The Affair Next Door (6 page)

"Are we there already?" asked the young man, with a shudder. "I wish
you had not considered it necessary for me to see her. I shall detect
nothing familiar in her, I know."

Mr. Gryce bowed, repeated that it was a mere formality, and followed the
young gentleman into the building and afterwards into the room where the
dead body lay. A couple of doctors and one or two officials stood about,
in whose faces the young man sought for something like encouragement
before casting his eyes in the direction indicated by the detective. But
there was little in any of these faces to calm him, and turning shortly
away, he walked manfully across the room and took his stand by the
detective.

"I am positive," he began, "that it is not my wife—" At this moment
the cloth that covered the body was removed, and he gave a great start
of relief. "I said so," he remarked, coldly. "This is no one I know."

His sigh was echoed in double chorus from the doorway. Glancing that way
he encountered the faces of his father and elder brother, and moved
towards them with a relieved air that made quite another man of him in
appearance.

"I have had my say," he remarked. "Shall I wait outside till you have
had yours?"

"We have already said all that we had to," Franklin returned. "We
declared that we did not recognize this person."

"Of course, of course," assented the other. "I don't see why they should
have expected us to know her. Some common suicide who thought the house
empty—But how did she get in?"

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Gryce. "Can it be that I forgot to tell you?
Why, she was let in at night by a young man of medium height"—his eye
ran up and down the graceful figure of the young
élégant
before him as
he spoke—"who left her inside and then went away. A young man who had a
key—"

"A
key
? Franklin, I—"

Was it a look from Franklin which made him stop? It is possible, for he
turned on his heel as he reached this point, and tossing his head with
quite a gay air, exclaimed: "But it is of no consequence! The girl is a
stranger, and we have satisfied, I believe, all the requirements of the
law in saying so, and may now drop the matter. Are you going to the
club, Franklin?"

"Yes, but—" Here the elder brother drew nearer and whispered
something into the other's ear, who at that whisper turned again towards
the place where the dead woman lay. Seeing this movement, his anxious
father wiped the moisture from his forehead. Silas Van Burnam had been
silent up to this moment and seemed inclined to continue so, but he
watched his younger son with painful intentness.

"Nonsense!" broke from Howard's lips as his brother ceased his
communication; but he took a step nearer the body, notwithstanding, and
then another and another till he was at its side again.

The hands had not been injured, as we have said, and upon these his eyes
now fell.

"They are like hers! O God! they are like hers!" he muttered, growing
gloomy at once. "But where are the rings? There are no rings to be seen
on these fingers, and she wore five, including her wedding-ring."

"Is it of your wife you are speaking?" inquired Mr. Gryce, who had edged
up close to his side.

The young man was caught unawares.

He flushed deeply, but answered up boldly and with great appearance of
candor:

"Yes; my wife left Haddam yesterday to come to New York, and I have not
seen her since. Naturally I have felt some doubts lest this unhappy
victim should be she. But I do not recognize her clothing; I do not
recognize her form; only the hands look familiar."

"And the hair?"

"Is of the same color as hers, but it's a very ordinary color. I do not
dare to say from anything I see that this is my wife."

"We will call you again after the doctor has finished his autopsy," said
Mr. Gryce. "Perhaps you will hear from Mrs. Van Burnam before then."

But this intimation did not seem to bring comfort with it. Mr. Van
Burnam walked away, white and sick, for which display of emotion there
was certainly some cause, and rejoining his father tried to carry off
the moment with the
aplomb
of a man of the world.

But that father's eye was fixed too steadily upon him; he faltered as he
sat down, and finally spoke up, with feverish energy:

"If it is she, so help me, God, her death is a mystery to me! We have
quarrelled more than once lately, and I have sometimes lost my patience
with her, but she had no reason to wish for death, and I am ready to
swear in defiance of those hands, which are certainly like hers, and the
nameless something which Franklin calls a likeness, that it is a
stranger who lies there, and that her death in our house is a
coincidence."

"Well, well, we will wait," was the detective's soothing reply. "Sit
down in the room opposite there, and give me your orders for supper, and
I will see that a good meal is served you."

The three gentlemen, seeing no way of refusing, followed the discreet
official who preceded them, and the door of the doctor's room closed
upon him and the inquiries he was about to make.

Mr. Van Burnam and his sons had gone through the formality of a supper
and were conversing in the haphazard way natural to men filled with a
subject they dare not discuss, when the door opened and Mr. Gryce came
in.

Advancing very calmly, he addressed himself to the father:

"I am sorry," said he, "to be obliged to inform you that this affair is
much more serious than we anticipated. This young woman was dead before
the shelves laden with
bric-à-brac
fell upon her. It is a case of
murder; obviously so, or I should not presume to forestall the Coroner's
jury in their verdict."

Murder! it is a word to shake the stoutest heart!

The older gentleman reeled as he half rose, and Franklin, his son,
betrayed in his own way an almost equal amount of emotion. But Howard,
shrugging his shoulders as if relieved of an immense weight, looked
about with a cheerful air, and briskly cried:

"Then it is not the body of my wife you have there. No one would murder
Louise. I shall go away and prove the truth of my words by hunting her
up at once."

The detective opened the door, beckoned in the doctor, who whispered
two or three words into Howard's ear.

They failed to awake the emotion he evidently expected. Howard looked
surprised, but answered without any change of voice:

"Yes, Louise had such a scar; and if it is true that this woman is
similarly marked, then it is a mere coincidence. Nothing will convince
me that my wife has been the victim of murder."

"Had you not better take a look at the scar just mentioned?"

"No. I am so sure of what I say that I will not even consider the
possibility of my being mistaken. I have examined the clothing on this
body you have shown me, and not one article of it came from my wife's
wardrobe; nor would my wife go, as you have informed me this woman did,
into a dark house at night with any other man than her husband."

"And so you absolutely refuse to acknowledge her."

"Most certainly."

The detective paused, glanced at the troubled faces of the other two
gentlemen, faces that had not perceptibly altered during these
declarations, and suggestively remarked:

"You have not asked by what means she was killed."

"And I don't care," shouted Howard.

"It was by very peculiar means, also new in my experience."

"It does not interest me," the other retorted.

Mr. Gryce turned to his father and brother.

"Does it interest
you
?" he asked.

The old gentleman, ordinarily so testy and so peremptory, silently
nodded his head, while Franklin cried:

"Speak up quick. You detectives hesitate so over the disagreeables. Was
she throttled or stabbed with a knife?"

"I have said the means were peculiar. She was stabbed, but not—with a
knife."

I know Mr. Gryce well enough now to be sure that he did not glance
towards Howard while saying this, and yet at the same time that he did
not miss the quiver of a muscle on his part or the motion of an eyelash.
But Howard's assumed
sang froid
remained undisturbed and his
countenance imperturbable.

"The wound was so small," the detective went on, "that it is a miracle
it did not escape notice. It was made by the thrust of some very slender
instrument through—"

"The heart?" put in Franklin.

"Of course, of course," assented the detective; "what other spot is
vulnerable enough to cause death?"

"Is there any reason why we should not go?" demanded Howard, ignoring
the extreme interest manifested by the other two, with a determination
that showed great doggedness of character.

The detective ignored
him
.

"A quick stroke, a sure stroke, a fatal stroke. The girl never breathed
after."

"But what of those things under which she lay crushed?"

"Ah, in them lies the mystery! Her assailant must have been as subtle as
he was sure."

And still Howard showed no interest.

"I wish to telegraph to Haddam," he declared, as no one answered the
last remark. Haddam was the place where he and his wife had been
spending the summer.

"We have already telegraphed there," observed Mr. Gryce. "Your wife has
not yet returned."

"There are other places," defiantly insisted the other. "I can find her
if you give me the opportunity."

Mr. Gryce bowed.

"I am to give orders, then, for this body to be removed to the Morgue."

It was an unexpected suggestion, and for an instant Howard showed that
he had feelings with the best. But he quickly recovered himself, and
avoiding the anxious glances of his father and brother, answered with
offensive lightness:

"I have nothing to do with that. You must do as you think proper."

And Mr. Gryce felt that he had received a check, and did not know
whether to admire the young man for his nerve or to execrate him for his
brutality. That the woman whom he had thus carelessly dismissed to the
ignominy of the public gaze was his wife, the detective did not doubt.

To return to my own observations. I was almost as ignorant of what I
wanted to know at ten o'clock on that memorable night as I was at five,
but I was determined not to remain so. When the two Misses Van Burnam
had retired to their room, I slipped away to the neighboring house and
boldly rang the bell. I had observed Mr. Gryce enter it a few minutes
before, and I was resolved to have some talk with him.

The hall-lamp was lit, and we could discern each other's faces as he
opened the door. Mine may have been a study, but I am sure his was. He
had not expected to be confronted by an elderly lady at that hour of
night.

"Well!" he dryly ejaculated, "I am sensible of the honor, Miss
Butterworth." But he did not ask me in.

"I expected no less," said I. "I saw you come in, and I followed as soon
after as I could. I have something to say to you."

He admitted me then and carefully closed the door. Feeling free to be
myself, I threw off the veil I had tied under my chin and confronted him
with what I call the true spirit.

"Mr. Gryce," I began, "let us make an exchange of civilities. Tell me
what you have done with Howard Van Burnam, and I will tell you what I
have observed in the course of this afternoon's investigation."

This aged detective is used to women, I have no doubt, but he is not
used to
me
. I saw it by the way he turned over and over the spectacles
he held in his hand. I made an effort to help him out.

"I have noted something to-day which I think has escaped
you
. It is so
slight a clue that most women would not speak of it. But being
interested in the case, I will mention it, if in return you will
acquaint me with what will appear in the papers to-morrow."

He seemed to like it. He peered through his glasses and at them with the
smile of a discoverer. "I am your very humble servant," he declared; and
I felt as if my father's daughter had received her first recognition.

But he did not overwhelm me with confidences. O, no, he is very sly,
this old and well-seasoned detective; and while appearing to be very
communicative, really parted with but little information. He said
enough, however, for me to gather that matters looked grim for Howard,
and if this was so, it must have become apparent that the death they
were investigating was neither an accident nor a suicide.

I hinted as much, and he, for his own ends no doubt, admitted at last
that a wound had been found on the young woman which could not have been
inflicted by herself; at which I felt such increased interest in this
remarkable murder that I must have made some foolish display of it, for
the wary old gentleman chuckled and ogled his spectacles quite lovingly
before shutting them up and putting them into his pocket.

"And now what have you to tell me?" he inquired, sliding softly between
me and the parlor door.

"Nothing but this. Question that queer-acting house-cleaner closely. She
has something to tell which it is your business to know."

I think he was disappointed. He looked as if he regretted the spectacles
he had pocketed, and when he spoke there was an edge to his tone I had
not noticed in it before.

"Do you know what that something is?" he asked.

"No, or I should tell you myself."

"And what makes you think she is hiding anything from us?"

"Her manner. Did you not notice her manner?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It conveyed much to me," I insisted. "If I were a detective I would
have the secret out of that woman or die in the attempt."

He laughed; this sly, old, almost decrepit man laughed outright. Then he
looked severely at his old friend on the newel-post, and drawing himself
up with some show of dignity, made this remark: