The Affair Next Door (18 page)

And now what other clue was offered me, save the one I have already
mentioned as being given by the clock? None that I could seize upon; and
feeling the weakness of the cause I had so obstinately embraced, I rose
from my seat at the tea-table and began making such alterations in my
toilet as would prepare me for the evening and my inevitable callers.

"Amelia," said I to myself, as I encountered my anything but satisfied
reflection in the glass, "can it be that you ought, after all, to have
been called Araminta? Is a momentary display of spirit on the part of a
young man of doubtful principles, enough to make you forget the dictates
of good sense which have always governed you up to this time?"

The stern image which confronted me from the mirror made me no reply,
and smitten with sudden disgust, I left the glass and went below to
greet some friends who had just ridden up in their carriage.

They remained one hour, and they discussed one subject: Howard Van
Burnam and his probable connection with the crime which had taken place
next door. But though I talked some and listened more, as is proper for
a woman in her own house, I said nothing and heard nothing which had not
been already said and heard in numberless homes that night. Whatever
thoughts I had which in any way differed from those generally expressed,
I kept to myself,—whether guided by discretion or pride, I cannot say;
probably by both, for I am not deficient in either quality.

Arrangements had already been made for the burial of Mrs. Van Burnam
that night, and as the funeral ceremony was to take place next door,
many of my guests came just to sit in my windows and watch the coming
and going of the few people invited to the ceremony.

But I discouraged this. I have no patience with idle curiosity.
Consequently by nine I was left alone to give the affair such real
attention as it demanded; something which, of course, I could not have
done with a half dozen gossiping friends leaning over my shoulder.

The result of this attention can be best learned from the conversation I
held with Mr. Gryce the next morning.

He came earlier than usual, but he found me up and stirring.

"Well," he cried, accosting me with a smile as I entered the parlor
where he was seated, "it is all right this time, is it not? No trouble
in identifying the gentleman who entered your neighbor's house last
night at a quarter to twelve?"

Resolved to probe this man's mind to the bottom, I put on my sternest
air.

"I had not expected any one to enter there so late last night," said I.
"Mr. Van Burnam declared so positively at the inquest that he was the
person we have been endeavoring to identify, that I did not suppose you
would consider it necessary to bring him to the house for me to see."

"And so you were not in the window?"

"I did not say that; I am always where I have promised to be, Mr.
Gryce."

"Well, then?" he inquired sharply.

I was purposely slow in answering him—I had all the longer time to
search his face. But its calmness was impenetrable, and finally I
declared:

"The man you brought with you last night—you were the person who
accompanied him, were you not—was
not
the man I saw alight there four
nights ago."

He may have expected it; it may have been the very assertion he desired
from me, but his manner showed displeasure, and the quick "How?" he
uttered was sharp and peremptory.

"I do not ask who it was," I went on, with a quiet wave of my hand that
immediately restored him to himself, "for I know you will not tell me.
But what I do hope to know is the name of the man who entered that same
house at just ten minutes after nine. He was one of the funeral guests,
and he arrived in a carriage that was immediately preceded by a coach
from which four persons alighted, two ladies and two gentlemen."

"I do not know the gentleman, ma'am," was the detective's half-surprised
and half-amused retort. "I did not keep track of every guest that
attended the funeral."

"Then you didn't do your work as well as I did mine," was my rather dry
reply. "For I noted every one who went in; and that gentleman, whoever
he was, was more like the person I have been trying to identify than any
one I have seen enter there during my four midnight vigils."

Mr. Gryce smiled, uttered a short "
Indeed!
" and looked more than ever
like a sphinx. I began quietly to hate him, under my calm exterior.

"Was Howard at his wife's funeral?" I asked.

"He was, ma'am."

"And did he come in a carriage?"

"He did, ma'am."

"Alone?"

"He thought he was alone; yes, ma'am."

"Then may it not have been he?"

"I can't say, ma'am."

Mr. Gryce was so obviously out of his element under this
cross-examination that I could not suppress a smile even while I
experienced a very lively indignation at his reticence. He may have seen
me smile and he may not, for his eyes, as I have intimated, were always
busy with some object entirely removed from the person he addressed; but
at all events he rose, leaving me no alternative but to do the same.

"And so you didn't recognize the gentleman I brought to the neighboring
house just before twelve o'clock," he quietly remarked, with a calm
ignoring of my last question which was a trifle exasperating.

"No."

"Then, ma'am," he declared, with a quick change of manner, meant, I
should judge, to put me in my proper place, "I do not think we can
depend upon the accuracy of your memory;" and he made a motion as if to
leave.

As I did not know whether his apparent disappointment was real or not, I
let him move to the door without a reply. But once there I stopped him.

"Mr. Gryce," said I, "I don't know what you think about this matter, nor
whether you even wish my opinion upon it. But I am going to express it,
for all that.
I
do not believe that Howard killed his wife with a
hat-pin."

"No?" retorted the old gentleman, peering into his hat, with an ironical
smile which that inoffensive article of attire had certainly not
merited. "And why, Miss Butterworth, why? You must have substantial
reasons for any opinion you would form."

"I have an intuition," I responded, "backed by certain reasons. The
intuition won't impress you very deeply, but the reasons may not be
without some weight, and I am going to confide them to you."

"Do," he entreated in a jocose manner which struck me as inappropriate,
but which I was willing to overlook on account of his age and very
fatherly manner.

"Well, then," said I, "this is one. If the crime was a premeditated one,
if he hated his wife and felt it for his interest to have her out of the
way, a man of Mr. Van Burnam's good sense would have chosen any other
spot than his father's house to kill her in, knowing that her identity
could not be hidden if once she was associated with the Van Burnam name.
If, on the contrary, he took her there in good faith, and her death was
the unexpected result of a quarrel between them, then the means employed
would have been simpler. An angry man does not stop to perform a
delicate surgical operation when moved to the point of murder, but uses
his hands or his fists, just as Mr. Van Burnam himself suggested."

"Humph!" grunted the detective, staring very hard indeed into his hat.

"You must not think me this young man's friend," I went on, with a well
meant desire to impress him with the impartiality of my attitude. "I
never have spoken to him nor he to me, but I am the friend of justice,
and I must declare that there was a note of surprise in the emotion he
showed at sight of his wife's hat, that was far too natural to be
assumed."

The detective failed to be impressed. I might have expected this,
knowing his sex and the reliance such a man is apt to place upon his own
powers.

"Acting, ma'am, acting!" was his laconic comment. "A very uncommon
character, that of Mr. Howard Van Burnam. I do not think you do it full
justice."

"Perhaps not, but see that you don't slight mine. I do not expect you to
heed these suggestions any more than you did those I offered you in
connection with Mrs. Boppert, the scrub-woman; but my conscience is
eased by my communication, and that is much to a solitary woman like
myself who is obliged to spend many a long hour alone with no other
companion."

"Something has been accomplished, then, by this delay," he observed.
Then, as if ashamed of this momentary display of irritation, he added in
the genial tones more natural to him: "I don't blame you for your good
opinion of this interesting, but by no means reliable, young man, Miss
Butterworth. A woman's kind heart stands in the way of her proper
judgment of criminals."

"You will not find its instincts fail even if you do its judgment."

His bow was as full of politeness as it was lacking in conviction.

"I hope you won't let your instincts lead you into any unnecessary
detective work," he quietly suggested.

"That I cannot promise. If you arrest Howard Van Burnam for murder, I
may be tempted to meddle with matters which don't concern me."

An amused smile broke through his simulated seriousness.

"Pray accept my congratulations, then, in advance, ma'am. My health has
been such that I have long anticipated giving up my profession; but if I
am to have such assistants as you in my work, I shall be inclined to
remain in it some time longer."

"When a man as busy as you stops to indulge in sarcasm, he is in more or
less good spirits. Such a condition, I am told, only prevails with
detectives when they have come to a positive conclusion concerning the
case they are engaged upon."

"I see you already understand the members of your future profession."

"As much as is necessary at this juncture," I retorted. Then seeing him
about to repeat his bow, I added sharply: "You need not trouble yourself
to show me too much politeness. If I meddle in this matter at all it
will not be as your coadjutor, but as your rival."

"My rival?"

"Yes, your rival; and rivals are never good friends until one of them is
hopelessly defeated."

"Miss Butterworth, I see myself already at your feet."

And with this sally and a short chuckle which did more than anything he
had said towards settling me in my half-formed determination to do as I
had threatened, he opened the door and quietly disappeared.

The verdict rendered by the Coroner's jury showed it to be a more
discriminating set of men than I had calculated upon. It was murder
inflicted by a hand unknown.

I was so gratified by this that I left the court-room in quite an
agitated frame of mind, so agitated, indeed, that I walked through one
door instead of another, and thus came unexpectedly upon a group formed
almost exclusively of the Van Burnam family.

Starting back, for I dislike anything that looks like intrusion,
especially when no great end is to be gained by it, I was about to
retrace my steps when I felt two soft arms about my neck.

"Oh, Miss Butterworth, isn't it a mercy that this dreadful thing is
over! I don't know when I have ever felt anything so keenly."

It was Isabella Van Burnam.

Startled, for the embraces bestowed on me are few, I gave a subdued sort
of grunt, which nevertheless did not displease this young lady, for her
arms tightened, and she murmured in my ear: "You dear old soul! I like
you
so
much."

"We are going to be very good neighbors," cooed a still sweeter voice in
my other ear. "Papa says we must call on you soon." And Caroline's
demure face looked around into mine in a manner some would have thought
exceedingly bewitching.

"Thank you, pretty poppets!" I returned, freeing myself as speedily as
possible from embraces the sincerity of which I felt open to question.
"My house is always open to you." And with little ceremony, I walked
steadily out and betook myself to the carriage awaiting me.

I looked upon this display of feeling as the mere gush of two
over-excited young women, and was therefore somewhat astonished when I
was interrupted in my afternoon nap by an announcement that the two
Misses Van Burnam awaited me in the parlor.

Going down, I saw them standing there hand in hand and both as white as
a sheet.

"O Miss Butterworth!" they cried, springing towards me, "Howard has been
arrested, and we have no one to say a word of comfort to us."

"Arrested!" I repeated, greatly surprised, for I had not expected it to
happen so soon, if it happened at all.

"Yes, and father is just about prostrated. Franklin, too, but he keeps
up, while father has shut himself into his room and won't see anybody,
not even us. O, I don't know how we are to bear it! Such a disgrace, and
such a wicked, wicked shame! For Howard never had anything to do with
his wife's death, had he, Miss Butterworth?"

"No," I returned, taking my ground at once, and vigorously, for I really
believed what I said. "He is innocent of her death, and I would like the
chance of proving it."

They evidently had not expected such an unqualified assertion from me,
for they almost smothered me with kisses, and called me
their only
friend
! and indeed showed so much real feeling this time that I neither
pushed them away nor tried to withdraw myself from their embraces.

When their emotions were a little exhausted I led them to a sofa and sat
down before them. They were motherless girls, and my heart, if hard, is
not made of adamant or entirely unsusceptible to the calls of pity and
friendship.

"Girls," said I, "if you will be calm, I should like to ask you a few
questions."

"Ask us anything," returned Isabella; "nobody has more right to our
confidence than you."