The Affair Next Door (4 page)

"I can stand anything where the cause of justice is involved," I
replied.

"Very well, then, sit down, if you please. When the whole body is
visible I will call you."

And stepping forward he gave orders to have the clock and broken china
removed from about the body.

As the former was laid away on one end of the mantel some one observed:

"What a valuable witness that clock might have been had it been running
when the shelves fell!"

But the fact was so patent that it had not been in motion for months
that no one even answered; and Mr. Gryce did not so much as look towards
it. But then we had all seen that the hands stood at three minutes to
five.

I had been asked to sit down, but I found this impossible. Side by side
with the detective, I viewed the replacing of that heavy piece of
furniture against the wall, and the slow disclosure of the upper part of
the body which had so long lain hidden.

That I did not give way is a proof that my father's prophecy was not
without some reasonable foundation; for the sight was one to try the
stoutest nerves, as well as to awaken the compassion of the hardest
heart.

The Coroner, meeting my eye, pointed at the poor creature inquiringly.

"Is this the woman you saw enter here last night?"

I glanced down at her dress, noted the short summer cape tied to the
neck with an elaborate bow of ribbon, and nodded my head.

"I remember the cape," said I. "But where is her hat? She wore one. Let
me see if I can describe it." Closing my eyes I endeavored to recall
the dim silhouette of her figure as she stood passing up the change to
the driver; and was so far successful that I was ready to announce at
the next moment that her hat presented the effect of a soft felt with
one feather or one bow of ribbon standing upright from the side of the
crown.

"Then the identity of this woman with the one you saw enter here last
night is established," remarked the detective, stooping down and drawing
from under the poor girl's body a hat, sufficiently like the one I had
just described, to satisfy everybody that it was the same.

"As if there could be any doubt," I began.

But the Coroner, explaining that it was a mere formality, motioned me to
stand aside in favor of the doctor, who seemed anxious to approach
nearer the spot where the dead woman lay. This I was about to do when a
sudden thought struck me, and I reached out my hand for the hat.

"Let me look at it for a moment," said I.

Mr. Gryce at once handed it over, and I took a good look at it inside
and out.

"It is pretty badly crushed," I observed, "and does not present a very
fresh appearance, but for all that it has been worn but once."

"How do you know?" questioned the Coroner.

"Let the other Richmond inform you," was my grimly uttered reply, as I
gave it again into the detective's hand.

There was a murmur about me, whether of amusement or displeasure, I made
no effort to decide. I was finding out something for myself, and I did
not care what they thought of me.

"Neither has she worn this dress long," I continued; "but that is not
true of the shoes. They are not old, but they have been acquainted with
the pavement, and that is more than can be said of the hem of this gown.
There are no gloves on her hands; a few minutes elapsed then before the
assault; long enough for her to take them off."

"Smart woman!" whispered a voice in my ear; a half-admiring,
half-sarcastic voice that I had no difficulty in ascribing to Mr. Gryce.
"But are you sure she wore any? Did you notice that her hand was gloved
when she came into the house?"

"No," I answered, frankly; "but so well-dressed a woman would not enter
a house like this, without gloves."

"It was a warm night," some one suggested.

"I don't care. You will find her gloves as you have her hat; and you
will find them with the fingers turned inside out, just as she drew them
from her hand. So much I will concede to the warmth of the weather."

"Like these, for instance," broke in a quiet voice.

Startled, for a hand had appeared over my shoulder dangling a pair of
gloves before my eyes, I cried out, somewhat too triumphantly I own:

"Yes, yes, just like those! Did you pick them up here? Are they hers?"

"You say that this is the way hers should look."

"And I repeat it."

"Then allow me to pay you my compliments. These were picked up here."

"But where?" I cried. "I thought I had looked this carpet well over."

He smiled, not at me but at the gloves, and the thought crossed me that
he felt as if something more than the gloves was being turned inside
out. I therefore pursed my mouth, and determined to stand more on my
guard.

"It is of no consequence," I assured him; "all such matters will come
out at the inquest."

Mr. Gryce nodded, and put the gloves back in his pocket. With them he
seemed to pocket some of his geniality and patience.

"All these facts have been gone over before you came in," said he, which
statement I beg to consider as open to doubt.

The doctor, who had hardly moved a muscle during all this colloquy, now
rose from his kneeling position beside the girl's head.

"I shall have to ask the presence of another physician," said he. "Will
you send for one from your office, Coroner Dahl?"

At which I stepped back and the Coroner stepped forward, saying,
however, as he passed me:

"The inquest will be held day after to-morrow in my office. Hold
yourself in readiness to be present. I regard you as one of my chief
witnesses."

I assured him I would be on hand, and, obeying a gesture of his finger,
retreated from the room; but I did not yet leave the house. A straight,
slim man, with a very small head but a very bright eye, was leaning on
the newel-post in the front hall, and when he saw me, started up so
alertly I perceived that he had business with me, and so waited for him
to speak.

"You are Miss Butterworth?" he inquired.

"I am, sir."

"And I am a reporter from the New York
World
. Will you allow me—"

Why did he stop? I had merely looked at him. But he did stop, and that
is saying considerable for a reporter from the New York
World
.

"I certainly am willing to tell you what I have told every one else," I
interposed, considering it better not to make an enemy of so judicious a
young man; and seeing him brighten up at this, I thereupon related all I
considered desirable for the general public to know.

I was about passing on, when, reflecting that one good turn deserves
another, I paused and asked him if he thought they would leave the dead
girl in that house all night.

He answered that he did not think they would. That a telegram had been
sent some time before to young Mr. Van Burnam, and that they were only
awaiting his arrival to remove her.

"Do you mean Howard?" I asked.

"Is he the elder one?"

"No."

"It is the elder one they have summoned; the one who has been staying at
Long Branch."

"How can they expect him then so soon?"

"Because he is in the city. It seems the old gentleman is going to
return on the
New York
, and as she is due here to-day, Franklin Van
Burnam has come to New York to meet him."

"Humph!" thought I, "lively times are in prospect," and for the first
time I remembered my dinner and the orders which had not been given
about some curtains which were to have been hung that day, and all the
other reasons I had for being at home.

I must have shown my feelings, much as I pride myself upon my
impassibility upon all occasions, for he immediately held out his arm,
with an offer to pilot me through the crowd to my own house; and I was
about to accept it when the door-bell rang so sharply that we
involuntarily stopped.

"A fresh witness or a telegram for the Coroner," whispered the reporter
in my ear.

I tried to look indifferent, and doubtless made out pretty well, for he
added, after a sly look in my face:

"You do not care to stay any longer?"

I made no reply, but I think he was impressed by my dignity. Could he
not see that it would be the height of ill-manners for me to rush out in
the face of any one coming in?

An officer opened the door, and when we saw who stood there, I am sure
that the reporter, as well as myself, was grateful that we listened to
the dictates of politeness. It was young Mr. Van Burnam—Franklin; I
mean the older and more respectable of the two sons.

He was flushed and agitated, and looked as if he would like to
annihilate the crowd pushing him about on his own stoop. He gave an
angry glance backward as he stepped in, and then I saw that a carriage
covered with baggage stood on the other side of the street, and gathered
that he had not returned to his father's house alone.

"What has happened? What does all this mean?" were the words he hurled
at us as the door closed behind him and he found himself face to face
with a half dozen strangers, among whom the reporter and myself stood
conspicuous.

Mr. Gryce, coming suddenly from somewhere, was the one to answer him.

"A painful occurrence, sir. A young girl has been found here, dead,
crushed under one of your parlor cabinets."

"A young girl!" he repeated. (Oh, how glad I was that I had been brought
up never to transgress the principles of politeness.) "Here! in this
shut-up house? What young girl? You mean old woman, do you not? the
house-cleaner or some one—"

"No, Mr. Van Burnam, we mean what we say, though possibly I should call
her a young lady. She is dressed quite fashionably."

"The —" Really I cannot repeat in this public manner the word which
Mr. Van Burnam used. I excused him at the time, but I will not
perpetuate his forgetfulness in these pages.

"She is still lying as we found her," Mr. Gryce now proceeded in his
quiet, almost fatherly way. "Will you not take a look at her? Perhaps
you can tell us who she is?"

"I?" Mr. Van Burnam seemed quite shocked. "How should I know her! Some
thief probably, killed while meddling with other people's property."

"Perhaps," quoth Mr. Gryce, laconically; at which I felt so angry, as
tending to mislead my handsome young neighbor, that I irresistibly did
what I had fully made up my mind not to do, that is, stepped into view
and took a part in this conversation.

"How can you say that," I cried, "when her admittance here was due to a
young man who let her in at midnight with a key, and then left her to
eat out her heart in this great house all alone."

I have made sensations in my life, but never quite so marked a one as
this. In an instant every eye was on me, with the exception of the
detective's. His was on the figure crowning the newel-post, and
bitterly severe his gaze was too, though it immediately grew wary as the
young man started towards me and impetuously demanded:

"Who talks like that? Why, it's Miss Butterworth. Madam, I fear I did
not fully understand what you said."

Whereupon I repeated my words, this time very quietly but clearly, while
Mr. Gryce continued to frown at the bronze figure he had taken into his
confidence. When I had finished, Mr. Van Burnam's countenance had
changed, so had his manner. He held himself as erect as before, but not
with as much bravado. He showed haste and impatience also, but not the
same kind of haste and not quite the same kind of impatience. The
corners of Mr. Gryce's mouth betrayed that he noted this change, but he
did not turn away from the newel-post.

"This is a remarkable circumstance which you have just told me,"
observed Mr. Van Burnam, with the first bow I had ever received from
him. "I don't know what to think of it. But I still hold that it's some
thief. Killed, did you say? Really dead? Well, I'd have given five
hundred dollars not to have had it happen in this house."

He had been moving towards the parlor door, and he now entered it.
Instantly Mr. Gryce was by his side.

"Are they going to close the door?" I whispered to the reporter, who was
taking this all in equally with myself.

"I'm afraid so," he muttered.

And they did. Mr. Gryce had evidently had enough of my interference, and
was resolved to shut me out, but I heard one word and caught one
glimpse of Mr. Van Burnam's face before the heavy door fell to. The word
was: "Oh, so bad as that! How can any one recognize her—" And the
glimpse—well, the glimpse proved to me that he was much more profoundly
agitated than he wished to appear, and any extraordinary agitation on
his part was certainly in direct contradiction to the very sentence he
was at that moment uttering.

"However much I may be needed at home, I I cannot reconcile it with my
sense of duty to leave just yet," I confided to the reporter, with what
I meant to be a proper show of reason and self-restraint; "Mr. Van
Burnam may wish to ask me some questions."

"Of course, of course," acquiesced the other. "You are very right;
always are very right, I should judge."

As I did not know what he meant by this, I frowned, always a wise thing
to do in an uncertainty; that is,—if one wishes to maintain an air of
independence and aversion to flattery.

"Will you not sit down?" he suggested. "There is a chair at the end of
the hall."

But I had no need to sit. The front door-bell again rang, and
simultaneously with its opening, the parlor door unclosed and Mr.
Franklin Van Burnam appeared in the hall, just as Mr. Silas Van Burnam,
his father, stepped into the vestibule.

"Father!" he remonstrated, with a troubled air; "could you not wait?"

The elder gentleman, who had evidently just been driven up from the
steamer, wiped his forehead with an irascible air, that I will say I
had noticed in him before and on much less provocation.