not meet with more satisfaction in
denouncing him here and now before he can pass another night in fancied
security?"
But she only repeated: "I have said two weeks, and two weeks I must
have. Two weeks in which to come and go as I please. Two weeks!" And no
argument they could advance succeeded in eliciting from her any other
response or in altering in any way her air of quiet determination with
its underlying suggestion of frenzy.
Acknowledging their mutual defeat by a look, the Superintendent and
detective drew off to one side, and something like the following
conversation took place between them.
"You think she's sane?"
"I do."
"And will remain so two weeks?"
"If humored."
"You are sure she is implicated in this crime?"
"She was a witness to it."
"And that she speaks the truth when she declares that she is the only
person who can point out the criminal?"
"Yes; that is, she is the only one who will do it. The attitude taken by
the Van Burnams, especially by Howard just now in the presence of this
girl, shows how little we have to expect from them."
"Yet you think they know as much as she does about it?"
"I do not know what to think. For once I am baffled, Superintendent.
Every passion which this woman possesses was roused by her unexpected
meeting with Howard Van Burnam, and yet their indifference when
confronted, as well as her present action, seems to argue a lack of
connection between them which overthrows at once the theory of his
guilt. Was it the sight of Franklin, then, which really affected her?
and was her apparent indifference at meeting him only an evidence of her
self-control? It seems an impossible conclusion to draw, and indeed
there are nothing but hitches and improbable features in this case.
Nothing fits; nothing jibes. I get just so far in it and then I run up
against a wall. Either there is a superhuman power of duplicity in the
persons who contrived this murder or we are on the wrong tack
altogether."
"In other words, you have tried every means known to you to get at the
truth of this matter, and failed."
"I have, sir; sorry as I may be to acknowledge it."
"Then we must accept her terms. She can be shadowed?"
"Every moment."
"Very well, then. Extreme cases must be met by extreme measures. We will
let her have her swing, and see what comes of it. Revenge is a great
weapon in the hands of a determined woman, and from her look I think she
will make the most of it."
And returning to where the young girl stood, the Superintendent asked
her whether she felt sure the murderer would not escape in the time that
must elapse before his apprehension.
Instantly her cheek, which had looked as if it could never show color
again, flushed a deep and painful scarlet, and she cried vehemently:
"If any hint of what is here passing should reach him I should be
powerless to prevent his flight. Swear, then, that my very existence
shall be kept a secret between you two, or I will do nothing towards his
apprehension,--no, not even to save the innocent."
"We will not swear, but we will promise," returned the Superintendent.
"And now, when may we expect to hear from you again?"
"Two weeks from to-night as the clock strikes eight. Be wherever I may
chance to be at that hour, and see on whose arm I lay my hand. It will
be that of the man who killed Mrs. Van Burnam."
XXXVIII.
A WHITE SATIN GOWN.
The events just related did not come to my knowledge for some days after
they occurred, but I have recorded them at this time that I might in
some way prepare you for an interview which shortly after took place
between myself and Mr. Gryce.
I had not seen him since our rather unsatisfactory parting in front of
Miss Althorpe's house, and the suspense which I had endured in the
interim made my greeting unnecessarily warm. But he took it all very
naturally.
"You are glad to see me," said he; "been wondering what has become of
Miss Oliver. Well, she is in good hands; with Mrs. Desberger, in short;
a woman whom I believe you know."
"With Mrs. Desberger?" I _was_ surprised. "Why, I have been looking
every day in the papers for an account of her arrest."
"No doubt," he answered. "But we police are slow; we are not ready to
arrest her yet. Meanwhile you can do us a favor. She wants to see you;
are you willing to visit her?"
My answer contained but little of the curiosity and eagerness I really
felt.
"I am always at your command. Do you wish me to go now?"
"Miss Oliver is impatient," he admitted. "Her fever is better, but she
is in an excited condition of mind which makes her a little
unreasonable. To be plain, she is not quite herself, and while we still
hope something from her testimony, we are leaving her very much to her
own devices, and do not cross her in anything. You will therefore listen
to what she says, and, if possible, aid her in anything she may
undertake, unless it points directly towards self-destruction. My
opinion is that she will surprise you. But you are becoming accustomed
to surprises, are you not?"
"Thanks to you, I am."
"Very well, then, I have but one more suggestion to make. You are
working for the police now, madam, and nothing that you see or learn in
connection with this girl is to be kept back from us. Am I understood?"
"Perfectly; but it is only proper for me to retort that I am not
entirely pleased with the part you assign me. Could you not have left
thus much to my good sense, and not put it into so many words?"
"Ah, madam, the case at present is too serious for risks of that kind.
Mr. Van Burnam's reputation, to say nothing of his life, depends upon
our knowledge of this girl's secret; surely you can stretch a point in a
matter of so much moment?"
"I have already stretched several, and I can stretch one more, but I
hope the girl won't look at me too often with those miserable appealing
eyes of hers; they make me feel like a traitor."
"You will not be troubled by any appeal in them. The appeal has
vanished; something harder and even more difficult to meet is to be
found in them now: wrath, purpose, and a desire for vengeance. She is
not the same woman, I assure you."
"Well," I sighed, "I am sorry; there is something about the girl that
lays hold of me, and I hate to see such a change in her. Did she ask for
me by name?"
"I believe so."
"I cannot understand her wanting me, but I will go; and I won't leave
her either till she shows me she is tired of me. I am as anxious to see
the end of this matter as you are." Then, with some vague idea that I
had earned a right to some show of confidence on his part, I added
insinuatingly: "I supposed you would feel the case settled when she
almost fainted at the sight of the younger Mr. Van Burnam."
The old ambiguous smile I remembered so well came to modify his brusque
rejoinder.
"If she had been a woman like you, I should; but she is a deep one, Miss
Butterworth; too deep for the success of a little ruse like mine. Are
you ready?"
I was not, but it did not take me long to be so, and before an hour had
elapsed I was seated in Mrs. Desberger's parlor in Ninth Street. Miss
Oliver was in, and ere long made her appearance. She was dressed in
street costume.
I was prepared for a change in her, and yet the shock I felt when I
first saw her face must have been apparent, for she immediately
remarked: