The Affair Next Door (25 page)

"O how can I touch her! She is dead, and I have never touched a dead
body."

I fell back breathing hard, and Miss Althorpe's eyes, meeting mine, grew
dark with horror. Indeed she was about to utter a cry herself, but I
made an imperative motion, and she merely shrank farther away towards
the door.

Meantime I had bent forward and laid my hand on the trembling figure
before me.

"Miss Oliver," I said, "rouse yourself, I pray. I have a message for you
from Mrs. Desberger."

She turned her head, looked at me like a person in a daze, then slowly
moved and sat up.

"Who are you?" she asked, surveying me and the space about her with
eyes which seemed to take in nothing till they lit upon Miss Althorpe's
figure standing in an attitude of mingled shame and sympathy by the
half-open door.

"Oh, Miss Althorpe!" she entreated, "I pray you to excuse me. I did not
know you wanted me. I have been asleep."

"It is this lady who wants you," answered Miss Althorpe. "She is a
friend of mine and one in whom you can confide."

"Confide!" This was a word to rouse her. She turned livid, and in her
eyes as she looked my way both terror and surprise were visible. "Why
should you think I had anything to confide? If I had, I should not pass
by you, Miss Althorpe, for another."

There were tears in her voice, and I had to remember the victim just
laid away in Woodlawn, not to bestow much more compassion on this woman
than she rightfully deserved. She had a magnetic voice and a magnetic
presence, but that was no reason why I should forget what she had done.

"No one asks for your confidence," I protested, "though it might not
hurt you to accept a friend whenever you can get one. I merely wish, as
I said before, to give you a message from Mrs. Desberger, under whose
roof you stayed before coming here."

"I am obliged to you," she responded, rising to her feet, and trembling
very much. "Mrs. Desberger is a kind woman; what does she want of me?"

So I was on the right track; she acknowledged Mrs. Desberger.

"Nothing but to return you this. It fell out of your pocket while you
were dressing." And I handed her the little red pin-cushion I had taken
from the Van Burnams' front room.

She looked at it, shrunk violently back, and with difficulty prevented
herself from showing the full depth of her feelings.

"I don't know anything about it. It is not mine, I don't know it!" And
her hair stirred on her forehead as she gazed at the small object lying
in the palm of my hand, proving to me that she saw again before her all
the horrors of the house from which it had been taken.

"Who are
you
?" she suddenly demanded, tearing her eyes from this
simple little cushion and fixing them wildly on my face. "Mrs. Desberger
never sent me this. I—"

"You are right to stop there," I interposed, and then paused, feeling
that I had forced a situation which I hardly knew how to handle.

The instant's pause she had given herself seemed to restore her
self-possession. Leaving me, she moved towards Miss Althorpe.

"I don't know who this lady is," said she, "or what her errand here with
me may mean. But I hope that it is nothing that will force me to leave
this house which is my only refuge."

Miss Althorpe, too greatly prejudiced in favor of this girl to hear this
appeal unmoved, notwithstanding the show of guilt with which she had met
my attack, smiled faintly as she answered:

"Nothing short of the best reasons would make me part from you now. If
there are such reasons, you will spare me the pain of making use of
them. I think I can so far trust you, Miss Oliver."

No answer; the young girl looked as if she could not speak.

"Are there any reasons why I should not retain you in my house, Miss
Oliver?" the gentle mistress of many millions went on. "If there are,
you will not wish to stay, I know, when you consider how near my
marriage day is, and how undisturbed my mind should be by any cares
unattending my wedding."

And still the girl was silent, though her lips moved slightly as if she
would have spoken if she could.

"But perhaps you are only unfortunate," suggested Miss Althorpe, with an
almost angelic look of pity—I don't often see angels in women. "If that
is so, God forbid that you should leave my protection or my house. What
do you say, Miss Oliver?"

"That you are God's messenger to me," burst from the other, as if her
tongue had been suddenly loosed. "That misfortune, and not wickedness,
has driven me to your doors; and that there is no reason why I should
leave you unless my secret sufferings make my presence unwelcome to
you."

Was this the talk of a frivolous woman caught unawares in the meshes of
a fearful crime? If so, she was a more accomplished actress than we had
been led to expect even from her own words to her disgusted husband.

"You look like one accustomed to tell the truth," proceeded Miss
Althorpe. "Do you not think you have made some mistake, Miss
Butterworth?" she asked, approaching me with an ingenuous smile.

I had forgotten to caution her not to make use of my name, and when it
fell from her lips I looked to see her unhappy companion recoil from me
with a scream.

But strange to say she evinced no emotion, and seeing this, I became
more distrustful of her than ever; for, for her to hear without apparent
interest the name of the chief witness in the inquest which had been
held over the remains of the woman with whose death she had been more or
less intimately concerned, argued powers of duplicity such as are only
associated with guilt or an extreme simplicity of character. And she was
not simple, as the least glance from her deep eyes amply showed.

Recognizing, therefore, that open measures would not do with this woman,
I changed my manner at once, and responding to Miss Althorpe, with a
gracious smile, remarked with an air of sudden conviction:

"Perhaps I have made some mistake. Miss Oliver's words sound very
ingenuous, and I am disposed, if you are, to take her at her word. It is
so easy to draw false conclusions in this world." And I put back the
pin-cushion into my pocket with an air of being through with the matter,
which seemed to impose upon the young woman, for she smiled faintly,
showing a row of splendid teeth as she did so.

"Let me apologize," I went on, "if I have intruded upon Miss Oliver
against her wishes." And with one comprehensive look about the room
which took in all that was visible of her simple wardrobe and humble
belongings, I led the way out. Miss Althorpe immediately followed.

"This is a much more serious affair than I have led you to suppose," I
confided to her as soon as we were at a suitable distance from Miss
Oliver's door. "If she is the person I think her, she is amenable to
law, and the police will have to be notified of her whereabouts."

"She
has
stolen, then?"

"Her fault is a very grave one," I returned.

Miss Althorpe, deeply troubled, looked about her as if for guidance. I,
who could have given it to her, made no movement to attract her
attention to myself, but waited calmly for her own decision in this
matter.

"I wish you would let me consult Mr. Stone," she ventured at last. "I
think his judgment might help us."

"I had rather take no one into our confidence,—especially no man. He
would consider your welfare only and not hers."

I did not consider myself obliged to acknowledge that the work upon
which I was engaged could not be shared by one of the male sex without
lessening my triumph over Mr. Gryce.

"Mr. Stone is very just," she remarked, "but he might be biased in a
matter of this kind. What way do you see out of the difficulty?"

"Only this. To settle at once and unmistakably, whether she is the
person who carried certain articles from the house of a friend of mine.
If she is, there will be some evidence of the fact visible in her room
or on her person. She has not been out, I believe?"

"Not since she came into the house."

"And has remained for the most part in her own apartment?"

"Always, except when I have summoned her to my assistance."

"Then what I want to know I can learn there. But how can I make my
investigations without offence?"

"What do you want to know, Miss Butterworth?"

"Whether she has in her keeping some half dozen rings of considerable
value."

"Oh! she could conceal rings so easily."

"She does conceal them; I have no more doubt of it than I have of my
standing here; but I must know it before I shall feel ready to call the
attention of the police to her."

"Yes, we should both know it. Poor girl! poor girl! to be suspected of a
crime! How great must have been her temptation!"

"
I
can manage this matter, Miss Althorpe, if you will entrust it to
me."

"How, Miss Butterworth?"

"The girl is ill; let me take care of her."

"Really ill?"

"Yes, or will be so before morning. There is fever in her veins; she has
worried herself ill. Oh, I will be good to her."

This in answer to a doubtful look from Miss Althorpe.

"This is a difficult problem you have set me," that lady remarked after
a moment's thought. "But anything seems better than sending her away, or
sending for the police. But do you suppose she will allow you in her
room?"

"I think so; if her fever increases she will not notice much that goes
on about her, and I think it will increase; I have seen enough of
sickness to be something of a judge."

"And you will search her while she is unconscious?"

"Don't look so horrified, Miss Althorpe. I have promised you I will not
worry her. She may need assistance in getting to bed. While I am giving
it to her I can judge if there is anything concealed upon her person."

"Yes, perhaps."

"At all events, we shall know more than we do now. Shall I venture, Miss
Althorpe?"

"I cannot say no," was the hesitating answer; "you seem so very much in
earnest."

"And I am in earnest. I have reasons for being; consideration for you is
one of them."

"I do not doubt it. And now will you come down to supper, Miss
Butterworth?"

"No," I replied. "My duty is here. Only send word to Lena that she is to
drive home and take care of my house in my absence. I shall want
nothing, so do not worry about me. Join your lover now, dear; and do not
bestow another thought upon this self-styled Miss Oliver or what I am
about to do in her room."

I did not return immediately to my patient. I waited till her supper
came up. Then I took the tray, and assured by the face of the girl who
brought it that Miss Althorpe had explained my presence in her house
sufficiently for me to feel at my ease before her servants, I carried in
the dainty repast she had provided and set it down on the table.

The poor woman was standing where we had left her; but her whole figure
showed languor, and she more than leaned against the bedpost behind her.
As I looked up from the tray and met her eyes, she shuddered and seemed
to be endeavoring to understand who I was and what I was doing in her
room. My premonitions in regard to her were well based. She was in a
raging fever, and was already more than half oblivious to her
surroundings.

Approaching her, I spoke as gently as I could, for her hapless condition
appealed to me in spite of my well founded prejudices against her; and
seeing she was growing incapable of response, I drew her up on the bed
and began to undress her.

I half expected her to recoil at this, or at least to make some show of
alarm, but she submitted to my ministrations almost gratefully, and
neither shrank nor questioned me till I laid my hands upon her shoes.
Then indeed she quivered, and drew her feet away with such an appearance
of terror that I was forced to desist from my efforts or drive her into
violent delirium.

This satisfied me that Louise Van Burnam lay before me. The scar
concerning which so much had been said in the papers would be ever
present in the thoughts of this woman as the tell-tale mark by which she
might be known, and though at this moment she was on the borders of
unconsciousness, the instinct of self-preservation still remained in
sufficient force to prompt her to make this effort to protect herself
from discovery.

I had told Miss Althorpe that my chief reason for intruding upon Miss
Oliver, was to determine if she had in her possession certain rings
supposed to have been taken from a friend of mine; and while this was in
a measure true—the rings being an important factor in the proof I was
accumulating against her,—I was not so anxious to search for them at
this time as to find the scar which would settle at once the question of
her identity.

When she drew her foot away from me then, so violently, I saw that I
needed to search no farther for the evidence required, and could give
myself up to making her comfortable. So I bathed her temples, now
throbbing with heat, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing her fall
into a deep and uneasy slumber. Then I tried again to draw off her
shoes, but the start she gave and the smothered cry which escaped her
warned me that I must wait yet longer before satisfying my curiosity; so
I desisted at once, and out of pure compassion left her to get what good
she might from the lethargy into which she had fallen.

Being hungry, or at least feeling the necessity of some slight aliment
to help me sustain the fatigues of the night, I sat down now at the
table and partook of some of the dainties with which Miss Althorpe had
kindly provided me. After which I made out a list of such articles as
were necessary to my proper care of the patient who had so strangely
fallen into my hands, and then, feeling that I had a right at last to
indulge in pure curiosity, I turned my attention to the clothing I had
taken from the self-styled Miss Oliver.