The Affair Next Door (12 page)

"How? On foot or in a carriage?"

"In a carriage; one of the hacks that stand in front of the door."

"Did they bring any baggage with them?"

"No, sir."

"Did they take any away?"

"The lady carried a parcel."

"What kind of a parcel?"

"A brown-paper parcel, like clothing done up."

"And the gentleman?"

"I did not see him."

"Was she dressed the same in going as in coming?"

"To all appearance, except her hat. That was smaller."

"She had the gossamer on still, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"And a veil?"

"Yes, sir."

"Only that the hat it covered was smaller?"

"Yes, sir."

"And now, how did you account to yourself for the parcel and the change
of hat?"

"I didn't account for them. I didn't think anything about them at the
time; but, since I have had the subject brought to my mind, I find it
easy enough. She had a package delivered to her while she was in our
house, or rather packages; they were quite numerous, I believe."

"Can you recall the circumstances of their delivery?"

"Yes, sir; the man who brought the packages said that they had not been
paid for, so I allowed him to carry them to Mrs. James Pope's room. When
he went away, he had but one small parcel with him; the rest he had
left."

"And this is all you can tell us about this singular couple? Had they no
meals in your house?"

"No, sir; the gentleman—or I suppose I should say the lady, sir, for
the order was given in her voice—sent for two dozen oysters and a
bottle of ale, which were furnished to them in their rooms; but they
didn't come to the dining-room."

"Is the boy here who carried up those articles?"

"He is, sir."

"And the chambermaid who attended to their rooms?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you may answer this question, and we will excuse you. How was the
gentleman dressed when you saw him?"

"In a linen duster and a felt hat."

"Let the jury remember that. And now let us hear from Richard Clapp. Is
Richard Clapp in the room?"

"I am, sir," answered a cheery voice; and a lively young man with a
shrewd eye and a wide-awake manner popped up from behind a portly woman
on a side seat and rapidly came forward.

He was asked several questions before the leading one which we all
expected; but I will not record them here. The question which brought
the reply most eagerly anticipated was this:

"Do you remember being sent to the Hotel D—with several packages for
a Mrs. James Pope?"

"I do, sir."

"Did you deliver them in person? Did you see the lady?"

A peculiar look crossed his face and we all leaned forward. But his
answer brought a shock of disappointment with it.

"No, I didn't, sir. She wouldn't let me in. She bade me lay the things
down by the door and wait in the rear hall till she called me."

"And you did this?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you kept your eye on the door, of course?"

"Naturally, sir."

"And saw—"

"A hand steal out and take in the things."

"A woman's hand?"

"No; a man's. I saw the white cuff."

"And how long was it before they called you?"

"Fifteen minutes, I should say. I heard a voice cry 'Here!' and seeing
their door open, I went toward it. But by the time I reached it, it was
shut again, and I only heard the lady say that all the articles but the
shoes were satisfactory, and would I thrust the bill in under the door.
I did so, and they were some minutes counting out the change, but
presently the door opened slightly, and I saw a man's hand holding out
the money, which was correct to the cent. 'You need not receipt the
bill,' cried the lady from somewhere in the room. 'Give him the shoes
and let him go.' So I received the shoes in the same mysterious way I
had the money, and seeing no reason for waiting longer, pocketed the
bills and returned to the store."

"Has the jury any further questions to ask the witness?"

Of course not. They were ninnies, all of them, and—But, contrary to
my expectation, one of them did perk up courage, and, wriggling very
much on his seat, ventured to ask if the cuff he had seen on the man's
hand when it was thrust through the doorway had a button in it.

The answer was disappointing. The witness had not noticed any.

The juror, somewhat abashed, sank into silence, at which another of the
precious twelve, inspired no doubt by the other's example, blurted out:

"Then what was the color of the coat sleeve? You surely can remember
that."

But another disappointment awaited us.

"He did not wear any coat. It was a shirt sleeve I saw."

A shirt sleeve! There was no clue in that. A visible look of dejection
spread through the room, which was not dissipated till another witness
stood up.

This time it was the bell-boy of the hotel who had been on duty that
day. His testimony was brief, and added but little to the general
knowledge. He had been summoned more than once by these mysterious
parties, but only to receive his orders through a closed door. He had
not entered the room at all.

He was followed by the chambermaid, who testified that she was in the
room once while they were there; that she saw them both then, but did
not catch a glimpse of their faces; Mr. Pope was standing in the window
almost entirely shielded by the curtains, and Mrs. Pope was busy hanging
up something in the wardrobe. The gentleman had on his duster and the
lady her gossamer; it was but a few minutes after their arrival.

Questioned in regard to the state of the room after they left it, she
said that there was a lot of brown paper lying about, marked B. Altman,
but nothing else that did not belong there.

"Not a tag, nor a hat-pin, nor a bit of memorandum, lying on bureau or
table?"

"Nothing, sir, so far as I mind. I wasn't on the look-out for anything,
sir. They were a queer couple, but we have lots of queer couples at our
house, and the most I notices, sir, is those what remember the
chambermaid and those what don't. This couple was of the kind what
don't."

"Did you sweep the room after their departure?"

"I always does. They went late, so I swept the room the next morning."

"And threw the sweepings away, of course?"

"Of course; would you have me keep them for treasures?"

"It might have been well if you had," muttered the Coroner. "The
combings from the lady's hair might have been very useful in
establishing her identity."

The porter who has charge of the lady's entrance was the last witness
from this house. He had been on duty on the evening in question and had
noticed this couple leaving. They both carried packages, and had
attracted his attention first, by the long, old-fashioned duster which
the gentleman wore, and secondly, by the pains they both took not to be
observed by any one. The woman was veiled, as had already been said, and
the man held his package in such a way as to shield his face entirely
from observation.

"So that you would not know him if you saw him again?" asked the
Coroner.

"Exactly, sir," was the uncomprising answer.

As he sat down, the Coroner observed: "You will note from this
testimony, gentlemen, that this couple, signing themselves Mr. and Mrs.
James Pope of Philadelphia, left this house dressed each in a long
garment eminently fitted for purposes of concealment,—he in a linen
duster, and she in a gossamer. Let us now follow this couple a little
farther and see what became of these disguising articles of apparel. Is
Seth Brown here?"

A man, who was so evidently a hackman that it seemed superfluous to ask
him what his occupation was, shuffled forward at this.

It was in his hack that this couple had left the D—. He remembered
them very well as he had good reason to. First, because the man paid him
before entering the carriage, saying that he was to let them out at the
northwest corner of Madison Square, and secondly—But here the Coroner
interrupted him to ask if he had seen the gentleman's face when he paid
him. The answer was, as might have been expected, No. It was dark, and
he had not turned his head.

"Didn't you think it queer to be paid before you reached your
destination?"

"Yes, but the rest was queerer. After I had taken the money—I never
refuses money, sir—and was expecting him to get into the hack, he steps
up to me again and says in a lower tone than before: 'My wife is very
nervous. Drive slow, if you please, and when you reach the place I have
named, watch your horses carefully, for if they should move while she is
getting out, the shock would throw her into a spasm.' As she had looked
very pert and lively, I thought this mighty queer, and I tried to get a
peep at his face, but he was too smart for me, and was in the carriage
before I could clap my eye on him."

"But you were more fortunate when they got out? You surely saw one or
both of them then?"

"No, sir, I didn't. I had to watch the horses' heads, you know. I
shouldn't like to be the cause of a young lady having a spasm."

"Do you know in what direction they went?"

"East, I should say. I heard them laughing long after I had whipped up
my horses. A queer couple, sir, that puzzled me some, though I should
not have thought of them twice if I had not found next day—"

"Well?"

"The gentleman's linen duster and the neat brown gossamer which the lady
had worn, lying folded under the two back cushions of my hack; a present
for which I was very much obliged to them, but which I was not long
allowed to enjoy, for yesterday the police—"

"Well, well, no matter about that. Here is a duster and here is a brown
gossamer. Are these the articles you found under your cushions?"

"If you will examine the neck of the lady's gossamer, you can soon tell,
sir. There was a small hole in the one I found, as if something had been
snipped out of it; the owner's name, most likely."

"Or the name of the place where it was bought," suggested the Coroner,
holding the garment up to view so as to reveal a square hole under the
collar.

"That's it!" cried the hackman. "That's the very one. Shame, I say, to
spoil a new garment that way."

"Why do you call it new?" asked the Coroner.

"Because it hasn't a mud spot or even a mark of dust upon it. We looked
it all over, my wife and I, and decided it had not been long off the
shelf. A pretty good haul for a poor man like me, and if the police—"

But here he was cut short again by an important question:

"There is a clock but a short distance from the place where you
stopped. Did you notice what time it was when you drove away?"

"Yes, sir. I don't know why I remember it, but I do. As I turned to go
back to the hotel, I looked up at this clock. It was half-past eleven."

We were all by this time greatly interested in the proceedings; and when
another hackman was called we recognized at once that an effort was
about to be made to connect this couple with the one who had alighted at
Mr. Van Burnam's door.

The witness, who was a melancholy chap, kept his stand on the east side
of the Square. At about twenty minutes to twelve, he was awakened from a
nap he had been taking on the top of his coach, by a sharp rap on his
whip arm, and looking down, he saw a lady and gentleman standing at the
door of his vehicle.

"We want to go to Gramercy Park," said the lady. "Drive us there at
once."

"I nodded, for what is the use of wasting words when it can be avoided;
and they stepped at once into the coach."

"Can you describe them—tell us how they looked?"

"I never notice people; besides, it was dark; but he had a swell air,
and she was pert and merry, for she laughed as she closed the door."

"Can't you remember how they were dressed?"

"No, sir; she had on something that flapped about her shoulders, and he
had a dark hat on his head, but that was all I saw."

"Didn't you see his face?"

"Not a bit of it; he kept it turned away. He didn't want nobody looking
at
him
. She did all the business."

"Then you saw
her
face?"

"Yes, for a minute. But I wouldn't know it again. She was young and
purty, and her hand which dropped the money into mine was small, but I
couldn't say no more, not if you was to give me the town."

"Did you know that the house you stopped at was Mr. Van Burnam's, and
that it was supposed to be empty?"

"No, sir, I'm not one of the swell ones. My acquaintances live in
another part of the town."

"But you noticed that the house was dark?"

"I may have. I don't know."

"And that is all you have to tell us about them?"

"No, sir; the next morning, which was yesterday, sir, as I was a-dusting
out the coach I found under the cushions a large blue veil, folded and
lying very flat. But it had been slit with a knife and could not be
worn."

This was strange too, and while more than one person about me ventured
an opinion, I muttered to myself, "James Pope, his mark!" astonished at
a coincidence which so completely connected the occupants of the two
coaches.

But the Coroner was able to produce a witness whose evidence carried the
matter on still farther. A policeman in full uniform testified next, and
after explaining that his beat led him from Madison Avenue to Third on
Twenty-seventh Street, went on to say that as he was coming up this
street on Tuesday evening some few minutes before midnight, he
encountered, somewhere between Lexington Avenue and Third, a man and
woman walking rapidly towards the latter avenue, each carrying a parcel
of some dimensions; that he noted them because they seemed so merry, but
would have thought nothing of it, if he had not presently perceived them
coming back without the parcels. They were chatting more gaily than
ever. The lady wore a short cape, and the gentleman a dark coat, but he
could give no other description of their appearance, for they went by
rapidly, and he was more interested in wondering what they had done with
such large parcels in such a short time at that hour of night, than in
noting how they looked or whither they were going. He did observe,
however, that they proceeded towards Madison Square, and remembers now
that he heard a carriage suddenly drive away from that direction.