The Affair Next Door (28 page)

"I forgot," said he, "that it was as a rival and not as a coadjutor you
meddled in this matter." And he bowed again, this time with a sarcastic
air I felt too self-satisfied to resent.

"To-morrow, then?" said I.

"To-morrow."

At that I left him.

I did not return immediately to Miss Althorpe. I visited Cox's millinery
store, Mrs. Desberger's house, and the offices of the various city
railways. But I got no clue to the rings; and finally satisfied that
Miss Oliver, as I must now call her, had not lost or disposed of them on
her way from Gramercy Park to her present place of refuge, I returned to
Miss Althorpe's with even a greater determination than before to search
that luxurious home till I found them.

But a decided surprise awaited me. As the door opened I caught a
glimpse of the butler's face, and noticing its embarrassed expression, I
at once asked what had happened.

His answer showed a strange mixture of hesitation and bravado.

"Not much, ma'am; only Miss Althorpe is afraid you may not be pleased.
Miss Oliver is gone, ma'am; she ran away while Crescenze was out of the
room."

I gave a low cry and rushed down the steps.

"Don't go!" I called out to the driver. "I shall want you in ten
minutes." And hurrying back, I ran up-stairs in a condition of mind such
as I have no reason to be proud of. Happily Mr. Gryce was not there to
see me.

"Gone? Miss Oliver gone?" I cried to the maid whom I found trembling in
a corner of the hall.

"Yes, ma'am; it was my fault, ma'am. She was in bed so quiet, I thought
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.

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.

"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."