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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Slipper, by Anna Katharine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Golden Slipper
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Posting Date: February 1, 2009 [EBook #3071]
+Release Date: February, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN SLIPPER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lynn and Chris Hill
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN SLIPPER
+
+And Other Problems for Violet Strange
+
+By Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I THE GOLDEN SLIPPER
+
+     II THE SECOND BULLET
+
+     III THE INTANGIBLE CLEW
+
+     IV THE GROTTO SPECTRE
+
+     V THE DREAMING LADY
+
+     VI THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS
+
+     VII THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK
+
+     VIII MISSING: PAGE THIRTEEN
+
+     IX VIOLET'S OWN
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN SLIPPER AND OTHER PROBLEMS FOR VIOLET STRANGE
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM I THE GOLDEN SLIPPER
+
+"She's here! I thought she would be. She's one of the three young ladies
+you see in the right-hand box near the proscenium."
+
+The gentleman thus addressed--a man of middle age and a member of the
+most exclusive clubs--turned his opera glass toward the spot designated,
+and in some astonishment retorted:
+
+"She? Why those are the Misses Pratt and--"
+
+"Miss Violet Strange; no other."
+
+"And do you mean to say--"
+
+"I do--"
+
+"That yon silly little chit, whose father I know, whose fortune I know,
+who is seen everywhere, and who is called one of the season's belles is
+an agent of yours; a--a--"
+
+"No names here, please. You want a mystery solved. It is not a matter
+for the police--that is, as yet,--and so you come to me, and when I ask
+for the facts, I find that women and only women are involved, and that
+these women are not only young but one and all of the highest society.
+Is it a man's work to go to the bottom of a combination like this? No.
+Sex against sex, and, if possible, youth against youth. Happily, I know
+such a person--a girl of gifts and extraordinarily well placed for the
+purpose. Why she uses her talents in this direction--why, with means
+enough to play the part natural to her as a successful debutante, she
+consents to occupy herself with social and other mysteries, you must ask
+her, not me. Enough that I promise you her aid if you want it. That is,
+if you can interest her. She will not work otherwise."
+
+Mr. Driscoll again raised his opera glass.
+
+"But it's a comedy face," he commented. "It's hard to associate
+intellectuality with such quaintness of expression. Are you sure of her
+discretion?"
+
+"Whom is she with?"
+
+"Abner Pratt, his wife, and daughters."
+
+"Is he a man to entrust his affairs unadvisedly?"
+
+"Abner Pratt! Do you mean to say that she is anything more to him than
+his daughters' guest?"
+
+"Judge. You see how merry they are. They were in deep trouble yesterday.
+You are witness to a celebration."
+
+"And she?"
+
+"Don't you observe how they are loading her with attentions? She's
+too young to rouse such interest in a family of notably unsympathetic
+temperament for any other reason than that of gratitude."
+
+"It's hard to believe. But if what you hint is true, secure me an
+opportunity at once of talking to this youthful marvel. My affair is
+serious. The dinner I have mentioned comes off in three days and--"
+
+"I know. I recognize your need; but I think you had better enter Mr.
+Pratt's box without my intervention. Miss Strange's value to us will be
+impaired the moment her connection with us is discovered."
+
+"Ah, there's Ruthven! He will take me to Mr. Pratt's box," remarked
+Driscoll as the curtain fell on the second act. "Any suggestions before
+I go?"
+
+"Yes, and an important one. When you make your bow, touch your left
+shoulder with your right hand. It is a signal. She may respond to it;
+but if she does not, do not be discouraged. One of her idiosyncrasies is
+a theoretical dislike of her work. But once she gets interested, nothing
+will hold her back. That's all, except this. In no event give away her
+secret. That's part of the compact, you remember."
+
+Driscoll nodded and left his seat for Ruthven's box. When the curtain
+rose for the third time he could be seen sitting with the Misses Pratt
+and their vivacious young friend. A widower and still on the right side
+of fifty, his presence there did not pass unnoted, and curiosity
+was rife among certain onlookers as to which of the twin belles was
+responsible for this change in his well-known habits. Unfortunately,
+no opportunity was given him for showing. Other and younger men had
+followed his lead into the box, and they saw him forced upon the good
+graces of the fascinating but inconsequent Miss Strange whose rapid fire
+of talk he was hardly of a temperament to appreciate.
+
+Did he appear dissatisfied? Yes; but only one person in the opera house
+knew why. Miss Strange had shown no comprehension of or sympathy with
+his errand. Though she chatted amiably enough between duets and trios,
+she gave him no opportunity to express his wishes though she knew them
+well enough, owing to the signal he had given her.
+
+This might be in character but it hardly suited his views; and, being a
+man of resolution, he took advantage of an absorbing minute on the stage
+to lean forward and whisper in her ear:
+
+"It's my daughter for whom I request your services; as fine a girl as
+any in this house. Give me a hearing. You certainly can manage it."
+
+She was a small, slight woman whose naturally quaint appearance was
+accentuated by the extreme simplicity of her attire. In the tier upon
+tier of boxes rising before his eyes, no other personality could
+vie with hers in strangeness, or in the illusive quality of her
+ever-changing expression. She was vivacity incarnate and, to the
+ordinary observer, light as thistledown in fibre and in feeling. But not
+to all. To those who watched her long, there came moments--say when
+the music rose to heights of greatness--when the mouth so given over to
+laughter took on curves of the rarest sensibility, and a woman's lofty
+soul shone through her odd, bewildering features.
+
+Driscoll had noted this, and consequently awaited her reply in secret
+hope.
+
+It came in the form of a question and only after an instant's display of
+displeasure or possibly of pure nervous irritability.
+
+"What has she done?"
+
+"Nothing. But slander is in the air, and any day it may ripen into
+public accusation."
+
+"Accusation of what?" Her tone was almost pettish.
+
+"Of--of theft," he murmured. "On a great scale," he emphasized, as the
+music rose to a crash.
+
+"Jewels?"
+
+"Inestimable ones. They are always returned by somebody. People say, by
+me."
+
+"Ah!" The little lady's hands grew steady,--they had been fluttering all
+over her lap. "I will see you to-morrow morning at my father's house,"
+she presently observed; and turned her full attention to the stage.
+
+Some three days after this Mr. Driscoll opened his house on the Hudson
+to notable guests. He had not desired the publicity of such an event,
+nor the opportunity it gave for an increase of the scandal secretly in
+circulation against his daughter. But the Ambassador and his wife were
+foreign and any evasion of the promised hospitality would be sure to be
+misunderstood; so the scheme was carried forward though with less eclat
+than possibly was expected.
+
+Among the lesser guests, who were mostly young and well acquainted with
+the house and its hospitality, there was one unique figure,--that of the
+lively Miss Strange, who, if personally unknown to Miss Driscoll, was so
+gifted with the qualities which tell on an occasion of this kind,
+that the stately young hostess hailed her presence with very obvious
+gratitude.
+
+The manner of their first meeting was singular, and of great interest
+to one of them at least. Miss Strange had come in an automobile and had
+been shown her room; but there was nobody to accompany her down-stairs
+afterward, and, finding herself alone in the great hall, she naturally
+moved toward the library, the door of which stood ajar. She had pushed
+this door half open before she noticed that the room was already
+occupied. As a consequence, she was made the unexpected observer of a
+beautiful picture of youth and love.
+
+A young man and a young woman were standing together in the glow of a
+blazing wood-fire. No word was to be heard, but in their faces, eloquent
+with passion, there shone something so deep and true that the chance
+intruder hesitated on the threshold, eager to lay this picture away in
+her mind with the other lovely and tragic memories now fast accumulating
+there. Then she drew back, and readvancing with a less noiseless foot,
+came into the full presence of Captain Holliday drawn up in all the
+pride of his military rank beside Alicia, the accomplished daughter of
+the house, who, if under a shadow as many whispered, wore that shadow as
+some women wear a crown.
+
+Miss Strange was struck with admiration, and turned upon them the
+brightest facet of her vivacious nature all the time she was saying to
+herself: "Does she know why I am here? Or does she look upon me only as
+an additional guest foisted upon her by a thoughtless parent?"
+
+There was nothing in the manner of her cordial but composed young
+hostess to show, and Miss Strange, with but one thought in mind since
+she had caught the light of feeling on the two faces confronting her,
+took the first opportunity that offered of running over the facts given
+her by Mr. Driscoll, to see if any reconcilement were possible between
+them and an innocence in which she must henceforth believe.
+
+They were certainly of a most damaging nature.
+
+Miss Driscoll and four other young ladies of her own station in life had
+formed themselves, some two years before, into a coterie of five,
+called The Inseparables. They lunched together, rode together, visited
+together. So close was the bond and their mutual dependence so evident,
+that it came to be the custom to invite the whole five whenever the
+size of the function warranted it. In fact, it was far from an uncommon
+occurrence to see them grouped at receptions or following one another
+down the aisles of churches or through the mazes of the dance at balls
+or assemblies. And no one demurred at this, for they were all handsome
+and attractive girls, till it began to be noticed that, coincident
+with their presence, some article of value was found missing from the
+dressing-room or from the tables where wedding gifts were displayed.
+Nothing was safe where they went, and though, in the course of time,
+each article found its way back to its owner in a manner as mysterious
+as its previous abstraction, the scandal grew and, whether with good
+reason or bad, finally settled about the person of Miss Driscoll, who
+was the showiest, least pecuniarily tempted, and most dignified in
+manner and speech of them all.
+
+Some instances had been given by way of further enlightenment. This is
+one: A theatre party was in progress. There were twelve in the party,
+five of whom were the Inseparables. In the course of the last act,
+another lady--in fact, their chaperon--missed her handkerchief, an
+almost priceless bit of lace. Positive that she had brought it with
+her into the box, she caused a careful search, but without the least
+success. Recalling certain whispers she had heard, she noted which of
+the five girls were with her in the box. They were Miss Driscoll,
+Miss Hughson, Miss Yates, and Miss Benedict. Miss West sat in the box
+adjoining.
+
+A fortnight later this handkerchief reappeared--and where? Among
+the cushions of a yellow satin couch in her own drawing-room. The
+Inseparables had just made their call and the three who had sat on the
+couch were Miss Driscoll, Miss Hughson, and Miss Benedict.
+
+The next instance seemed to point still more insistently toward the lady
+already named. Miss Yates had an expensive present to buy, and the whole
+five Inseparables went in an imposing group to Tiffany's. A tray of
+rings was set before them. All examined and eagerly fingered the stock
+out of which Miss Yates presently chose a finely set emerald. She was
+leading her friends away when the clerk suddenly whispered in her
+ear, "I miss one of the rings." Dismayed beyond speech, she turned and
+consulted the faces of her four companions who stared back at her with
+immovable serenity. But one of them was paler than usual, and this lady
+(it was Miss Driscoll) held her hands in her muff and did not offer to
+take them out. Miss Yates, whose father had completed a big "deal" the
+week before, wheeled round upon the clerk. "Charge it! charge it at its
+full value," said she. "I buy both the rings."
+
+And in three weeks the purloined ring came back to her, in a box of
+violets with no name attached.
+
+The third instance was a recent one, and had come to Mr. Driscoll's
+ears directly from the lady suffering the loss. She was a woman of
+uncompromising integrity, who felt it her duty to make known to this
+gentleman the following facts: She had just left a studio reception, and
+was standing at the curb waiting for a taxicab to draw up, when a small
+boy--a street arab--darted toward her from the other side of the street,
+and thrusting into her hand something small and hard, cried breathlessly
+as he slipped away, "It's yours, ma'am; you dropped it." Astonished, for
+she had not been conscious of any loss, she looked down at her treasure
+trove and found it to be a small medallion which she sometimes wore on
+a chain at her belt. But she had not worn it that day, nor any day for
+weeks. Then she remembered. She had worn it a month before to a similar
+reception at this same studio. A number of young girls had stood about
+her admiring it--she remembered well who they were; the Inseparables,
+of course, and to please them she had slipped it from its chain.
+Then something had happened,--something which diverted her attention
+entirely,--and she had gone home without the medallion; had, in fact,
+forgotten it, only to recall its loss now. Placing it in her bag,
+she looked hastily about her. A crowd was at her back; nothing to be
+distinguished there. But in front, on the opposite side of the street,
+stood a club-house, and in one of its windows she perceived a solitary
+figure looking out. It was that of Miss Driscoll's father. He could
+imagine her conclusion.
+
+In vain he denied all knowledge of the matter. She told him other
+stories which had come to her ears of thefts as mysterious, followed
+by restorations as peculiar as this one, finishing with, "It is your
+daughter, and people are beginning to say so."
+
+And Miss Strange, brooding over these instances, would have said
+the same, but for Miss Driscoll's absolute serenity of demeanour and
+complete abandonment to love. These seemed incompatible with guilt;
+these, whatever the appearances, proclaimed innocence--an innocence she
+was here to prove if fortune favoured and the really guilty person's
+madness should again break forth.
+
+For madness it would be and nothing less, for any hand, even the most
+experienced, to draw attention to itself by a repetition of old tricks
+on an occasion so marked. Yet because it would take madness, and madness
+knows no law, she prepared herself for the contingency under a mask of
+girlish smiles which made her at once the delight and astonishment of
+her watchful and uneasy host.
+
+With the exception of the diamonds worn by the Ambassadress, there was
+but one jewel of consequence to be seen at the dinner that night; but
+how great was that consequence and with what splendour it invested the
+snowy neck it adorned!
+
+Miss Strange, in compliment to the noble foreigners, had put on one
+of her family heirlooms--a filigree pendant of extraordinary sapphires
+which had once belonged to Marie Antoinette. As its beauty flashed upon
+the women, and its value struck the host, the latter could not restrain
+himself from casting an anxious eye about the board in search of some
+token of the cupidity with which one person there must welcome this
+unexpected sight.
+
+Naturally his first glance fell upon Alicia, seated opposite to him at
+the other end of the table. But her eyes were elsewhere, and her smile
+for Captain Holliday, and the father's gaze travelled on, taking up each
+young girl's face in turn. All were contemplating Miss Strange and her
+jewels, and the cheeks of one were flushed and those of the others
+pale, but whether with dread or longing who could tell. Struck with
+foreboding, but alive to his duty as host, he forced his glances away,
+and did not even allow himself to question the motive or the wisdom of
+the temptation thus offered.
+
+Two hours later and the girls were all in one room. It was a custom of
+the Inseparables to meet for a chat before retiring, but always
+alone and in the room of one of their number. But this was a night of
+innovations; Violet was not only included, but the meeting was held in
+her room. Her way with girls was even more fruitful of result than her
+way with men. They might laugh at her, criticize her or even call her
+names significant of disdain, but they never left her long to herself or
+missed an opportunity to make the most of her irrepressible chatter.
+
+Her satisfaction at entering this charmed circle did not take from her
+piquancy, and story after story fell from her lips, as she fluttered
+about, now here now there, in her endless preparations for retirement.
+She had taken off her historic pendant after it had been duly admired
+and handled by all present, and, with the careless confidence of an
+assured ownership, thrown it down upon the end of her dresser, which, by
+the way, projected very close to the open window.
+
+"Are you going to leave your jewel there?" whispered a voice in her ear
+as a burst of laughter rang out in response to one of her sallies.
+
+Turning, with a simulation of round-eyed wonder, she met Miss Hughson's
+earnest gaze with the careless rejoinder, "What's the harm?" and went
+on with her story with all the reckless ease of a perfectly thoughtless
+nature.
+
+Miss Hughson abandoned her protest. How could she explain her reasons
+for it to one apparently uninitiated in the scandal associated with
+their especial clique.
+
+Yes, she left the jewel there; but she locked her door and quickly, so
+that they must all have heard her before reaching their rooms. Then she
+crossed to the window, which, like all on this side, opened on a balcony
+running the length of the house. She was aware of this balcony, also of
+the fact that only young ladies slept in the corridor communicating with
+it. But she was not quite sure that this one corridor accommodated
+them all. If one of them should room elsewhere! (Miss Driscoll, for
+instance). But no! the anxiety displayed for the safety of her jewel
+precluded that supposition. Their hostess, if none of the others, was
+within access of this room and its open window. But how about the rest?
+Perhaps the lights would tell. Eagerly the little schemer looked forth,
+and let her glances travel down the full length of the balcony. Two
+separate beams of light shot across it as she looked, and presently
+another, and, after some waiting, a fourth. But the fifth failed to
+appear. This troubled her, but not seriously. Two of the girls might be
+sleeping in one bed.
+
+Drawing her shade, she finished her preparations for the night; then
+with her kimono on, lifted the pendant and thrust it into a small box
+she had taken from her trunk. A curious smile, very unlike any she had
+shown to man or woman that day, gave a sarcastic lift to her lips, as
+with a slow and thoughtful manipulation of her dainty fingers she moved
+the jewel about in this small receptacle and then returned it, after one
+quick examining glance, to the very spot on the dresser from which she
+had taken it. "If only the madness is great enough!" that smile seemed
+to say. Truly, it was much to hope for, but a chance is a chance; and
+comforting herself with the thought, Miss Strange put out her light,
+and, with a hasty raising of the shade she had previously pulled down,
+took a final look at the prospect.
+
+Its aspect made her shudder. A low fog was rising from the meadows in
+the far distance, and its ghostliness under the moon woke all sorts of
+uncanny images in her excited mind. To escape them she crept into bed
+where she lay with her eyes on the end of her dresser. She had closed
+that half of the French window over which she had drawn the shade; but
+she had left ajar the one giving free access to the jewels; and when she
+was not watching the scintillation of her sapphires in the moonlight,
+she was dwelling in fixed attention on this narrow opening.
+
+But nothing happened, and two o'clock, then three o'clock struck,
+without a dimming of the blue scintillations on the end of her dresser.
+Then she suddenly sat up. Not that she heard anything new, but that a
+thought had come to her. "If an attempt is made," so she murmured softly
+to herself, "it will be by--" She did not finish. Something--she
+could not call it sound--set her heart beating tumultuously, and
+listening--listening--watching--watching--she followed in her
+imagination the approach down the balcony of an almost inaudible step,
+not daring to move herself, it seemed so near, but waiting with eyes
+fixed, for the shadow which must fall across the shade she had failed
+to raise over that half of the swinging window she had so carefully left
+shut.
+
+At length she saw it projecting slowly across the slightly illuminated
+surface. Formless, save for the outreaching hand, it passed the
+casement's edge, nearing with pauses and hesitations the open gap beyond
+through which the neglected sapphires beamed with steady lustre. Would
+she ever see the hand itself appear between the dresser and the window
+frame? Yes, there it comes,--small, delicate, and startlingly white,
+threading that gap--darting with the suddenness of a serpent's tongue
+toward the dresser and disappearing again with the pendant in its
+clutch.
+
+As she realizes this,--she is but young, you know,--as she sees her bait
+taken and the hardly expected event fulfilled, her pent-up breath sped
+forth in a sigh which sent the intruder flying, and so startled herself
+that she sank back in terror on her pillow.
+
+The breakfast-call had sounded its musical chimes through the halls.
+The Ambassador and his wife had responded, so had most of the young
+gentlemen and ladies, but the daughter of the house was not amongst
+them, nor Miss Strange, whom one would naturally expect to see down
+first of all.
+
+These two absences puzzled Mr. Driscoll. What might they not portend?
+But his suspense, at least in one regard, was short. Before his guests
+were well seated, Miss Driscoll entered from the terrace in company with
+Captain Holliday. In her arms she carried a huge bunch of roses and
+was looking very beautiful. Her father's heart warmed at the sight. No
+shadow from the night rested upon her.
+
+But Miss Strange!--where was she? He could not feel quite easy till he
+knew.
+
+"Have any of you seen Miss Strange?" he asked, as they sat down at
+table. And his eyes sought the Inseparables.
+
+Five lovely heads were shaken, some carelessly, some wonderingly, and
+one, with a quick, forced smile. But he was in no mood to discriminate,
+and he had beckoned one of the servants to him, when a step was heard at
+the door and the delinquent slid in and took her place, in a shamefaced
+manner suggestive of a cause deeper than mere tardiness. In fact, she
+had what might be called a frightened air, and stared into her plate,
+avoiding every eye, which was certainly not natural to her. What did
+it mean? and why, as she made a poor attempt at eating, did four of the
+Inseparables exchange glances of doubt and dismay and then concentrate
+their looks upon his daughter? That Alicia failed to notice this,
+but sat abloom above her roses now fastened in a great bunch upon her
+breast, offered him some comfort, yet, for all the volubility of his
+chief guests, the meal was a great trial to his patience, as well as a
+poor preparation for the hour when, the noble pair gone, he stepped into
+the library to find Miss Strange awaiting him with one hand behind her
+back and a piteous look on her infantile features.
+
+"O, Mr. Driscoll," she began,--and then he saw that a group of anxious
+girls hovered in her rear--"my pendant! my beautiful pendant! It is
+gone! Somebody reached in from the balcony and took it from my dresser
+in the night. Of course, it was to frighten me; all of the girls told me
+not to leave it there. But I--I cannot make them give it back, and papa
+is so particular about this jewel that I'm afraid to go home. Won't
+you tell them it's no joke, and see that I get it again. I won't be so
+careless another time."
+
+Hardly believing his eyes, hardly believing his ears,--she was so
+perfectly the spoiled child detected in a fault--he looked sternly about
+upon the girls and bade them end the jest and produce the gems at once.
+
+But not one of them spoke, and not one of them moved; only his daughter
+grew pale until the roses seemed a mockery, and the steady stare of her
+large eyes was almost too much for him to bear.
+
+The anguish of this gave asperity to his manner, and in a strange,
+hoarse tone he loudly cried:
+
+"One of you did this. Which? If it was you, Alicia, speak. I am in no
+mood for nonsense. I want to know whose foot traversed the balcony and
+whose hand abstracted these jewels."
+
+A continued silence, deepening into painful embarrassment for all.
+Mr. Driscoll eyed them in ill-concealed anguish, then turning to Miss
+Strange was still further thrown off his balance by seeing her pretty
+head droop and her gaze fall in confusion.
+
+"Oh! it's easy enough to tell whose foot traversed the balcony," she
+murmured. "It left this behind." And drawing forward her hand, she
+held out to view a small gold-coloured slipper. "I found it outside my
+window," she explained. "I hoped I should not have to show it."
+
+A gasp of uncontrollable feeling from the surrounding group of girls,
+then absolute stillness.
+
+"I fail to recognize it," observed Mr. Driscoll, taking it in his hand.
+"Whose slipper is this?" he asked in a manner not to be gainsaid.
+
+Still no reply, then as he continued to eye the girls one after another
+a voice--the last he expected to hear--spoke and his daughter cried:
+
+"It is mine. But it was not I who walked in it down the balcony."
+
+"Alicia!"
+
+A month's apprehension was in that cry. The silence, the pent-up emotion
+brooding in the air was intolerable. A fresh young laugh broke it.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed a roguish voice, "I knew that you were all in it! But
+the especial one who wore the slipper and grabbed the pendant cannot
+hope to hide herself. Her finger-tips will give her away."
+
+Amazement on every face and a convulsive movement in one half-hidden
+hand.
+
+"You see," the airy little being went on, in her light way, "I have some
+awfully funny tricks. I am always being scolded for them, but somehow I
+don't improve. One is to keep my jewelry bright with a strange foreign
+paste an old Frenchwoman once gave me in Paris. It's of a vivid red,
+and stains the fingers dreadfully if you don't take care. Not even water
+will take it off, see mine. I used that paste on my pendant last night
+just after you left me, and being awfully sleepy I didn't stop to rub
+it off. If your finger-tips are not red, you never touched the pendant,
+Miss Driscoll. Oh, see! They are as white as milk.
+
+"But some one took the sapphires, and I owe that person a scolding, as
+well as myself. Was it you, Miss Hughson? You, Miss Yates? or--" and
+here she paused before Miss West, "Oh, you have your gloves on! You are
+the guilty one!" and her laugh rang out like a peal of bells, robbing
+her next sentence of even a suggestion of sarcasm. "Oh, what a
+sly-boots!" she cried. "How you have deceived me! Whoever would have
+thought you to be the one to play the mischief!"
+
+Who indeed! Of all the five, she was the one who was considered
+absolutely immune from suspicion ever since the night Mrs. Barnum's
+handkerchief had been taken, and she not in the box. Eyes which had
+surveyed Miss Driscoll askance now rose in wonder toward hers,
+and failed to fall again because of the stoniness into which her
+delicately-carved features had settled.
+
+"Miss West, I know you will be glad to remove your gloves; Miss Strange
+certainly has a right to know her special tormentor," spoke up her host
+in as natural a voice as his great relief would allow.
+
+But the cold, half-frozen woman remained without a movement. She was
+not deceived by the banter of the moment. She knew that to all of the
+others, if not to Peter Strange's odd little daughter, it was the thief
+who was being spotted and brought thus hilariously to light. And her
+eyes grew hard, and her lips grey, and she failed to unglove the hands
+upon which all glances were concentrated.
+
+"You do not need to see my hands; I confess to taking the pendant."
+
+"Caroline!"
+
+A heart overcome by shock had thrown up this cry. Miss West eyed her
+bosom-friend disdainfully.
+
+"Miss Strange has called it a jest," she coldly commented. "Why should
+you suggest anything of a graver character?"
+
+Alicia brought thus to bay, and by one she had trusted most, stepped
+quickly forward, and quivering with vague doubts, aghast before
+unheard-of possibilities, she tremulously remarked:
+
+"We did not sleep together last night. You had to come into my room to
+get my slippers. Why did you do this? What was in your mind, Caroline?"
+
+A steady look, a low laugh choked with many emotions answered her.
+
+"Do you want me to reply, Alicia? Or shall we let it pass?"
+
+"Answer!"
+
+It was Mr. Driscoll who spoke. Alicia had shrunk back, almost to where a
+little figure was cowering with wide eyes fixed in something like terror
+on the aroused father's face.
+
+"Then hear me," murmured the girl, entrapped and suddenly desperate. "I
+wore Alicia's slippers and I took the jewels, because it was time that
+an end should come to your mutual dissimulation. The love I once felt
+for her she has herself deliberately killed. I had a lover--she took
+him. I had faith in life, in honour, and in friendship. She destroyed
+all. A thief--she has dared to aspire to him! And you condoned her
+fault. You, with your craven restoration of her booty, thought the
+matter cleared and her a fit mate for a man of highest honour."
+
+"Miss West,"--no one had ever heard that tone in Mr. Driscoll's voice
+before, "before you say another word calculated to mislead these ladies,
+let me say that this hand never returned any one's booty or had anything
+to do with the restoration of any abstracted article. You have been
+caught in a net, Miss West, from which you cannot escape by slandering
+my innocent daughter."
+
+"Innocent!" All the tragedy latent in this peculiar girl's nature blazed
+forth in the word. "Alicia, face me. Are you innocent? Who took the
+Dempsey corals, and that diamond from the Tiffany tray?"
+
+"It is not necessary for Alicia to answer," the father interposed with
+not unnatural heat. "Miss West stands self-convicted."
+
+"How about Lady Paget's scarf? I was not there that night."
+
+"You are a woman of wiles. That could be managed by one bent on an
+elaborate scheme of revenge."
+
+"And so could the abstraction of Mrs. Barnum's five-hundred-dollar
+handkerchief by one who sat in the next box," chimed in Miss Hughson,
+edging away from the friend to whose honour she would have pinned her
+faith an hour before. "I remember now seeing her lean over the railing
+to adjust the old lady's shawl."
+
+With a start, Caroline West turned a tragic gaze upon the speaker.
+
+"You think me guilty of all because of what I did last night?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"And you, Anna?"
+
+"Alicia has my sympathy," murmured Miss Benedict.
+
+Yet the wild girl persisted.
+
+"But I have told you my provocation. You cannot believe that I am guilty
+of her sin; not if you look at her as I am looking now."
+
+But their glances hardly followed her pointing finger. Her friends--the
+comrades of her youth, the Inseparables with their secret oath--one and
+all held themselves aloof, struck by the perfidy they were only just
+beginning to take in. Smitten with despair, for these girls were her
+life, she gave one wild leap and sank on her knees before Alicia.
+
+"O speak!" she began. "Forgive me, and--"
+
+A tremble seized her throat; she ceased to speak and let fall her
+partially uplifted hands. The cheery sound of men's voices had drifted
+in from the terrace, and the figure of Captain Holliday could be seen
+passing by. The shudder which shook Caroline West communicated itself to
+Alicia Driscoll, and the former rising quickly, the two women surveyed
+each other, possibly for the first time, with open soul and a complete
+understanding.
+
+"Caroline!" murmured the one.
+
+"Alicia!" pleaded the other.
+
+"Caroline, trust me," said Alicia Driscoll in that moving voice of hers,
+which more than her beauty caught and retained all hearts. "You have
+served me ill, but it was not all undeserved. Girls," she went on,
+eyeing both them and her father with the wistfulness of a breaking
+heart, "neither Caroline nor myself are worthy of Captain Holliday's
+love. Caroline has told you her fault, but mine is perhaps a worse one.
+The ring--the scarf--the diamond pins--I took them all--took them if
+I did not retain them. A curse has been over my life--the curse of a
+longing I could not combat. But love was working a change in me. Since
+I have known Captain Holliday--but that's all over. I was mad to think
+I could be happy with such memories in my life. I shall never marry
+now--or touch jewels again--my own or another's. Father, father, you
+won't go back on your girl! I couldn't see Caroline suffer for what I
+have done. You will pardon me and help--help--"
+
+Her voice choked. She flung herself into her father's arms; his head
+bent over hers, and for an instant not a soul in the room moved.
+Then Miss Hughson gave a spring and caught her by the hand. "We are
+inseparable," said she, and kissed the hand, murmuring, "Now is our time
+to show it."
+
+Then other lips fell upon those cold and trembling fingers, which seemed
+to warm under these embraces. And then a tear. It came from the hard eye
+of Caroline, and remained a sacred secret between the two.
+
+"You have your pendant?"
+
+Mr. Driscoll's suffering eye shone down on Violet Strange's uplifted
+face as she advanced to say good-bye preparatory to departure.
+
+"Yes," she acknowledged, "but hardly, I fear, your gratitude."
+
+And the answer astonished her.
+
+"I am not sure that the real Alicia will not make her father happier
+than the unreal one has ever done."
+
+"And Captain Holliday?"
+
+"He may come to feel the same."
+
+"Then I do not quit in disgrace?"
+
+"You depart with my thanks."
+
+When a certain personage was told of the success of Miss Strange's
+latest manoeuvre, he remarked: "The little one progresses. We shall have
+to give her a case of prime importance next."
+
+END OF PROBLEM I
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM II. THE SECOND BULLET
+
+"You must see her."
+
+"No. No."
+
+"She's a most unhappy woman. Husband and child both taken from her in a
+moment; and now, all means of living as well, unless some happy
+thought of yours--some inspiration of your genius--shows us a way of
+re-establishing her claims to the policy voided by this cry of suicide."
+
+But the small wise head of Violet Strange continued its slow shake of
+decided refusal.
+
+"I'm sorry," she protested, "but it's quite out of my province. I'm too
+young to meddle with so serious a matter."
+
+"Not when you can save a bereaved woman the only possible compensation
+left her by untoward fate?"
+
+"Let the police try their hand at that."
+
+"They have had no success with the case."
+
+"Or you?"
+
+"Nor I either."
+
+"And you expect--"
+
+"Yes, Miss Strange. I expect you to find the missing bullet which will
+settle the fact that murder and not suicide ended George Hammond's life.
+If you cannot, then a long litigation awaits this poor widow, ending, as
+such litigation usually does, in favour of the stronger party. There's
+the alternative. If you once saw her--"
+
+"But that's what I'm not willing to do. If I once saw her I should yield
+to her importunities and attempt the seemingly impossible. My instincts
+bid me say no. Give me something easier."
+
+"Easier things are not so remunerative. There's money in this affair, if
+the insurance company is forced to pay up. I can offer you--"
+
+"What?"
+
+There was eagerness in the tone despite her effort at nonchalance. The
+other smiled imperceptibly, and briefly named the sum.
+
+It was larger than she had expected. This her visitor saw by the way her
+eyelids fell and the peculiar stillness which, for an instant, held her
+vivacity in check.
+
+"And you think I can earn that?"
+
+Her eyes were fixed on his in an eagerness as honest as it was
+unrestrained.
+
+He could hardly conceal his amazement, her desire was so evident and the
+cause of it so difficult to understand. He knew she wanted money--that
+was her avowed reason for entering into this uncongenial work. But to
+want it so much! He glanced at her person; it was simply clad but very
+expensively--how expensively it was his business to know. Then he took
+in the room in which they sat. Simplicity again, but the simplicity of
+high art--the drawing-room of one rich enough to indulge in the final
+luxury of a highly cultivated taste, viz.: unostentatious elegance and
+the subjection of each carefully chosen ornament to the general effect.
+
+What did this favoured child of fortune lack that she could be reached
+by such a plea, when her whole being revolted from the nature of the
+task he offered her? It was a question not new to him; but one he had
+never heard answered and was not likely to hear answered now. But the
+fact remained that the consent he had thought dependent upon sympathetic
+interest could be reached much more readily by the promise of large
+emolument,--and he owned to a feeling of secret disappointment even
+while he recognized the value of the discovery.
+
+But his satisfaction in the latter, if satisfaction it were, was of
+very short duration. Almost immediately he observed a change in her. The
+sparkle which had shone in the eye whose depths he had never been able
+to penetrate, had dissipated itself in something like a tear and she
+spoke up in that vigorous tone no one but himself had ever heard, as she
+said:
+
+"No. The sum is a good one and I could use it; but I will not waste my
+energy on a case I do not believe in. The man shot himself. He was a
+speculator, and probably had good reason for his act. Even his wife
+acknowledges that he has lately had more losses than gains."
+
+"See her. She has something to tell you which never got into the
+papers."
+
+"You say that? You know that?"
+
+"On my honour, Miss Strange."
+
+Violet pondered; then suddenly succumbed.
+
+"Let her come, then. Prompt to the hour. I will receive her at three.
+Later I have a tea and two party calls to make."
+
+Her visitor rose to leave. He had been able to subdue all evidence of
+his extreme gratification, and now took on a formal air. In dismissing a
+guest, Miss Strange was invariably the society belle and that only. This
+he had come to recognize.
+
+The case (well known at the time) was, in the fewest possible words, as
+follows:
+
+On a sultry night in September, a young couple living in one of the
+large apartment houses in the extreme upper portion of Manhattan were so
+annoyed by the incessant crying of a child in the adjoining suite, that
+they got up, he to smoke, and she to sit in the window for a possible
+breath of cool air. They were congratulating themselves upon the wisdom
+they had shown in thus giving up all thought of sleep--for the child's
+crying had not ceased--when (it may have been two o'clock and it may
+have been a little later) there came from somewhere near, the sharp and
+somewhat peculiar detonation of a pistol-shot.
+
+He thought it came from above; she, from the rear, and they were staring
+at each other in the helpless wonder of the moment, when they were
+struck by the silence. The baby had ceased to cry. All was as still
+in the adjoining apartment as in their own--too still--much too still.
+Their mutual stare turned to one of horror. "It came from there!"
+whispered the wife. "Some accident has occurred to Mr. or Mrs.
+Hammond--we ought to go--"
+
+Her words--very tremulous ones--were broken by a shout from below. They
+were standing in their window and had evidently been seen by a passing
+policeman. "Anything wrong up there?" they heard him cry. Mr. Saunders
+immediately looked out. "Nothing wrong here," he called down. (They were
+but two stories from the pavement.) "But I'm not so sure about the
+rear apartment. We thought we heard a shot. Hadn't you better come up,
+officer? My wife is nervous about it. I'll meet you at the stair-head
+and show you the way."
+
+The officer nodded and stepped in. The young couple hastily donned some
+wraps, and, by the time he appeared on their floor, they were ready to
+accompany him.
+
+Meanwhile, no disturbance was apparent anywhere else in the house, until
+the policeman rang the bell of the Hammond apartment. Then, voices began
+to be heard, and doors to open above and below, but not the one before
+which the policeman stood.
+
+Another ring, and this time an insistent one;--and still no response.
+The officer's hand was rising for the third time when there came a sound
+of fluttering from behind the panels against which he had laid his ear,
+and finally a choked voice uttering unintelligible words. Then a hand
+began to struggle with the lock, and the door, slowly opening, disclosed
+a woman clad in a hastily donned wrapper and giving every evidence of
+extreme fright.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing only the compassionate faces of her
+neighbours. "You heard it, too! a pistol-shot from there--there--my
+husband's room. I have not dared to go--I--I--O, have mercy and see if
+anything is wrong! It is so still--so still, and only a moment ago the
+baby was crying. Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Saunders, why is it so still?"
+
+She had fallen into her neighbour's arms. The hand with which she had
+pointed out a certain door had sunk to her side and she appeared to be
+on the verge of collapse.
+
+The officer eyed her sternly, while noting her appearance, which was
+that of a woman hastily risen from bed.
+
+"Where were you?" he asked. "Not with your husband and child, or you
+would know what had happened there."
+
+"I was sleeping down the hall," she managed to gasp out. "I'm not
+well--I--Oh, why do you all stand still and do nothing? My baby's in
+there. Go! go!" and, with sudden energy, she sprang upright, her eyes
+wide open and burning, her small well featured face white as the linen
+she sought to hide.
+
+The officer demurred no longer. In another instant he was trying the
+door at which she was again pointing.
+
+It was locked.
+
+Glancing back at the woman, now cowering almost to the floor, he pounded
+at the door and asked the man inside to open.
+
+No answer came back.
+
+With a sharp turn he glanced again at the wife.
+
+"You say that your husband is in this room?"
+
+She nodded, gasping faintly, "And the child!"
+
+He turned back, listened, then beckoned to Mr. Saunders. "We shall have
+to break our way in," said he. "Put your shoulder well to the door.
+Now!"
+
+The hinges of the door creaked; the lock gave way (this special officer
+weighed two hundred and seventy-five, as he found out, next day), and a
+prolonged and sweeping crash told the rest.
+
+Mrs. Hammond gave a low cry; and, straining forward from where she
+crouched in terror on the floor, searched the faces of the two men for
+some hint of what they saw in the dimly-lighted space beyond. Something
+dreadful, something which made Mr. Saunders come rushing back with a
+shout:
+
+"Take her away! Take her to our apartment, Jennie. She must not see--"
+
+Not see! He realized the futility of his words as his gaze fell on the
+young woman who had risen up at his approach and now stood gazing at
+him without speech, without movement, but with a glare of terror in her
+eyes, which gave him his first realization of human misery.
+
+His own glance fell before it. If he had followed his instinct he would
+have fled the house rather than answer the question of her look and the
+attitude of her whole frozen body.
+
+Perhaps in mercy to his speechless terror, perhaps in mercy to herself,
+she was the one who at last found the word which voiced their mutual
+anguish.
+
+"Dead?"
+
+No answer. None was needed.
+
+"And my baby?"
+
+O, that cry! It curdled the hearts of all who heard it. It shook the
+souls of men and women both inside and outside the apartment; then all
+was forgotten in the wild rush she made. The wife and mother had
+flung herself upon the scene, and, side by side with the not unmoved
+policeman, stood looking down upon the desolation made in one fatal
+instant in her home and heart.
+
+They lay there together, both past help, both quite dead. The child
+had simply been strangled by the weight of his father's arm which lay
+directly across the upturned little throat. But the father was a victim
+of the shot they had heard. There was blood on his breast, and a pistol
+in his hand.
+
+Suicide! The horrible truth was patent. No wonder they wanted to hold
+the young widow back. Her neighbour, Mrs. Saunders, crept in on tiptoe
+and put her arms about the swaying, fainting woman; but there was
+nothing to say--absolutely nothing.
+
+At least, they thought not. But when they saw her throw herself down,
+not by her husband, but by the child, and drag it out from under that
+strangling arm and hug and kiss it and call out wildly for a doctor, the
+officer endeavoured to interfere and yet could not find the heart to do
+so, though he knew the child was dead and should not, according to
+all the rules of the coroner's office, be moved before that official
+arrived. Yet because no mother could be convinced of a fact like this,
+he let her sit with it on the floor and try all her little arts to
+revive it, while he gave orders to the janitor and waited himself for
+the arrival of doctor and coroner.
+
+She was still sitting there in wide-eyed misery, alternately fondling
+the little body and drawing back to consult its small set features for
+some sign of life, when the doctor came, and, after one look at the
+child, drew it softly from her arms and laid it quietly in the crib from
+which its father had evidently lifted it but a short time before. Then
+he turned back to her, and found her on her feet, upheld by her two
+friends. She had understood his action, and without a groan had accepted
+her fate. Indeed, she seemed incapable of any further speech or action.
+She was staring down at her husband's body, which she, for the first
+time, seemed fully to see. Was her look one of grief or of resentment
+for the part he had played so unintentionally in her child's death? It
+was hard to tell; and when, with slowly rising finger, she pointed to
+the pistol so tightly clutched in the other outstretched hand, no one
+there--and by this time the room was full--could foretell what her words
+would be when her tongue regained its usage and she could speak.
+
+What she did say was this:
+
+"Is there a bullet gone? Did he fire off that pistol?" A question so
+manifestly one of delirium that no one answered it, which seemed to
+surprise her, though she said nothing till her glance had passed
+all around the walls of the room to where a window stood open to the
+night,--its lower sash being entirely raised. "There! look there!" she
+cried, with a commanding accent, and, throwing up her hands, sank a dead
+weight into the arms of those supporting her.
+
+No one understood; but naturally more than one rushed to the window. An
+open space was before them. Here lay the fields not yet parcelled out
+into lots and built upon; but it was not upon these they looked, but
+upon the strong trellis which they found there, which, if it supported
+no vine, formed a veritable ladder between this window and the ground.
+
+Could she have meant to call attention to this fact; and were her words
+expressive of another idea than the obvious one of suicide?
+
+If so, to what lengths a woman's imagination can go! Or so their
+combined looks seemed to proclaim, when to their utter astonishment they
+saw the officer, who had presented a calm appearance up till now, shift
+his position and with a surprised grunt direct their eyes to a portion
+of the wall just visible beyond the half-drawn curtains of the bed. The
+mirror hanging there showed a star-shaped breakage, such as follows the
+sharp impact of a bullet or a fiercely projected stone.
+
+"He fired two shots. One went wild; the other straight home."
+
+It was the officer delivering his opinion.
+
+Mr. Saunders, returning from the distant room where he had assisted in
+carrying Mrs. Hammond, cast a look at the shattered glass, and remarked
+forcibly:
+
+"I heard but one; and I was sitting up, disturbed by that poor infant.
+Jennie, did you hear more than one shot?" he asked, turning toward his
+wife.
+
+"No," she answered, but not with the readiness he had evidently
+expected. "I heard only one, but that was not quite usual in its tone.
+I'm used to guns," she explained, turning to the officer. "My father
+was an army man, and he taught me very early to load and fire a pistol.
+There was a prolonged sound to this shot; something like an echo of
+itself, following close upon the first ping. Didn't you notice that,
+Warren?"
+
+"I remember something of the kind," her husband allowed.
+
+"He shot twice and quickly," interposed the policeman, sententiously.
+"We shall find a spent bullet back of that mirror."
+
+But when, upon the arrival of the coroner, an investigation was made of
+the mirror and the wall behind, no bullet was found either there or any
+where else in the room, save in the dead man's breast. Nor had more than
+one been shot from his pistol, as five full chambers testified. The case
+which seemed so simple had its mysteries, but the assertion made by Mrs.
+Saunders no longer carried weight, nor was the evidence offered by the
+broken mirror considered as indubitably establishing the fact that a
+second shot had been fired in the room.
+
+Yet it was equally evident that the charge which had entered the dead
+speculator's breast had not been delivered at the close range of the
+pistol found clutched in his hand. There were no powder-marks to be
+discerned on his pajama-jacket, or on the flesh beneath. Thus anomaly
+confronted anomaly, leaving open but one other theory: that the bullet
+found in Mr. Hammond's breast came from the window and the one he shot
+went out of it. But this would necessitate his having shot his pistol
+from a point far removed from where he was found; and his wound was such
+as made it difficult to believe that he would stagger far, if at all,
+after its infliction.
+
+Yet, because the coroner was both conscientious and alert, he caused a
+most rigorous search to be made of the ground overlooked by the above
+mentioned window; a search in which the police joined, but which was
+without any result save that of rousing the attention of people in the
+neighbourhood and leading to a story being circulated of a man seen some
+time the night before crossing the fields in a great hurry. But as no
+further particulars were forthcoming, and not even a description of the
+man to be had, no emphasis would have been laid upon this story had it
+not transpired that the moment a report of it had come to Mrs. Hammond's
+ears (why is there always some one to carry these reports?) she
+roused from the torpor into which she had fallen, and in wild fashion
+exclaimed:
+
+"I knew it! I expected it! He was shot through the window and by that
+wretch. He never shot himself." Violent declarations which trailed off
+into the one continuous wail, "O, my baby! my poor baby!"
+
+Such words, even though the fruit of delirium, merited some sort of
+attention, or so this good coroner thought, and as soon as opportunity
+offered and she was sufficiently sane and quiet to respond to his
+questions, he asked her whom she had meant by that wretch, and what
+reason she had, or thought she had, of attributing her husband's death
+to any other agency than his own disgust with life.
+
+And then it was that his sympathies, although greatly roused in her
+favour began to wane. She met the question with a cold stare followed by
+a few ambiguous words out of which he could make nothing. Had she said
+wretch? She did not remember. They must not be influenced by anything
+she might have uttered in her first grief. She was well-nigh insane at
+the time. But of one thing they might be sure: her husband had not shot
+himself; he was too much afraid of death for such an act. Besides, he
+was too happy. Whatever folks might say he was too fond of his family to
+wish to leave it.
+
+Nor did the coroner or any other official succeed in eliciting anything
+further from her. Even when she was asked, with cruel insistence,
+how she explained the fact that the baby was found lying on the floor
+instead of in its crib, her only answer was: "His father was trying to
+soothe it. The child was crying dreadfully, as you have heard from those
+who were kept awake by him that night, and my husband was carrying him
+about when the shot came which caused George to fall and overlay the
+baby in his struggles."
+
+"Carrying a baby about with a loaded pistol in his hand?" came back in
+stern retort.
+
+She had no answer for this. She admitted when informed that the bullet
+extracted from her husband's body had been found to correspond exactly
+with those remaining in the five chambers of the pistol taken from his
+hand, that he was not only the owner of this pistol but was in the habit
+of sleeping with it under his pillow; but, beyond that, nothing; and
+this reticence, as well as her manner which was cold and repellent, told
+against her.
+
+A verdict of suicide was rendered by the coroner's jury, and the
+life-insurance company, in which Mr. Hammond had but lately insured
+himself for a large sum, taking advantage of the suicide clause embodied
+in the policy, announced its determination of not paying the same.
+
+Such was the situation, as known to Violet Strange and the general
+public, on the day she was asked to see Mrs. Hammond and learn what
+might alter her opinion as to the justice of this verdict and the stand
+taken by the Shuler Life Insurance Company.
+
+The clock on the mantel in Miss Strange's rose-coloured boudoir had
+struck three, and Violet was gazing in some impatience at the door, when
+there came a gentle knock upon it, and the maid (one of the elderly, not
+youthful, kind) ushered in her expected visitor.
+
+"You are Mrs. Hammond?" she asked, in natural awe of the too black
+figure outlined so sharply against the deep pink of the sea-shell room.
+
+The answer was a slow lifting of the veil which shadowed the features
+she knew only from the cuts she had seen in newspapers.
+
+"You are--Miss Strange?" stammered her visitor; "the young lady who--"
+
+"I am," chimed in a voice as ringing as it was sweet. "I am the person
+you have come here to see. And this is my home. But that does not make
+me less interested in the unhappy, or less desirous of serving them.
+Certainly you have met with the two greatest losses which can come to a
+woman--I know your story well enough to say that--; but what have you
+to tell me in proof that you should not lose your anticipated income as
+well? Something vital, I hope, else I cannot help you; something which
+you should have told the coroner's jury--and did not."
+
+The flush which was the sole answer these words called forth did not
+take from the refinement of the young widow's expression, but rather
+added to it; Violet watched it in its ebb and flow and, seriously
+affected by it (why, she did not know, for Mrs. Hammond had made no
+other appeal either by look or gesture), pushed forward a chair and
+begged her visitor to be seated.
+
+"We can converse in perfect safety here," she said. "When you feel quite
+equal to it, let me hear what you have to communicate. It will never go
+any further. I could not do the work I do if I felt it necessary to have
+a confidant."
+
+"But you are so young and so--so--"
+
+"So inexperienced you would say and so evidently a member of what New
+Yorkers call 'society.' Do not let that trouble you. My inexperience is
+not likely to last long and my social pleasures are more apt to add to
+my efficiency than to detract from it."
+
+With this Violet's face broke into a smile. It was not the brilliant
+one so often seen upon her lips, but there was something in its quality
+which carried encouragement to the widow and led her to say with obvious
+eagerness:
+
+"You know the facts?"
+
+"I have read all the papers."
+
+"I was not believed on the stand."
+
+"It was your manner--"
+
+"I could not help my manner. I was keeping something back, and, being
+unused to deceit, I could not act quite naturally."
+
+"Why did you keep something back? When you saw the unfavourable
+impression made by your reticence, why did you not speak up and frankly
+tell your story?"
+
+"Because I was ashamed. Because I thought it would hurt me more to speak
+than to keep silent. I do not think so now; but I did then--and so
+made my great mistake. You must remember not only the awful shock of my
+double loss, but the sense of guilt accompanying it; for my husband and
+I had quarreled that night, quarreled bitterly--that was why I had run
+away into another room and not because I was feeling ill and impatient
+of the baby's fretful cries."
+
+"So people have thought." In saying this, Miss Strange was perhaps
+cruelly emphatic. "You wish to explain that quarrel? You think it will
+be doing any good to your cause to go into that matter with me now?"
+
+"I cannot say; but I must first clear my conscience and then try to
+convince you that quarrel or no quarrel, he never took his own life. He
+was not that kind. He had an abnormal fear of death. I do not like to
+say it but he was a physical coward. I have seen him turn pale at the
+least hint of danger. He could no more have turned that muzzle upon his
+own breast than he could have turned it upon his baby. Some other hand
+shot him, Miss Strange. Remember the open window, the shattered mirror;
+and I think I know that hand."
+
+Her head had fallen forward on her breast. The emotion she showed was
+not so eloquent of grief as of deep personal shame.
+
+"You think you know the man?" In saying this, Violet's voice sunk to a
+whisper. It was an accusation of murder she had just heard.
+
+"To my great distress, yes. When Mr. Hammond and I were married," the
+widow now proceeded in a more determined tone, "there was another man--a
+very violent one--who vowed even at the church door that George and I
+should never live out two full years together. We have not. Our second
+anniversary would have been in November."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Let me say this: the quarrel of which I speak was not serious enough to
+occasion any such act of despair on his part. A man would be mad to
+end his life on account of so slight a disagreement. It was not even on
+account of the person of whom I've just spoken, though that person had
+been mentioned between us earlier in the evening, Mr. Hammond having
+come across him face to face that very afternoon in the subway. Up to
+this time neither of us had seen or heard of him since our wedding-day."
+
+"And you think this person whom you barely mentioned, so mindful of his
+old grudge that he sought out your domicile, and, with the intention of
+murder, climbed the trellis leading to your room and turned his pistol
+upon the shadowy figure which was all he could see in the semi-obscurity
+of a much lowered gas-jet?"
+
+"A man in the dark does not need a bright light to see his enemy when he
+is intent upon revenge."
+
+Miss Strange altered her tone.
+
+"And your husband? You must acknowledge that he shot off his pistol
+whether the other did or not."
+
+"It was in self-defence. He would shoot to save his own life--or the
+baby's."
+
+"Then he must have heard or seen--"
+
+"A man at the window."
+
+"And would have shot there?"
+
+"Or tried to."
+
+"Tried to?"
+
+"Yes; the other shot first--oh, I've thought it all out--causing my
+husband's bullet to go wild. It was his which broke the mirror."
+
+Violet's eyes, bright as stars, suddenly narrowed.
+
+"And what happened then?" she asked. "Why cannot they find the bullet?"
+
+"Because it went out of the window;--glanced off and went out of the
+window."
+
+Mrs. Hammond's tone was triumphant; her look spirited and intense.
+
+Violet eyed her compassionately.
+
+"Would a bullet glancing off from a mirror, however hung, be apt to
+reach a window so far on the opposite side?"
+
+"I don't know; I only know that it did," was the contradictory, almost
+absurd, reply.
+
+"What was the cause of the quarrel you speak of between your husband and
+yourself? You see, I must know the exact truth and all the truth to be
+of any assistance to you."
+
+"It was--it was about the care I gave, or didn't give, the baby. I feel
+awfully to have to say it, but George did not think I did my full duty
+by the child. He said there was no need of its crying so; that if I gave
+it the proper attention it would not keep the neighbours and himself
+awake half the night. And I--I got angry and insisted that I did the
+best I could; that the child was naturally fretful and that if he wasn't
+satisfied with my way of looking after it, he might try his. All of
+which was very wrong and unreasonable on my part, as witness the awful
+punishment which followed."
+
+"And what made you get up and leave him?"
+
+"The growl he gave me in reply. When I heard that, I bounded out of bed
+and said I was going to the spare room to sleep; and if the baby cried
+he might just try what he could do himself to stop it."
+
+"And he answered?"
+
+"This, just this--I shall never forget his words as long as I live--'If
+you go, you need not expect me to let you in again no matter what
+happens.'"
+
+"He said that?"
+
+"And locked the door after me. You see I could not tell all that."
+
+"It might have been better if you had. It was such a natural quarrel and
+so unprovocative of actual tragedy."
+
+Mrs. Hammond was silent. It was not difficult to see that she had no
+very keen regrets for her husband personally. But then he was not a very
+estimable man nor in any respect her equal.
+
+"You were not happy with him," Violet ventured to remark.
+
+"I was not a fully contented woman. But for all that he had no cause to
+complain of me except for the reason I have mentioned. I was not a
+very intelligent mother. But if the baby were living now--O, if he were
+living now--with what devotion I should care for him."
+
+She was on her feet, her arms were raised, her face impassioned with
+feeling. Violet, gazing at her, heaved a little sigh. It was perhaps in
+keeping with the situation, perhaps extraneous to it, but whatever its
+source, it marked a change in her manner. With no further check upon her
+sympathy, she said very softly:
+
+"It is well with the child."
+
+The mother stiffened, swayed, and then burst into wild weeping.
+
+"But not with me," she cried, "not with me. I am desolate and bereft. I
+have not even a home in which to hide my grief and no prospect of one."
+
+"But," interposed Violet, "surely your husband left you something? You
+cannot be quite penniless?"
+
+"My husband left nothing," was the answer, uttered without bitterness,
+but with all the hardness of fact. "He had debts. I shall pay those
+debts. When these and other necessary expenses are liquidated, there
+will be but little left. He made no secret of the fact that he lived
+close up to his means. That is why he was induced to take on a life
+insurance. Not a friend of his but knows his improvidence. I--I have not
+even jewels. I have only my determination and an absolute conviction as
+to the real nature of my husband's death."
+
+"What is the name of the man you secretly believe to have shot your
+husband from the trellis?"
+
+Mrs. Hammond told her.
+
+It was a new one to Violet. She said so and then asked:
+
+"What else can you tell me about him?"
+
+"Nothing, but that he is a very dark man and has a club-foot."
+
+"Oh, what a mistake you've made."
+
+"Mistake? Yes, I acknowledge that."
+
+"I mean in not giving this last bit of information at once to the
+police. A man can be identified by such a defect. Even his footsteps can
+be traced. He might have been found that very day. Now, what have we to
+go upon?"
+
+"You are right, but not expecting to have any difficulty about the
+insurance money I thought it would be generous in me to keep still.
+Besides, this is only surmise on my part. I feel certain that my husband
+was shot by another hand than his own, but I know of no way of proving
+it. Do you?"
+
+Then Violet talked seriously with her, explaining how their only hope
+lay in the discovery of a second bullet in the room which had already
+been ransacked for this very purpose and without the shadow of a result.
+
+A tea, a musicale, and an evening dance kept Violet Strange in a whirl
+for the remainder of the day. No brighter eye nor more contagious wit
+lent brilliance to these occasions, but with the passing of the midnight
+hour no one who had seen her in the blaze of electric lights would have
+recognized this favoured child of fortune in the earnest figure sitting
+in the obscurity of an up-town apartment, studying the walls, the
+ceilings, and the floors by the dim light of a lowered gas-jet. Violet
+Strange in society was a very different person from Violet Strange under
+the tension of her secret and peculiar work.
+
+She had told them at home that she was going to spend the night with a
+friend; but only her old coachman knew who that friend was. Therefore a
+very natural sense of guilt mingled with her emotions at finding
+herself alone on a scene whose gruesome mystery she could solve only by
+identifying herself with the place and the man who had perished there.
+
+Dismissing from her mind all thought of self, she strove to think as he
+thought, and act as he acted on the night when he found himself (a man
+of but little courage) left in this room with an ailing child.
+
+At odds with himself, his wife, and possibly with the child screaming
+away in its crib, what would he be apt to do in his present emergency?
+Nothing at first, but as the screaming continued he would remember the
+old tales of fathers walking the floor at night with crying babies,
+and hasten to follow suit. Violet, in her anxiety to reach his inmost
+thought, crossed to where the crib had stood, and, taking that as a
+start, began pacing the room in search of the spot from which a bullet,
+if shot, would glance aside from the mirror in the direction of the
+window. (Not that she was ready to accept this theory of Mrs. Hammond,
+but that she did not wish to entirely dismiss it without putting it to
+the test.)
+
+She found it in an unexpected quarter of the room and much nearer
+the bed-head than where his body was found. This, which might seem to
+confuse matters, served, on the contrary to remove from the case one of
+its most serious difficulties. Standing here, he was within reach of the
+pillow under which his pistol lay hidden, and if startled, as his wife
+believed him to have been by a noise at the other end of the room, had
+but to crouch and reach behind him in order to find himself armed and
+ready for a possible intruder.
+
+Imitating his action in this as in other things, she had herself
+crouched low at the bedside and was on the point of withdrawing her hand
+from under the pillow, when a new surprise checked her movement and held
+her fixed in her position, with eyes staring straight at the adjoining
+wall. She had seen there what he must have seen in making this same
+turn--the dark bars of the opposite window-frame outlined in the
+mirror--and understood at once what had happened. In the nervousness and
+terror of the moment, George Hammond had mistaken this reflection of
+the window for the window itself, and shot impulsively at the man he
+undoubtedly saw covering him from the trellis without. But while this
+explained the shattering of the mirror, how about the other and still
+more vital question, of where the bullet went afterward? Was the angle
+at which it had been fired acute enough to send it out of a window
+diagonally opposed? No; even if the pistol had been held closer to the
+man firing it than she had reason to believe, the angle still would be
+oblique enough to carry it on to the further wall.
+
+But no sign of any such impact had been discovered on this wall.
+Consequently, the force of the bullet had been expended before reaching
+it, and when it fell--
+
+Here, her glance, slowly traveling along the floor, impetuously paused.
+It had reached the spot where the two bodies had been found, and
+unconsciously her eyes rested there, conjuring up the picture of the
+bleeding father and the strangled child. How piteous and how dreadful
+it all was. If she could only understand--Suddenly she rose straight
+up, staring and immovable in the dim light. Had the idea--the
+explanation--the only possible explanation covering the whole phenomena
+come to her at last?
+
+It would seem so, for as she so stood, a look of conviction settled over
+her features, and with this look, evidences of a horror which for all
+her fast accumulating knowledge of life and its possibilities made her
+appear very small and very helpless.
+
+A half-hour later, when Mrs. Hammond, in her anxiety at hearing nothing
+more from Miss Strange, opened the door of her room, it was to find,
+lying on the edge of the sill, the little detective's card with these
+words hastily written across it:
+
+I do not feel as well as I could wish, and so have telephoned to my own
+coachman to come and take me home. I will either see or write you within
+a few days. But do not allow yourself to hope. I pray you do not allow
+yourself the least hope; the outcome is still very problematical.
+
+When Violet's employer entered his office the next morning it was to
+find a veiled figure awaiting him which he at once recognized as that of
+his little deputy. She was slow in lifting her veil and when it finally
+came free he felt a momentary doubt as to his wisdom in giving her just
+such a matter as this to investigate. He was quite sure of his mistake
+when he saw her face, it was so drawn and pitiful.
+
+"You have failed," said he.
+
+"Of that you must judge," she answered; and drawing near she whispered
+in his ear.
+
+"No!" he cried in his amazement.
+
+"Think," she murmured, "think. Only so can all the facts be accounted
+for."
+
+"I will look into it; I will certainly look into it," was his earnest
+reply. "If you are right--But never mind that. Go home and take a
+horseback ride in the Park. When I have news in regard to this I will
+let you know. Till then forget it all. Hear me, I charge you to forget
+everything but your balls and your parties."
+
+And Violet obeyed him.
+
+Some few days after this, the following statement appeared in all the
+papers:
+
+"Owing to some remarkable work done by the firm of ---- & ----, the
+well-known private detective agency, the claim made by Mrs. George
+Hammond against the Shuler Life Insurance Company is likely to be
+allowed without further litigation. As our readers will remember, the
+contestant has insisted from the first that the bullet causing her
+husband's death came from another pistol than the one found clutched in
+his own hand. But while reasons were not lacking to substantiate this
+assertion, the failure to discover more than the disputed track of a
+second bullet led to a verdict of suicide, and a refusal of the company
+to pay.
+
+"But now that bullet has been found. And where? In the most startling
+place in the world, viz.: in the larynx of the child found lying dead
+upon the floor beside his father, strangled as was supposed by the
+weight of that father's arm. The theory is, and there seems to be none
+other, that the father, hearing a suspicious noise at the window, set
+down the child he was endeavouring to soothe and made for the bed and
+his own pistol, and, mistaking a reflection of the assassin for the
+assassin himself, sent his shot sidewise at a mirror just as the other
+let go the trigger which drove a similar bullet into his breast.
+The course of the one was straight and fatal and that of the other
+deflected. Striking the mirror at an oblique angle, the bullet fell to
+the floor where it was picked up by the crawling child, and, as was
+most natural, thrust at once into his mouth. Perhaps it felt hot to
+the little tongue; perhaps the child was simply frightened by some
+convulsive movement of the father who evidently spent his last moment in
+an endeavour to reach the child, but, whatever the cause, in the quick
+gasp it gave, the bullet was drawn into the larynx, strangling him.
+
+"That the father's arm, in his last struggle, should have fallen
+directly across the little throat is one of those anomalies which
+confounds reason and misleads justice by stopping investigation at the
+very point where truth lies and mystery disappears.
+
+"Mrs. Hammond is to be congratulated that there are detectives who do
+not give too much credence to outward appearances."
+
+We expect soon to hear of the capture of the man who sped home the
+death-dealing bullet.
+
+END OF PROBLEM II
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM III. AN INTANGIBLE CLUE
+
+"Have you studied the case?"
+
+"Not I."
+
+"Not studied the case which for the last few days has provided the
+papers with such conspicuous headlines?"
+
+"I do not read the papers. I have not looked at one in a whole week."
+
+"Miss Strange, your social engagements must be of a very pressing nature
+just now?"
+
+"They are."
+
+"And your business sense in abeyance?"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You would not ask if you had read the papers."
+
+To this she made no reply save by a slight toss of her pretty head.
+If her employer felt nettled by this show of indifference, he did not
+betray it save by the rapidity of his tones as, without further preamble
+and possibly without real excuse, he proceeded to lay before her the
+case in question. "Last Tuesday night a woman was murdered in this city;
+an old woman, in a lonely house where she has lived for years. Perhaps
+you remember this house? It occupies a not inconspicuous site in
+Seventeenth Street--a house of the olden time?"
+
+"No, I do not remember."
+
+The extreme carelessness of Miss Strange's tone would have been fatal to
+her socially; but then, she would never have used it socially. This they
+both knew, yet he smiled with his customary indulgence.
+
+"Then I will describe it."
+
+She looked around for a chair and sank into it. He did the same.
+
+"It has a fanlight over the front door."
+
+She remained impassive.
+
+"And two old-fashioned strips of parti-coloured glass on either side."
+
+"And a knocker between its panels which may bring money some day."
+
+"Oh, you do remember! I thought you would, Miss Strange."
+
+"Yes. Fanlights over doors are becoming very rare in New York."
+
+"Very well, then. That house was the scene of Tuesday's tragedy. The
+woman who has lived there in solitude for years was foully murdered.
+I have since heard that the people who knew her best have always
+anticipated some such violent end for her. She never allowed maid or
+friend to remain with her after five in the afternoon; yet she had
+money--some think a great deal--always in the house."
+
+"I am interested in the house, not in her."
+
+"Yet, she was a character--as full of whims and crotchets as a nut is
+of meat. Her death was horrible. She fought--her dress was torn from her
+body in rags. This happened, you see, before her hour for retiring;
+some think as early as six in the afternoon. And"--here he made a
+rapid gesture to catch Violet's wandering attention--"in spite of
+this struggle; in spite of the fact that she was dragged from room
+to room--that her person was searched--and everything in the house
+searched--that drawers were pulled out of bureaus--doors wrenched off of
+cupboards--china smashed upon the floor--whole shelves denuded and not
+a spot from cellar to garret left unransacked, no direct clue to
+the perpetrator has been found--nothing that gives any idea of his
+personality save his display of strength and great cupidity. The police
+have even deigned to consult me,--an unusual procedure--but I could find
+nothing, either. Evidences of fiendish purpose abound--of relentless
+search--but no clue to the man himself. It's uncommon, isn't it, not to
+have any clue?"
+
+"I suppose so." Miss Strange hated murders and it was with difficulty
+she could be brought to discuss them. But she was not going to be let
+off; not this time.
+
+"You see," he proceeded insistently, "it's not only mortifying to the
+police but disappointing to the press, especially as few reporters
+believe in the No-thoroughfare business. They say, and we cannot but
+agree with them, that no such struggle could take place and no such
+repeated goings to and fro through the house without some vestige being
+left by which to connect this crime with its daring perpetrator."
+
+Still she stared down at her hands--those little hands so white and
+fluttering, so seemingly helpless under the weight of their many rings,
+and yet so slyly capable.
+
+"She must have queer neighbours," came at last, from Miss Strange's
+reluctant lips. "Didn't they hear or see anything of all this?"
+
+"She has no neighbours--that is, after half-past five o'clock. There's
+a printing establishment on one side of her, a deserted mansion on the
+other side, and nothing but warehouses back and front. There was no one
+to notice what took place in her small dwelling after the printing house
+was closed. She was the most courageous or the most foolish of women to
+remain there as she did. But nothing except death could budge her. She
+was born in the room where she died; was married in the one where she
+worked; saw husband, father, mother, and five sisters carried out
+in turn to their graves through the door with the fanlight over the
+top--and these memories held her."
+
+"You are trying to interest me in the woman. Don't."
+
+"No, I'm not trying to interest you in her, only trying to explain her.
+There was another reason for her remaining where she did so long after
+all residents had left the block. She had a business."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"She embroidered monograms for fine ladies."
+
+"She did? But you needn't look at me like that. She never embroidered
+any for me."
+
+"No? She did first-class work. I saw some of it. Miss Strange, if I
+could get you into that house for ten minutes--not to see her but to
+pick up the loose intangible thread which I am sure is floating around
+in it somewhere--wouldn't you go?"
+
+Violet slowly rose--a movement which he followed to the letter.
+
+"Must I express in words the limit I have set for myself in our affair?"
+she asked. "When, for reasons I have never thought myself called upon to
+explain, I consented to help you a little now and then with some matter
+where a woman's tact and knowledge of the social world might tell
+without offence to herself or others, I never thought it would be
+necessary for me to state that temptation must stop with such cases,
+or that I should not be asked to touch the sordid or the bloody. But it
+seems I was mistaken, and that I must stoop to be explicit. The woman
+who was killed on Tuesday might have interested me greatly as an
+embroiderer, but as a victim, not at all. What do you see in me, or miss
+in me, that you should drag me into an atmosphere of low-down crime?"
+
+"Nothing, Miss Strange. You are by nature, as well as by breeding,
+very far removed from everything of the kind. But you will allow me to
+suggest that no crime is low-down which makes imperative demand upon
+the intellect and intuitive sense of its investigator. Only the most
+delicate touch can feel and hold the thread I've just spoken of, and you
+have the most delicate touch I know."
+
+"Do not attempt to flatter me. I have no fancy for handling befouled
+spider webs. Besides, if I had--if such elusive filaments fascinated
+me--how could I, well-known in person and name, enter upon such a scene
+without prejudice to our mutual compact?"
+
+"Miss Strange"--she had reseated herself, but so far he had failed to
+follow her example (an ignoring of the subtle hint that her interest
+might yet be caught, which seemed to annoy her a trifle), "I should
+not even have suggested such a possibility had I not seen a way of
+introducing you there without risk to your position or mine. Among the
+boxes piled upon Mrs. Doolittle's table--boxes of finished work, most
+of them addressed and ready for delivery--was one on which could be seen
+the name of--shall I mention it?"
+
+"Not mine? You don't mean mine? That would be too odd--too ridiculously
+odd. I should not understand a coincidence of that kind; no, I should
+not, notwithstanding the fact that I have lately sent out such work to
+be done."
+
+"Yet it was your name, very clearly and precisely written--your whole
+name, Miss Strange. I saw and read it myself."
+
+"But I gave the order to Madame Pirot on Fifth Avenue. How came my
+things to be found in the house of this woman of whose horrible death we
+have been talking?"
+
+"Did you suppose that Madame Pirot did such work with her own
+hands?--or even had it done in her own establishment? Mrs. Doolittle was
+universally employed. She worked for a dozen firms. You will find the
+biggest names on most of her packages. But on this one--I allude to the
+one addressed to you--there was more to be seen than the name. These
+words were written on it in another hand. Send without opening. This
+struck the police as suspicious; sufficiently so, at least, for them
+to desire your presence at the house as soon as you can make it
+convenient."
+
+"To open the box?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+The curl of Miss Strange's disdainful lip was a sight to see.
+
+"You wrote those words yourself," she coolly observed. "While someone's
+back was turned, you whipped out your pencil and--"
+
+"Resorted to a very pardonable subterfuge highly conducive to the
+public's good. But never mind that. Will you go?"
+
+Miss Strange became suddenly demure.
+
+"I suppose I must," she grudgingly conceded. "However obtained, a
+summons from the police cannot be ignored even by Peter Strange's
+daughter."
+
+Another man might have displayed his triumph by smile or gesture; but
+this one had learned his role too well. He simply said:
+
+"Very good. Shall it be at once? I have a taxi at the door."
+
+But she failed to see the necessity of any such hurry. With sudden
+dignity she replied:
+
+"That won't do. If I go to this house it must be under suitable
+conditions. I shall have to ask my brother to accompany me."
+
+"Your brother!"
+
+"Oh, he's safe. He--he knows."
+
+"Your brother knows?" Her visitor, with less control than usual,
+betrayed very openly his uneasiness.
+
+"He does and--approves. But that's not what interests us now, only so
+far as it makes it possible for me to go with propriety to that dreadful
+house."
+
+A formal bow from the other and the words:
+
+"They may expect you, then. Can you say when?"
+
+"Within the next hour. But it will be a useless concession on my part,"
+she pettishly complained. "A place that has been gone over by a dozen
+detectives is apt to be brushed clean of its cobwebs, even if such ever
+existed."
+
+"That's the difficulty," he acknowledged; and did not dare to add
+another word; she was at that particular moment so very much the great
+lady, and so little his confidential agent.
+
+He might have been less impressed, however, by this sudden assumption
+of manner, had he been so fortunate as to have seen how she employed the
+three quarters of an hour's delay for which she had asked.
+
+She read those neglected newspapers, especially the one containing the
+following highly coloured narration of this ghastly crime:
+
+"A door ajar--an empty hall--a line of sinister looking blotches
+marking a guilty step diagonally across the flagging--silence--and an
+unmistakable odour repugnant to all humanity,--such were the indications
+which met the eyes of Officer O'Leary on his first round last night, and
+led to the discovery of a murder which will long thrill the city by its
+mystery and horror.
+
+"Both the house and the victim are well known." Here followed a
+description of the same and of Mrs. Doolittle's manner of life in
+her ancient home, which Violet hurriedly passed over to come to the
+following:
+
+"As far as one can judge from appearances, the crime happened in this
+wise: Mrs. Doolittle had been in her kitchen, as the tea-kettle found
+singing on the stove goes to prove, and was coming back through her
+bedroom, when the wretch, who had stolen in by the front door which, to
+save steps, she was unfortunately in the habit of leaving on the latch
+till all possibility of customers for the day was over, sprang upon her
+from behind and dealt her a swinging blow with the poker he had caught
+up from the hearthstone.
+
+"Whether the struggle which ensued followed immediately upon this first
+attack or came later, it will take medical experts to determine. But,
+whenever it did occur, the fierceness of its character is shown by the
+grip taken upon her throat and the traces of blood which are to be seen
+all over the house. If the wretch had lugged her into her workroom and
+thence to the kitchen, and thence back to the spot of first assault, the
+evidences could not have been more ghastly. Bits of her clothing torn
+off by a ruthless hand, lay scattered over all these floors. In her
+bedroom, where she finally breathed her last, there could be seen
+mingled with these a number of large but worthless glass beads; and
+close against one of the base-boards, the string which had held them, as
+shown by the few remaining beads still clinging to it. If in pulling the
+string from her neck he had hoped to light upon some valuable booty,
+his fury at his disappointment is evident. You can almost see the frenzy
+with which he flung the would-be necklace at the wall, and kicked about
+and stamped upon its rapidly rolling beads.
+
+"Booty! That was what he was after; to find and carry away the poor
+needlewoman's supposed hoardings. If the scene baffles description--if,
+as some believe, he dragged her yet living from spot to spot, demanding
+information as to her places of concealment under threat of repeated
+blows, and, finally baffled, dealt the finishing stroke and proceeded on
+the search alone, no greater devastation could have taken place in this
+poor woman's house or effects. Yet such was his precaution and care
+for himself that he left no finger-print behind him nor any other token
+which could lead to personal identification. Even though his footsteps
+could be traced in much the order I have mentioned, they were of so
+indeterminate and shapeless a character as to convey little to the
+intelligence of the investigator.
+
+"That these smears (they could not be called footprints) not only
+crossed the hall but appeared in more than one place on the staircase
+proves that he did not confine his search to the lower storey; and
+perhaps one of the most interesting features of the case lies in the
+indications given by these marks of the raging course he took through
+these upper rooms. As the accompanying diagram will show [we omit the
+diagram] he went first into the large front chamber, thence to the rear
+where we find two rooms, one unfinished and filled with accumulated
+stuff most of which he left lying loose upon the floor, and the other
+plastered, and containing a window opening upon an alley-way at the
+side, but empty of all furniture and without even a carpet on the bare
+boards.
+
+"Why he should have entered the latter place, and why, having entered
+he should have crossed to the window, will be plain to those who
+have studied the conditions. The front chamber windows were tightly
+shuttered, the attic ones cumbered with boxes and shielded from approach
+by old bureaus and discarded chairs. This one only was free and,
+although darkened by the proximity of the house neighbouring it across
+the alley, was the only spot on the storey where sufficient light could
+be had at this late hour for the examination of any object of whose
+value he was doubtful. That he had come across such an object and had
+brought it to this window for some such purpose is very satisfactorily
+demonstrated by the discovery of a worn out wallet of ancient make lying
+on the floor directly in front of this window--a proof of his cupidity
+but also proof of his ill-luck. For this wallet, when lifted and opened,
+was found to contain two hundred or more dollars in old bills, which, if
+not the full hoard of their industrious owner, was certainly worth the
+taking by one who had risked his neck for the sole purpose of theft.
+
+"This wallet, and the flight of the murderer without it, give to this
+affair, otherwise simply brutal, a dramatic interest which will be
+appreciated not only by the very able detectives already hot upon the
+chase, but by all other inquiring minds anxious to solve a mystery of
+which so estimable a woman has been the unfortunate victim. A problem is
+presented to the police--"
+
+There Violet stopped.
+
+When, not long after, the superb limousine of Peter Strange stopped
+before the little house in Seventeenth Street, it caused a veritable
+sensation, not only in the curiosity-mongers lingering on the sidewalk,
+but to the two persons within--the officer on guard and a belated
+reporter.
+
+Though dressed in her plainest suit, Violet Strange looked much too
+fashionable and far too young and thoughtless to be observed, without
+emotion, entering a scene of hideous and brutal crime. Even the young
+man who accompanied her promised to bring a most incongruous element
+into this atmosphere of guilt and horror, and, as the detective on guard
+whispered to the man beside him, might much better have been left behind
+in the car.
+
+But Violet was great for the proprieties and young Arthur followed her
+in.
+
+Her entrance was a coup du theatre. She had lifted her veil in crossing
+the sidewalk and her interesting features and general air of timidity
+were very fetching. As the man holding open the door noted the
+impression made upon his companion, he muttered with sly facetiousness:
+
+"You think you'll show her nothing; but I'm ready to bet a fiver that
+she'll want to see it all and that you'll show it to her."
+
+The detective's grin was expressive, notwithstanding the shrug with
+which he tried to carry it off.
+
+And Violet? The hall into which she now stepped from the most vivid
+sunlight had never been considered even in its palmiest days as
+possessing cheer even of the stately kind. The ghastly green light
+infused through it by the coloured glass on either side of the doorway
+seemed to promise yet more dismal things beyond.
+
+"Must I go in there?" she asked, pointing, with an admirable simulation
+of nervous excitement, to a half-shut door at her left. "Is there where
+it happened? Arthur, do you suppose that there is where it happened?"
+
+"No, no, Miss," the officer made haste to assure her. "If you are Miss
+Strange" (Violet bowed), "I need hardly say that the woman was struck in
+her bedroom. The door beside you leads into the parlour, or as she would
+have called it, her work-room. You needn't be afraid of going in there.
+You will see nothing but the disorder of her boxes. They were pretty
+well pulled about. Not all of them though," he added, watching her as
+closely as the dim light permitted. "There is one which gives no sign
+of having been tampered with. It was done up in wrapping paper and is
+addressed to you, which in itself would not have seemed worthy of
+our attention had not these lines been scribbled on it in a man's
+handwriting: 'Send without opening.'"
+
+"How odd!" exclaimed the little minx with widely opened eyes and an
+air of guileless innocence. "Whatever can it mean? Nothing serious I am
+sure, for the woman did not even know me. She was employed to do this
+work by Madame Pirot."
+
+"Didn't you know that it was to be done here?"
+
+"No. I thought Madame Pirot's own girls did her embroidery for her."
+
+"So that you were surprised--"
+
+"Wasn't I!"
+
+"To get our message."
+
+"I didn't know what to make of it."
+
+The earnest, half-injured look with which she uttered this disclaimer,
+did its appointed work. The detective accepted her for what she seemed
+and, oblivious to the reporter's satirical gesture, crossed to the
+work-room door, which he threw wide open with the remark:
+
+"I should be glad to have you open that box in our presence. It is
+undoubtedly all right, but we wish to be sure. You know what the box
+should contain?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed; pillow-cases and sheets, with a big S embroidered on
+them."
+
+"Very well. Shall I undo the string for you?"
+
+"I shall be much obliged," said she, her eye flashing quickly about the
+room before settling down upon the knot he was deftly loosening.
+
+Her brother, gazing indifferently in from the doorway, hardly noticed
+this look; but the reporter at his back did, though he failed to detect
+its penetrating quality.
+
+"Your name is on the other side," observed the detective as he drew away
+the string and turned the package over.
+
+The smile which just lifted the corner of her lips was not in answer to
+this remark, but to her recognition of her employer's handwriting in the
+words under her name: Send without opening. She had not misjudged him.
+
+"The cover you may like to take off yourself," suggested the officer, as
+he lifted the box out of its wrapper.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind. There's nothing to be ashamed of in embroidered
+linen. Or perhaps that is not what you are looking for?"
+
+No one answered. All were busy watching her whip off the lid and lift
+out the pile of sheets and pillow-cases with which the box was closely
+packed.
+
+"Shall I unfold them?" she asked.
+
+The detective nodded.
+
+Taking out the topmost sheet, she shook it open. Then the next and the
+next till she reached the bottom of the box. Nothing of a criminating
+nature came to light. The box as well as its contents was without
+mystery of any kind. This was not an unexpected result of course, but
+the smile with which she began to refold the pieces and throw them back
+into the box, revealed one of her dimples which was almost as dangerous
+to the casual observer as when it revealed both.
+
+"There," she exclaimed, "you see! Household linen exactly as I said. Now
+may I go home?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Strange."
+
+The detective stole a sly glance at the reporter. She was not going in
+for the horrors then after all.
+
+But the reporter abated nothing of his knowing air, for while she spoke
+of going, she made no move towards doing so, but continued to look
+about the room till her glances finally settled on a long dark curtain
+shutting off an adjoining room.
+
+"There's where she lies, I suppose," she feelingly exclaimed. "And not
+one of you knows who killed her. Somehow, I cannot understand that. Why
+don't you know when that's what you're hired for?" The innocence with
+which she uttered this was astonishing. The detective began to look
+sheepish and the reporter turned aside to hide his smile. Whether in
+another moment either would have spoken no one can say, for, with a
+mock consciousness of having said something foolish, she caught up her
+parasol from the table and made a start for the door.
+
+But of course she looked back.
+
+"I was wondering," she recommenced, with a half wistful, half
+speculative air, "whether I should ask to have a peep at the place where
+it all happened."
+
+The reporter chuckled behind the pencil-end he was chewing, but the
+officer maintained his solemn air, for which act of self-restraint
+he was undoubtedly grateful when in another minute she gave a quick
+impulsive shudder not altogether assumed, and vehemently added: "But I
+couldn't stand the sight; no, I couldn't! I'm an awful coward when it
+comes to things like that. Nothing in all the world would induce me
+to look at the woman or her room. But I should like--" here both
+her dimples came into play though she could not be said exactly to
+smile--"just one little look upstairs, where he went poking about so
+long without any fear it seems of being interrupted. Ever since I've
+read about it I have seen, in my mind, a picture of his wicked figure
+sneaking from room to room, tearing open drawers and flinging out the
+contents of closets just to find a little money--a little, little money!
+I shall not sleep to-night just for wondering how those high up attic
+rooms really look."
+
+Who could dream that back of this display of mingled childishness and
+audacity there lay hidden purpose, intellect, and a keen knowledge
+of human nature. Not the two men who listened to this seemingly
+irresponsible chatter. To them she was a child to be humoured and humour
+her they did. The dainty feet which had already found their way to that
+gloomy staircase were allowed to ascend, followed it is true by those
+of the officer who did not dare to smile back at the reporter because of
+the brother's watchful and none too conciliatory eye.
+
+At the stair head she paused to look back.
+
+"I don't see those horrible marks which the papers describe as running
+all along the lower hall and up these stairs."
+
+"No, Miss Strange; they have gradually been rubbed out, but you will
+find some still showing on these upper floors."
+
+"Oh! oh! where? You frighten me--frighten me horribly! But--but--if you
+don't mind, I should like to see."
+
+Why should not a man on a tedious job amuse himself? Piloting her over
+to the small room in the rear, he pointed down at the boards. She gave
+one look and then stepped gingerly in.
+
+"Just look!" she cried; "a whole string of marks going straight from
+door to window. They have no shape, have they,--just blotches? I wonder
+why one of them is so much larger than the rest?"
+
+This was no new question. It was one which everybody who went into
+the room was sure to ask, there was such a difference in the size and
+appearance of the mark nearest the window. The reason--well, minds were
+divided about that, and no one had a satisfactory theory. The detective
+therefore kept discreetly silent.
+
+This did not seem to offend Miss Strange. On the contrary it gave her an
+opportunity to babble away to her heart's content.
+
+"One, two, three, four, five, six," she counted, with a shudder at every
+count. "And one of them bigger than the others." She might have added,
+"It is the trail of one foot, and strangely, intermingled at that," but
+she did not, though we may be quite sure that she noted the fact. "And
+where, just where did the old wallet fall? Here? or here?"
+
+She had moved as she spoke, so that in uttering the last "here," she
+stood directly before the window. The surprise she received there nearly
+made her forget the part she was playing. From the character of the
+light in the room, she had expected, on looking out, to confront a
+near-by wall, but not a window in that wall. Yet that was what she saw
+directly facing her from across the old-fashioned alley separating
+this house from its neighbour; twelve unshuttered and uncurtained panes
+through which she caught a darkened view of a room almost as forlorn and
+devoid of furniture as the one in which she then stood.
+
+When quite sure of herself, she let a certain portion of her surprise
+appear.
+
+"Why, look!" she cried, "if you can't see right in next door! What a
+lonesome-looking place! From its desolate appearance I should think the
+house quite empty."
+
+"And it is. That's the old Shaffer homestead. It's been empty for a
+year."
+
+"Oh, empty!" And she turned away, with the most inconsequent air in
+the world, crying out as her name rang up the stair, "There's Arthur
+calling. I suppose he thinks I've been here long enough. I'm sure I'm
+very much obliged to you, officer. I really shouldn't have slept a wink
+to-night, if I hadn't been given a peep at these rooms, which I
+had imagined so different." And with one additional glance over her
+shoulder, that seemed to penetrate both windows and the desolate space
+beyond, she ran quickly out and down in response to her brother's
+reiterated call.
+
+"Drive quickly!--as quickly as the law allows, to Hiram Brown's office
+in Duane Street."
+
+Arrived at the address named, she went in alone to see Mr. Brown. He was
+her father's lawyer and a family friend.
+
+Hardly waiting for his affectionate greeting, she cried out quickly.
+"Tell me how I can learn anything about the old Shaffer house in
+Seventeenth Street. Now, don't look so surprised. I have very good
+reasons for my request and--and--I'm in an awful hurry."
+
+"But--"
+
+"I know, I know; there's been a dreadful tragedy next door to it; but
+it's about the Shaffer house itself I want some information. Has it an
+agent, a--"
+
+"Of course it has an agent, and here is his name."
+
+Mr. Brown presented her with a card on which he had hastily written both
+name and address.
+
+She thanked him, dropped him a mocking curtsey full of charm, whispered
+"Don't tell father," and was gone.
+
+Her manner to the man she next interviewed was very different. As soon
+as she saw him she subsided into her usual society manner. With just a
+touch of the conceit of the successful debutante, she announced herself
+as Miss Strange of Seventy-second Street. Her business with him was in
+regard to the possible renting of the Shaffer house. She had an old lady
+friend who was desirous of living downtown.
+
+In passing through Seventeenth Street, she had noticed that the old
+Shaffer house was standing empty and had been immediately struck with
+the advantages it possessed for her elderly friend's occupancy. Could it
+be that the house was for rent? There was no sign on it to that effect,
+but--etc.
+
+His answer left her nothing to hope for.
+
+"It is going to be torn down," he said.
+
+"Oh, what a pity!" she exclaimed. "Real colonial, isn't it! I wish I
+could see the rooms inside before it is disturbed. Such doors and such
+dear old-fashioned mantelpieces as it must have! I just dote on the
+Colonial. It brings up such pictures of the old days; weddings,
+you know, and parties;--all so different from ours and so much more
+interesting."
+
+Is it the chance shot that tells? Sometimes. Violet had no especial
+intention in what she said save as a prelude to a pending request,
+but nothing could have served her purpose better than that one word,
+wedding. The agent laughed and giving her his first indulgent look,
+remarked genially:
+
+"Romance is not confined to those ancient times. If you were to enter
+that house to-day you would come across evidences of a wedding as
+romantic as any which ever took place in all the seventy odd years of
+its existence. A man and a woman were married there day before yesterday
+who did their first courting under its roof forty years ago. He has been
+married twice and she once in the interval; but the old love held firm
+and now at the age of sixty and over they have come together to finish
+their days in peace and happiness. Or so we will hope."
+
+"Married! married in that house and on the day that--"
+
+She caught herself up in time. He did not notice the break.
+
+"Yes, in memory of those old days of courtship, I suppose. They came
+here about five, got the keys, drove off, went through the ceremony in
+that empty house, returned the keys to me in my own apartment, took the
+steamer for Naples, and were on the sea before midnight. Do you not call
+that quick work as well as highly romantic?"
+
+"Very." Miss Strange's cheek had paled. It was apt to when she was
+greatly excited. "But I don't understand," she added, the moment after.
+"How could they do this and nobody know about it? I should have thought
+it would have got into the papers."
+
+"They are quiet people. I don't think they told their best friends. A
+simple announcement in the next day's journals testified to the fact of
+their marriage, but that was all. I would not have felt at liberty to
+mention the circumstances myself, if the parties were not well on their
+way to Europe."
+
+"Oh, how glad I am that you did tell me! Such a story of constancy and
+the hold which old associations have upon sensitive minds! But--"
+
+"Why, Miss? What's the matter? You look very much disturbed."
+
+"Don't you remember? Haven't you thought? Something else happened that
+very day and almost at the same time on that block. Something very
+dreadful--"
+
+"Mrs. Doolittle's murder?"
+
+"Yes. It was as near as next door, wasn't it? Oh, if this happy couple
+had known--"
+
+"But fortunately they didn't. Nor are they likely to, till they reach
+the other side. You needn't fear that their honeymoon will be spoiled
+that way."
+
+"But they may have heard something or seen something before leaving the
+street. Did you notice how the gentleman looked when he returned you the
+keys?"
+
+"I did, and there was no cloud on his satisfaction."
+
+"Oh, how you relieve me!" One--two dimples made their appearance in
+Miss Strange's fresh, young cheeks. "Well! I wish them joy. Do you mind
+telling me their names? I cannot think of them as actual persons without
+knowing their names."
+
+"The gentleman was Constantin Amidon; the lady, Marian Shaffer. You will
+have to think of them now as Mr. and Mrs. Amidon."
+
+"And I will. Thank you, Mr. Hutton, thank you very much. Next to the
+pleasure of getting the house for my friend, is that of hearing this
+charming bit of news its connection."
+
+She held out her hand and, as he took it, remarked:
+
+"They must have had a clergyman and witnesses."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"I wish I had been one of the witnesses," she sighed sentimentally.
+
+"They were two old men."
+
+"Oh, no! Don't tell me that."
+
+"Fogies; nothing less."
+
+"But the clergyman? He must have been young. Surely there was some one
+there capable of appreciating the situation?"
+
+"I can't say about that; I did not see the clergyman."
+
+"Oh, well! it doesn't matter." Miss Strange's manner was as nonchalant
+as it was charming. "We will think of him as being very young."
+
+And with a merry toss of her head she flitted away.
+
+But she sobered very rapidly upon entering her limousine.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Ah, is that you?"
+
+"Yes, I want a Marconi sent."
+
+"A Marconi?"
+
+"Yes, to the Cretic, which left dock the very night in which we are so
+deeply interested."
+
+"Good. Whom to? The Captain?"
+
+"No, to a Mrs. Constantin Amidon. But first be sure there is such a
+passenger."
+
+"Mrs.! What idea have you there?"
+
+"Excuse my not stating over the telephone. The message is to be to this
+effect. Did she at any time immediately before or after her marriage to
+Mr. Amidon get a glimpse of any one in the adjoining house? No remarks,
+please. I use the telephone because I am not ready to explain myself.
+If she did, let her send a written description to you of that person as
+soon as she reaches the Azores."
+
+"You surprise me. May I not call or hope for a line from you early
+to-morrow?"
+
+"I shall be busy till you get your answer."
+
+He hung up the receiver. He recognized the resolute tone.
+
+But the time came when the pending explanation was fully given to him.
+An answer had been returned from the steamer, favourable to Violet's
+hopes. Mrs. Amidon had seen such a person and would send a full
+description of the same at the first opportunity. It was news to fill
+Violet's heart with pride; the filament of a clue which had led to this
+great result had been so nearly invisible and had felt so like nothing
+in her grasp.
+
+To her employer she described it as follows:
+
+"When I hear or read of a case which contains any baffling features, I
+am apt to feel some hidden chord in my nature thrill to one fact in
+it and not to any of the others. In this case the single fact which
+appealed to my imagination was the dropping of the stolen wallet in that
+upstairs room. Why did the guilty man drop it? and why, having dropped
+it, did he not pick it up again? but one answer seemed possible. He had
+heard or seen something at the spot where it fell which not only alarmed
+him but sent him in flight from the house."
+
+"Very good; and did you settle to your own mind the nature of that sound
+or that sight?"
+
+"I did." Her manner was strangely businesslike. No show of dimples now.
+"Satisfied that if any possibility remained of my ever doing this, it
+would have to be on the exact place of this occurrence or not at all, I
+embraced your suggestion and visited the house."
+
+"And that room no doubt."
+
+"And that room. Women, somehow, seem to manage such things."
+
+"So I've noticed, Miss Strange. And what was the result of your visit?
+What did you discover there?"
+
+"This: that one of the blood spots marking the criminal's steps through
+the room was decidedly more pronounced than the rest; and, what was
+even more important, that the window out of which I was looking had its
+counterpart in the house on the opposite side of the alley. In gazing
+through the one I was gazing through the other; and not only that,
+but into the darkened area of the room beyond. Instantly I saw how the
+latter fact might be made to explain the former one. But before I say
+how, let me ask if it is quite settled among you that the smears on the
+floor and stairs mark the passage of the criminal's footsteps!"
+
+"Certainly; and very bloody feet they must have been too. His shoes--or
+rather his one shoe--for the proof is plain that only the right one left
+its mark--must have become thoroughly saturated to carry its traces so
+far."
+
+"Do you think that any amount of saturation would have done this? Or,
+if you are not ready to agree to that, that a shoe so covered with
+blood could have failed to leave behind it some hint of its shape, some
+imprint, however faint, of heel or toe? But nowhere did it do this. We
+see a smear--and that is all."
+
+"You are right, Miss Strange; you are always right. And what do you
+gather from this?"
+
+She looked to see how much he expected from her, and, meeting an eye not
+quite as free from ironic suggestion as his words had led her to expect,
+faltered a little as she proceeded to say:
+
+"My opinion is a girl's opinion, but such as it is you have the right
+to have it. From the indications mentioned I could draw but this
+conclusion: that the blood which accompanied the criminal's footsteps
+was not carried through the house by his shoes;--he wore no shoes; he
+did not even wear stockings; probably he had none. For reasons which
+appealed to his judgment, he went about his wicked work barefoot; and it
+was the blood from his own veins and not from those of his victim which
+made the trail we have followed with so much interest. Do you forget
+those broken beads;--how he kicked them about and stamped upon them in
+his fury? One of them pierced the ball of his foot, and that so sharply
+that it not only spurted blood but kept on bleeding with every step he
+took. Otherwise, the trail would have been lost after his passage up the
+stairs."
+
+"Fine!" There was no irony in the bureau-chief's eye now. "You are
+progressing, Miss Strange. Allow me, I pray, to kiss your hand. It is
+a liberty I have never taken, but one which would greatly relieve my
+present stress of feeling."
+
+She lifted her hand toward him, but it was in gesture, not in
+recognition of his homage.
+
+"Thank you," said she, "but I claim no monopoly on deductions so simple
+as these. I have not the least doubt that not only yourself but every
+member of the force has made the same. But there is a little matter
+which may have escaped the police, may even have escaped you. To that
+I would now call your attention since through it I have been enabled,
+after a little necessary groping, to reach the open. You remember the
+one large blotch on the upper floor where the man dropped the wallet?
+That blotch, more or less commingled with a fainter one, possessed great
+significance for me from the first moment I saw it. How came his foot to
+bleed so much more profusely at that one spot than at any other? There
+could be but one answer: because here a surprise met him--a surprise
+so startling to him in his present state of mind, that he gave a
+quick spring backward, with the result that his wounded foot came down
+suddenly and forcibly instead of easily as in his previous wary tread.
+And what was the surprise? I made it my business to find out, and now
+I can tell you that it was the sight of a woman's face staring upon him
+from the neighbouring house which he had probably been told was empty.
+The shock disturbed his judgment. He saw his crime discovered--his
+guilty secret read, and fled in unreasoning panic. He might better have
+held on to his wits. It was this display of fear which led me to search
+after its cause, and consequently to discover that at this especial hour
+more than one person had been in the Shaffer house; that, in fact, a
+marriage had been celebrated there under circumstances as romantic as
+any we read of in books, and that this marriage, privately carried out,
+had been followed by an immediate voyage of the happy couple on one of
+the White Star steamers. With the rest you are conversant. I do not need
+to say anything about what has followed the sending of that Marconi."
+
+"But I am going to say something about your work in this matter, Miss
+Strange. The big detectives about here will have to look sharp if--"
+
+"Don't, please! Not yet." A smile softened the asperity of this
+interruption. "The man has yet to be caught and identified. Till that is
+done I cannot enjoy any one's congratulations. And you will see that all
+this may not be so easy. If no one happened to meet the desperate wretch
+before he had an opportunity to retie his shoe-laces, there will be
+little for you or even for the police to go upon but his wounded foot,
+his undoubtedly carefully prepared alibi, and later, a woman's confused
+description of a face seen but for a moment only and that under a
+personal excitement precluding minute attention. I should not be
+surprised if the whole thing came to nothing."
+
+But it did not. As soon as the description was received from Mrs. Amidon
+(a description, by the way, which was unusually clear and precise, owing
+to the peculiar and contradictory features of the man), the police were
+able to recognize him among the many suspects always under their eye.
+Arrested, he pleaded, just as Miss Strange had foretold, an alibi of
+a seemingly unimpeachable character; but neither it, nor the plausible
+explanation with which he endeavoured to account for a freshly healed
+scar amid the callouses of his right foot, could stand before Mrs.
+Amidon's unequivocal testimony that he was the same man she had seen in
+Mrs. Doolittle's upper room on the afternoon of her own happiness and of
+that poor woman's murder.
+
+The moment when, at his trial, the two faces again confronted each other
+across a space no wider than that which had separated them on the dread
+occasion in Seventeenth Street, is said to have been one of the most
+dramatic in the annals of that ancient court room.
+
+END OF PROBLEM III
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM IV. THE GROTTO SPECTRE
+
+Miss Strange was not often pensive--at least not at large functions
+or when under the public eye. But she certainly forgot herself at Mrs.
+Provost's musicale and that, too, without apparent reason. Had the music
+been of a high order one might have understood her abstraction; but it
+was of a decidedly mediocre quality, and Violet's ear was much too fine
+and her musical sense too cultivated for her to be beguiled by anything
+less than the very best.
+
+Nor had she the excuse of a dull companion. Her escort for the evening
+was a man of unusual conversational powers; but she seemed to be almost
+oblivious of his presence; and when, through some passing courteous
+impulse, she did turn her ear his way, it was with just that tinge of
+preoccupation which betrays the divided mind.
+
+Were her thoughts with some secret problem yet unsolved? It would
+scarcely seem so from the gay remark with which she had left home. She
+was speaking to her brother and her words were: "I am going out to enjoy
+myself. I've not a care in the world. The slate is quite clean." Yet she
+had never seemed more out of tune with her surroundings nor shown a mood
+further removed from trivial entertainment. What had happened to becloud
+her gaiety in the short time which had since elapsed?
+
+We can answer in a sentence.
+
+She had seen, among a group of young men in a distant doorway, one with
+a face so individual and of an expression so extraordinary that all
+interest in the people about her had stopped as a clock stops when the
+pendulum is held back. She could see nothing else, think of nothing
+else. Not that it was so very handsome--though no other had ever
+approached it in its power over her imagination--but because of its
+expression of haunting melancholy,--a melancholy so settled and so
+evidently the result of long-continued sorrow that her interest had been
+reached and her heartstrings shaken as never before in her whole life.
+
+She would never be the same Violet again.
+
+Yet moved as she undoubtedly was, she was not conscious of the least
+desire to know who the young man was, or even to be made acquainted with
+his story. She simply wanted to dream her dream undisturbed.
+
+It was therefore with a sense of unwelcome shock that, in the course of
+the reception following the programme, she perceived this fine young man
+approaching herself, with his right hand touching his left shoulder in
+the peculiar way which committed her to an interview with or without a
+formal introduction.
+
+Should she fly the ordeal? Be blind and deaf to whatever was significant
+in his action, and go her way before he reached her; thus keeping her
+dream intact? Impossible. His eye prevented that. His glance had caught
+hers and she felt forced to await his advance and give him her first
+spare moment.
+
+It came soon, and when it came she greeted him with a smile. It was the
+first she had ever bestowed in welcome of a confidence of whose tenor
+she was entirely ignorant.
+
+To her relief he showed his appreciation of the dazzling gift though he
+made no effort to return it. Scorning all preliminaries in his eagerness
+to discharge himself of a burden which was fast becoming intolerable, he
+addressed her at once in these words:
+
+"You are very good, Miss Strange, to receive me in this unconventional
+fashion. I am in that desperate state of mind which precludes etiquette.
+Will you listen to my petition? I am told--you know by whom--"(and he
+again touched his shoulder) "that you have resources of intelligence
+which especially fit you to meet the extraordinary difficulties of my
+position. May I beg you to exercise them in my behalf? No man would be
+more grateful if--But I see that you do not recognize me. I am Roger
+Upjohn. That I am admitted to this gathering is owing to the fact that
+our hostess knew and loved my mother. In my anxiety to meet you and
+proffer my plea, I was willing to brave the cold looks you have probably
+noticed on the faces of the people about us. But I have no right to
+subject you to criticism. I--"
+
+"Remain." Violet's voice was troubled, her self-possession disturbed;
+but there was a command in her tone which he was only too glad to obey.
+"I know the name" (who did not!) "and possibly my duty to myself should
+make me shun a confidence which may burden me without relieving you. But
+you have been sent to me by one whose behests I feel bound to respect
+and--"
+
+Mistrusting her voice, she stopped. The suffering which made itself
+apparent in the face before her appealed to her heart in a way to rob
+her of her judgment. She did not wish this to be seen, and so fell
+silent.
+
+He was quick to take advantage of her obvious embarrassment. "Should I
+have been sent to you if I had not first secured the confidence of the
+sender? You know the scandal attached to my name, some of it just, some
+of it very unjust. If you will grant me an interview to-morrow, I will
+make an endeavour to refute certain charges which I have hitherto let
+go unchallenged. Will you do me this favour? Will you listen in your own
+house to what I have to say?"
+
+Instinct cried out against any such concession on her part, bidding
+her beware of one who charmed without excellence and convinced without
+reason. But compassion urged compliance and compassion won the day.
+Though conscious of weakness,--she, Violet Strange on whom strong
+men had come to rely in critical hours calling for well-balanced
+judgment,--she did not let this concern her, or allow herself to indulge
+in useless regrets even after the first effect of his presence had
+passed and she had succeeded in recalling the facts which had cast a
+cloud about his name.
+
+Roger Upjohn was a widower, and the scandal affecting him was connected
+with his wife's death.
+
+Though a degenerate in some respects, lacking the domineering
+presence, the strong mental qualities, and inflexible character of his
+progenitors, the wealthy Massachusetts Upjohns whose great place on the
+coast had a history as old as the State itself, he yet had gifts and
+attractions of his own which would have made him a worthy representative
+of his race, if only he had not fixed his affections on a woman so cold
+and heedless that she would have inspired universal aversion instead of
+love, had she not been dowered with the beauty and physical fascination
+which sometimes accompany a hard heart and a scheming brain. It was this
+beauty which had caught the lad; and one day, just as the careful father
+had mapped out a course of study calculated to make a man of his son,
+that son drove up to the gates with this lady whom he introduced as his
+wife.
+
+The shock, not of her beauty, though that was of the dazzling quality
+which catches a man in the throat and makes a slave of him while the
+first surprise lasts, but of the overthrow of all his hopes and plans,
+nearly prostrated Homer Upjohn. He saw, as most men did the moment
+judgment returned, that for all her satin skin and rosy flush, the
+wonder of her hair and the smile which pierced like arrows and warmed
+like wine, she was more likely to bring a curse into the house than a
+blessing.
+
+And so it proved. In less than a year the young husband had lost all his
+ambitions and many of his best impulses. No longer inclined to study,
+he spent his days in satisfying his wife's whims and his evenings in
+carousing with the friends with which she had provided him. This in
+Boston whither they had fled from the old gentleman's displeasure; but
+after their little son came the father insisted upon their returning
+home, which led to great deceptions, and precipitated a tragedy no one
+ever understood. They were natural gamblers--this couple--as all Boston
+society knew; and as Homer Upjohn loathed cards, they found life slow
+in the great house and grew correspondingly restless till they made
+a discovery--or shall I say a rediscovery--of the once famous grotto
+hidden in the rocks lining their portion of the coast. Here they found
+a retreat where they could hide themselves (often when they were thought
+to be abed and asleep) and play together for money or for a supper in
+the city or for anything else that foolish fancy suggested. This was
+while their little son remained an infant; later, they were less easily
+satisfied. Both craved company, excitement, and gambling on a large
+scale; so they took to inviting friends to meet them in this grotto
+which, through the agency of one old servant devoted to Roger to the
+point of folly, had been fitted up and lighted in a manner not only
+comfortable but luxurious. A small but sheltered haven hidden in the
+curve of the rocks made an approach by boat feasible at high tide;
+and at low the connection could be made by means of a path over the
+promontory in which this grotto lay concealed. The fortune which Roger
+had inherited from his mother made these excesses possible, but many
+thousands, let alone the few he could call his, soon disappeared under
+the witchery of an irresponsible woman, and the half-dozen friends who
+knew his secret had to stand by and see his ruin, without daring to
+utter a word to the one who alone could stay it. For Homer Upjohn was
+not a man to be approached lightly, nor was he one to listen to charges
+without ocular proof to support them; and this called for courage, more
+courage than was possessed by any one who knew them both.
+
+He was a hard man was Homer Upjohn, but with a heart of gold for those
+he loved. This, even his wary daughter-in-law was wise enough to detect,
+and for a long while after the birth of her child she besieged him with
+her coaxing ways and bewitching graces. But he never changed his first
+opinion of her, and once she became fully convinced of the folly of
+her efforts, she gave up all attempt to please him and showed an open
+indifference. This in time gradually extended till it embraced not only
+her child but her husband as well. Yes, it had come to that. His love no
+longer contented her. Her vanity had grown by what it daily fed on, and
+now called for the admiration of the fast men who sometimes came up
+from Boston to play with them in their unholy retreat. To win this, she
+dressed like some demon queen or witch, though it drove her husband into
+deeper play and threatened an exposure which would mean disaster not
+only to herself but to the whole family.
+
+In all this, as any one could see, Roger had been her slave and
+the willing victim of all her caprices. What was it, then, which so
+completely changed him that a separation began to be talked of and even
+its terms discussed? One rumour had it that the father had discovered
+the secret of the grotto and exacted this as a penalty from the son who
+had dishonoured him. Another, that Roger himself was the one to take the
+initiative in this matter: That, on returning unexpectedly from New York
+one evening and finding her missing from the house, he had traced her to
+the grotto where he came upon her playing a desperate game with the one
+man he had the greatest reason to distrust.
+
+But whatever the explanation of this sudden change in their relations,
+there is but little doubt that a legal separation between this
+ill-assorted couple was pending, when one bleak autumn morning she
+was discovered dead in her bed under circumstances peculiarly open to
+comment.
+
+The physicians who made out the certificate ascribed her death to
+heart-disease, symptoms of which had lately much alarmed the family
+doctor; but that a personal struggle of some kind had preceded the fatal
+attack was evident from the bruises which blackened her wrists. Had
+there been the like upon her throat it might have gone hard with the
+young husband who was known to be contemplating her dismissal from
+the house. But the discoloration of her wrists was all, and as bruised
+wrists do not kill and there was besides no evidence forthcoming of the
+two having spent one moment together for at least ten hours preceding
+the tragedy but rather full and satisfactory testimony to the contrary,
+the matter lapsed and all criminal proceedings were avoided.
+
+But not the scandal which always follows the unexplained. As time passed
+and the peculiar look which betrays the haunted soul gradually became
+visible in the young widower's eyes, doubts arose and reports circulated
+which cast strange reflections upon the tragic end of his mistaken
+marriage. Stories of the disreputable use to which the old grotto
+had been put were mingled with vague hints of conjugal violence never
+properly investigated. The result was his general avoidance not only by
+the social set dominated by his high-minded father, but by his own less
+reputable coterie, which, however lax in its moral code, had very little
+use for a coward.
+
+Such was the gossip which had reached Violet's ears in connection with
+this new client, prejudicing her altogether against him till she caught
+that beam of deep and concentrated suffering in his eye and recognized
+an innocence which ensured her sympathy and led her to grant him the
+interview for which he so earnestly entreated.
+
+He came prompt to the hour, and when she saw him again with the marks of
+a sleepless night upon him and all the signs of suffering intensified in
+his unusual countenance, she felt her heart sink within her in a way she
+failed to understand. A dread of what she was about to hear robbed her
+of all semblance of self-possession, and she stood like one in a dream
+as he uttered his first greetings and then paused to gather up his own
+moral strength before he began his story. When he did speak it was to
+say:
+
+"I find myself obliged to break a vow I have made to myself. You cannot
+understand my need unless I show you my heart. My trouble is not the one
+with which men have credited me. It has another source and is infinitely
+harder to bear. Personal dishonour I have deserved in a greater or less
+degree, but the trial which has come to me now involves a person more
+dear to me than myself, and is totally without alleviation unless you--"
+He paused, choked, then recommenced abruptly: "My wife"--Violet held
+her breath--"was supposed to have died from heart-disease or--or
+some strange species of suicide. There were reasons for this
+conclusion--reasons which I accepted without serious question till some
+five weeks ago when I made a discovery which led me to fear--"
+
+The broken sentence hung suspended. Violet, notwithstanding his hurried
+gesture, could not restrain herself from stealing a look at his face. It
+was set in horror and, though partially turned aside, made an appeal
+to her compassion to fill the void made by his silence, without further
+suggestion from him.
+
+She did this by saying tentatively and with as little show of emotion as
+possible:
+
+"You feared that the event called for vengeance and that vengeance would
+mean increased suffering to yourself as well as to another?"
+
+"Yes; great suffering. But I may be under a most lamentable mistake. I
+am not sure of my conclusions. If my doubts have no real foundation--if
+they are simply the offspring of my own diseased imagination, what
+an insult to one I revere! What a horror of ingratitude and
+misunderstanding--"
+
+"Relate the facts," came in startled tones from Violet. "They may
+enlighten us."
+
+He gave one quick shudder, buried his face for one moment in his hands,
+then lifted it and spoke up quickly and with unexpected firmness:
+
+"I came here to do so and do so I will. But where begin? Miss Strange,
+you cannot be ignorant of the circumstances, open and avowed, which
+attended my wife's death. But there were other and secret events in its
+connection which happily have been kept from the world, but which I must
+now disclose to you at any cost to my pride and so-called honour. This
+is the first one: On the morning preceding the day of Mrs. Upjohn's
+death, an interview took place between us at which my father was
+present. You do not know my father, Miss Strange. A strong man and a
+stern one, with a hold upon old traditions which nothing can shake.
+If he has a weakness it is for my little boy Roger in whose promising
+traits he sees the one hope which has survived the shipwreck of all for
+which our name has stood. Knowing this, and realizing what the child's
+presence in the house meant to his old age, I felt my heart turn sick
+with apprehension, when in the midst of the discussion as to the terms
+on which my wife would consent to a permanent separation, the little
+fellow came dancing into the room, his curls atoss and his whole face
+beaming with life and joy.
+
+"She had not mentioned the child, but I knew her well enough to be
+sure that at the first show of preference on his part for either his
+grandfather or myself, she would raise a claim to him which she would
+never relinquish. I dared not speak, but I met his eager looks with my
+most forbidding frown and hoped by this show of severity to hold him
+back. But his little heart was full and, ignoring her outstretched arms,
+he bounded towards mine with his most affectionate cry. She saw and
+uttered her ultimatum. The child should go with her or she would not
+consent to a separation. It was useless for us to talk; she had said her
+last word. The blow struck me hard, or so I thought, till I looked at my
+father. Never had I beheld such a change as that one moment had made in
+him. He stood as before; he faced us with the same silent reprobation;
+but his heart had run from him like water.
+
+"It was a sight to call up all my resources. To allow her to remain
+now, with my feelings towards her all changed and my father's eyes fully
+opened to her stony nature, was impossible. Nor could I appeal to law.
+An open scandal was my father's greatest dread and divorce proceedings
+his horror. The child would have to go unless I could find a way to
+influence her through her own nature. I knew of but one--do not look at
+me, Miss Strange. It was dishonouring to us both, and I'm horrified now
+when I think of it. But to me at that time it was natural enough as a
+last resort. There was but one debt which my wife ever paid, but one
+promise she ever kept. It was that made at the gaming-table. I offered,
+as soon as my father, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, had
+gone tottering from the room, to gamble with her for the child.
+
+"And she accepted."
+
+The shame and humiliation expressed in this final whisper; the sudden
+darkness--for a storm was coming up--shook Violet to the soul. With
+strained gaze fixed on the man before her, now little more than a shadow
+in the prevailing gloom, she waited for him to resume, and waited
+in vain. The minutes passed, the darkness became intolerable, and
+instinctively her hand crept towards the electric button beneath which
+she was sitting. But she failed to press it. A tale so dark called for
+an atmosphere of its own kind. She would cast no light upon it. Yet she
+shivered as the silence continued, and started in uncontrollable dismay
+when at length her strange visitor rose, and still, without speaking,
+walked away from her to the other end of the room. Only so could he go
+on with the shameful tale; and presently she heard his voice once more
+in these words:
+
+"Our house is large and its rooms many; but for such work as we two
+contemplated there was but one spot where we could command absolute
+seclusion. You may have heard of it, a famous natural grotto hidden in
+our own portion of the coast and so fitted up as to form a retreat for
+our miserable selves when escape from my father's eye seemed desirable.
+It was not easy of access, and no one, so far as we knew, had ever
+followed us there.
+
+"But to ensure ourselves against any possible interruption, we waited
+till the whole house was abed before we left it for the grotto. We went
+by boat and oh! the dip of those oars! I hear them yet. And the witchery
+of her face in the moonlight; and the mockery of her low fitful laugh!
+As I caught the sinister note in its silvery rise and fall, I knew what
+was before me if I failed to retain my composure. And I strove to
+hold it and to meet her calmness with stoicism and the taunt of her
+expression with a mask of immobility. But the effort was hopeless, and
+when the time came for dealing out the cards, my eyes were burning in
+their sockets and my hands shivering like leaves in a rising gale.
+
+"We played one game--and my wife lost. We played another--and my wife
+won. We played the third--and the fate I had foreseen from the first
+became mine. The luck was with her, and I had lost my boy!"
+
+A gasp--a pause, during which the thunder spoke and the lightning
+flashed,--then a hurried catching of his breath and the tale went on.
+
+"A burst of laughter, rising gaily above the boom of the sea, announced
+her victory--her laugh and the taunting words: 'You play badly, Roger.
+The child is mine. Never fear that I shall fail to teach him to revere
+his father.' Had I a word to throw back? No. When I realized anything
+but my dishonoured manhood, I found myself in the grotto's mouth staring
+helplessly out upon the sea. The boat which had floated us in at high
+tide lay stranded but a few feet away, but I did not reach for it.
+Escape was quicker over the rocks, and I made for the rocks.
+
+"That it was a cowardly act to leave her there to find her way back
+alone at midnight by the same rough road I was taking, did not strike
+my mind for an instant. I was in flight from my own past; in flight from
+myself and the haunting dread of madness. When I awoke to reality again
+it was to find the small door, by which we had left the house, standing
+slightly ajar. I was troubled by this, for I was sure of having closed
+it. But the impression was brief, and entering, I went stumbling up to
+my room, leaving the way open behind me more from sheer inability to
+exercise my will than from any thought of her.
+
+"Miss Strange" (he had come out of the shadows and was standing now
+directly before her), "I must ask you to trust implicitly in what I tell
+you of my further experiences that fatal night. It was not necessary for
+me to pass my little son's door in order to reach the room I was making
+for; but anguish took me there and held me glued to the panels for what
+seemed a long, long time. When I finally crept away it was to go to the
+room I had chosen in the top of the house, where I had my hour of hell
+and faced my desolated future. Did I hear anything meantime in the halls
+below? No. Did I even listen for the sound of her return? No. I was
+callous to everything, dead to everything but my own misery. I did not
+even heed the approach of morning, till suddenly, with a shrillness no
+ear could ignore, there rose, tearing through the silence of the house,
+that great scream from my wife's room which announced the discovery of
+her body lying stark and cold in her bed.
+
+"They said I showed little feeling." He had moved off again and spoke
+from somewhere in the shadows. "Do you wonder at this after such a
+manifest stroke by a benevolent Providence? My wife being dead, Roger
+was saved to us! It was the one song of my still undisciplined soul, and
+I had to assume coldness lest they should see the greatness of my joy.
+A wicked and guilty rejoicing you will say, and you are right. But I
+had no memory then of the part I had played in this fatality. I had
+forgotten my reckless flight from the grotto, which left her with no aid
+but that of her own triumphant spirit to help her over those treacherous
+rocks. The necessity for keeping secret this part of our disgraceful
+story led me to exert myself to keep it out of my own mind. It has only
+come back to me in all its force since a new horror, a new suspicion,
+has driven me to review carefully every incident of that awful night.
+
+"I was never a man of much logic, and when they came to me on that
+morning of which I have just spoken and took me in where she lay and
+pointed to her beautiful cold body stretched out in seeming peace under
+the satin coverlet, and then to the pile of dainty clothes lying neatly
+folded on a chair with just one fairy slipper on top, I shuddered at her
+fate but asked no questions, not even when one of the women of the house
+mentioned the circumstance of the single slipper and said that a search
+should be made for its mate. Nor was I as much impressed as one would
+naturally expect by the whisper dropped in my ear that something was
+the matter with her wrists. It is true that I lifted the lace they had
+carefully spread over them and examined the discoloration which extended
+like a ring about each pearly arm; but having no memories of any
+violence offered her (I had not so much as laid hand upon her in the
+grotto), these marks failed to rouse my interest. But--and now I must
+leap a year in my story--there came a time when both of these facts
+recurred to my mind with startling distinctness and clamoured for
+explanation.
+
+"I had risen above the shock which such a death following such events
+would naturally occasion even in one of my blunted sensibilities, and
+was striving to live a new life under the encouragement of my now fully
+reconciled father, when accident forced me to re-enter the grotto where
+I had never stepped foot since that night. A favourite dog in chase of
+some innocent prey had escaped the leash and run into its dim recesses
+and would not come out at my call. As I needed him immediately for the
+hunt, I followed him over the promontory and, swallowing my repugnance,
+slid into the grotto to get him. Better a plunge to my death from the
+height of the rocks towering above it. For there in a remote corner,
+lighted up by a reflection from the sea, I beheld my setter crouched
+above an object which in another moment I recognized as my dead
+wife's missing slipper. Here! Not in the waters of the sea or in the
+interstices of the rocks outside, but here! Proof that she had never
+walked back to the house where she was found lying quietly in her bed;
+proof positive; for I knew the path too well and the more than usual
+tenderness of her feet.
+
+"How then, did she get there; and by whose agency? Was she living when
+she went, or was she already dead? A year had passed since that delicate
+shoe had borne her from the boat into these dim recesses; but it might
+have been only a day, so vividly did I live over in this moment of awful
+enlightenment all the events of the hour in which we sat there playing
+for the possession of our child. Again I saw her gleaming eyes, her
+rosy, working mouth, her slim, white hand, loaded with diamonds,
+clutching the cards. Again I heard the lap of the sea on the pebbles
+outside and smelt the odour of the wine she had poured out for us both.
+The bottle which had held it; the glass from which she had drunk lay now
+in pieces on the rocky floor. The whole scene was mine again and as I
+followed the event to its despairing close, I seemed to see my own wild
+figure springing away from her to the grotto's mouth and so over the
+rocks. But here fancy faltered, caught by a quick recollection to which
+I had never given a thought till now. As I made my way along those
+rocks, a sound had struck my ear from where some stunted bushes made
+a shadow in the moonlight. The wind might have caused it or some small
+night creature hustling away at my approach; and to some such cause
+I must at the time have attributed it. But now, with brain fired by
+suspicion, it seemed more like the quick intake of a human breath. Some
+one had been lying there in wait, listening at the one loophole in the
+rocks where it was possible to hear what was said and done in the heart
+of the grotto. But who? who? and for what purpose this listening; and to
+what end did it lead?
+
+"Though I no longer loved even the memory of my wife, I felt my hair
+lift, as I asked myself these questions. There seemed to be but one
+logical answer to the last, and it was this: A struggle followed by
+death. The shoe fallen from her foot, the clothes found folded in her
+room (my wife was never orderly), and the dimly blackened wrists which
+were snow-white when she dealt the cards--all seemed to point to such
+a conclusion. She may have died from heart-failure, but a struggle had
+preceded her death, during which some man's strong fingers had been
+locked about her wrists. And again the question rose, Whose?
+
+"If any place was ever hated by mortal man that grotto was hated by me.
+I loathed its walls, its floor, its every visible and invisible corner.
+To linger there--to look--almost tore my soul from my body; yet I did
+linger and did look and this is what I found by way of reward.
+
+"Behind a projecting ledge of stone from which a tattered rug still
+hung, I came upon two nails driven a few feet apart into a fissure of
+the rock. I had driven those nails myself long before for a certain
+gymnastic attachment much in vogue at the time, and on looking closer,
+I discovered hanging from them the rope-ends by which I was wont to
+pull myself about. So far there was nothing to rouse any but innocent
+reminiscences. But when I heard the dog's low moan and saw him leap
+at the curled-up ends, and nose them with an eager look my way, I
+remembered the dark marks circling the wrists about which I had so often
+clasped my mother's bracelets, and the world went black before me.
+
+"When consciousness returned--when I could once more move and see and
+think, I noted another fact. Cards were strewn about the floor, face up
+and in a fixed order as if laid in a mocking mood to be looked upon by
+reluctant eyes; and near the ominous half-circle they made, a cushion
+from the lounge, stained horribly with what I then thought to be blood,
+but which I afterwards found to be wine. Vengeance spoke in those ropes
+and in the carefully spread-out cards, and murder in the smothering
+pillow. The vengeance of one who had watched her corroding influence eat
+the life out of my honour and whose love for our little Roger was such
+that any deed which ensured his continued presence in the home appeared
+not only warrantable but obligatory. Alas! I knew of but one person
+in the whole world who could cherish feeling to this extent or possess
+sufficient will power to carry her lifeless body back to the house and
+lay it in her bed and give no sign of the abominable act from that day
+on to this.
+
+"Miss Strange, there are men who have a peculiar conception of duty. My
+father--"
+
+"You need not go on." How gently, how tenderly our Violet spoke. "I
+understand your trouble--"
+
+Did she? She paused to ask herself if this were so, and he, deaf perhaps
+to her words, caught up his broken sentence and went on:
+
+"My father was in the hall the day I came staggering in from my visit to
+the grotto. No words passed, but our eyes met and from that hour I
+have seen death in his countenance and he has seen it in mine, like two
+opponents, each struck to the heart, who stand facing each other with
+simulated smiles till they fall. My father will drop first. He is
+old--very old since that day five weeks ago; and to see him die and not
+be sure--to see the grave close over a possible innocence, and I left
+here in ignorance of the blissful fact till my own eyes close forever,
+is more than I can hold up under; more than any son could. Cannot you
+help me then to a positive knowledge? Think! think! A woman's mind is
+strangely penetrating, and yours, I am told, has an intuitive faculty
+more to be relied upon than the reasoning of men. It must suggest some
+means of confirming my doubts or of definitely ending them."
+
+Then Violet stirred and looked about at him and finally found voice.
+
+"Tell me something about your father's ways. What are his habits? Does
+he sleep well or is he wakeful at night?"
+
+"He has poor nights. I do not know how poor because I am not often with
+him. His valet, who has always been in our family, shares his room and
+acts as his constant nurse. He can watch over him better than I can; he
+has no distracting trouble on his mind."
+
+"And little Roger? Does your father see much of little Roger? Does he
+fondle him and seem happy in his presence?"
+
+"Yes; yes. I have often wondered at it, but he does. They are great
+chums. It is a pleasure to see them together."
+
+"And the child clings to him--shows no fear--sits on his lap or on
+the bed and plays as children do play with his beard or with his
+watch-chain?"
+
+"Yes. Only once have I seen my little chap shrink, and that was when my
+father gave him a look of unusual intensity,--looking for his mother in
+him perhaps."
+
+"Mr. Upjohn, forgive me the question; it seems necessary. Does your
+father--or rather did your father before he fell ill--ever walk in the
+direction of the grotto or haunt in any way the rocks which surround
+it?"
+
+"I cannot say. The sea is there; he naturally loves the sea. But I have
+never seen him standing on the promontory."
+
+"Which way do his windows look?"
+
+"Towards the sea."
+
+"Therefore towards the promontory?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can he see it from his bed?"
+
+"No. Perhaps that is the cause of a peculiar habit he has."
+
+"What habit?"
+
+"Every night before he retires (he is not yet confined to his bed) he
+stands for a few minutes in his front window looking out. He says it's
+his good-night to the ocean. When he no longer does this, we shall know
+that his end is very near."
+
+The face of Violet began to clear. Rising, she turned on the electric
+light, and then, reseating herself, remarked with an aspect of quiet
+cheer:
+
+"I have two ideas; but they necessitate my presence at your place. You
+will not mind a visit? My brother will accompany me."
+
+Roger Upjohn did not need to speak, hardly to make a gesture; his
+expression was so eloquent.
+
+She thanked him as if he had answered in words, adding with an air of
+gentle reserve: "Providence assists us in this matter. I am invited to
+Beverly next week to attend a wedding. I was intending to stay two days,
+but I will make it three and spend the extra one with you."
+
+"What are your requirements, Miss Strange? I presume you have some."
+
+Violet turned from the imposing portrait of Mr. Upjohn which she had
+been gravely contemplating, and met the troubled eye of her young host
+with an enigmatical flash of her own. But she made no answer in
+words. Instead, she lifted her right hand and ran one slender finger
+thoughtfully up the casing of the door near which they stood till it
+struck a nick in the old mahogany almost on a level with her head.
+
+"Is your son Roger old enough to reach so far?" she asked with another
+short look at him as she let her finger rest where it had struck the
+roughened wood. "I thought he was a little fellow."
+
+"He is. That cut was made by--by my wife; a sample of her capricious
+willfulness. She wished to leave a record of herself in the substance
+of our house as well as in our lives. That nick marks her height. She
+laughed when she made it. 'Till the walls cave in or burn,' is what she
+said. And I thought her laugh and smile captivating."
+
+Cutting short his own laugh which was much too sardonic for a lady's
+ears, he made a move as if to lead the way into another portion of
+the room. But Violet failed to notice this, and lingering in quiet
+contemplation of this suggestive little nick,--the only blemish in a
+room of ancient colonial magnificence,--she thoughtfully remarked:
+
+"Then she was a small woman?" adding with seeming irrelevance--"like
+myself."
+
+Roger winced. Something in the suggestion hurt him, and in the nod he
+gave there was an air of coldness which under ordinary circumstances
+would have deterred her from pursuing this subject further. But the
+circumstances were not ordinary, and she allowed herself to say:
+
+"Was she so very different from me,--in figure, I mean?"
+
+"No. Why do you ask? Shall we not join your brother on the terrace?"
+
+"Not till I have answered the question you put me a moment ago. You
+wished to know my requirements. One of the most important you have
+already fulfilled. You have given your servants a half-holiday and by
+so doing ensured to us full liberty of action. What else I need in the
+attempt I propose to make, you will find listed in this memorandum." And
+taking a slip of paper from her bag, she offered it to him with a hand,
+the trembling of which he would have noted had he been freer in mind.
+
+As he read, she watched him, her fingers nervously clutching her throat.
+
+"Can you supply what I ask?" she faltered, as he failed to raise his
+eyes or make any move or even to utter the groan she saw surging up
+to his lips. "Will you?" she impetuously urged, as his fingers closed
+spasmodically on the paper, in evidence that he understood at last the
+trend of her daring purpose.
+
+The answer came slowly, but it came. "I will. But what--"
+
+Her hand rose in a pleading gesture.
+
+"Do not ask me, but take Arthur and myself into the garden and show us
+the flowers. Afterwards, I should like a glimpse of the sea."
+
+He bowed and they joined Arthur who had already begun to stroll through
+the grounds.
+
+Violet was seldom at a loss for talk even at the most critical moments.
+But she was strangely tongue-tied on this occasion, as was Roger
+himself. Save for a few observations casually thrown out by Arthur, the
+three passed in a disquieting silence through pergola after pergola,
+and around beds gorgeous with every variety of fall flowers, till they
+turned a sharp corner and came in full view of the sea.
+
+"Ah!" fell in an admiring murmur from Violet's lips as her eyes swept
+the horizon. Then as they settled on a mass of rock jutting out from
+the shore in a great curve, she leaned towards her host and softly
+whispered:
+
+"The promontory?"
+
+He nodded, and Violet ventured no farther, but stood for a little while
+gazing at the tumbled rocks. Then, with a quick look back at the house,
+she asked him to point out his father's window.
+
+He did so, and as she noted how openly it faced the sea, her expression
+relaxed and her manner lost some of its constraint. As they turned to
+re-enter the house, she noticed an old man picking flowers from a vine
+clambering over one end of the piazza.
+
+"Who is that?" she asked.
+
+"Our oldest servant, and my father's own man," was Roger's reply. "He is
+picking my father's favourite flowers, a few late honeysuckles."
+
+"How fortunate! Speak to him, Mr. Upjohn. Ask him how your father is
+this evening."
+
+"Accompany me and I will; and do not be afraid to enter into
+conversation with him. He is the mildest of creatures and devoted to his
+patient. He likes nothing better than to talk about him."
+
+Violet, with a meaning look at her brother, ran up the steps at Roger's
+side. As she did so, the old man turned and Violet was astonished at the
+wistfulness with which he viewed her.
+
+"What a dear old creature!" she murmured. "See how he stares this way.
+You would think he knew me."
+
+"He is glad to see a woman about the place. He has felt our
+isolation--Good evening, Abram. Let this young lady have a spray of your
+sweetest honeysuckle. And, Abram, before you go, how is Father to-night?
+Still sitting up?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He is very regular in his ways. Nine is his hour; not a
+minute before and not a minute later. I don't have to look at the clock
+when he says: 'There, Abram, I've sat up long enough.'"
+
+"When my father retires before his time or goes to bed without a final
+look at the sea, he will be a very sick man, Abram."
+
+"That he will, Mr. Roger; that he will. But he's very feeble to-night,
+very feeble. I noticed that he gave the boy fewer kisses than usual.
+Perhaps he was put out because the child was brought in a half-hour
+earlier than the stated time. He don't like changes; you know that,
+Mr. Roger; he don't like changes. I hardly dared to tell him that the
+servants were all going out in a bunch to-night."
+
+"I'm sorry," muttered Roger. "But he'll forget it by to-morrow. I
+couldn't bear to keep a single one from the concert. They'll be back
+in good season and meantime we have you. Abram is worth half a dozen of
+them, Miss Strange. We shall miss nothing."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Roger, thank you," faltered the old man. "I try to do my
+duty." And with another wistful glance at Violet, who looked very sweet
+and youthful in the half-light, he pottered away.
+
+The silence which followed his departure was as painful to her as to
+Roger Upjohn. When she broke it it was with this decisive remark:
+
+"That man must not speak of me to your father. He must not even mention
+that you have a guest to-night. Run after him and tell him so. It is
+necessary that your father's mind should not be taken up with present
+happenings. Run."
+
+Roger made haste to obey her. When he came back she was on the point of
+joining her brother but stopped to utter a final injunction:
+
+"I shall leave the library, or wherever we may be sitting, just as the
+clock strikes half-past eight. Arthur will do the same, as by that time
+he will feel like smoking on the terrace. Do not follow either him or
+myself, but take your stand here on the piazza where you can get a
+full view of the right-hand wing without attracting any attention to
+yourself. When you hear the big clock in the hall strike nine, look up
+quickly at your father's window. What you see may determine--oh, Arthur!
+still admiring the prospect? I do not wonder. But I find it chilly. Let
+us go in."
+
+Roger Upjohn, sitting by himself in the library, was watching the hands
+of the mantel clock slowly approaching the hour of nine.
+
+Never had silence seemed more oppressive nor his sense of loneliness
+greater. Yet the boom of the ocean was distinct to the ear, and human
+presence no farther away than the terrace where Arthur Strange could be
+seen smoking out his cigar in solitude. The silence and the loneliness
+were in Roger's own soul; and, in face of the expected revelation
+which would make or unmake his future, the desolation they wrought was
+measureless.
+
+To cut his suspense short, he rose at length and hurried out to the spot
+designated by Miss Strange as the best point from which to keep watch
+upon his father's window. It was at the end of the piazza where the
+honeysuckle hung, and the odour of the blossoms, so pleasing to his
+father, well-nigh overpowered him not only by its sweetness but by the
+many memories it called up. Visions of that father as he looked at all
+stages of their relationship passed in a bewildering maze before him.
+He saw him as he appeared to his childish eyes in those early days of
+confidence when the loss of the mother cast them in mutual dependence
+upon each other. Then a sterner picture of the relentless parent who
+sees but one straight course to success in this world and the next. Then
+the teacher and the matured adviser; and then--oh, bitter change! the
+man whose hopes he had crossed--whose life he had undone, and all for
+her who now came stealing upon the scene with her slim, white, jewelled
+hand forever lifted up between them. And she! Had he ever seen her more
+clearly? Once more the dainty figure stepped from fairy-land, beauteous
+with every grace that can allure and finally destroy a man. And as he
+saw, he trembled and wished that these moments of awful waiting might
+pass and the test be over which would lay bare his father's heart and
+justify his fears or dispel them forever.
+
+But the crisis, if crisis it was, was one of his own making and not to
+be hastened or evaded. With one quick glance at his father's window, he
+turned in his impatience towards the sea whose restless and continuous
+moaning had at length struck his ear. What was in its call to-night that
+he should thus sway towards it as though drawn by some dread magnetic
+force? He had been born to the dashing of its waves and knew its
+every mood and all the passion of its song from frolicsome ripple to
+melancholy dirge. But there was something odd and inexplicable in
+its effect upon his spirit as he faced it at this hour. Grim and
+implacable--a sound rather than a sight--it seemed to hold within its
+invisible distances the image of his future fate. What this image was
+and why he should seek for it in this impenetrable void, he did not
+know. He felt himself held and was struggling with this influence as
+with an unknown enemy when there rang out, from the hall within, the
+preparatory chimes for which his ear was waiting, and then the nine slow
+strokes which signalized the moment when he was to look for his father's
+presence at the window.
+
+Had he wished, he could not have forborne that look. Had his eyes been
+closing in death, or so he felt, the trembling lids would have burst
+apart at this call and the revelations it promised.
+
+And what did he see? What did that window hold for him?
+
+Nothing that he might not have seen there any night at this hour. His
+father's figure drawn up behind the panes in wistful contemplation of
+the night. No visible change in his attitude, nothing forced or unusual
+in his manner. Even the hand, lifted to pull down the shade, moves
+with its familiar hesitation. In a moment more that shade will be down
+and--But no! the lifted hand falls back; the easy attitude becomes
+strained, fixed. He is staring now--not merely gazing out upon the
+wastes of sky and sea; and Roger, following the direction of his glance,
+stares also in breathless emotion at what those distances, but now so
+impenetrable, are giving to the eye.
+
+A spectre floating in the air above the promontory! The spectre of
+a woman--of his wife, clad, as she had been clad that fatal night!
+Outlined in supernatural light, it faces them with lifted arms showing
+the ends of rope dangling from either wrist. A sight awful to any eye,
+but to the man of guilty heart--
+
+Ah! it comes--the cry for which the agonized son had been listening! An
+old man's shriek, hoarse with the remorse of sleepless nights and days
+of unimaginable regret and foreboding! It cuts the night. It cuts its
+way into his heart. He feels his senses failing him, yet he must glance
+once more at the window and see with his last conscious look--But what
+is this! a change has taken place in the picture and he beholds, not
+the distorted form of his father sinking back in shame and terror before
+this visible image of his secret sin, but that of another weak, old man
+falling to the floor behind his back! Abram! the attentive, seemingly
+harmless, guardian of the household! Abram! who had never spoken a word
+or given a look in any way suggestive of his having played any other
+part in the hideous drama of their lives than that of the humble and
+sympathetic servant!
+
+The shock was too great, the relief too absolute for credence. He, the
+listener at the grotto? He, the avenger of the family's honour? He, the
+insurer of little Roger's continuance with the family at a cost the one
+who loved him best would rather have died himself than pay? Yes! there
+is no misdoubting this old servitor's attitude of abject appeal, or the
+meaning of Homer Upjohn's joyfully uplifted countenance and outspreading
+arms. The servant begs for mercy from man, and the master is giving
+thanks to Heaven. Why giving thanks? Has he been the prey of cankering
+doubts also? Has the father dreaded to discover that in the son which
+the son has dreaded to discover in the father?
+
+It might easily be; and as Roger recognizes this truth and the
+full tragedy of their mutual lives, he drops to his knees amid the
+honeysuckles.
+
+"Violet, you are a wonder. But how did you dare?"
+
+This from Arthur as the two rode to the train in the early morning.
+
+The answer came a bit waveringly.
+
+"I do not know. I am astonished yet, at my own daring. Look at my hands.
+They have not ceased trembling since the moment you threw the light upon
+me on the rocks. The figure of old Mr. Upjohn in the window looked so
+august."
+
+Arthur, with a short glance at the little hands she held out, shrugged
+his shoulders imperceptibly. It struck him that the tremulousness she
+complained of was due more to some parting word from their young host,
+than from prolonged awe at her own daring. But he made no remark to this
+effect, only observed:
+
+"Abram has confessed his guilt, I hear."
+
+"Yes, and will die of it. The master will bury the man, and not the man
+the master."
+
+"And Roger? Not the little fellow, but the father?"
+
+"We will not talk of him," said she, her eyes seeking the sea where
+the sun in its rising was battling with a troop of lowering clouds and
+slowly gaining the victory.
+
+END OF PROBLEM IV
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM V. THE DREAMING LADY
+
+"And this is all you mean to tell me?"
+
+"I think you will find it quite enough, Miss Strange."
+
+"Just the address--"
+
+"And this advice: that your call be speedy. Distracted nerves cannot
+wait."
+
+Violet, across whose wonted piquancy there lay an indefinable shadow,
+eyed her employer with a doubtful air before turning away toward the
+door. She had asked him for a case to investigate (something she had
+never done before), and she had even gone so far as to particularize
+the sort of case she desired: "It must be an interesting one," she had
+stipulated, "but different, quite different from the last one. It must
+not involve death or any kind of horror. If you have a case of subtlety
+without crime, one to engage my powers without depressing my spirits, I
+beg you to let me have it. I--I have not felt quite like myself since I
+came from Massachusetts." Whereupon, without further comment, but with a
+smile she did not understand, he had handed her a small slip of paper on
+which he had scribbled an address. She should have felt satisfied, but
+for some reason she did not. She regarded him as capable of plunging her
+into an affair quite the reverse of what she felt herself in a condition
+to undertake.
+
+"I should like to know a little more," she pursued, making a move to
+unfold the slip he had given her.
+
+But he stopped her with a gesture.
+
+"Read it in your limousine," said he. "If you are disappointed then, let
+me know. But I think you will find yourself quite ready for your task."
+
+"And my father?"
+
+"Would approve if he could be got to approve the business at all. You do
+not even need to take your brother with you."
+
+"Oh, then, it's with women only I have to deal?"
+
+"Read the address after you are headed up Fifth Avenue."
+
+But when, with her doubts not yet entirely removed, she opened the small
+slip he had given her, the number inside suggested nothing but the
+fact that her destination lay somewhere near Eightieth Street. It was
+therefore with the keenest surprise she beheld her motor stop before
+the conspicuous house of the great financier whose late death had so
+affected the money-market. She had not had any acquaintance with this
+man herself, but she knew his house. Everyone knew that. It was one of
+the most princely in the whole city. C. Dudley Brooks had known how to
+spend his millions. Indeed, he had known how to do this so well that it
+was of him her father, also a financier of some note, had once said he
+was the only successful American he envied.
+
+She was expected; that she saw the instant the door was opened. This
+made her entrance easy--an entrance further brightened by the delightful
+glimpse of a child's cherubic face looking at her from a distant
+doorway. It was an instantaneous vision, gone as soon as seen; but its
+effect was to rob the pillared spaces of the wonderful hallway of some
+of their chill, and to modify in some slight degree the formality of
+a service which demanded three men to usher her into a small
+reception-room not twenty feet from the door of entrance.
+
+Left in this secluded spot, she had time to ask herself what member of
+the household she would be called upon to meet, and was surprised to
+find that she did not even know of whom the household consisted. She
+was sure of the fact that Mr. Brooks had been a widower for many years
+before his death, but beyond that she knew nothing of his domestic life.
+His son--but was there a son? She had never heard any mention made of a
+younger Mr. Brooks, yet there was certainly some one of his connection
+who enjoyed the rights of an heir. Him she must be prepared to meet with
+a due composure, whatever astonishment he might show at the sight of a
+slip of a girl instead of the experienced detective he had every right
+to expect.
+
+But when the door opened to admit the person she was awaiting, the
+surprise was hers. It was a woman who stood before her, a woman and an
+oddity. Yet, in just what her oddity lay, Violet found it difficult to
+decide. Was it in the smoothness of her white locks drawn carefully down
+over her ears, or in the contrast afforded by her eager eyes and her
+weak and tremulous mouth? She was dressed in the heaviest of mourning
+and very expensively, but there was that in her bearing and expression
+which made it impossible to believe that she took any interest in her
+garments or even knew in which of her dresses she had been attired.
+
+"I am the person you have come here to see," she said. "Your name is
+not unfamiliar to me, but you may not know mine. It is Quintard; Mrs.
+Quintard. I am in difficulty. I need assistance--secret assistance.
+I did not know where to go for it except to a detective agency; so I
+telephoned to the first one I saw advertised; and--and I was told to
+expect Miss Strange. But I didn't think it would be you though I suppose
+it's all right. You have come here for this purpose, haven't you, though
+it does seem a little queer?"
+
+"Certainly, Mrs. Quintard; and if you will tell me--"
+
+"My dear, it's just this--yes, I will sit down. Last week my brother
+died. You have heard of him no doubt, C. Dudley Brooks?"
+
+"Oh, yes; my father knew him--we all knew him by reputation. Do not
+hurry, Mrs. Quintard. I have sent my car away. You can take all the time
+you wish."
+
+"No, no, I cannot. I'm in desperate haste. He--but let me go on with
+my story. My brother was a widower, with no children to inherit. That
+everybody knows. But his wife left behind her a son by a former husband,
+and this son of hers my brother had in a measure adopted, and even made
+his sole heir in a will he drew up during the lifetime of his wife.
+But when he found, as he very soon did, that this young man was not
+developing in a way to meet such great responsibilities, he made a new
+will--though unhappily without the knowledge of the family, or even of
+his most intimate friends--in which he gave the bulk of his great estate
+to his nephew Clement, who has bettered the promise of his youth and
+who besides has children of great beauty whom my brother had learned to
+love. And this will--this hoarded scrap of paper which means so much to
+us all, is lost! lost! and I--" here her voice which had risen almost to
+a scream, sank to a horrified whisper, "am the one who lost it."
+
+"But there's a copy of it somewhere--there is always a copy--"
+
+"Oh, but you haven't heard all. My nephew is an invalid; has been an
+invalid for years--that's why so little is known about him. He's dying
+of consumption. The doctors hold out no hope for him, and now, with the
+fear preying upon him of leaving his wife and children penniless, he is
+wearing away so fast that any hour may see his end. And I have to meet
+his eyes--such pitiful eyes--and the look in them is killing me. Yet,
+I was not to blame. I could not help--Oh, Miss Strange," she suddenly
+broke in with the inconsequence of extreme feeling, "the will is in the
+house! I never carried it off the floor where I sleep. Find it; find it,
+I pray, or--"
+
+The moment had come for Violet's soft touch, for Violet's encouraging
+word.
+
+"I will try," she answered her.
+
+Mrs. Quintard grew calmer.
+
+"But, first," the young girl continued, "I must know more about the
+conditions. Where is this nephew of yours--the man who is ill?"
+
+"In this house, where he has been for the last eight months."
+
+"Was the child his of whom I caught a glimpse in the hall as I came in?"
+
+"Yes, and--"
+
+"I will fight for that child!" Violet cried out impulsively. "I am sure
+his father's cause is good. Where is the other claimant--the one you
+designate as Carlos?"
+
+"Oh, there's where the trouble is! Carlos is on the Mauretania, and she
+is due here in a couple of days. He comes from the East where he has
+been touring with his wife. Miss Strange, the lost will must be found
+before then, or the other will be opened and read and Carlos made
+master of this house, which would mean our quick departure and Clement's
+certain death."
+
+"Move a sick man?--a relative as low as you say he is? Oh no, Mrs.
+Quintard; no one would do that, were the house a cabin and its owners
+paupers."
+
+"You do not know Carlos; you do not know his wife. We should not be
+given a week in which to pack. They have no children and they envy
+Clement who has. Our only hope lies in discovering the paper which gives
+us the right to remain here in face of all opposition. That or penury.
+Now you know my trouble."
+
+"And it is trouble; one from which I shall make every effort to relieve
+you. But first let me ask if you are not worrying unnecessarily about
+this missing document? If it was drawn up by Mr. Brooks's lawyer--"
+
+"But it was not," that lady impetuously interrupted. "His lawyer is
+Carlos's near relative, and has never been told of the change in my
+brother's intentions. Clement (I am speaking now of my brother and not
+of my nephew) was a great money-getter, but when it came to standing up
+for his rights in domestic matters, he was more timid than a child. He
+was subject to his wife while she lived, and when she was gone, to her
+relatives, who are all of a dominating character. When he finally
+made up his mind to do us justice and eliminate Carlos, he went out of
+town--I wish I could remember where--and had this will drawn up by a
+stranger, whose name I cannot recall."
+
+Her shaking tones, her nervous manner betrayed a weakness equalling, if
+not surpassing, that of the brother who dared in secret what he had not
+strength to acknowledge openly, and it was with some hesitation Violet
+prepared to ask those definite questions which would elucidate the cause
+and manner of a loss seemingly so important. She dreaded to hear some
+commonplace tale of inexcusable carelessness. Something subtler than
+this--the presence of some unsuspected agency opposed to young Clement's
+interest; some partisan of Carlos; some secret undermining force in
+a house full of servants and dependants, seemed necessary for the
+development of so ordinary a situation into a drama justifying the
+exercise of her special powers.
+
+"I think I understand now your exact position in the house, as well as
+the value of the paper which you say you have lost. The next thing for
+me to hear is how you came to have charge of this paper, and under what
+circumstances you were led to mislay it. Do you not feel quite ready to
+tell me?"
+
+"Is--is that necessary?" Mrs. Quintard faltered.
+
+"Very," replied Violet, watching her curiously.
+
+"I didn't expect--that is, I hoped you would be able to point out, by
+some power we cannot of course explain, just the spot where the paper
+lies, without having to tell all that. Some people can, you know."
+
+"Ah, I understand. You regarded me as unfit for practical work, and so
+credited me with occult powers. But that is where you made a mistake,
+Mrs. Quintard; I'm nothing if not practical. And let me add, that I'm as
+secret as the grave concerning what my clients tell me. If I am to be of
+any help to you, I must be made acquainted with every fact involved
+in the loss of this valuable paper. Relate the whole circumstance or
+dismiss me from the case. You can have done nothing more foolish or
+wrong than many--"
+
+"Oh, don't say things like that!" broke in the poor woman in a tone of
+great indignation. "I have done nothing anyone could call either foolish
+or wicked. I am simply very unfortunate, and being sensitive--But this
+isn't telling the story. I'll try to make it all clear; but if I do
+not, and show any confusion, stop me and help me out with questions.
+I--I--oh, where shall I begin?"
+
+"With your first knowledge of this second will."
+
+"Thank you, thank you; now I can go on. One night, shortly after my
+brother had been given up by the physicians, I was called to his bedside
+for a confidential talk. As he had received that day a very large amount
+of money from the bank, I thought he was going to hand it over to me
+for Clement, but it was for something much more serious than this he
+had summoned me. When he was quite sure that we were alone and nobody
+anywhere within hearing, he told me that he had changed his mind as
+to the disposal of his property and that it was to Clement and his
+children, and not to Carlos, he was going to leave this house and the
+bulk of his money. That he had had a new will drawn up which he showed
+me--"
+
+"Showed you?"
+
+"Yes; he made me bring it to him from the safe where he kept it; and,
+feeble as he was, he was so interested in pointing out certain portions
+of it that he lifted himself in bed and was so strong and animated that
+I thought he was getting better. But it was a false strength due to the
+excitement of the moment, as I saw next day when he suddenly died."
+
+"You were saying that you brought the will to him from his safe. Where
+was the safe?"
+
+"In the wall over his head. He gave me the key to open it. This key he
+took from under his pillow. I had no trouble in fitting it or in turning
+the lock."
+
+"And what happened after you looked at the will?"
+
+"I put it back. He told me to. But the key I kept. He said I was not to
+part with it again till the time came for me to produce the will."
+
+"And when was that to be?"
+
+"Immediately after the funeral, if it so happened that Carlos had
+arrived in time to attend it. But if for any reason he failed to be
+here, I was to let it lie till within three days of his return, when
+I was to take it out in the presence of a Mr. Delahunt who was to have
+full charge of it from that time. Oh, I remember all that well enough!
+and I meant most earnestly to carry out his wishes, but--"
+
+"Go on, Mrs. Quintard, pray go on. What happened? Why couldn't you do
+what he asked?"
+
+"Because the will was gone when I went to take it out. There was nothing
+to show Mr. Delahunt but the empty shelf."
+
+"Oh, a theft! just a common theft! Someone overheard the talk you had
+with your brother. But how about the key? You had that?"
+
+"Yes, I had that."
+
+"Then it was taken from you and returned? You must have been careless as
+to where you kept it--"
+
+"No, I wore it on a chain about my neck. Though I had no reason to
+mistrust any one in the house, I felt that I could not guard this key
+too carefully. I even kept it on at night. In fact it never left me. It
+was still on my person when I went into the room with Mr. Delahunt. But
+the safe had been opened for all that."
+
+"There were two keys to it, then?"
+
+"No; in giving me the key, my brother had strictly warned me not to lose
+it, as it had no duplicate."
+
+"Mrs. Quintard, have you a special confidant or maid?"
+
+"Yes, my Hetty."
+
+"How much did she know about this key?"
+
+"Nothing, but that it didn't help the fit of my dress. Hetty has cared
+for me for years. There's no more devoted woman in all New York, nor one
+who can be more relied upon to tell the truth. She is so honest with her
+tongue that I am bound to believe her even when she says--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That it was I and nobody else who took the will out of the safe last
+night. That she saw me come from my brother's room with a folded paper
+in my hand, pass with it into the library, and come out again without
+it. If this is so, then that will is somewhere in that great room. But
+we've looked in every conceivable place except the shelves, where it
+is useless to search. It would take days to go through them all, and
+meanwhile Carlos--"
+
+"We will not wait for Carlos. We will begin work at once. But just
+one other question. How came Hetty to see you in your walk through the
+rooms? Did she follow you?"
+
+"Yes. It's--it's not the first time I have walked in my sleep. Last
+night--but she will tell you. It's a painful subject to me. I will send
+for her to meet us in the library."
+
+"Where you believe this document to lie hidden?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I am anxious to see the room. It is upstairs, I believe."
+
+"Yes."
+
+She had risen and was moving rapidly toward the door. Violet eagerly
+followed her.
+
+Let us accompany her in her passage up the palatial stairway, and
+realize the effect upon her of a splendour whose future ownership
+possibly depended entirely upon herself.
+
+It was a cold splendour. The merry voices of children were lacking in
+these great halls. Death past and to come infused the air with solemnity
+and mocked the pomp which yet appeared so much a part of the life here
+that one could hardly imagine the huge pillared spaces without it.
+
+To Violet, more or less accustomed to fine interiors, the chief interest
+of this one lay in its connection with the mystery then occupying her.
+Stopping for a moment on the stair, she inquired of Mrs. Quintard if the
+loss she so deplored had been made known to the servants, and was much
+relieved to find that, with the exception of Mr. Delahunt, she had not
+spoken of it to any one but Clement. "And he will never mention it," she
+declared, "not even to his wife. She has troubles enough to bear without
+knowing how near she stood to a fortune."
+
+"Oh, she will have her fortune!" Violet confidently replied. "In time,
+the lawyer who drew up the will will appear. But what you want is an
+immediate triumph over the cold Carlos, and I hope you may have it. Ah!"
+
+This expletive was a sigh of sheer surprise.
+
+Mrs. Quintard had unlocked the library door and Violet had been given
+her first glimpse of this, the finest room in New York.
+
+She remembered now that she had often heard it so characterized, and,
+indeed, had it been taken bodily from some historic abbey of the
+old world, it could not have expressed more fully, in structure and
+ornamentation, the Gothic idea at its best. All that it lacked were
+the associations of vanished centuries, and these, in a measure, were
+supplied to the imagination by the studied mellowness of its tints and
+the suggestion of age in its carvings.
+
+So much for the room itself, which was but a shell for holding the great
+treasure of valuable books ranged along every shelf. As Violet's eyes
+sped over their ranks and thence to the five windows of deeply stained
+glass which faced her from the southern end, Mrs. Quintard indignantly
+exclaimed:
+
+"And Carlos would turn this into a billiard room!"
+
+"I do not like Carlos," Violet returned hotly; then remembering herself,
+hastened to ask whether Mrs. Quintard was quite positive as to this room
+being the one in which she had hidden the precious document.
+
+"You had better talk to Hetty," said that lady, as a stout woman of most
+prepossessing appearance entered their presence and paused respectfully
+just inside the doorway. "Hetty, you will answer any questions this
+young lady may put. If anyone can help us, she can. But first, what news
+from the sick-room?"
+
+"Nothing good. The doctor has just come for the third time today. Mrs.
+Brooks is crying and even the children are dumb with fear."
+
+"I will go. I must see the doctor. I must tell him to keep Clement alive
+by any means till--"
+
+She did not wait to say what; but Violet understood and felt her heart
+grow heavy. Could it be that her employer considered this the gay and
+easy task she had asked for?
+
+The next minute she was putting her first question:
+
+"Hetty, what did you see in Mrs. Quintard's action last night, to make
+you infer that she left the missing document in this room?"
+
+The woman's eyes, which had been respectfully studying her face,
+brightened with a relief which made her communicative. With the
+self-possession of a perfectly candid nature, she inquiringly remarked:
+
+"My mistress has spoken of her infirmity?"
+
+"Yes, and very frankly."
+
+"She walks in her sleep."
+
+"So she said."
+
+"And sometimes when others are asleep, and she is not."
+
+"She did not tell me that."
+
+"She is a very nervous woman and cannot always keep still when she
+rouses up at night. When I hear her rise, I get up too; but, never being
+quite sure whether she is sleeping or not, I am careful to follow her at
+a certain distance. Last night I was so far behind her that she had been
+to her brother's room and left it before I saw her face."
+
+"Where is his room and where is hers?"
+
+"Hers is in front on this same floor. Mr. Brooks's is in the rear, and
+can be reached either by the hall or by passing through this room into a
+small one beyond, which we called his den."
+
+"Describe your encounter. Where were you standing when you saw her
+first?"
+
+"In the den I have just mentioned. There was a bright light in the hall
+behind me and I could see her figure quite plainly. She was holding
+a folded paper clenched against her breast, and her movement was so
+mechanical that I was sure she was asleep. She was coming this way, and
+in another moment she entered this room. The door, which had been open,
+remained so, and in my anxiety I crept to it and looked in after her.
+There was no light burning here at that hour, but the moon was shining
+in in long rays of variously coloured light. If I had followed her--but
+I did not. I just stood and watched her long enough to see her pass
+through a blue ray, then through a green one, and then into, if not
+through, a red one. Expecting her to walk straight on, and having some
+fears of the staircase once she got into the hall, I hurried around to
+the door behind you there to head her off. But she had not yet left
+this room. I waited and waited and still she did not come. Fearing some
+accident, I finally ventured to approach the door and try it. It was
+locked. This alarmed me. She had never locked herself in anywhere before
+and I did not know what to make of it. Some persons would have shouted
+her name, but I had been warned against doing that, so I simply stood
+where I was, and eventually I heard the key turn in the lock and saw her
+come out. She was still walking stiffly, but her hands were empty and
+hanging at her side."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"She went straight to her room and I after her. I was sure she was dead
+asleep by this time."
+
+"And she was?"
+
+"Yes, Miss; but still full of what was on her mind. I know this because
+she stopped when she reached the bedside and began fumbling with the
+waist of her wrapper. It was for the key she was searching, and when her
+fingers encountered it hanging on the outside, she opened her wrapper
+and thrust it in on her bare skin."
+
+"You saw her do all that?"
+
+"As plainly as I see you now. The light in her room was burning
+brightly."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"She got into bed. It was I who turned off the light."
+
+"Has that wrapper of hers a pocket?"
+
+"No, Miss."
+
+"Nor her gown?"
+
+"No, Miss."
+
+"So she could not have brought the paper into her room concealed about
+her person?"
+
+"No, Miss; she left it here. It never passed beyond this doorway."
+
+"But might she not have carried it back to some place of concealment in
+the rooms she had left?"
+
+The woman's face changed and a slight flush showed through the natural
+brown of her cheeks.
+
+"No," she disclaimed; "she could not have done that. I was careful to
+lock the library door behind her before I ran out into the hall."
+
+"Then," concluded Violet, with all the emphasis of conviction, "it is
+here, and nowhere else we must look for that document till we find it."
+
+Thus assured of the first step in the task she had before her, Miss
+Strange settled down to business.
+
+The room, which towered to the height of two stories, was in the shape
+of a huge oval. This oval, separated into narrow divisions for the
+purpose of accommodating the shelves with which it was lined, narrowed
+as it rose above the great Gothic chimney-piece and the five gorgeous
+windows looking towards the south, till it met and was lost in the
+tracery of the ceiling, which was of that exquisite and soul-satisfying
+order which we see in the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey. What
+break otherwise occurred in the circling round of books reaching thus
+thirty feet or more above the head was made by the two doors already
+spoken of and a narrow strip of wall at either end of the space occupied
+by the windows. No furniture was to be seen there except a couple of
+stalls taken from some old cathedral, which stood in the two bare places
+just mentioned.
+
+But within, on the extensive floor-space, several articles were grouped,
+and Violet, recognizing the possibilities which any one of them afforded
+for the concealment of so small an object as a folded document, decided
+to use method in her search, and to that end, mentally divided the space
+before her into four segments.
+
+The first took in the door, communicating with the suite ending in Mr.
+Brooks's bedroom. A diagram of this segment will show that the only
+article of furniture in it was a cabinet.
+
+It was at this cabinet Miss Strange made her first stop.
+
+"You have looked this well through?" she asked as she bent over the
+glass case on top to examine the row of mediaeval missals displayed
+within in a manner to show their wonderful illuminations.
+
+"Not the case," explained Hetty. "It is locked you see and no one has as
+yet succeeded in finding the key. But we searched the drawers underneath
+with the greatest care. Had we sifted the whole contents through our
+fingers, I could not be more certain that the paper is not there."
+
+Violet stepped into the next segment.
+
+This was the one dominated by the huge fire-place. A rug lay before the
+hearth. To this Violet pointed.
+
+Quickly the woman answered: "We not only lifted it, but turned it over."
+
+"And that box at the right?"
+
+"Is full of wood and wood only."
+
+"Did you take out this wood?"
+
+"Every stick."
+
+"And those ashes in the fire-place? Something has been burned there."
+
+"Yes; but not lately. Besides, those ashes are all wood ashes. If the
+least bit of charred paper had been mixed with them, we should have
+considered the matter settled. But you can see for yourself that no such
+particle can be found." While saying this, she had put the poker into
+Violet's hand. "Rake them about, Miss, and make sure."
+
+Violet did so, with the result that the poker was soon put back into
+place, and she herself down on her knees looking up the chimney.
+
+"Had she thrust it up there," Hetty made haste to remark, "there would
+have been some signs of soot on her sleeves. They are white and very
+long and are always getting in her way when she tries to do anything."
+
+Violet left the fire-place after a glance at the mantel-shelf on
+which nothing stood but a casket of open fretwork, and two coloured
+photographs mounted on small easels. The casket was too open to conceal
+anything and the photographs lifted too high above the shelf for even
+the smallest paper, let alone a document of any size, to hide behind
+them.
+
+The chairs, of which there were several in this part of the room, she
+passed with just an inquiring look. They were all of solid oak, without
+any attempt at upholstery, and although carved to match the stalls on
+the other side of the room, offered no place for search.
+
+Her delay in the third segment was brief. Here there was absolutely
+nothing but the door by which she had entered, and the books. As she
+flitted on, following the oval of the wall, a small frown appeared on
+her usually smooth forehead. She felt the oppression of the books--the
+countless books. If indeed, she should find herself obliged to go
+through them. What a hopeless outlook!
+
+But she had still a segment to consider, and after that the immense
+table occupying the centre of the room, a table which in its double
+capacity (for it was as much desk as table) gave more promise of holding
+the solution of the mystery than anything to which she had hitherto
+given her attention.
+
+The quarter in which she now stood was the most beautiful, and,
+possibly, the most precious of them all. In it blazed the five great
+windows which were the glory of the room; but there are no hiding-places
+in windows, and much as she revelled in colour, she dared not waste a
+moment on them. There was more hope for her in the towering stalls, with
+their possible drawers for books.
+
+But Hetty was before her in the attempt she made to lift the lids of the
+two great seats.
+
+"Nothing in either," said she; and Violet, with a sigh, turned towards
+the table.
+
+This was an immense affair, made to accommodate itself to the shape of
+the room, but with a hollowed-out space on the window-side large enough
+to hold a chair for the sitter who would use its top as a desk. On it
+were various articles suitable to its double use. Without being crowded,
+it displayed a pile of magazines and pamphlets, boxes for stationery,
+a writing pad with its accompaniments, a lamp, and some few ornaments,
+among which was a large box, richly inlaid with pearl and ivory, the lid
+of which stood wide open.
+
+"Don't touch," admonished Violet, as Hetty stretched out her hand to
+move some little object aside. "You have already worked here busily in
+the search you made this morning."
+
+"We handled everything."
+
+"Did you go through these pamphlets?"
+
+"We shook open each one. We were especially particular here, since it
+was at this table I saw Mrs. Quintard stop."
+
+"With head level or drooped?"
+
+"Drooped."
+
+"Like one looking down, rather than up, or around?"
+
+"Yes. A ray of red light shone on her sleeve. It seemed to me the sleeve
+moved as though she were reaching out."
+
+"Will you try to stand as she did and as nearly in the same place as
+possible?"
+
+Hetty glanced down at the table edge, marked where the gules dominated
+the blue and green, and moved to that spot, and paused with her head
+sinking slowly towards her breast.
+
+"Very good," exclaimed Violet. "But the moon was probably in a very
+different position from what the sun is now."
+
+"You are right; it was higher up; I chanced to notice it."
+
+"Let me come," said Violet.
+
+Hetty moved, and Violet took her place but in a spot a step or two
+farther front. This brought her very near to the centre of the table.
+Hanging her head, just as Hetty had done, she reached out her right
+hand.
+
+"Have you looked under this blotter?" she asked, pointing towards the
+pad she touched. "I mean, between the blotter and the frame which holds
+it?"
+
+"I certainly did," answered Hetty, with some pride.
+
+Violet remained staring down. "Then you took off everything that was
+lying on it?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+Violet continued to stare down at the blotter. Then impetuously:
+
+"Put them back in their accustomed places."
+
+Hetty obeyed.
+
+Violet continued to look at them, then slowly stretched out her hand,
+but soon let it fall again with an air of discouragement. Certainly
+the missing document was not in the ink-pot or the mucilage bottle.
+Yet something made her stoop again over the pad and subject it to the
+closest scrutiny.
+
+"If only nothing had been touched!" she inwardly sighed. But she let no
+sign of her discontent escape her lips, simply exclaiming as she glanced
+up at the towering spaces overhead: "The books! the books! Nothing
+remains but for you to call up all the servants, or get men from the
+outside and, beginning at one end--I should say the upper one--take down
+every book standing within reach of a woman of Mrs. Quintard's height."
+
+"Hear first what Mrs. Quintard has to say about that," interrupted the
+woman as that lady entered in a flutter of emotion springing from more
+than one cause.
+
+"The young lady thinks that we should remove the books," Hetty observed,
+as her mistress's eye wandered to hers from Violet's abstracted
+countenance.
+
+"Useless. If we were to undertake to do that, Carlos would be here
+before half the job was finished. Besides, Hetty must have told you my
+extreme aversion to nicely bound books. I will not say that when awake
+I never place my hand on one, but once in a state of somnambulism, when
+every natural whim has full control, I am sure that I never would. There
+is a reason for my prejudice. I was not always rich. I once was very
+poor. It was when I was first married and long before Clement had begun
+to make his fortune. I was so poor then that frequently I went hungry,
+and what was worse saw my little daughter cry for food. And why? Because
+my husband was a bibliomaniac. He would spend on fine editions what
+would have kept the family comfortable. It is hard to believe, isn't
+it? I have seen him bring home a Grolier when the larder was as empty as
+that box; and it made me hate books so, especially those of extra fine
+binding, that I have to tear the covers off before I can find courage to
+read them."
+
+O life! life! how fast Violet was learning it!
+
+"I can understand your idea, Mrs. Quintard, but as everything else has
+failed, I should make a mistake not to examine these shelves. It is just
+possible that we may be able to shorten the task very materially; that
+we may not have to call in help, even. To what extent have they been
+approached, or the books handled, since you discovered the loss of the
+paper we are looking for?"
+
+"Not at all. Neither of us went near them." This from Hetty.
+
+"Nor any one else?"
+
+"No one else has been admitted to the room. We locked both doors the
+moment we felt satisfied that the will had been left here."
+
+"That's a relief. Now I may be able to do something. Hetty, you look
+like a very strong woman, and I, as you see, am very little. Would you
+mind lifting me up to these shelves? I want to look at them. Not at the
+books, but at the shelves themselves."
+
+The wondering woman stooped and raised her to the level of the shelf she
+had pointed out. Violet peered closely at it and then at the ones just
+beneath.
+
+"Am I heavy?" she asked; "if not, let me see those on the other side of
+the door."
+
+Hetty carried her over.
+
+Violet inspected each shelf as high as a woman of Mrs. Quintard's
+stature could reach, and when on her feet again, knelt to inspect the
+ones below.
+
+"No one has touched or drawn anything from these shelves in twenty-four
+hours," she declared. "The small accumulation of dust along their edges
+has not been disturbed at any point. It was very different with the
+table-top. That shows very plainly where you had moved things and where
+you had not."
+
+"Was that what you were looking for? Well, I never!"
+
+Violet paid no heed; she was thinking and thinking very deeply.
+
+Hetty turned towards her mistress, then quickly back to Violet, whom she
+seized by the arm.
+
+"What's the matter with Mrs. Quintard?" she hurriedly asked. "If it were
+night, I should think that she was in one of her spells."
+
+Violet started and glanced where Hetty pointed. Mrs. Quintard was within
+a few feet of them, but as oblivious of their presence as though she
+stood alone in the room. Possibly, she thought she did. With fixed eyes
+and mechanical step she began to move straight towards the table, her
+whole appearance of a nature to make Hetty's blood run cold, but to
+cause that of Violet's to bound through her veins with renewed hope.
+
+"The one thing I could have wished!" she murmured under her breath. "She
+has fallen into a trance. She is again under the dominion of her idea.
+If we watch and do not disturb her she may repeat her action of last
+night, and herself show where she has put this precious document."
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Quintard continued to advance. A moment more, and her
+smooth white locks caught the ruddy glow centred upon the chair standing
+in the hollow of the table. Words were leaving her lips, and her hand,
+reaching out over the blotter, groped among the articles scattered there
+till it settled on a large pair of shears.
+
+"Listen," muttered Violet to the woman pressing close to her side. "You
+are acquainted with her voice; catch what she says if you can."
+
+Hetty could not; an undistinguishable murmur was all that came to her
+ears.
+
+Violet took a step nearer. Mrs. Quintard's hand had left the shears and
+was hovering uncertainly in the air. Her distress was evident. Her head,
+no longer steady on her shoulders, was turning this way and that, and
+her tones becoming inarticulate.
+
+"Paper! I want paper" burst from her lips in a shrill unnatural cry.
+
+But when they listened for more and watched to see the uncertain hand
+settle somewhere, she suddenly came to herself and turned upon them
+a startled glance, which speedily changed into one of the utmost
+perplexity.
+
+"What am I doing here?" she asked. "I have a feeling as if I had
+almost seen--almost touched--oh, it's gone! and all is blank again. Why
+couldn't I keep it till I knew--" Then she came wholly to herself and,
+forgetting even the doubts of a moment since, remarked to Violet in her
+old tremulous fashion:
+
+"You asked us to pull down the books? But you've evidently thought
+better of it."
+
+"Yes, I have thought better of it." Then, with a last desperate hope of
+re-arousing the visions lying somewhere back in Mrs. Quintard's troubled
+brain, Violet ventured to observe: "This is likely to resolve itself
+into a psychological problem, Mrs. Quintard. Do you suppose that if
+you fell again into the condition of last night, you would repeat your
+action and so lead us yourself to where the will lies hidden?"
+
+"Possibly; but it may be weeks before I walk again in my sleep, and
+meanwhile Carlos will have arrived, and Clement, possibly, died. My
+nephew is so low that the doctor is coming back at midnight. Miss
+Strange, Clement is a man in a thousand. He says he wants to see you.
+Would you be willing to accompany me to his room for a moment? He will
+not make many more requests and I will take care that the interview is
+not prolonged."
+
+"I will go willingly. But would it not be better to wait--"
+
+"Then you may never see him at all."
+
+"Very well; but I wish I had some better news to give."
+
+"That will come later. This house was never meant for Carlos. Hetty, you
+will stay here. Miss Strange, let us go now."
+
+"You need not speak; just let him see you."
+
+Violet nodded and followed Mrs. Quintard into the sick-room.
+
+The sight which met her eyes tried her young emotions deeply. Staring at
+her from the bed, she saw two piercing eyes over whose brilliance death
+as yet had gained no control. Clements's soul was in that gaze; Clement
+halting at the brink of dissolution to sound the depths behind him for
+the hope which would make departure easy. Would he see in her, a mere
+slip of a girl dressed in fashionable clothes and bearing about her all
+the marks of social distinction, the sort of person needed for the
+task upon the success of which depended his darlings' future? She could
+hardly expect it. Yet as she continued to meet his gaze with all the
+seriousness the moment demanded, she beheld those burning orbs lose
+some of their demand and the fingers, which had lain inert upon the
+bedspread, flutter gently and move as if to draw attention to his wife
+and the three beautiful children clustered at the foot-board.
+
+He had not spoken nor could she speak, but the solemnity with which she
+raised her right hand as to a listening Heaven called forth upon his
+lips what was possibly his last smile, and with the memory of this faint
+expression of confidence on his part, she left the room, to make her
+final attempt to solve the mystery of the missing document.
+
+Facing the elderly lady in the hall, she addressed her with the force
+and soberness of one leading a forlorn hope:
+
+"I want you to concentrate your mind upon what I have to say to you. Do
+you think you can do this?"
+
+"I will try," replied the poor woman with a backward glance at the door
+which had just been closed upon her.
+
+"What we want," said she, "is, as I stated before, an insight into the
+workings of your brain at the time you took the will from the safe.
+Try and follow what I have to say, Mrs. Quintard. Dreams are no
+longer regarded by scientists as prophecies of the future or even as
+spontaneous and irrelevant conditions of thought, but as reflections of
+a near past, which can almost without exception be traced back to the
+occurrences which caused them. Your action with the will had its birth
+in some previous line of thought afterwards forgotten. Let us try
+and find that thought. Recall, if you can, just what you did or read
+yesterday."
+
+Mrs. Quintard looked frightened.
+
+"But, I have no memory," she objected. "I forget quickly, so quickly
+that in order to fulfill my engagements I have to keep a memorandum of
+every day's events. Yesterday? yesterday? What did I do yesterday? I
+went downtown for one thing, but I hardly know where."
+
+"Perhaps your memorandum of yesterday's doings will help you."
+
+"I will get it. But it won't give you the least help. I keep it only for
+my own eye, and--"
+
+"Never mind; let me see it."
+
+And she waited impatiently for it to be put in her hands.
+
+But when she came to read the record of the last two days, this was all
+she found:
+
+Saturday: Mauretania nearly due. I must let Mr. Delahunt know today that
+he's wanted here to-morrow. Hetty will try on my dresses. Says she has
+to alter them. Mrs. Peabody came to lunch, and we in such trouble! Had
+to go down street. Errand for Clement. The will, the will! I think of
+nothing else. Is it safe where it is? No peace of mind till to-morrow.
+Clement better this afternoon. Says he must live till Carlos gets
+back; not to triumph over him, but to do what he can to lessen his
+disappointment. My good Clement!
+
+So nervous, I went to pasting photographs, and was forgetting all my
+troubles when Hetty brought in another dress to try on.
+
+Quiet in the great house, during which the clock on the staircase sent
+forth seven musical peals. To Violet waiting alone in the library, they
+acted as a summons. She was just leaving the room, when the sound
+of hubbub in the hall below held her motionless in the doorway. An
+automobile had stopped in front, and several persons were entering the
+house, in a gay and unseemly fashion. As she stood listening, uncertain
+of her duty, she perceived the frenzied figure of Mrs. Quintard
+approaching. As she passed by, she dropped one word: "Carlos!" Then she
+went staggering on, to disappear a moment later down the stairway.
+
+This vision lost, another came. This time it was that of Clements's
+wife leaning from the marble balustrade above, the shadow of approaching
+grief battling with the present terror in her perfect features. Then
+she too withdrew from view and Violet, left for the moment alone in the
+great hall, stepped back into the library and began to put on her hat.
+
+The lights had been turned up in the grand salon and it was in this
+scene of gorgeous colour that Mrs. Quintard came face to face with
+Carlos Pelacios. Those who were witness to her entrance say that
+she presented a noble appearance, as with the resolution of extreme
+desperation she stood waiting for his first angry attack.
+
+He, a short, thick-set, dark man, showing both in features and
+expression the Spanish blood of his paternal ancestors, started to
+address her in tones of violence, but changed his note, as he met her
+eye, to one simply sardonic.
+
+"You here!" he began. "I assure you, madame, that it is a pleasure which
+is not without its inconveniences. Did you not receive my cablegram
+requesting this house to be made ready for my occupancy?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Then why do I find guests here? They do not usually precede the arrival
+of their host."
+
+"Clement is very ill--"
+
+"So much the greater reason that he should have been removed--"
+
+"You were not expected for two days yet. You cabled that you were coming
+on the Mauretania."
+
+"Yes, I cabled that. Elisabetta,"--this to his wife standing silently in
+the background--"we will go to the Plaza for tonight. At three o'clock
+tomorrow we shall expect to find this house in readiness for our return.
+Later, if Mrs. Quintard desires to visit us we shall be pleased to
+receive her. But"--this to Mrs. Quintard herself--"you must come without
+Clement and the kids."
+
+Mrs. Quintard's rigid hand stole up to her throat.
+
+"Clement is dying. He is failing hourly," she murmured. "He may not live
+till morning."
+
+Even Carlos was taken aback by this. "Oh, well!" said he, "we will give
+you two days."
+
+Mrs. Quintard gasped, then she walked straight up to him.
+
+"You will give us all the time his condition requires and more, much
+more. He is the real owner of this house, not you. My brother left a
+will bequeathing it to him. You are my nephew's guests, and not he
+yours. As his representative I entreat you and your wife to remain here
+until you can find a home to your mind."
+
+The silence seethed. Carlos had a temper of fire and so had his wife.
+But neither spoke, till he had gained sufficient control over himself to
+remark without undue rancour:
+
+"I did not think you had the wit to influence your brother to this
+extent; otherwise, I should have cut my travels short." Then harshly:
+"Where is this will?"
+
+"It will be produced." But the words faltered.
+
+Carlos glanced at the man standing behind his wife; then back at Mrs.
+Quintard.
+
+"Wills are not scribbled off on deathbeds; or if they are, it needs
+something more than a signature to legalize them. I don't believe
+in this trick of a later will. Mr. Cavanagh"--here he indicated the
+gentleman accompanying them--"has done my father's business for years,
+and he assured me that the paper he holds in his pocket is the first,
+last, and only expression of your brother's wishes. If you are in a
+position to deny this, show us the document you mention; show us it at
+once, or inform us where and in whose hands it can be found."
+
+"That, for--for reasons I cannot give, I must refuse to do at present.
+But I am ready to swear--"
+
+A mocking laugh cut her short. Did it issue from his lips or from those
+of his highstrung and unfeeling wife? It might have come from either;
+there was cause enough.
+
+"Oh!" she faltered, "may God have mercy!" and was sinking before their
+eyes, when she heard her name, called from the threshold, and, looking
+that way, saw Hetty beaming upon her, backed by a little figure with a
+face so radiant that instinctively her hand went out to grasp the folded
+sheet of paper Hetty was seeking to thrust upon her.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, in a great voice, "you will not have to wait, nor
+Clement either. Here is the will! The children have come into their
+own." And she fell at their feet in a dead faint.
+
+"Where did you find it? Oh! where did you find it? I have waited a week
+to know. When, after Carlos's sudden departure, I stood beside Clement's
+death-bed and saw from the look he gave me that he could still feel and
+understand, I told him that you had succeeded in your task and that all
+was well with us. But I was not able to tell him how you had succeeded
+or in what place the will had been found; and he died, unknowing. But we
+may know, may we not, now that he is laid away and there is no more talk
+of our leaving this house?"
+
+Violet smiled, but very tenderly, and in a way not to offend the
+mourner. They were sitting in the library--the great library which was
+to remain in Clement's family after all--and it amused her to follow the
+dreaming lady's glances as they ran in irrepressible curiosity over the
+walls. Had Violet wished, she could have kept her secret forever. These
+eyes would never have discovered it.
+
+But she was of a sympathetic temperament, our Violet, so after a
+moment's delay, during which she satisfied herself that little, if
+anything, had been touched in the room since her departure from it a
+week before, she quietly observed:
+
+"You were right in persisting that you hid it in this room. It was here
+I found it. Do you notice that photograph on the mantel which does not
+stand exactly straight on its easel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Supposing you take it down. You can reach it, can you not?"
+
+"Oh, yes. But what--"
+
+"Lift it down, dear Mrs. Quintard; and then turn it round and look at
+its back."
+
+Agitated and questioning, the lady did as she was bid, and at the first
+glance gave a cry of surprise, if not of understanding. The square
+of brown paper, acting as a backing to the picture, was slit across,
+disclosing a similar one behind it which was still intact.
+
+"Oh! was it hidden in here?" she asked.
+
+"Very completely," assented Violet. "Pasted in out of sight by a lady
+who amuses herself with mounting and framing photographs. Usually, she
+is conscious of her work, but this time she performed her task in a
+dream."
+
+Mrs. Quintard was all amazement.
+
+"I don't remember touching these pictures," she declared. "I never
+should have remembered. You are a wonderful person, Miss Strange. How
+came you to think these photographs might have two backings? There was
+nothing to show that this was so."
+
+"I will tell you, Mrs. Quintard. You helped me."
+
+"I helped you?"
+
+"Yes. You remember the memorandum you gave me? In it you mentioned
+pasting photographs. But this was not enough in itself to lead me to
+examine those on the mantel, if you had not given me another suggestion
+a little while before. We did not tell you this, Mrs. Quintard, at the
+time, but during the search we were making here that day, you had a
+lapse into that peculiar state which induces you to walk in your sleep.
+It was a short one, lasting but a moment, but in a moment one can speak,
+and, this you did--"
+
+"Spoke? I spoke?"
+
+"Yes, you uttered the word 'paper!' not the paper, but 'paper!' and
+reached out towards the shears. Though I had not much time to think of
+it then, afterwards upon reading your memorandum I recalled your words,
+and asked myself if it was not paper to cut, rather than to hide, you
+wanted. If it was to cut, and you were but repeating the experience
+of the night before, then the room should contain some remnants of cut
+paper. Had we seen any? Yes, in the basket, under the desk we had taken
+out and thrown back again a strip or so of wrapping paper, which, if my
+memory did not fail me, showed a clean-cut edge. To pull this strip out
+again and spread it flat upon the desk was the work of a minute, and
+what I saw led me to look all over the room, not now for the folded
+document, but for a square of brown paper, such as had been taken out
+of this larger sheet. Was I successful? Not for a long while, but when
+I came to the photographs on the mantel and saw how nearly they
+corresponded in shape and size to what I was looking for, I recalled
+again your fancy for mounting photographs and felt that the mystery was
+solved.
+
+"A glance at the back of one of them brought disappointment, but when I
+turned about its mate--You know what I found underneath the outer paper.
+You had laid the will against the original backing and simply pasted
+another one over it.
+
+"That the discovery came in time to cut short a very painful interview
+has made me joyful for a week.
+
+"And now may I see the children?"
+
+END OF PROBLEM V
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM VI. THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS
+
+Miss Strange was not in a responsive mood. This her employer had
+observed on first entering; yet he showed no hesitation in laying on
+the table behind which she had ensconced herself in the attitude of one
+besieged, an envelope thick with enclosed papers.
+
+"There," said he. "Telephone me when you have read them."
+
+"I shall not read them."
+
+"No?" he smiled; and, repossessing himself of the envelope, he tore off
+one end, extracted the sheets with which it was filled, and laid them
+down still unfolded, in their former place on the table-top.
+
+The suggestiveness of the action caused the corners of Miss Srange's
+delicate lips to twitch wistfully, before settling into an ironic smile.
+
+Calmly the other watched her.
+
+"I am on a vacation," she loftily explained, as she finally met his
+studiously non-quizzical glance. "Oh, I know that I am in my own home!"
+she petulantly acknowledged, as his gaze took in the room; "and that the
+automobile is at the door; and that I'm dressed for shopping. But for
+all that I'm on a vacation--a mental one," she emphasized; "and business
+must wait. I haven't got over the last affair," she protested, as he
+maintained a discreet silence, "and the season is so gay just now--so
+many balls, so many--But that isn't the worst. Father is beginning to
+wake up--and if he ever suspects--" A significant gesture ended this
+appeal.
+
+The personage knew her father--everyone did--and the wonder had always
+been that she dared run the risk of displeasing one so implacable.
+Though she was his favourite child, Peter Strange was known to be quite
+capable of cutting her off with a shilling, once his close, prejudiced
+mind conceived it to be his duty. And that he would so interpret the
+situation, if he ever came to learn the secret of his daughter's fits
+of abstraction and the sly bank account she was slowly accumulating, the
+personage holding out this dangerous lure had no doubt at all. Yet he
+only smiled at her words and remarked in casual suggestion:
+
+"It's out of town this time--'way out. Your health certainly demands a
+change of air."
+
+"My health is good. Fortunately, or unfortunately, as one may choose to
+look at it, it furnishes me with no excuse for an outing," she steadily
+retorted, turning her back on the table.
+
+"Ah, excuse me!" the insidious voice apologized, "your paleness misled
+me. Surely a night or two's change might be beneficial."
+
+She gave him a quick side look, and began to adjust her boa.
+
+To this hint he paid no attention.
+
+"The affair is quite out of the ordinary," he pursued in the tone of one
+rehearsing a part. But there he stopped. For some reason, not altogether
+apparent to the masculine mind, the pin of flashing stones (real stones)
+which held her hat in place had to be taken out and thrust back again,
+not once, but twice. It was to watch this performance he had paused.
+When he was ready to proceed, he took the musing tone of one marshalling
+facts for another's enlightenment:
+
+"A woman of unknown instincts--"
+
+"Pshaw!" The end of the pin would strike against the comb holding
+Violet's chestnut-coloured locks.
+
+"Living in a house as mysterious as the secret it contains. But--" here
+he allowed his patience apparently to forsake him, "I will bore you no
+longer. Go to your teas and balls; I will struggle with my dark affairs
+alone."
+
+His hand went to the packet of papers she affected so ostentatiously to
+despise. He could be as nonchalant as she. But he did not lift them;
+he let them lie. Yet the young heiress had not made a movement or even
+turned the slightest glance his way.
+
+"A woman difficult to understand! A mysterious house--possibly a
+mysterious crime!"
+
+Thus Violet kept repeating in silent self-communion, as flushed with
+dancing she sat that evening in a highly-scented conservatory, dividing
+her attention between the compliments of her partner and the splash of
+a fountain bubbling in the heart of this mass of tropical foliage; and
+when some hours later she sat down in her chintz-furnished bedroom for
+a few minutes' thought before retiring, it was to draw from a little oak
+box at her elbow the half-dozen or so folded sheets of closely written
+paper which had been left for her perusal by her persistent employer.
+
+Glancing first at the signature and finding it to be one already
+favourably known at the bar, she read with avidity the statement of
+events thus vouched for, finding them curious enough in all conscience
+to keep her awake for another full hour.
+
+We here subscribe it:
+
+I am a lawyer with an office in the Times Square Building. My business
+is mainly local, but sometimes I am called out of town, as witness the
+following summons received by me on the fifth of last October.
+
+DEAR SIR,--
+
+I wish to make my will. I am an invalid and cannot leave my room.
+Will you come to me? The enclosed reference will answer for my
+respectability. If it satisfies you and you decide to accommodate me,
+please hasten your visit; I have not many days to live. A carriage will
+meet you at Highland Station at any hour you designate. Telegraph reply.
+
+A. Postlethwaite, Gloom Cottage, ----, N. J.
+
+The reference given was a Mr. Weed of Eighty-sixth Street--a well-known
+man of unimpeachable reputation.
+
+Calling him up at his business office, I asked him what he could tell
+me about Mr. Postlethwaite of Gloom Cottage, ----, N. J. The answer
+astonished me:
+
+"There is no Mr. Postlethwaite to be found at that address. He died
+years ago. There is a Mrs. Postlethwaite--a confirmed paralytic. Do you
+mean her?"
+
+I glanced at the letter still lying open at the side of the telephone:
+
+"The signature reads A. Postlethwaite."
+
+"Then it's she. Her name is Arabella. She hates the name, being a woman
+of no sentiment. Uses her initials even on her cheques. What does she
+want of you?"
+
+"To draw her will."
+
+"Oblige her. It'll be experience for you." And he slammed home the
+receiver.
+
+I decided to follow the suggestion so forcibly emphasized; and the next
+day saw me at Highland Station. A superannuated horse and a still more
+superannuated carriage awaited me--both too old to serve a busy man
+in these days of swift conveyance. Could this be a sample of the
+establishment I was about to enter? Then I remembered that the woman who
+had sent for me was a helpless invalid, and probably had no use for any
+sort of turnout.
+
+The driver was in keeping with the vehicle, and as noncommittal as the
+plodding beast he drove. If I ventured upon a remark, he gave me a
+long and curious look; if I went so far as to attack him with a direct
+question, he responded with a hitch of the shoulder or a dubious smile
+which conveyed nothing. Was he deaf or just unpleasant? I soon learned
+that he was not deaf; for suddenly, after a jog-trot of a mile or so
+through a wooded road which we had entered from the main highway, he
+drew in his horse, and, without glancing my way, spoke his first word:
+
+"This is where you get out. The house is back there in the bushes."
+
+As no house was visible and the bushes rose in an unbroken barrier along
+the road, I stared at him in some doubt of his sanity.
+
+"But--" I began; a protest into which he at once broke, with the sharp
+direction:
+
+"Take the path. It'll lead you straight to the front door."
+
+"I don't see any path."
+
+For this he had no answer; and confident from his expression that it
+would be useless to expect anything further from him, I dropped a coin
+into his hand, and jumped to the ground. He was off before I could turn
+myself about.
+
+"'Something is rotten in the State of Denmark,'" I quoted in startled
+comment to myself; and not knowing what else to do, stared down at the
+turf at my feet.
+
+A bit of flagging met my eye, protruding from a layer of thick moss.
+Farther on I espied another--the second, probably, of many. This, no
+doubt, was the path I had been bidden to follow, and without further
+thought on the subject, I plunged into the bushes which with difficulty
+I made give way before me.
+
+For a moment all further advance looked hopeless. A more tangled,
+uninviting approach to a so-called home, I had never seen outside of the
+tropics; and the complete neglect thus displayed should have prepared me
+for the appearance of the house I unexpectedly came upon, just as, the
+way seemed on the point of closing up before me.
+
+But nothing could well prepare one for a first view of Gloom Cottage.
+Its location in a hollow which had gradually filled itself up with
+trees and some kind of prickly brush, its deeply stained walls, once
+picturesque enough in their grouping but too deeply hidden now amid
+rotting boughs to produce any other effect than that of shrouded
+desolation, the sough of these same boughs as they rapped a devil's
+tattoo against each other, and the absence of even the rising column of
+smoke which bespeaks domestic life wherever seen--all gave to one who
+remembered the cognomen Cottage and forgot the pre-cognomen of Gloom, a
+sense of buried life as sepulchral as that which emanates from the mouth
+of some freshly opened tomb.
+
+But these impressions, natural enough to my youth, were necessarily
+transient, and soon gave way to others more business-like. Perceiving
+the curve of an arch rising above the undergrowth still blocking my
+approach, I pushed my way resolutely through, and presently found myself
+stumbling upon the steps of an unexpectedly spacious domicile, built not
+of wood, as its name of Cottage had led me to expect, but of carefully
+cut stone which, while showing every mark of time, proclaimed itself
+one of those early, carefully erected Colonial residences which it
+takes more than a century to destroy, or even to wear to the point of
+dilapidation.
+
+Somewhat encouraged, though failing to detect any signs of active life
+in the heavily shuttered windows frowning upon me from either side, I
+ran up the steps and rang the bell which pulled as hard as if no hand
+had touched it in years.
+
+Then I waited.
+
+But not to ring again; for just as my hand was approaching the bell a
+second time, the door fell back and I beheld in the black gap before me
+the oldest man I had ever come upon in my whole life. He was so old
+I was astonished when his drawn lips opened and he asked if I was the
+lawyer from New York. I would as soon have expected a mummy to wag its
+tongue and utter English, he looked so thin and dried and removed from
+this life and all worldly concerns.
+
+But when I had answered his question and he had turned to marshal me
+down the hall towards a door I could dimly see standing open in the
+twilight of an absolutely sunless interior, I noticed that his step was
+not without some vigour, despite the feeble bend of his withered body
+and the incessant swaying of his head, which seemed to be continually
+saying No!
+
+"I will prepare madam," he admonished me, after drawing a ponderous
+curtain two inches or less aside from one of the windows. "She is very
+ill, but she will see you."
+
+The tone was senile, but it was the senility of an educated man, and as
+the cultivated accents wavered forth, my mind changed in, regard to the
+position he held in the house. Interested anew, I sought to give him
+another look, but he had already vanished through the doorway, and
+so noiselessly, it was more like a shadow's flitting than a man's
+withdrawal.
+
+The darkness in which I sat was absolute; but gradually, as I continued
+to look about me, the spaces lightened and certain details came out,
+which to my astonishment were of a character to show that the plain if
+substantial exterior of this house with its choked-up approaches and
+weedy gardens was no sample of what was to be found inside. Though the
+walls surrounding me were dismal because unlighted, they betrayed a
+splendour unusual in any country house. The frescoes and paintings were
+of an ancient order, dating from days when life and not death reigned in
+this isolated dwelling; but in them high art reigned supreme, an art
+so high and so finished that only great wealth, combined with the most
+cultivated taste, could have produced such effects. I was still absorbed
+in the wonder of it all, when the quiet voice of the old gentleman who
+had let me in reached me again from the doorway, and I heard:
+
+"Madam is ready for you. May I trouble you to accompany me to her room."
+
+I rose with alacrity. I was anxious to see madam, if only to satisfy
+myself that she was as interesting as the house in which she was
+self-immured.
+
+I found her a great deal more so. But before I enter upon our interview,
+let me mention a fact which had attracted my attention in my passage to
+her room. During his absence my guide evidently had pulled aside other
+curtains than those of the room in which he had left me. The hall, no
+longer a tunnel of darkness, gave me a glimpse as we went by, of various
+secluded corners, and it seemed as if everywhere I looked I saw--a
+clock. I counted four before I reached the staircase, all standing on
+the floor and all of ancient make, though differing much in appearance
+and value. A fifth one rose grim and tall at the stair foot, and under
+an impulse I have never understood I stopped, when I reached it, to note
+the time. But it had paused in its task, and faced me with motionless
+hands and silent works--a fact which somehow startled me; perhaps,
+because just then I encountered the old man's eye watching me with an
+expression as challenging as it was unintelligible.
+
+I had expected to see a woman in bed. I saw instead, a woman sitting up.
+You felt her influence the moment you entered her presence. She was not
+young; she was not beautiful;--never had been I should judge,--she had
+not even the usual marks about her of an ultra strong personality; but
+that her will was law, had always been, and would continue to be law
+so long as she lived, was patent to any eye at the first glance. She
+exacted obedience consciously and unconsciously, and she exacted it with
+charm. Some few people in the world possess this power. They frown, and
+the opposing will weakens; they smile, and all hearts succumb. I was
+hers from the moment I crossed the threshold till--But I will relate the
+happenings of that instant when it comes.
+
+She was alone, or so I thought, when I made my first bow to her stern
+but not unpleasing presence. Seated in a great chair, with a silver tray
+before her containing such little matters as she stood in hourly need
+of, she confronted me with a piercing gaze startling to behold in eyes
+so colourless. Then she smiled, and in obedience to that smile I seated
+myself in a chair placed very near her own. Was she too paralysed to
+express herself clearly? I waited in some anxiety till she spoke, when
+this fear vanished. Her voice betrayed the character her features failed
+to express. It was firm, resonant, and instinct with command. Not loud,
+but penetrating, and of a quality which made one listen with his heart
+as well as with his ears. What she said is immaterial. I was there for
+a certain purpose and we entered immediately upon the business of that
+purpose. She talked and I listened, mostly without comment. Only once
+did I interrupt her with a suggestion; and as this led to definite
+results, I will proceed to relate the occurrence in full.
+
+In the few hours remaining to me before leaving New York, I had learned
+(no matter how) some additional particulars concerning herself and
+family; and when after some minor bequests, she proceeded to name
+the parties to whom she desired to leave the bulk of her fortune, I
+ventured, with some astonishment at my own temerity, to remark:
+
+"But you have a young relative! Is she not to be included in this
+partition of your property?"
+
+A hush. Then a smile came to life on her stiff lips, such as is seldom
+seen, thank God, on the face of any woman, and I heard:
+
+"The young relative of whom you speak, is in the room. She has known for
+some time that I have no intention of leaving anything to her. There is,
+in fact, small chance of her ever needing it."
+
+The latter sentence was a muttered one, but that it was loud enough to
+be heard in all parts of the room I was soon assured. For a quick sigh,
+which was almost a gasp, followed from a corner I had hitherto ignored,
+and upon glancing that way, I perceived, peering upon us from the
+shadows, the white face of a young girl in whose drawn features and
+wide, staring eyes I beheld such evidences of terror, that in an
+instant, whatever predilection I had hitherto felt for my client,
+vanished in distrust, if not positive aversion.
+
+I was still under the sway of this new impression, when Mrs.
+Postlethwaite's voice rose again, this time addressing the young girl:
+
+"You may go," she said, with such force in the command for all its
+honeyed modulation, that I expected to see its object fly the room in
+frightened obedience.
+
+But though the startled girl had lost none of the terror which had made
+her face like a mask, no power of movement remained to her. A picture
+of hopeless misery, she stood for one breathless moment, with her
+eyes fixed in unmistakable appeal on mine; then she began to sway so
+helplessly that I leaped with bounding heart to catch her. As she fell
+into my arms I heard her sigh as before. No common anguish spoke in that
+sigh. I had stumbled unwittingly upon a tragedy, to the meaning of which
+I held but a doubtful key.
+
+"She seems very ill," I observed with some emphasis, as I turned to lay
+my helpless burden on a near-by sofa.
+
+"She's doomed."
+
+The words were spoken with gloom and with an attempt at commiseration
+which no longer rang true in my ears.
+
+"She is as sick a woman as I am myself," continued Mrs. Postlethwaite.
+"That is why I made the remark I did, never imagining she would hear me
+at that distance. Do not put her down. My nurse will be here in a moment
+to relieve you of your burden."
+
+A tinkle accompanied these words. The resolute woman had stretched out
+a finger, of whose use she was not quite deprived, and touched a little
+bell standing on the tray before her, an inch or two from her hand.
+
+Pleased to obey her command, I paused at the sofa's edge, and taking
+advantage of the momentary delay, studied the youthful countenance
+pressed unconsciously to my breast.
+
+It was one whose appeal lay less in its beauty, though that was of a
+touching quality, than in the story it told,--a story, which for some
+unaccountable reason--I did not pause to determine what one--I felt it
+to be my immediate duty to know. But I asked no questions then; I did
+not even venture a comment; and yielded her up with seeming readiness
+when a strong but none too intelligent woman came running in with arms
+outstretched to carry her off. When the door had closed upon these two,
+the silence of my client drew my attention back to herself.
+
+"I am waiting," was her quiet observation, and without any further
+reference to what had just taken place under our eyes, she went on with
+the business previously occupying us.
+
+I was able to do my part without any too great display of my own
+disturbance. The clearness of my remarkable client's instructions, the
+definiteness with which her mind was made up as to the disposal of every
+dollar of her vast property, made it easy for me to master each detail
+and make careful note of every wish. But this did not prevent the ebb
+and flow within me of an undercurrent of thought full of question and
+uneasiness. What had been the real purport of the scene to which I had
+just been made a surprised witness? The few, but certainly unusual,
+facts which had been given me in regard to the extraordinary relations
+existing between these two closely connected women will explain the
+intensity of my interest. Those facts shall be yours.
+
+Arabella Merwin, when young, was gifted with a peculiar fascination
+which, as we have seen, had not altogether vanished with age.
+Consequently she had many lovers, among them two brothers, Frank and
+Andrew Postlethwaite. The latter was the older, the handsomer, and the
+most prosperous (his name is remembered yet in connection with South
+American schemes of large importance), but it was Frank she married.
+
+That real love, ardent if unreasonable, lay at the bottom of her choice,
+is evident enough to those who followed the career of the young
+couple. But it was a jealous love which brooked no rival, and as Frank
+Postlethwaite was of an impulsive and erratic nature, scenes soon
+occurred between them which, while revealing the extraordinary force of
+the young wife's character, led to no serious break till after her son
+was born, and this, notwithstanding the fact that Frank had long given
+up making a living, and that they were openly dependent on their wealthy
+brother, now fast approaching the millionaire status.
+
+This brother--the Peruvian King, as some called him--must have been
+an extraordinary man. Though cherishing his affection for the spirited
+Arabella to the point of remaining a bachelor for her sake, he betrayed
+none of the usual signs of disappointed love; but on the contrary made
+every effort to advance her happiness, not only by assuring to herself
+and husband an adequate income, but by doing all he could in other and
+less open ways to lessen any sense she might entertain of her mistake in
+preferring for her lifemate his self-centred and unstable brother. She
+should have adored him; but though she evinced gratitude enough, there
+is nothing to prove that she ever gave Frank Postlethwaite the least
+cause to cherish any other sentiment towards his brother than that of
+honest love and unqualified respect. Perhaps he never did cherish
+any other. Perhaps the change which everyone saw in the young couple
+immediately after the birth of their only child was due to another
+cause. Gossip is silent on this point. All that it insists upon is that
+from this time evidences of a growing estrangement between them became
+so obvious that even the indulgent Andrew could not blind himself to it;
+showing his sense of trouble, not by lessening their income, for that
+he doubled, but by spending more time in Peru and less in New York where
+the two were living.
+
+However,--and here we enter upon those details which I have ventured
+to characterize as uncommon, he was in this country and in the actual
+company of his brother when the accident occurred which terminated
+both their lives. It was the old story of a skidding motor, and Mrs.
+Postlethwaite, having been sent for in great haste to the small inn
+into which the two injured men had been carried, arrived only in time to
+witness their last moments. Frank died first and Andrew some few minutes
+later--an important fact, as was afterwards shown when the latter's will
+came to be read.
+
+This will was a peculiar one. By its provisions the bulk of the King's
+great property was left to his brother Frank, but with this especial
+stipulation that in case his brother failed to survive him, the full
+legacy as bequeathed to him should be given unconditionally to his
+widow. Frank's demise, as I have already stated, preceded his brother's
+by several minutes and consequently Arabella became the chief legatee;
+and that is how she obtained her millions. But--and here a startling
+feature comes in--when the will came to be administered, the secret
+underlying the break between Frank and his wife was brought to light by
+a revelation of the fact that he had practised a great deception upon
+her at the time of his marriage. Instead of being a bachelor as was
+currently believed, he was in reality a widower, and the father of a
+child. This fact, so long held secret, had become hers when her own
+child was born; and constituted as she was, she not only never forgave
+the father, but conceived such a hatred for the innocent object of their
+quarrel that she refused to admit its claims or even to acknowledge its
+existence.
+
+But later--after his death, in fact--she showed some sense of obligation
+towards one who under ordinary conditions would have shared her wealth.
+When the whole story became heard, and she discovered that this secret
+had been kept from his brother as well as from herself, and that
+consequently no provision had been made in any way for the child thus
+thrown directly upon her mercy, she did the generous thing and took the
+forsaken girl into her own home. But she never betrayed the least love
+for her, her whole heart being bound up in her boy, who was, as all
+agree, a prodigy of talent.
+
+But this boy, for all his promise and seeming strength of constitution,
+died when barely seven years old, and the desolate mother was left with
+nothing to fill her heart but the uncongenial daughter of her husband's
+first wife. The fact that this child, slighted as it had hitherto been,
+would, in the event of her uncle having passed away before her father,
+have been the undisputed heiress of a large portion of the wealth now at
+the disposal of her arrogant step-mother, led many to expect, now
+that the boy was no more, that Mrs. Postlethwaite would proceed to
+acknowledge the little Helena as her heir, and give her that place in
+the household to which her natural claims entitled her.
+
+But no such result followed. The passion of grief into which the
+mother was thrown by the shipwreck of all her hopes left her hard and
+implacable, and when, as very soon happened, she fell a victim to the
+disease which tied her to her chair and made the wealth which had come
+to her by such a peculiar ordering of circumstances little else than a
+mockery even in her own eyes, it was upon this child she expended the
+full fund of her secret bitterness.
+
+And the child? What of her? How did she bear her unhappy fate when she
+grew old enough to realize it? With a resignation which was the wonder
+of all who knew her. No murmurs escaped her lips, nor was the devotion
+she invariably displayed to the exacting invalid who ruled her as well
+as all the rest of her household with a rod of iron ever disturbed by
+the least sign of reproach. Though the riches, which in those early days
+poured into the home in a measure far beyond the needs of its mistress,
+were expended in making the house beautiful rather than in making the
+one young life within it happy, she never was heard to utter so much as
+a wish to leave the walls within which fate had immured her. Content,
+or seemingly content, with the only home she knew, she never asked
+for change or demanded friends or amusements. Visitors ceased coming;
+desolation followed neglect. The garden, once a glory, succumbed to a
+riot of weeds and undesirable brush, till a towering wall seemed to be
+drawn about the house cutting it off from the activities of the world as
+it cut it off from the approach of sunshine by day, and the comfort of
+a star-lit heaven by night. And yet the young girl continued to smile,
+though with a pitifulness of late, which some thought betokened
+secret terror and others the wasting of a body too sensitive for such
+unwholesome seclusion.
+
+These were the facts, known if not consciously specialized, which gave
+to the latter part of my interview with Mrs. Postlethwaite a poignancy
+of interest which had never attended any of my former experiences. The
+peculiar attitude of Miss Postlethwaite towards her indurate tormentor
+awakened in my agitated mind something much deeper than curiosity,
+but when I strove to speak her name with the intent of inquiring more
+particularly into her condition, such a look confronted me from the
+steady eye immovably fixed upon my own, that my courage--or was it my
+natural precaution--bade me subdue the impulse and risk no attempt which
+might betray the depth of my interest in one so completely outside
+the scope of the present moment's business. Perhaps Mrs. Postlethwaite
+appreciated my struggle; perhaps she was wholly blind to it. There was
+no reading the mind of this woman of sentimental name but inflexible
+nature, and realizing the fact more fully with every word she uttered I
+left her at last with no further betrayal of my feelings than might
+be evinced by the earnestness with which I promised to return for her
+signature at the earliest possible moment.
+
+This she had herself requested, saying as I rose:
+
+"I can still write my name if the paper is pushed carefully along under
+my hand. See to it that you come while the power remains to me."
+
+I had hoped that in my passage downstairs I might run upon someone who
+would give me news of Miss Postlethwaite, but the woman who approached
+to conduct me downstairs was not of an appearance to invite confidence,
+and I felt forced to leave the house with my doubts unsatisfied.
+
+Two memories, equally distinct, followed me. One was a picture of Mrs.
+Postlethwaite's fingers groping among her belongings on the little
+tray perched upon her lap, and another of the intent and strangely
+bent figure of the old man who had acted as my usher, listening to
+the ticking of one of the great clocks. So absorbed was he in this
+occupation that he not only failed to notice me when I went by, but he
+did not even lift his head at my cheery greeting. Such mysteries were
+too much for me, and led me to postpone my departure from town till I
+had sought out Mrs. Postlethwaite's doctor and propounded to him one
+or two leading questions. First, would Mrs. Postlethwaite's present
+condition be likely to hold good till Monday; and secondly, was the
+young lady living with her as ill as her step-mother said.
+
+He was a mild old man of the easy-going type, and the answers I got
+from him were far from satisfactory. Yet he showed some surprise when
+I mentioned the extent of Mrs. Postlethwaite's anxiety about her
+step-daughter, and paused, in the dubious shaking of his head, to give
+me a short stare in which I read as much determination as perplexity.
+
+"I will look into Miss Postlethwaite's case more particularly," were his
+parting words. And with this one gleam of comfort I had to be content.
+
+Monday's interview was a brief one and contained nothing worth
+repeating. Mrs. Postlethwaite listened with stoical satisfaction to the
+reading of the will I had drawn up, and upon its completion rang her
+bell for the two witnesses awaiting her summons, in an adjoining room.
+They were not of her household, but to all appearance honest villagers
+with but one noticeable characteristic, an overweening idea of Mrs.
+Postlethwaite's importance. Perhaps the spell she had so liberally woven
+for others in other and happier days was felt by them at this hour. It
+would not be strange; I had almost fallen under it myself, so great was
+the fascination of her manner even in this wreck of her bodily
+powers, when triumph assured, she faced us all in a state of complete
+satisfaction.
+
+But before I was again quit of the place, all my doubts returned and in
+fuller force than ever. I had lingered in my going as much as decency
+would permit, hoping to hear a step on the stair or see a face in some
+doorway which would contradict Mrs. Postlethwaite's cold assurance that
+Miss Postlethwaite was no better. But no such step did I hear, and no
+face did I see save the old, old one of the ancient friend or relative,
+whose bent frame seemed continually to haunt the halls. As before,
+he stood listening to the monotonous ticking of one of the clocks,
+muttering to himself and quite oblivious of my presence.
+
+However, this time I decided not to pass him without a more persistent
+attempt to gain his notice. Pausing at his side, I asked him in the
+friendly tone I thought best calculated to attract his attention, how
+Miss Postlethwaite was to-day. He was so intent upon his task, whatever
+that was, that while he turned my way, it was with a glance as blank as
+that of a stone image.
+
+"Listen!" he admonished me. "It still says No! No! I don't think it will
+ever say anything else."
+
+I stared at him in some consternation, then at the clock itself which
+was the tall one I had found run down at my first visit. There was
+nothing unusual in its quiet tick, so far as I could hear, and with a
+compassionate glance at the old man who had turned breathlessly again to
+listen, proceeded on my way without another word.
+
+The old fellow was daft. A century old, and daft.
+
+I had worked my way out through the vines which still encumbered the
+porch, and was taking my first steps down the walk, when some impulse
+made me turn and glance up at one of the windows.
+
+Did I bless the impulse? I thought I had every reason for doing so, when
+through a network of interlacing branches I beheld the young girl with
+whom my mind was wholly occupied, standing with her head thrust forward,
+watching the descent of something small and white which she had just
+released from her hand.
+
+A note! A note written by her and meant for me! With a grateful look in
+her direction (which was probably lost upon her as she had already drawn
+back out of sight), I sprang for it only to meet with disappointment.
+For it was no billet-doux I received from amid the clustering brush
+where it had fallen; but a small square of white cloth showing a line
+of fantastic embroidery. Annoyed beyond measure, I was about to fling it
+down again, when the thought that it had come from her hand deterred me,
+and I thrust it into my vest pocket. When I took it out again--which was
+soon after I had taken my seat in the car--I discovered what a mistake I
+should have made if I had followed my first impulse. For, upon examining
+the stitches more carefully, I perceived that what I had considered a
+mere decorative pattern was in fact a string of letters, and that these
+letters made words, and that these words were:
+
+IDONOTWANTTODIEBUTISURELYWILLIF
+
+Or, in plain writing:
+
+"I do not want to die, but I surely will if--"
+
+Finish the sentence for me. That is the problem I offer you. It is not a
+case for the police but one well worth your attention, if you succeed in
+reaching the heart of this mystery and saving this young girl.
+
+Only, let no delay occur. The doom, if doom it is, is immanent. Remember
+that the will is signed.
+
+"She is too small; I did not ask you to send me a midget."
+
+Thus spoke Mrs. Postlethwaite to her doctor, as he introduced into her
+presence a little figure in nurse's cap and apron. "You said I needed
+care,--more care than I was receiving. I answered that my old nurse
+could give it, and you objected that she or someone else must look after
+Miss Postlethwaite. I did not see the necessity, but I never contradict
+a doctor. So I yielded to your wishes, but not without the proviso (you
+remember that I made a proviso) that whatever sort of young woman you
+chose to introduce into this room, she should not be fresh from the
+training schools, and that she should be strong, silent, and capable.
+And you bring me this mite of a woman--is she a woman? she looks more
+like a child, of pleasing countenance enough, but who can no more lift
+me--"
+
+"Pardon me!" Little Miss Strange had advanced. "I think, if you will
+allow me the privilege, madam, that I can shift you into a much more
+comfortable position." And with a deftness and ease certainly not to
+be expected from one of her slight physique, Violet raised the helpless
+invalid a trifle more upon her pillow.
+
+The act, its manner, and the smile accompanying it, could not fail to
+please, and undoubtedly did, though no word rewarded her from lips not
+much given to speech save when the occasion was imperative. But Mrs.
+Postlethwaite made no further objection to her presence, and, seeing
+this, the doctor's countenance relaxed and he left the room with a much
+lighter step than that with which he had entered it.
+
+And thus it was that Violet Strange--an adept in more ways than
+one--became installed at the bedside of this mysterious woman, whose
+days, if numbered, still held possibilities of action which those
+interested in young Helena Postlethwaite's fate would do well to
+recognize.
+
+Miss Strange had been at her post for two days, and had gathered up the
+following:
+
+That Mrs. Postlethwaite must be obeyed.
+
+That her step-daughter (who did not wish to die) would die if she knew
+it to be the wish of this domineering but apparently idolized woman.
+
+That the old man of the clocks, while senile in some regards, was very
+alert and quite youthful in others. If a century old--which she began
+greatly to doubt--he had the language and manner of one in his prime,
+when unaffected by the neighbourhood of the clocks, which seemed in
+some non-understandable way to exercise an occult influence over him. At
+table he was an entertaining host; but neither there nor elsewhere would
+he discuss the family, or dilate in any way upon the peculiarities of a
+household of which he manifestly regarded himself as the least important
+member. Yet no one knew them better, and when Violet became quite
+assured of this, as well as of the futility of looking for explanation
+of any kind from either of her two patients, she resolved upon an effort
+to surprise one from him.
+
+She went about it in this way. Noting his custom of making a complete
+round of the clocks each night after dinner, she took advantage of Mrs.
+Postlethwaite's inclination to sleep at this hour, to follow him from
+clock to clock in the hope of overhearing some portion of the monologue
+with which he bent his head to the swinging pendulum, or put his ear
+to the hidden works. Soft-footed and discreet, she tripped along at his
+back, and at each pause he made, paused herself and turned her ear his
+way. The extreme darkness of the halls, which were more sombre by night
+than by day, favoured this attempt, and she was able, after a failure
+or two, to catch the No! no! no! no! which fell from his lips in seeming
+repetition of what he heard the most of them say.
+
+The satisfaction in his tone proved that the denial to which he
+listened, chimed in with his hopes and gave ease to his mind. But
+he looked his oldest when, after pausing at another of the many
+time-pieces, he echoed in answer to its special refrain, Yes! yes! yes!
+yes! and fled the spot with shaking body and a distracted air.
+
+The same fear and the same shrinking were observable in him as he
+returned from listening to the least conspicuous one, standing in a
+short corridor, where Violet could not follow him. But when, after
+a hesitation which enabled her to slip behind the curtain hiding the
+drawing-room door, he approached and laid his ear against the great
+one standing, as if on guard, at the foot of the stairs, she saw by
+the renewed vigour he displayed that there was comfort for him in its
+message, even before she caught the whisper with which he left it and
+proceeded to mount the stairs:
+
+"It says No! It always says No! I will heed it as the voice of Heaven."
+
+But one conclusion could be the result of such an experiment to a mind
+like Violet's. This partly touched old man not only held the key to the
+secret of this house, but was in a mood to divulge it if once he could
+be induced to hear command instead of dissuasion in the tick of this
+one large clock. But how could he be induced? Violet returned to Mrs.
+Postlethwaite's bedside in a mood of extreme thoughtfulness.
+
+Another day passed, and she had not yet seen Miss Postlethwaite. She was
+hoping each hour to be sent on some errand to that young lady's room,
+but no such opportunity was granted her. Once she ventured to ask the
+doctor, whose visits were now very frequent, what he thought of the
+young lady's condition. But as this question was necessarily put in Mrs.
+Postlethwaite's presence, the answer was naturally guarded, and possibly
+not altogether frank.
+
+"Our young lady is weaker," he acknowledged. "Much weaker," he added
+with marked emphasis and his most professional air, "or she would be
+here instead of in her own room. It grieves her not to be able to wait
+upon her generous benefactress."
+
+The word fell heavily. Had it been used as a test? Violet gave him a
+look, though she had much rather have turned her discriminating eye upon
+the face staring up at them from the pillow. Had the alarm expressed by
+others communicated itself at last to the physician? Was the charm which
+had held him subservient to the mother, dissolving under the pitiable
+state of the child, and was he trying to aid the little detective-nurse
+in her effort to sound the mystery of her condition?
+
+His look expressed benevolence, but he took care not to meet the gaze of
+the woman he had just lauded, possibly because that gaze was fixed upon
+him in a way to tax his moral courage. The silence which ensued was
+broken by Mrs. Postlethwaite:
+
+"She will live--this poor Helena--how long?" she asked, with no break in
+her voice's wonted music.
+
+The doctor hesitated, then with a candour hardly to be expected from
+him, answered:
+
+"I do not understand Miss Postlethwaite's case. I should like, with your
+permission, to consult some New York physician."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+A single word, but as it left this woman's thin lips Violet recoiled,
+and, perhaps, the doctor did. Rage can speak in one word as well as in
+a dozen, and the rage which spoke in this one was of no common order,
+though it was quickly suppressed, as was all other show of feeling when
+she added, with a touch of her old charm:
+
+"Of course you will do what you think best, as you know I never
+interfere with a doctor's decisions. But" and here her natural
+ascendancy of tone and manner returned in all its potency, "it would
+kill me to know that a stranger was approaching Helena's bedside. It
+would kill her. She's too sensitive to survive such a shock."
+
+Violet recalled the words worked with so much care by this young girl on
+a minute piece of linen, I do not want to die, and watched the doctor's
+face for some sign of resolution. But embarrassment was all she saw
+there, and all she heard him say was the conventional reply:
+
+"I am doing all I can for her. We will wait another day and note the
+effect of my latest prescription."
+
+Another day!
+
+The deathly calm which overspread Mrs. Postlethwaite's features as this
+word left the physician's lips warned Violet not to let another day go
+by without some action. But she made no remark, and, indeed, betrayed
+but little interest in anything beyond her own patient's condition. That
+seemed to occupy her wholly. With consummate art she gave the appearance
+of being under Mrs. Postlethwaite's complete thrall, and watched with
+fascinated eyes every movement of the one unstricken finger which could
+do so much.
+
+This little detective of ours could be an excellent actor when she
+chose.
+
+III
+
+To make the old man speak! To force this conscience-stricken but
+rebellious soul to reveal what the clock forbade! How could it be done?
+
+This continued to be Violet's great problem. She pondered it so deeply
+during all the remainder of the day that a little pucker settled on her
+brow, which someone (I will not mention who) would have been pained to
+see. Mrs. Postlethwaite, if she noticed it at all, probably ascribed it
+to her anxieties as nurse, for never had Violet been more assiduous in
+her attentions. But Mrs. Postlethwaite was no longer the woman she had
+been, and possibly never noted it at all.
+
+At five o'clock Violet suddenly left the room. Slipping down into the
+lower hall, she went the round of the clocks herself, listening to every
+one. There was no perceptible difference in their tick. Satisfied of
+this and that it was simply the old man's imagination which had supplied
+them each with separate speech, she paused before the huge one at the
+foot of the stairs,--the one whose dictate he had promised himself
+to follow,--and with an eye upon its broad, staring dial, muttered
+wistfully:
+
+"Oh! for an idea! For an idea!"
+
+Did this cumbrous relic of old-time precision turn traitor at this
+ingenuous plea? The dial continued to stare, the works to sing, but
+Violet's face suddenly lost its perplexity. With a wary look about her
+and a listening ear turned towards the stair top, she stretched out her
+hand and pulled open the door guarding the pendulum, and peered in at
+the works, smiling slyly to herself as she pushed it back into place and
+retreated upstairs to the sick room.
+
+When the doctor came that night she had a quiet word with him outside
+Mrs. Postlethwaite's door. Was that why he was on hand when old Mr.
+Dunbar stole from his room to make his nightly circuit of the halls
+below? Something quite beyond the ordinary was in the good physician's
+mind, for the look he cast at the old man was quite unlike any he had
+ever bestowed upon him before, and when he spoke it was to say with
+marked urgency:
+
+"Our beautiful young lady will not live a week unless I get at the seat
+of her malady. Pray that I may be enabled to do so, Mr. Dunbar."
+
+A blow to the aged man's heart which called forth a feeble "Yes, yes,"
+followed by a wild stare which imprinted itself upon the doctor's
+memory as the look of one hopelessly old, who hears for the first time a
+distinct call from the grave which has long been awaiting him!
+
+A solitary lamp stood in the lower hall. As the old man picked his slow
+way down, its small, hesitating flame flared up as in a sudden gust,
+then sank down flickering and faint as if it, too, had heard a call
+which summoned it to extinction.
+
+No other sign of life was visible anywhere. Sunk in twilight shadows,
+the corridors branched away on either side to no place in particular and
+serving, to all appearance (as many must have thought in days gone by),
+as a mere hiding-place for clocks.
+
+To listen to their united hum, the old man paused, looking at first
+a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he
+started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard,
+warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round?
+Who can tell? He was trembling very much when with his task nearly
+completed, he stepped out again into the main hall and crept rather than
+walked back to the one great clock to whose dictum he made it a practice
+to listen last.
+
+Chattering the accustomed words, "They say Yes! They are all saying Yes!
+now; but this one will say No!" he bent his stiff old back and laid his
+ear to the unresponsive wood. But the time for no had passed. It was
+Yes! yes! yes! yes! now, and as his straining ears took in the word,
+he appeared to shrink where he stood and after a moment of anguished
+silence, broke forth into a low wail, amid whose lamentations one could
+hear:
+
+"The time has come! Even the clock she loves best bids me speak. Oh!
+Arabella, Arabella!"
+
+In his despair he had not noticed that the pendulum hung motionless,
+or that the hands stood at rest on the dial. If he had, he might have
+waited long enough to have seen the careful opening of the great clock's
+tall door and the stepping forth of the little lady who had played so
+deftly upon his superstition.
+
+He was wandering the corridors like a helpless child, when a gentle hand
+fell on his arm and a soft voice whispered in his ear:
+
+"You have a story to tell. Will you tell it to me? It may save Miss
+Postlethwaite's life."
+
+Did he understand? Would he respond if he did; or would the shock of her
+appeal restore him to a sense of the danger attending disloyalty? For
+a moment she doubted the wisdom of this startling measure, then she saw
+that he had passed the point of surprise and that, stranger as she was,
+she had but to lead the way for him to follow, tell his story, and die.
+
+There was no light in the drawing-room when they entered. But old Mr.
+Dunbar did not seem to mind that. Indeed, he seemed to have lost all
+consciousness of present surroundings; he was even oblivious of her.
+This became quite evident when the lamp, in flaring up again in the
+hall, gave a momentary glimpse, of his crouching, half-kneeling figure.
+In the pleading gesture of his trembling, outreaching arms, Violet
+beheld an appeal, not to herself, but to some phantom of his
+imagination; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was with the
+freedom of one to whom speech is life's last boon, and the ear of the
+listener quite forgotten in the passion of confession long suppressed.
+
+"She has never loved me," he began, "but I have always loved her. For
+me no other woman has ever existed, though I was sixty-five years of age
+when I first saw her, and had long given up the idea that there lived
+a woman who could sway me from my even life and fixed lines of duty.
+Sixty-five! and she a youthful bride! Was there ever such folly! Happily
+I realized it from the first, and piled ashes on my hidden flame.
+Perhaps that is why I adore her to this day and only give her over to
+reprobation because Fate is stronger than my age--stronger even than my
+love.
+
+"She is not a good woman, but I might have been a good man if I had
+never known the sin which drew a line of isolation about her, and within
+which I, and only I, have stood with her in silent companionship.
+What was this sin, and in what did it have its beginning? I think its
+beginning was in the passion she had for her husband. It was not the
+every-day passion of her sex in this land of equable affections, but
+one of foreign fierceness, jealousy, and insatiable demand. Yet he was a
+very ordinary man. I was once his tutor and I know. She came to know it
+too, when--but I am rushing on too fast, I have much to tell before I
+reach that point.
+
+"From the first, I was in their confidence. Not that either he or she
+put me there, but that I lived with them and was always around, and
+could not help seeing and hearing what went on between them. Why he
+continued to want me in the house and at his table, when I could no
+longer be of service to him, I have never known. Possibly habit explains
+all. He was accustomed to my presence and so was she; so accustomed they
+hardly noticed it, as happened one night, when after a little attempt
+at conversation, he threw down the book he had caught up and, addressing
+her by name, said without a glance my way, and quite as if he were alone
+with her:
+
+"'Arabella, there is something I ought to tell you. I have tried to
+find the courage to do so many times before now but have always failed.
+Tonight I must.' And then he made his great disclosure,--how, unknown
+to, his friends and the world, he was a widower when he married her, and
+the father of a living child.
+
+"With some women this might have passed with a measure of regret, and
+some possible contempt for his silence, but not so with her. She rose
+to her feet--I can see her yet--and for a moment stood facing him in the
+still, overpowering manner of one who feels the icy pang of hate enter
+where love has been. Never was moment more charged. I could not breathe
+while it lasted; and when at last she spoke, it was with an impetuosity
+of concentrated passion, hardly less dreadful than her silence had been.
+
+"'You a father! A father already!' she cried, all her sweetness
+swallowed up in ungovernable wrath. 'You whom I expected to make so
+happy with a child? I curse you and your brat. I--'
+
+"He strove to placate her, to explain. But rage has no ears, and before
+I realized my own position, the scene became openly tempestuous. That
+her child should be second to another woman's seemed to awaken demon
+instincts within her. When he ventured to hint that his little girl
+needed a mother's care, her irony bit like corroding acid. He became
+speechless before it and had not a protest to raise when she declared
+that the secret he had kept so long and so successfully he must continue
+to keep to his dying day. That the child he had failed to own in his
+first wife's lifetime should remain disowned in hers, and if possible be
+forgotten. She should never give the girl a thought nor acknowledge her
+in any way.
+
+"She was Fury embodied; but the fury was of that grand order which
+allures rather than repels. As I felt myself succumbing to its
+fascination and beheld how he was weakening under it even more
+perceptibly than myself, I started from my chair, and sought to glide
+away before I should hear him utter a fatal acquiescence.
+
+"But the movement I made unfortunately drew their attention to me, and
+after an instant of silent contemplation of my distracted countenance,
+Frank said, as though he were the elder by the forty years which
+separated us:
+
+"'You have listened to Mrs. Postlethwaite's wishes. You will respect
+them of course.'"
+
+That was all. He knew and she knew that I was to be trusted; but neither
+of them has ever known why.
+
+A month later her child came, and was welcomed as though it were the
+first to bear his name. It was a boy, and their satisfaction was so
+great that I looked to see their old affection revive. But it had been
+cleft at the root, and nothing could restore it to life. They loved the
+child; I have never seen evidence of greater parental passion than they
+both displayed, but there their feelings stopped. Towards each other
+they were cold. They did not even unite in worship of their treasure.
+They gloated over him and planned for him, but always apart. He was a
+child in a thousand, and as he developed, the mother especially,
+nursed all her energies for the purpose of ensuring for him a future
+commensurate with his talents. Never a very conscientious woman, and
+alive to the advantages of wealth as demonstrated by the power wielded
+by her rich brother-in-law, she associated all the boy's prospects with
+money, great money, such money as Andrew had accumulated, and now had at
+his disposal for his natural heirs.
+
+"Hence came her great temptation,--a temptation to which she yielded, to
+the lasting trouble of us all. Of this I must now make confession though
+it kills me to do so, and will soon kill her. The deeds of the past
+do not remain buried, however deep we dig their graves, but rise in an
+awful resurrection when we are old--old--"
+
+Silence. Then a tremulous renewal of his painful speech.
+
+Violet held her breath to listen. Possibly the doctor, hidden in the
+darkest corner of the room, did so also.
+
+"I never knew how she became acquainted with the terms of her
+brother-in-law's will. He certainly never confided them to her, and as
+certainly the lawyer who drew up the document never did. But that she
+was well aware of its tenor is as positive a fact as that I am the most
+wretched man alive tonight. Otherwise, why the darksome deed into which
+she was betrayed when both the brothers lay dying among strangers, of a
+dreadful accident?"
+
+"I was witness to that deed. I had accompanied her on her hurried
+ride and was at her side when she entered the inn where the two
+Postlethwaites lay. I was always at her side in great joy or in great
+trouble, though she professed no affection for me and gave me but scanty
+thanks."
+
+"During our ride she had been silent and I had not disturbed that
+silence. I had much to think of. Should we find him living, or should
+we find him dead? If dead, would it sever the relations between us two?
+Would I ever ride with her again?"
+
+"When I was not dwelling on this theme, I was thinking of the parting
+look she gave her boy; a look which had some strange promise in it. What
+had that look meant and why did my flesh creep and my mind hover between
+dread and a fearsome curiosity when I recalled it? Alas! There was
+reason for all these sensations as I was soon to learn.
+
+"We found the inn seething with terror and the facts worse than had been
+represented in the telegram. Her husband was dying. She had come just in
+time to witness the end. This they told her before she had taken off
+her veil. If they had waited--if I had been given a full glimpse of her
+face--But it was hidden, and I could only judge of the nature of her
+emotions by the stern way in which she held herself.
+
+"'Take me to him,' was the quiet command, with which she met this
+disclosure. Then, before any of them could move:
+
+"'And his brother, Mr. Andrew Postlethwaite? Is he fatally injured too?'
+
+"The reply was unequivocal. The doctors were uncertain which of the two
+would pass away first.
+
+"You must remember that at this time I was ignorant of the rich man's
+will, and consequently of how the fate of a poor child of whom I had
+heard only one mention, hung in the balance at that awful moment. But in
+the breathlessness which seized Mrs. Postlethwaite at this sentence of
+double death, I realized from my knowledge of her that something more
+than grief was at prey upon her impenetrable heart, and shuddered to the
+core of my being when she repeated in that voice which was so terrible
+because so expressionless:
+
+"'Take me to them.'"
+
+They were lying in one room, her husband nearest the door, the other
+in a small alcove some ten feet away. Both were unconscious; both were
+surrounded by groups of frightened attendants who fell back as she
+approached. A doctor stood at the bed-head of her husband, but as her
+eye met his he stepped aside with a shake of the head and left the place
+empty for her.
+
+"The action was significant. I saw that she understood what it meant,
+and with constricted heart watched her as she bent over the dying
+man and gazed into his wide-open eyes, already sightless and staring.
+Calculation was in her look and calculation only; and calculation, or
+something equally unintelligible, sent her next glance in the
+direction of his brother. What was in her mind? I could understand
+her indifference to Frank even at the crisis of his fate, but not the
+interest she showed in Andrew. It was an absorbing one, altering her
+whole expression. I no longer knew her for my dear young madam, and the
+jealousy I had never felt towards Frank rose to frantic resentment in my
+breast as I beheld what very likely might be a tardy recognition of the
+other's well-known passion, forced into disclosure by the exigencies of
+the moment.
+
+"Alarmed by the strength of my feelings, and fearing an equal disclosure
+on my own part, I sought for a refuge from all eyes and found it in a
+little balcony opening out at my right. On to this balcony I stepped
+and found myself face to face with a star-lit heaven. Had I only been
+content with my isolation and the splendour of the spectacle spread out
+before me! But no, I must look back upon that bed and the solitary woman
+standing beside it! I must watch the settling of her body into rigidity
+as a voice rose from beside the other Postlethwaite saying, 'It is a
+matter of minutes now,' and then--and then--the slow creeping of her
+hand to her husband's mouth, the outspreading of her palm across the
+livid lips--its steady clinging there, smothering the feeble gasps of
+one already moribund, till the quivering form grew still, and Frank
+Postlethwaite lay dead before my eyes!
+
+"I saw, and made no outcry, but she did, bringing the doctor back to her
+side with the startled exclamation:
+
+"'Dead? I thought he had an hour's life left in him, and he has passed
+before his brother.'
+
+"I thought it hate--the murderous impulse of a woman who sees her
+enemy at her mercy and can no longer restrain the passion of her
+long-cherished antagonism; and while something within me rebelled at the
+act, I could not betray her, though silence made a murderer of me too.
+I could not. Her spell was upon me as in another instant it was upon
+everyone else in the room. No suspicion of one so self-repressed in
+her sadness disturbed the universal sympathy; and encouraged by this
+blindness of the crowd, I vowed within myself never to reveal her
+secret. The man was dead, or as good as dead, when she touched him; and
+now that her hate was expended she would grow gentle and good.
+
+"But I knew the worthlessness of this hope as well as my misconception
+of her motive, when Frank's child by another wife returned to my memory,
+and Bella's sin stood exposed."
+
+"But only to myself. I alone knew that the fortune now wholly hers, and
+in consequence her boy's, had been won by a crime. That if her hand had
+fallen in comfort on her husband's forehead instead of in pressure on
+his mouth, he would have outlived his brother long enough to have become
+owner of his millions; in which case a rightful portion would have been
+insured to his daughter, now left a penniless waif. The thought made my
+hair rise, as the proceedings over, I faced her and made my first and
+last effort to rid my conscience of its new and intolerable burden.
+
+"But the woman I had known and loved was no longer before me. The crown
+had touched her brows, and her charm which had been mainly sexual up to
+this hour had merged into an intellectual force, with which few men's
+mentality could cope. Mine yielded at once to it. From the first
+instant, I knew that a slavery of spirit, as well as of heart, was
+henceforth to be mine.
+
+"She did not wait for me to speak; she had assumed the dictator's
+attitude at once.
+
+"'I know of what you are thinking,'" said she, "'and it is a subject you
+may dismiss at once from your mind. Mr. Postlethwaite's child by his
+first wife is coming to live with us. I have expressed my wishes in this
+regard to my lawyer, and there is nothing left to be said. You, with
+your close mouth and dependable nature, are to remain here as before,
+and occupy the same position towards my boy that you did towards his
+father. We shall move soon into a larger house, and the nature of our
+duties will be changed and their scope greatly increased; but I know
+that you can be trusted to enlarge with them and meet every requirement
+I shall see fit to make. Do not try to express your thanks. I see them
+in your face.'
+
+"Did she, or just the last feeble struggle my conscience was making to
+break the bonds in which she held me, and win back my own respect? I
+shall never know, for she left me on completion of this speech, not to
+resume the subject, then or ever.
+
+"But though I succumbed outwardly to her demands, I had not passed the
+point where inner conflict ends and peace begins. Her recognition of
+Helena and her reception into the family calmed me for a while, and gave
+me hope that all would yet be well. But I had never sounded the full
+bitterness of madam's morbid heart, well as I thought I knew it. The
+hatred she had felt from the first for her husband's child ripened into
+frenzied dislike when she found her a living image of the mother whose
+picture she had come across among Frank's personal effects. To win a
+tear from those meek eyes instead of a smile to the sensitive lips was
+her daily play. She seemed to exult in the joy of impressing upon the
+girl by how little she had missed a great fortune, and I have often
+thought, much as I tried to keep my mind free from all extravagant and
+unnecessary fancies, that half of the money she spent in beautifying
+this house and maintaining art industries and even great charitable
+institutions was spent with the base purpose of demonstrating to this
+child the power of immense wealth, and in what ways she might expect to
+see her little brother expend the millions in which she had been denied
+all share.
+
+"I was so sure of this that one night while I was winding up the clocks
+with which Mrs. Postlethwaite in her fondness for old timepieces has
+filled the house, I stopped to look at the little figure toiling so
+wearily upstairs, to bed, without a mother's kiss. There was an appeal
+in the small wistful face which smote my hard old heart, and possibly a
+tear welled up in my own eye when I turned back to my duty."
+
+"Was that why I felt the hand of Providence upon me, when in my
+halt before the one clock to which any superstitious interest was
+attached--the great one at the foot of the stairs--I saw that it had
+stopped and at the one minute of all minutes in our wretched lives: Four
+minutes past two? The hour, the minute in which Frank Postlethwaite had
+gasped his last under the pressure of his wife's hand! I knew it--the
+exact minute I mean--because Providence meant that I should know it.
+There had been a clock on the mantelpiece of the hotel room where he and
+his brother had died and I had seen her glance steal towards it at the
+instant she withdrew her palm from her husband's lips. The stare of
+that dial and the position of its hands had lived still in my mind as I
+believed it did in hers.
+
+"Four minutes past two! How came our old timepiece here to stop at that
+exact moment on a day when Duty was making its last demand upon me to
+remember Frank's unhappy child? There was no one to answer; but as I
+looked and looked, I felt the impulse of the moment strengthen into
+purpose to leave those hands undisturbed in their silent accusation. She
+might see, and, moved by the coincidence, tremble at her treatment of
+Helena.
+
+"But if this happened--if she saw and trembled--she gave no sign. The
+works were started up by some other hand, and the incident passed.
+But it left me with an idea. That clock soon had a way of stopping and
+always at that one instant of time. She was forced at length to notice
+it, and I remember, an occasion when she stood stock-still with her eyes
+on those hands, and failed to find the banister with her hand, though
+she groped for it in her frantic need for support.
+
+"But no command came from her to remove the worn-out piece, and soon its
+tricks, and every lesser thing, were forgotten in the crushing calamity
+which befell us in the sickness and death of little Richard.
+
+"Oh, those days and nights! And oh, the face of the mother when the
+doctors told her that the case was hopeless! I asked myself then, and I
+have asked myself a hundred times since, which of all the emotions I saw
+pictured there bit the deepest, and made the most lasting impression
+on her guilty heart? Was it remorse? If so, she showed no change in her
+attitude towards Helena, unless it was by an added bitterness. The sweet
+looks and gentle ways of Frank's young daughter could not win against a
+hate sharpened by disappointment. Useless for me to hope for it. Release
+from the remorse of years was not to come in that way. As I realized
+this, I grew desperate and resorted again to the old trick of stopping
+the clock at the fatal hour. This time her guilty heart responded. She
+acknowledged the stab and let all her miseries appear. But how? In a way
+to wring my heart almost to madness, and not benefit the child at all.
+She had her first stroke that night. I had made her a helpless invalid.
+
+"That was eight years ago, and since then what? Stagnation. She lived
+with her memories, and I with mine. Helena only had a right to hope,
+and hope perhaps she did, till--Is that the great clock talking? Listen!
+They all talk, but I heed only the one. What does it say? Tell! tell!
+tell! Does it think I will be silent now when I come to my own guilt?
+That I will seek to hide my weakness when I could not hide her sin?"
+
+"Explain!" It was Violet speaking, and her tone was stern in its
+command. "Of what guilt do you speak? Not of guilt towards Helena; you
+pitied her too much--"
+
+"But I pitied my dear madam more. It was that which affected me and
+drew me into crime against my will. Besides, I did not know--not at
+first--what was in the little bowl of curds and cream I carried to the
+girl each day. She had eaten them in her step-mother's room, and under
+her step-mother's eye as long as she had strength to pass from room
+to room, and how was I to guess that it was not wholesome? Because
+she failed in health from day to day? Was not my dear madam failing in
+health also; and was there poison in her cup? Innocent at that time, why
+am I not innocent now? Because--Oh, I will tell it all; as though at the
+bar of God. I will tell all the secrets of that day.
+
+"She was sitting with her hand trembling on the tray from which I had
+just lifted the bowl she had bid me carry to Helena. I had seen her so
+a hundred times before, but not with just that look in her eyes, or just
+that air of desolation in her stony figure. Something made me speak;
+something made me ask if she were not quite so well as usual, and
+something made her reply with the dreadful truth that the doctor had
+given her just two months more to live. My fright and mad anguish
+stupefied me; for I was not prepared for this, no, not at all;--and
+unconsciously I stared down at the bowl I held, unable to breathe or
+move or even to meet her look."
+
+As usual she misinterpreted my emotion.
+
+"'Why do you stand like that?' I heard her say in a tone of great
+irritation. 'And why do you stare into that bowl? Do you think I mean
+to leave that child to walk these halls after I am carried out of them
+forever? Do you measure my hate by such a petty yard-stick as that? I
+tell you that I would rot above ground rather than enter it before she
+did?'
+
+"I had believed I knew this woman; but what soul ever knows another's?
+What soul ever knows itself?
+
+"'Bella!' I cried; the first time I had ever presumed to address her
+so intimately. 'Would you poison the girl?' And from sheer weakness my
+fingers lost their clutch, and the bowl fell to the floor, breaking into
+a dozen pieces.
+
+"For a minute she stared down at these from over her tray, and then she
+remarked very low and very quietly:
+
+"'Another bowl, Humphrey, and fresh curds from the kitchen. I will do
+the seasoning. The doses are too small to be skipped. You won't?'--I had
+shaken my head--'But you will! It will not be the first time you have
+gone down the hall with this mixture.'
+
+"'But that was before I knew--' I began.
+
+"'And now that you do, you will go just the same.' Then as I stood
+hesitating, a thousand memories overwhelming me in an instant, she added
+in a voice to tear the heart, 'Do not make me hate the only being left
+in this world who understands and loves me.'
+
+"She was a helpless invalid, and I a broken man, but when that word
+'love' fell from her lips, I felt the blood start burning in my veins,
+and all the crust of habit and years of self-control loosen about my
+heart, and make me young again. What if her thoughts were dark and her
+wishes murderous! She was born to rule and sway men to her will even to
+their own undoing."
+
+"'I wish I might kiss your hand,' was what I murmured, gazing at her
+white fingers groping over her tray.
+
+"'You may,' she answered, and hell became heaven to me for a brief
+instant. Then I lifted myself and went obediently about my task.
+
+"But puppet though I was, I was not utterly without sympathy. When I
+entered Helena's room and saw how her startled eyes fell shrinkingly on
+the bowl I set down before her, my conscience leaped to life and I could
+not help saying:
+
+"'Don't you like the curds, Helena? Your brother used to love them very
+much.'
+
+"'His were--'
+
+"'What, Helena?'
+
+"'What these are not,' she murmured.
+
+"I stared at her, terror-stricken. So she knew, and yet did not seize
+the bowl and empty it out of the window! Instead, her hand moved slowly
+towards it and drew it into place before her.
+
+"'Yet I must eat,' she said, lifting her eyes to mine in a sort of
+patient despair, which yet was without accusation.
+
+"But my hand had instinctively gone to hers and grasped it.
+
+"'Why must you eat it?' I asked. 'If--if you do not find it wholesome,
+why do you touch it?'
+
+"'Because my step-mother expects me to,' she cried, 'and I have no other
+will than hers. When I was a little, little child, my father made me
+promise that if I ever came to live with her I would obey her simplest
+wish. And I always have. I will not disappoint the trust he put in me.'
+
+"'Even if you die of it?'
+
+"I do not know whether I whispered these words or only thought them. She
+answered as though I had spoken.
+
+"'I am not afraid to die. I am more afraid to live. She may ask me some
+day to do something I feel to be wrong.'
+
+"When I fled down the hall that night, I heard one of the small clocks
+speak to me. Tell! it cried, tell! tell! tell! tell! I rushed away from
+it with beaded forehead and rising hair.
+
+"Then another's note piped up. No it droned. No! no! no! no! I stopped
+and took heart. Disgrace the woman I loved, on the brink of the
+grave? I--, who asked no other boon from heaven than to see her happy,
+gracious, and good? Impossible. I would obey the great clock's voice;
+the others were mere chatterboxes.
+
+"But it has at last changed its tune, for some reason, quite changed
+its tune. Now, it is Yes! Yes! instead of No! and in obeying it I save
+Helena. But what of Bella? and O God, what of myself?"
+
+A sigh, a groan, then a long and heavy silence, into which there finally
+broke the pealing of the various clocks striking the hour. When all were
+still again and Violet had drawn aside the portiere, it was to see
+the old man on his knees, and between her and the thin streak of light
+entering from the hall, the figure of the doctor hastening to Helena's
+bedside.
+
+When with inducements needless to name, they finally persuaded the young
+girl to leave her unholy habitation, it was in the arms which had upheld
+her once before, and to a life which promised to compensate her for her
+twenty years of loneliness and unsatisfied longing.
+
+But a black shadow yet remained which she must cross before reaching the
+sunshine!
+
+It lay at her step-mother's door.
+
+In the plans made for Helena's release, Mrs. Postlethwaite's consent
+had not been obtained nor was she supposed to be acquainted with
+the doctor's intentions towards the child whose death she was hourly
+awaiting.
+
+It was therefore with an astonishment, bordering on awe, that on their
+way downstairs, they saw the door of her room open and herself standing
+alone and upright on the threshold--she who had not been seen to take a
+step in years. In the wonder of this miracle of suddenly restored power,
+the little procession stopped,--the doctor with his hand upon the rail,
+the lover with his burden clasped yet more protectingly to his breast.
+That a little speech awaited them could be seen from the force and
+fury of the gaze which the indomitable woman bent upon the lax and
+half-unconscious figure she beheld thus sheltered and conveyed. Having
+but one arrow left in her exhausted quiver, she launched it straight
+at the innocent breast which had never harboured against her a defiant
+thought.
+
+"Ingrate!" was the word she hurled in a voice from which all its
+seductive music had gone forever. "Where are you going? Are they
+carrying you alive to your grave?"
+
+A moan from Helena's pale lips, then silence. She had fainted at that
+barbed attack. But there was one there who dared to answer for her and
+he spoke relentlessly. It was the man who loved her.
+
+"No, madam. We are carrying her to safety. You must know what I mean by
+that. Let her go quietly and you may die in peace. Otherwise--"
+
+She interrupted him with a loud call, startling into life the echoes of
+that haunted hall:
+
+"Humphrey! Come to me, Humphrey!"
+
+But no Humphrey appeared.
+
+Another call, louder and more peremptory than before:
+
+"Humphrey! I say, Humphrey!"
+
+But the answer was the same--silence, and only silence. As the horror of
+this grew, the doctor spoke:
+
+"Mr. Humphrey Dunbar's ears are closed to all earthly summons. He died
+last night at the very hour he said he would--four minutes after two."
+
+"Four minutes after two!" It came from her lips in a whisper, but with
+a revelation of her broken heart and life. "Four minutes after two!"
+And defiant to the last, her head rose, and for an instant, for a mere
+breath of time, they saw her as she had looked in her prime, regal in
+form, attitude, and expression; then the will which had sustained her
+through so much, faltered and succumbed, and with a final reiteration of
+the words "Four minutes after two!" she broke into a rattling laugh, and
+fell back into the arms of her old nurse.
+
+And below, one clock struck the hour and then another. But not the big
+one at the foot of the stairs. That still stood silent, with its hands
+pointing to the hour and minute of Frank Postlethwaite's hastened death.
+
+END OF PROBLEM VI
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM VII. THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK
+
+Violet had gone to her room. She had a task before her. That afternoon,
+a packet had been left at the door, which, from a certain letter
+scribbled in one corner, she knew to be from her employer. The contents
+of that packet must be read, and she had made herself comfortable with
+the intention of setting to work at once. But ten o'clock struck and
+then eleven before she could bring herself to give any attention to the
+manuscript awaiting her perusal. In her present mood, a quiet sitting by
+the fire, with her eyes upon the changeful flame, was preferable to the
+study of any affair her employer might send her. Yet, because she was
+conscious of the duty she thus openly neglected, she sat crouched over
+her desk with her hand on the mysterious packet, the string of which,
+however, she made no effort to loosen.
+
+What was she thinking of?
+
+We are not alone in our curiosity on this subject. Her brother Arthur,
+coming unperceived into the room, gives tokens of a similar interest.
+Never before had he seen her oblivious to an approaching step; and after
+a momentary contemplation of her absorbed figure, so girlishly sweet
+and yet so deeply intent, he advances to her side, and peering earnestly
+into her face, observes with a seriousness quite unusual to him:
+
+"Puss, you are looking worried,--not like yourself at all. I've noticed
+it for some time. What's up. Getting tired of the business?"
+
+"No--not altogether--that is, it's not that, if it's anything. I'm not
+sure that it's anything. I--"
+
+She had turned back to her desk and was pushing about the various
+articles with which it was plentifully bespread; but this did not
+hide the flush which had crept into her cheeks and even dyed the snowy
+whiteness of her neck. Arthur's astonishment at this evidence of
+emotion was very great; but he said nothing, only watched her still more
+closely, as with a light laugh she regained her self-possession, and
+with the practical air of a philosopher uttered this trite remark:
+
+"Everyone has his sober moments. I was only thinking--"
+
+"Of some new case?"
+
+"Not exactly." The words came softly but with a touch of mingled humour
+and gravity which made Arthur stare again.
+
+"See here, Puss!" he cried. His tone had changed. "I've just come up
+from the den. Father and I have had a row--a beastly row."
+
+"A row? You and father? Oh, Arthur, I don't like that. Don't quarrel
+with father. Don't, don't. Some day he and I may have a serious
+difference about what I am doing. Don't let him feel that he has lost us
+all."
+
+"That's all right, Puss; but I've got to think of you a bit. I can't
+see you spoil all your good times with these police horrors and not
+do something to help. To-morrow I begin life as a salesman in Clarke &
+Stebbin's. The salary is not great, but every little helps and I don't
+dislike the business. But father does. He had rather see me loafing
+about town setting the fashions for fellows as idle as myself than soil
+my hands with handling merchandise. That's why we quarreled. But don't
+worry. Your name didn't come up, or--or--you know whose. He hasn't an
+idea of why I want to work--There, Violet there!"
+
+Two soft arms were around his neck and Violet was letting her heart out
+in a succession of sisterly kisses.
+
+"O, Arthur, you good, good boy! Together we'll soon make up the amount,
+and then--"
+
+"Then what?"
+
+A sweet soft look robbed her face of its piquancy, but gave it an aspect
+of indescribable beauty quite new to Arthur's eyes.
+
+Tapping his lips with a thoughtful forefinger, he asked:
+
+"Who was that sombre-looking chap I saw bowing to you as we came out of
+church last Sunday?"
+
+She awoke from her dreamy state with an astonishing quickness.
+
+"He? Surely you remember him. Have you forgotten that evening in
+Massachusetts--the grotto--and--"
+
+"Oh, it's Upjohn, is it? Yes, I remember him. He's fond of church, isn't
+he? That is, when he's in New York."
+
+Her lips took a roguish curve then a very serious one; but she made no
+answer.
+
+"I have noticed that he's always in his seat and always looking your
+way."
+
+"That's very odd of him," she declared, her dimples coming and going in
+a most bewildering fashion. "I can't imagine why he should do that."
+
+"Nor I,--" retorted Arthur with a smile. "But he's human, I suppose.
+Only do be careful, Violet. A man so melancholy will need a deal of
+cheering."
+
+He was gone before he had fully finished this daring remark, and Violet,
+left again with her thoughts, lost her glowing colour but not her
+preoccupation. The hand which lay upon the packet already alluded to did
+not move for many minutes, and when she roused at last to the demands
+of her employer, it was with a start and a guilty look at the small gold
+clock ticking out its inexorable reminder.
+
+"He will want an answer the first thing in the morning," she complained
+to herself. And opening the packet, she took out first a letter, and
+then a mass of typewritten manuscript.
+
+She began with the letter which was as characteristic of the writer as
+all the others she had had from his hand; as witness:
+
+You probably remember the Hasbrouck murder,--or, perhaps, you don't;
+it being one of a time previous to your interest in such matters. But
+whether you remember it or not, I beg you to read the accompanying
+summary with due care and attention to business. When you have well
+mastered it with all its details, please communicate with me in any
+manner most convenient to yourself, for I shall have a word to say to
+you then, which you may be glad to hear, if as you have lately intimated
+you need to earn but one or two more substantial rewards in order to
+cry halt to the pursuit for which you have proved yourself so well
+qualified.
+
+The story, in deference to yourself as a young and much preoccupied
+woman, has been written in a way to interest. Though the work of an
+everyday police detective, you will find in it no lack of mystery or
+romance; and if at the end you perceive that it runs, as such cases
+frequently do, up against a perfectly blank wall, you must remember that
+openings can be made in walls, and that the loosening of one weak stone
+from its appointed place, sometimes leads to the downfall of all.
+
+So much for the letter.
+
+Laying it aside, with a shrug of her expressive shoulders, Violet took
+up the manuscript.
+
+Let us take it up too. It runs thus:
+
+On the 17th of July, 19--, a tragedy of no little interest occurred in
+one of the residences of the Colonnade in Lafayette Place.
+
+Mr. Hasbrouck, a well known and highly respected citizen, was attacked
+in his room by an unknown assailant, and shot dead before assistance
+could reach him. His murderer escaped, and the problem offered to the
+police was how to identify this person who, by some happy chance or
+by the exercise of the most remarkable forethought, had left no traces
+behind him, or any clue by which he could be followed.
+
+The details of the investigation which ended so unsatisfactorily are
+here given by the man sent from headquarters at the first alarm.
+
+When, some time after midnight on the date above mentioned, I reached
+Lafayette Place, I found the block lighted from end to end. Groups of
+excited men and women peered from the open doorways, and mingled their
+shadows with those of the huge pillars which adorn the front of this
+picturesque block of dwellings.
+
+The house in which the crime had been committed was near the centre of
+the row, and, long before I reached it, I had learned from more than one
+source that the alarm was first given to the street by a woman's shriek,
+and secondly by the shouts of an old man-servant who had appeared, in
+a half-dressed condition, at the window of Mr. Hasbrouck's room, crying
+"Murder! murder!"
+
+But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity
+of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves. The old servant, who
+was the first to talk, had only this account of the crime to give:
+
+The family, which consisted of Mr. Hasbrouck, his wife, and three
+servants, had retired for the night at the usual hour and under the
+usual auspices. At eleven o'clock the lights were all extinguished, and
+the whole household asleep, with the possible exception of Mr. Hasbrouck
+himself, who, being a man of large business responsibilities, was
+frequently troubled with insomnia.
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Hasbrouck woke with a start. Had she dreamed the words
+that were ringing in her ears, or had they been actually uttered in her
+hearing? They were short, sharp words, full of terror and menace, and
+she had nearly satisfied herself that she had imagined them, when there
+came, from somewhere near the door, a sound she neither understood nor
+could interpret, but which filled her with inexplicable terror, and made
+her afraid to breathe, or even to stretch forth her hand towards her
+husband, whom she supposed to be sleeping at her side. At length another
+strange sound, which she was sure was not due to her imagination, drove
+her to make an attempt to rouse him, when she was horrified to find that
+she was alone in bed, and her husband nowhere within reach.
+
+Filled now with something more than nervous apprehension, she flung
+herself to the floor, and tried to penetrate with frenzied glances,
+the surrounding darkness. But the blinds and shutters both having
+been carefully closed by Mr. Hasbrouck before retiring, she found this
+impossible, and she was about to sink in terror to the floor, when she
+heard a low gasp on the other side of the room followed by a suppressed
+cry.
+
+"God! what have I done!"
+
+The voice was a strange one, but before the fear aroused by this
+fact could culminate in a shriek of dismay, she caught the sound of
+retreating footsteps, and, eagerly listening, she heard them descend the
+stairs and depart by the front door.
+
+Had she known what had occurred--had there been no doubt in her mind as
+to what lay in the darkness on the other side of the room--it is likely
+that, at the noise caused by the closing front door, she would have made
+at once for the balcony that opened out from the window before which
+she was standing, and taken one look at the flying figure below. But her
+uncertainty as to what lay hidden from her by the darkness chained her
+feet to the floor, and there is no knowing when she would have moved, if
+a carriage had not at that moment passed down Astor Place, bringing with
+it a sense of companionship which broke the spell holding her, and gave
+her strength to light the gas which was in ready reach of her hand.
+
+As the sudden blaze illuminated the room, revealing in a burst the old
+familiar walls and well-known pieces of furniture, she felt for a moment
+as if released from some heavy nightmare and restored to the common
+experiences of life. But in another instant her former dread returned,
+and she found herself quaking at the prospect of passing around the foot
+of the bed into that part of the room which was as yet hidden from her
+eyes.
+
+But the desperation which comes with great crises finally drove her from
+her retreat; and, creeping slowly forward, she cast one glance at the
+floor before her, when she found her worst fears realized by the sight
+of the dead body of her husband lying prone before the open doorway,
+with a bullet-hole in his forehead.
+
+Her first impulse was to shriek, but, by a powerful exercise of will,
+she checked herself, and ringing frantically for the servants who
+slept on the top floor of the house, flew to the nearest window and
+endeavoured to open it. But the shutters had been bolted so securely by
+Mr. Hasbrouck, in his endeavour to shut out all light and sound, that by
+the time she had succeeded in unfastening them, all trace of the flying
+murderer had vanished from the street.
+
+Sick with grief and terror, she stepped back into the room just as the
+three frightened servants descended the stairs. As they appeared in the
+open doorway, she pointed at her husband's inanimate form, and then, as
+if suddenly realizing in its full force the calamity which had befallen
+her, she threw up her arms, and sank forward to the floor in a dead
+faint.
+
+The two women rushed to her assistance, but the old butler, bounding
+over the bed, sprang to the window, and shrieked his alarm to the
+street.
+
+In the interim that followed, Mrs. Hasbrouck was revived, and the
+master's body laid decently on the bed; but no pursuit was made, nor any
+inquiries started likely to assist me in establishing the identity of
+the assailant.
+
+Indeed, everyone both in the house and out, seemed dazed by the
+unexpected catastrophe, and as no one had any suspicions to offer as to
+the probable murderer, I had a difficult task before me.
+
+I began in the usual way, by inspecting the scene of the murder. I found
+nothing in the room, or in the condition of the body itself, which added
+an iota to the knowledge already obtained. That Mr. Hasbrouck had been
+in bed; that he had risen upon hearing a noise; and that he had been
+shot before reaching the door, were self-evident facts. But there was
+nothing to guide me further. The very simplicity of the circumstances
+caused a dearth of clues, which made the difficulty of procedure as
+great as any I had ever encountered.
+
+My search through the hall and down the stairs elicited nothing; and
+an investigation of the bolts and bars by which the house was secured,
+assured me that the assassin had either entered by the front door, or
+had already been secreted in the house when it was locked up for the
+night.
+
+"I shall have to trouble Mrs. Hasbrouck for a short interview," I
+hereupon announced to the trembling old servant, who had followed me
+like a dog about the house.
+
+He made no demur, and in a few minutes I was ushered into the presence
+of the newly made widow, who sat quite alone, in a large chamber in
+the rear. As I crossed the threshold she looked up, and I encountered a
+good, plain face, without the shadow of guile in it.
+
+"Madam," said I, "I have not come to disturb you. I will ask two or
+three questions only, and then leave you to your grief. I am told that
+some words came from the assassin before he delivered his fatal shot.
+Did you hear these distinctly enough to tell me what they were?"
+
+"I was sound asleep," said she, "and dreamt, as I thought, that a
+fierce, strange voice cried somewhere to some one: 'Ah! you did not
+expect me!' But I dare not say that these words were really uttered to
+my husband, for he was not the man to call forth hate, and only a man
+in the extremity of passion could address such an exclamation in such a
+tone as rings in my memory in connection with the fatal shot which woke
+me."
+
+"But that shot was not the work of a friend," I argued. "If, as these
+words seem to prove, the assassin had some other motive than plunder in
+his assault, then your husband had an enemy, though you never suspected
+it."
+
+"Impossible!" was her steady reply, uttered in the most convincing tone.
+"The man who shot him was a common burglar, and frightened at having
+been betrayed into murder, fled without looking for booty. I am sure I
+heard him cry out in terror and remorse: 'God! what have I done!'"
+
+"Was that before you left the side of the bed?"
+
+"Yes; I did not move from my place till I heard the front door close. I
+was paralysed by fear and dread."
+
+"Are you in the habit of trusting to the security of a latch-lock only
+in the fastening of your front door at night? I am told that the big key
+was not in the lock, and that the bolt at the bottom of the door was not
+drawn."
+
+"The bolt at the bottom of the door is never drawn. Mr. Hasbrouck was
+so good a man that he never mistrusted any one. That is why the big lock
+was not fastened. The key, not working well, he took it some days ago to
+the locksmith, and when the latter failed to return it, he laughed,
+and said he thought no one would ever think of meddling with his front
+door."
+
+"Is there more than one night-key to your house?" I now asked.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"And when did Mr. Hasbrouck last use his?"
+
+"To-night, when he came home from prayer meeting," she answered, and
+burst into tears.
+
+Her grief was so real and her loss so recent that I hesitated to afflict
+her by further questions. So returning to the scene of the tragedy, I
+stepped out upon the balcony which ran in front. Soft voices instantly
+struck my ears. The neighbours on either side were grouped in front of
+their own windows, and were exchanging the remarks natural under the
+circumstances. I paused, as in duty bound, and listened. But I heard
+nothing worth recording, and would have instantly reentered the house,
+if I had not been impressed by the appearance of a very graceful woman
+who stood at my right. She was clinging to her husband, who was gazing
+at one of the pillars before him in a strange fixed way which astonished
+me till he attempted to move, and then I saw that he was blind.
+I remembered that there lived in this row a blind doctor, equally
+celebrated for his skill and for his uncommon personal attractions,
+and greatly interested not only by his affliction, but in the sympathy
+evinced by his young and affectionate wife, I stood still, till I heard
+her say in the soft and appealing tones of love:
+
+"Come in, Constant; you have heavy duties for to-morrow, and you should
+get a few hours' rest if possible."
+
+He came from the shadow of the pillar, and for one minute I saw his face
+with the lamplight shining full upon it. It was as regular of feature as
+a sculptured Adonis, and it was as white.
+
+"Sleep!" he repeated, in the measured tones of deep but suppressed
+feeling. "Sleep! with murder on the other side of the wall!" And he
+stretched out his arms in a dazed way that insensibly accentuated the
+horror I myself felt of the crime which had so lately taken place in the
+room behind me.
+
+She, noting the movement, took one of the groping hands in her own and
+drew him gently towards her.
+
+"This way," she urged; and, guiding him into the house, she closed the
+window and drew down the shades.
+
+I have no excuse to offer for my curiosity, but the interest excited in
+me by this totally irrelevant episode was so great that I did not
+leave the neighbourhood till I had learned something of this remarkable
+couple.
+
+The story told me was very simple. Dr. Zabriskie had not been born
+blind, but had become so after a grievous illness which had stricken
+him down soon after he received his diploma. Instead of succumbing to an
+affliction which would have daunted most men, he expressed his intention
+of practising his profession, and soon became so successful in it that
+he found no difficulty in establishing himself in one of the best paying
+quarters of the city. Indeed, his intuition seemed to have developed in
+a remarkable degree after the loss of his sight, and he seldom, if ever,
+made a mistake in diagnosis. Considering this fact, and the personal
+attractions which gave him distinction, it was no wonder that he soon
+became a popular physician whose presence was a benefaction and whose
+word law.
+
+He had been engaged to be married at the time of his illness, and when
+he learned what was likely to be its result, had offered to release the
+young lady from all obligation to him. But she would not be released,
+and they were married. This had taken place some five years previous
+to Mr. Hasbrouck's death, three of which had been spent by them in
+Lafayette Place.
+
+So much for the beautiful woman next door.
+
+There being absolutely no clue to the assailant of Mr. Hasbrouck, I
+naturally looked forward to the inquest for some evidence upon which to
+work. But there seemed to be no underlying facts to this tragedy. The
+most careful study into the habits and conduct of the deceased brought
+nothing to light save his general beneficence and rectitude, nor was
+there in his history or in that of his wife, any secret or hidden
+obligation calculated to provoke any such act of revenge as murder. Mrs.
+Hasbrouck's surmise that the intruder was simply a burglar, and that she
+had rather imagined than heard the words which pointed to the shooting
+as a deed of vengeance, soon gained general credence.
+
+But though the police worked long and arduously in this new direction
+their efforts were without fruit and the case bids fair to remain an
+unsolvable mystery.
+
+That was all. As Violet dropped the last page from her hand, she
+recalled a certain phrase in her employer's letter. "If at the end you
+come upon a perfectly blank wall--" Well, she had come upon this wall.
+Did he expect her to make an opening in it? Or had he already done so
+himself, and was merely testing her much vaunted discernment.
+
+Piqued by the thought, she carefully reread the manuscript, and when she
+had again reached its uncompromising end, she gave herself up to a few
+minutes of concentrated thought, then, taking a sheet of paper from the
+rack before her, she wrote upon it a single sentence, and folding the
+sheet, put it in an envelope which she left unaddressed. This done, she
+went to bed and slept like the child she really was.
+
+At an early hour the next morning she entered her employer's office.
+Acknowledging with a nod his somewhat ceremonious bow, she handed him
+the envelope in which she had enclosed that one mysterious sentence.
+
+He took it with a smile, opened it offhand, glanced at what she had
+written, and flushed a vivid red.
+
+"You are a--brick," he was going to say, but changed the last word to
+one more in keeping with her character and appearance. "Look here. I
+expected this from you and so prepared myself." Taking out a similar
+piece of paper from his own pocket-book, he laid it down beside hers
+on the desk before him. It also held a single sentence and, barring
+a slight difference of expression, the one was the counterpart of the
+other. "The one loose stone," he murmured.
+
+"Seen and noted by both."
+
+"Why not?" he asked. Then as she glanced expectantly his way, he
+earnestly added: "Together we may be able to do something. The reward
+offered by Mrs. Hasbrouck for the detection of the murderer was a very
+large one. She is a woman of means. I have never heard of its being
+withdrawn."
+
+"Then it never has been," was Violet's emphatic conclusion, her dimples
+enforcing the statement as only such dimples can. "But--what do you want
+of me in an affair of this kind? Something more than to help you locate
+the one possible clue to further enlightenment. You would not have
+mentioned the big reward just for that."
+
+"Perhaps not. There is a sequel to the story I sent you. I have written
+it out, with my own hand. Take it home and read it at your leisure. When
+you see into what an unhappy maze my own inquiries have led me, possibly
+you will be glad to assist me in clearing up a situation which is
+inflicting great suffering on one whom you will be the first to pity.
+If so, a line mentioning the fact will be much appreciated by me." And
+disregarding her startled look and the impetuous shaking of her head, he
+bowed her out with something more than his accustomed suavity but
+also with a seriousness which affected her in spite of herself and
+effectually held back the protest it was in her heart to make. She was
+glad of this when she read his story; but later on--
+
+However, it is not for me to intrude Violet, or Violet's feelings into
+an affair which she is so anxious to forget. I shall therefore from
+this moment on, leave her as completely out of this tale of crime and
+retribution as is possible and keep a full record of her work. When she
+is necessary to the story, you will see her again. Meanwhile, read
+with her, this relation of her employer's unhappy attempt to pursue an
+investigation so openly dropped by the police. You will perceive, from
+its general style and the accentuation put upon the human side of this
+sombre story, a likeness to the former manuscript which may prove to
+you, as it certainly did to Violet, to whose consideration she was
+indebted for the readableness of the policeman's report, which in all
+probability had been a simple statement of facts.
+
+But there, I am speaking of Violet again. To prevent a further mischance
+of this nature, I will introduce at once the above mentioned account.
+
+II
+
+No man in all New York was ever more interested than myself in the
+Hasbrouck affair, when it was the one and only topic of interest at
+a period when news was unusually scarce. But, together with many such
+inexplicable mysteries, it had passed almost completely from my mind,
+when it was forcibly brought back, one day, by a walk I took through
+Lafayette Place.
+
+At sight of the long row of uniform buildings, with their pillared
+fronts and connecting balconies every detail of the crime which had
+filled the papers at the time with innumerable conjectures returned to
+me with extraordinary clearness, and, before I knew it, I found myself
+standing stockstill in the middle of the block with my eye raised to the
+Hasbrouck house and my ears--or rather my inner consciousness, for no
+one spoke I am sure--ringing with a question which, whether the echo of
+some old thought or the expression of a new one, so affected me by the
+promise it held of some hitherto unsuspected clue, that I hesitated
+whether to push this new inquiry then or there by an attempted interview
+with Mrs. Hasbrouck, or to wait till I had given it the thought which
+such a stirring of dead bones rightfully demanded.
+
+You know what that question was. I shall have communicated it to you, if
+you have not already guessed it, before perusing these lines:
+
+"Who uttered the scream which gave the first alarm of Mr. Hasbrouck's
+violent death?"
+
+I was in a state of such excitement as I walked away--for I listened
+to my better judgment as to the inadvisability of my disturbing Mrs.
+Hasbrouck with these new inquiries--that the perspiration stood out on
+my forehead. The testimony she had given at the inquest recurred to me,
+and I remembered as distinctly as if she were then speaking, that she
+had expressly stated that she did not scream when confronted by the
+sight of her husband's dead body. But someone had screamed and that
+very loudly. Who was it, then? One of the maids, startled by the sudden
+summons from below, or someone else--some involuntary witness of the
+crime, whose testimony had been suppressed at the inquest, by fear or
+influence?
+
+The possibility of having come upon a clue even at this late day so
+fired my ambition that I took the first opportunity of revisiting
+Lafayette Place. Choosing such persons as I thought most open to my
+questions, I learned that there were many who could testify to having
+heard a woman's shrill scream on that memorable night, just prior to the
+alarm given by old Cyrus, but no one who could tell from whose lips it
+had come. One fact, however, was immediately settled. It had not been
+the result of the servant-women's fears. Both of the girls were positive
+that they had uttered no sound, nor had they themselves heard any
+till Cyrus rushed to the window with his wild cries. As the scream,
+by whomever given, was uttered before they descended the stairs, I was
+convinced by these assurances that it had issued from one of the front
+windows, and not from the rear of the house, where their own rooms lay.
+Could it be that it had sprung from the adjoining dwelling, and that--
+
+I remembered who had lived there and was for ringing the bell at once.
+But, missing the doctor's sign, I made inquiries and found that he had
+moved from the block. However, a doctor is soon found, and in less than
+fifteen, minutes I was at the door of his new home, where I asked, not
+for him, but for Mrs. Zabriskie.
+
+It required some courage to do this, for I had taken particular notice
+of the doctor's wife at the inquest, and her beauty, at that time, had
+worn such an aspect of mingled sweetness and dignity that I hesitated
+to encounter it under any circumstances likely to disturb its pure
+serenity. But a clue once grasped cannot be lightly set aside by a true
+detective, and it would have taken more than a woman's frowns to stop me
+at this point.
+
+However, it was not with frowns she received me, but with a display of
+emotion for which I was even less prepared. I had sent up my card and I
+saw it trembling in her hand as she entered the room. As she neared me,
+she glanced at it, and with a show of gentle indifference which did not
+in the least disguise her extreme anxiety, she courteously remarked:
+
+"Your name is an unfamiliar one to me. But you told my maid that your
+business was one of extreme importance, and so I have consented to see
+you. What can an agent from a private detective office have to say to
+me?"
+
+Startled by this evidence of the existence of some hidden skeleton in
+her own closet, I made an immediate attempt to reassure her.
+
+"Nothing which concerns you personally," said I. "I simply wish to
+ask you a question in regard to a small matter connected with Mr.
+Hasbrouck's violent death in Lafayette Place, a couple of years ago.
+You were living in the adjoining house at the time I believe, and it has
+occurred to me that you might on that account be able to settle a point
+which has never been fully cleared up."
+
+Instead of showing the relief I expected, her pallor increased and her
+fine eyes, which had been fixed curiously upon me, sank in confusion to
+the floor.
+
+"Great heaven!" thought I. "She looks as if at one more word from me,
+she would fall at my feet in a faint. What is this I have stumbled
+upon!"
+
+"I do not see how you can have any question to ask me on that subject,"
+she began with an effort at composure which for some reason disturbed
+me more than her previous open display of fear. "Yet if you have," she
+continued, with a rapid change of manner that touched my heart in spite
+of myself, "I shall, of course, do my best to answer you."
+
+There are women whose sweetest tones and most charming smiles only serve
+to awaken distrust in men of my calling; but Mrs. Zabriskie was not
+of this number. Her face was beautiful, but it was also candid in its
+expression, and beneath the agitation which palpably disturbed her, I
+was sure there lurked nothing either wicked or false. Yet I held fast by
+the clue which I had grasped as it were in the dark, and without knowing
+whither I was tending, much less whither I was leading her, I proceeded
+to say:
+
+"The question which I presume to put to you as the next door neighbour
+of Mr. Hasbrouck is this: Who was the woman who on the night of
+that gentleman's assassination screamed out so loudly that the whole
+neighbourhood heard her?"
+
+The gasp she gave answered my question in a way she little realized, and
+struck as I was by the impalpable links that had led me to the threshold
+of this hitherto unsolvable mystery, I was about to press my advantage
+and ask another question, when she quickly started forward and laid her
+hand on my lips.
+
+Astonished, I looked at her inquiringly, but her head was turned
+aside, and her eyes, fixed upon the door, showed the greatest anxiety.
+Instantly I realized what she feared. Her husband was entering the
+house, and she dreaded lest his ears should catch a word of our
+conversation.
+
+Not knowing what was in her mind, and unable to realize the importance
+of the moment to her, I yet listened to the advance of her blind husband
+with an almost painful interest. Would he enter the room where we were,
+or would he pass immediately to his office in the rear? She seemed to
+wonder too, and almost held her breath as he neared the door, paused,
+and stood in the open doorway, with his ear turned towards us.
+
+As for myself, I remained perfectly still, gazing at his face in mingled
+surprise and apprehension. For besides its beauty, which was of a marked
+order, as I have already observed, it had a touching expression which
+irresistibly aroused both pity and interest in the spectator. This may
+have been the result of his affliction, or it may have sprung from some
+deeper cause; but, whatever its source, this look in his face produced a
+strong impression upon me and interested me at once in his personality.
+Would he enter; or would he pass on? Her look of silent appeal showed
+me in which direction her wishes lay, but while I answered her glance
+by complete silence, I was conscious in some indistinct way that the
+business I had undertaken would be better furthered by his entrance.
+
+The blind have often been said to possess a sixth sense in place of the
+one they have lost. Though I am sure we made no noise, I soon perceived
+that he was aware of our presence. Stepping hastily forward he said, in
+the high and vibrating tone of restrained passion:
+
+"Zulma, are you there?"
+
+For a moment I thought she did not mean to answer, but knowing doubtless
+from experience the impossibility of deceiving him, she answered with a
+cheerful assent, dropping her hand as she did so from before my lips.
+
+He heard the slight rustle which accompanied the movement, and a look
+I found it hard to comprehend flashed over his features, altering his
+expression so completely that he seemed another man.
+
+"You have someone with you," he declared, advancing another step, but
+with none of the uncertainty which usually accompanies the movements
+of the blind. "Some dear friend," he went on, with an almost sarcastic
+emphasis and a forced smile that had little of gaiety in it.
+
+The agitated and distressed blush which answered him could have but one
+interpretation. He suspected that her hand had been clasped in mine, and
+she perceived his thought and knew that I perceived it also.
+
+Drawing herself up, she moved towards him, saying in a sweet womanly
+tone:
+
+"It is no friend, Constant, not even an acquaintance. The person whom I
+now present to you is a representative from some detective agency. He is
+here upon a trivial errand which will soon be finished, when I will join
+you in the office."
+
+I knew she was but taking a choice between two evils, that she would
+have saved her husband the knowledge of my calling as well as of my
+presence in the house, if her self-respect would have allowed it; but
+neither she nor I anticipated the effect which this introduction of
+myself in my business capacity would produce upon him.
+
+"A detective," he repeated, staring with his sightless eyes, as if, in
+his eagerness to see, he half hoped his lost sense would return. "He can
+have no trivial errand here; he has been sent by God Himself to--"
+
+"Let me speak for you," hastily interposed his wife, springing to his
+side and clasping his arm with a fervour that was equally expressive
+of appeal and command. Then turning to me, she explained: "Since Mr.
+Hasbrouck's unaccountable death, my husband has been labouring under
+an hallucination which I have only to mention, for you to recognize its
+perfect absurdity. He thinks--oh! do not look like that, Constant; you
+know it is an hallucination which must vanish the moment we drag it into
+broad daylight--that he--he, the best man in all the world, was himself
+the assailant of Mr. Hasbrouck."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+"I say nothing of the impossibility of this being so," she went on in a
+fever of expostulation. "He is blind, and could not have delivered such
+a shot even if he had desired to; besides, he had no weapon. But the
+inconsistency of the thing speaks for itself, and should assure him that
+his mind is unbalanced and that he is merely suffering from a shock that
+was greater than we realized. He is a physician and has had many such
+instances in his own practice. Why, he was very much attached to Mr.
+Hasbrouck! They were the best of friends, and though he insists that he
+killed him, he cannot give any reason for the deed."
+
+At these words the doctor's face grew stern, and he spoke like an
+automaton repeating some fearful lesson:
+
+"I killed him. I went to his room and deliberately shot him. I had
+nothing against him, and my remorse is extreme. Arrest me and let me
+pay the penalty of my crime. It is the only way in which I can obtain
+peace."
+
+Shocked beyond all power of self-control by this repetition of what she
+evidently considered the unhappy ravings of a madman, she let go his arm
+and turned upon me in frenzy.
+
+"Convince him!" she cried. "Convince him by your questions that he never
+could have done this fearful thing."
+
+I was labouring under great excitement myself, for as a private agent
+with no official authority such as he evidently attributed to me in the
+blindness of his passion, I felt the incongruity of my position in the
+face of a matter of such tragic consequence. Besides, I agreed with her
+that he was in a distempered state of mind, and I hardly knew how
+to deal with one so fixed in his hallucination and with so much
+intelligence to support it. But the emergency was great, for he was
+holding out his wrists in the evident expectation of my taking him into
+instant custody; and the sight was killing his wife, who had sunk on the
+floor between us, in terror and anguish.
+
+"You say you killed Mr. Hasbrouck," I began. "Where did you get your
+pistol, and what did you do with it after you left his house?"
+
+"My husband had no pistol; never had any pistol," put in Mrs. Zabriskie,
+with vehement assertion. "If I had seen him with such a weapon--"
+
+"I threw it away. When I left the house, I cast it as far from me as
+possible, for I was frightened at what I had done, horribly frightened."
+
+"No pistol was ever found," I answered with a smile, forgetting for the
+moment that he could not see. "If such an instrument had been found in
+the street after a murder of such consequence, it certainly would have
+been brought to the police."
+
+"You forget that a good pistol is valuable property," he went on
+stolidly. "Someone came along before the general alarm was given; and
+seeing such a treasure lying on the sidewalk, picked it up and carried
+it off. Not being an honest man, he preferred to keep it to drawing the
+attention of the police upon himself."
+
+"Hum, perhaps," said I; "but where did you get it. Surely you can tell
+where you procured such a weapon, if, as your wife intimates, you did
+not own one."
+
+"I bought it that selfsame night of a friend; a friend whom I will
+not name, since he resides no longer in this country. I--" He paused;
+intense passion was in his face; he turned towards his wife, and a low
+cry escaped him, which made her look up in fear.
+
+"I do not wish to go into any particulars," said he. "God forsook me
+and I committed a horrible crime. When I am punished, perhaps peace will
+return to me and happiness to her. I would not wish her to suffer too
+long or too bitterly for my sin."
+
+"Constant!" What love was in the cry! It seemed to move him and turn his
+thoughts for a moment into a different channel.
+
+"Poor child!" he murmured, stretching out his hands by an irresistible
+impulse towards her. But the change was but momentary, and he was soon
+again the stern and determined self-accuser. "Are you going to take me
+before a magistrate?" he asked. "If so, I have a few duties to perform
+which you are welcome to witness."
+
+This was too much; I felt that the time had come for me to disabuse his
+mind of the impression he had unwittingly formed of me. I therefore said
+as considerately as I could:
+
+"You mistake my position, Dr. Zabriskie. Though a detective of some
+experience, I have no connection with the police and no right to intrude
+myself in a matter of such tragic importance. If, however, you are as
+anxious as you say to subject yourself to police examination, I will
+mention the same to the proper authorities, and leave them to take such
+action as they think best."
+
+"That will be still more satisfactory to me," said he; "for though I
+have many times contemplated giving myself up, I have still much to
+do before I can leave my home and practice without injury to others.
+Good-day; when you want me you will find me here."
+
+He was gone, and the poor young wife was left crouching on the floor
+alone. Pitying her shame and terror, I ventured to remark that it was
+not an uncommon thing for a man to confess to a crime he had never
+committed, and assured her that the matter would be inquired into very
+carefully before any attempt was made upon his liberty.
+
+She thanked me, and slowly rising, tried to regain her equanimity; but
+the manner as well as the matter of her husband's self-condemnation
+was too overwhelming in its nature for her to recover readily from her
+emotions.
+
+"I have long dreaded this," she acknowledged. "For months I have
+foreseen that he would make some rash communication or insane avowal.
+If I had dared, I would have consulted some physician about this
+hallucination of his; but he was so sane on other points that I
+hesitated to give my dreadful secret to the world. I kept hoping that
+time and his daily pursuits would have their effect and restore him to
+himself. But his illusion grows, and now I fear that nothing will
+ever convince him that he did not commit the deed of which he accuses
+himself. If he were not blind I would have more hope, but the blind have
+so much time for brooding."
+
+"I think he had better be indulged in his fancies for the present," I
+ventured. "If he is labouring under an illusion it might be dangerous to
+cross him."
+
+"If?" she echoed in an indescribable tone of amazement and dread. "Can
+you for a moment harbour the idea that he has spoken the truth?"
+
+"Madam," I returned, with something of the cynicism of my calling, "what
+caused you to give such an unearthly scream just before this murder was
+made known to the neighbourhood?"
+
+She stared, paled, and finally began to tremble, not, as I now believe,
+at the insinuation latent in my words, but at the doubts which my
+question aroused in her own breast.
+
+"Did I?" she asked; then with a burst of candour which seemed
+inseparable from her nature, she continued: "Why do I try to mislead you
+or deceive myself? I did give a shriek just before the alarm was raised
+next door; but it was not from any knowledge I had of a crime having
+been committed, but because I unexpectedly saw before me my husband whom
+I supposed to be on his way to Poughkeepsie. He was looking very pale
+and strange, and for a moment I thought I stood face to face with his
+ghost. But he soon explained his appearance by saying that he had
+fallen from the train and had only been saved by a miracle from being
+dismembered; and I was just bemoaning his mishap and trying to calm him
+and myself, when that terrible shout was heard next door of 'Murder!
+murder!' Coming so soon after the shock he had himself experienced, it
+quite unnerved him, and I think we can date his mental disturbance from
+that moment. For he began immediately to take a morbid interest in the
+affair next door, though it was weeks, if not months, before he let a
+word fall of the nature of those you have just heard. Indeed it was
+not till I repeated to him some of the expressions he was continually
+letting fall in his sleep, that he commenced to accuse himself of crime
+and talk of retribution."
+
+"You say that your husband frightened you on that night by appearing
+suddenly at the door when you thought him on his way to Poughkeepsie. Is
+Dr. Zabriskie in the habit of thus going and coming alone at an hour so
+late as this must have been?"
+
+"You forget that to the blind, night is less full of perils than the
+day. Often and often has my husband found his way to his patients'
+houses alone after midnight; but on this especial evening he had Leonard
+with him. Leonard was his chauffeur, and always accompanied him when he
+went any distance."
+
+"Well, then," said I, "all we have to do is to summon Leonard and hear
+what he has to say concerning this affair. He will surely know whether
+or not his master went into the house next door."
+
+"Leonard has left us," she said. "Dr. Zabriskie has another chauffeur
+now. Besides (I have nothing to conceal from you), Leonard was not with
+him when he returned to the house that evening or the doctor would not
+have been without his portmanteau till the next day. Something--I have
+never known what--caused them to separate, and that is why I have no
+answer to give the doctor when he accuses himself of committing a deed
+that night so wholly out of keeping with every other act of his life."
+
+"And have you never asked Leonard why they separated and why he allowed
+his master to come home alone after the shock he had received at the
+station?"
+
+"I did not know there was any reason for my doing so till long after he
+had left us."
+
+"And when did he leave?"
+
+"That I do not remember. A few weeks or possibly a few days after that
+dreadful night."
+
+"And where is he now?"
+
+"Ah, that I have not the least means of knowing. But," she objected, in
+sudden distrust, "what do you want of Leonard? If he did not follow Dr.
+Zabriskie to his own door, he could tell us nothing that would convince
+my husband that he is labouring under an illusion."
+
+"But he might tell us something which would convince us that Dr.
+Zabriskie was not himself after the accident; that he--"
+
+"Hush!" came from her lips in imperious tones. "I will not believe that
+he shot Mr. Hasbrouck even if you prove him to have been insane at the
+time. How could he? My husband is blind. It would take a man of very
+keen sight to force himself into a house closed for the night, and kill
+a man in the dark at one shot."
+
+"On the contrary, it is only a blind man who could do this," cried a
+voice from the doorway. "Those who trust to eyesight must be able to
+catch a glimpse of the mark they aim at, and this room, as I have been
+told, was without a glimmer of light. But the blind trust to sound, and
+as Mr. Hasbrouck spoke--"
+
+"Oh!" burst from the horrified wife, "is there no one to stop him when
+he speaks like that?"
+
+III
+
+As you will see, this matter, so recklessly entered into, had proved
+to be of too serious a nature for me to pursue it farther without
+the cognizance of the police. Having a friend on the force in whose
+discretion I could rely, I took him into my confidence and asked for his
+advice. He pooh-poohed the doctor's statements, but said that he would
+bring the matter to the attention of the superintendent and let me
+know the result. I agreed to this, and we parted with the mutual
+understanding that mum was the word till some official decision had been
+arrived at. I had not long to wait. At an early day he came in with the
+information that there had been, as might be expected, a division of
+opinion among his superiors as to the importance of Dr. Zabriskie's
+so-called confession, but in one point they had been unanimous and that
+was the desirability of his appearing before them at Headquarters for
+a personal examination. As, however, in the mind of two out of three of
+them his condition was attributed entirely to acute mania, it had been
+thought best to employ as their emissary one in whom he had already
+confided and submitted his case to,--in other words, myself. The time
+was set for the next afternoon at the close of his usual office hours.
+
+He went without reluctance, his wife accompanying him. In the short time
+which elapsed between their leaving home and entering Headquarters,
+I embraced the opportunity of observing them, and I found the study
+equally exciting and interesting. His face was calm but hopeless, and
+his eye, dark and unfathomable, but neither frenzied nor uncertain. He
+spoke but once and listened to nothing, though now and then his wife
+moved as if to attract his attention, and once even stole her hand
+towards his, in the tender hope that he would feel its approach and
+accept her sympathy. But he was deaf as well as blind; and sat wrapped
+up in thoughts which she, I know, would have given worlds to penetrate.
+
+Her countenance was not without its mystery also. She showed in every
+lineament passionate concern and misery, and a deep tenderness from
+which the element of fear was not absent. But she, as well as he,
+betrayed that some misunderstanding deeper than any I had previously
+suspected drew its intangible veil between them and made the near
+proximity in which they sat at once a heart-piercing delight and an
+unspeakable pain. What was the misunderstanding; and what was the
+character of the fear that modified her every look of love in his
+direction? Her perfect indifference to my presence proved that it was
+not connected with the position in which he had placed himself towards
+the police by his voluntary confession of crime, nor could I thus
+interpret the expression, of frantic question which now and then
+contracted her features, as she raised her eyes towards his sightless
+orbs, and strove to read in his firm set lips the meaning of those
+assertions she could only ascribe to loss of reason.
+
+The stopping of the carriage seemed to awaken both from thoughts that
+separated rather than united them. He turned his face in her direction,
+and she stretching forth her hand, prepared to lead him from the
+carriage, without any of that display of timidity which had previously
+been evident in her manner.
+
+As his guide she seemed to fear nothing; as his lover, everything.
+
+"There is another and a deeper tragedy underlying the outward and
+obvious one," was my inward conclusion, as I followed them into the
+presence of the gentlemen awaiting them.
+
+Dr. Zabriskie's quiet appearance was in itself a shock to those who had
+anticipated the feverish unrest of a madman; so was his speech, which
+was calm, straightforward, and quietly determined.
+
+"I shot Mr. Hasbrouck," was his steady affirmation, given without any
+show of frenzy or desperation. "If you ask me why I did it, I cannot
+answer; if you ask me how, I am ready to state all that I know
+concerning the matter."
+
+"But, Dr. Zabriskie," interposed one of the inspectors, "the why is the
+most important thing for us to consider just now. If you really desire
+to convince us that you committed this dreadful crime of killing a
+totally inoffensive man, you should give us some reason for an act so
+opposed to all your instincts and general conduct."
+
+But the doctor continued unmoved:
+
+"I had no reason for murdering Mr. Hasbrouck. A hundred questions can
+elicit no other reply; you had better keep to the how."
+
+A deep-drawn breath from the wife answered the looks of the three
+gentlemen to whom this suggestion was offered. "You see," that breath
+seemed to protest, "that he is not in his right mind."
+
+I began to waver in my own opinion, and yet the intuition which has
+served me in cases seemingly as impenetrable as this bade me beware of
+following the general judgment.
+
+"Ask him to inform you how he got into the house," I whispered to
+Inspector D--, who sat nearest me.
+
+Immediately the inspector put the question which I had suggested:
+
+"By what means did you enter Mr. Hasbrouck's house at so late an hour as
+this murder occurred?"
+
+The blind doctor's head fell forward on his breast, and he hesitated for
+the first and only time.
+
+"You will not believe me," said he; "but the door was ajar when I came
+to it. Such things make crime easy; it is the only excuse I have to
+offer for this dreadful deed."
+
+The front door of a respectable citizen's house ajar at half-past eleven
+at night! It was a statement that fixed in all minds the conviction of
+the speaker's irresponsibility. Mrs. Zabriskie's brow cleared, and
+her beauty became for a moment dazzling as she held out her hands in
+irrepressible relief towards those who were interrogating her husband.
+I alone kept my impassibility. A possible explanation of this crime
+had flashed like lightning across my mind; an explanation from which I
+inwardly recoiled, even while I felt forced to consider it.
+
+"Dr. Zabriskie," remarked the inspector formerly mentioned as friendly
+to him, "such old servants as those kept by Mr. Hasbrouck do not leave
+the front door ajar at twelve o'clock at night."
+
+"Yet ajar it was," repeated the blind doctor, with quiet emphasis; "and
+finding it so, I went in. When I came out again, I closed it. Do you
+wish me to swear to what I say? If so, I am ready."
+
+What reply could they give? To see this splendid-looking man, hallowed
+by an affliction so great that in itself it called forth the compassion
+of the most indifferent, accusing himself of a cold-blooded crime, in
+tones which sounded dispassionate because of the will forcing their
+utterance, was too painful in itself for any one to indulge in
+unnecessary words. Compassion took the place of curiosity, and each and
+all of us turned involuntary looks of pity upon the young wife pressing
+so eagerly to his side.
+
+"For a blind man," ventured one, "the assault was both deft and certain.
+Are you accustomed to Mr. Hasbrouck's house, that you found your way
+with so little difficulty to his bedroom?"
+
+"I am accustomed--" he began.
+
+But here his wife broke in with irrepressible passion:
+
+"He is not accustomed to that house. He has never been beyond the first
+floor. Why, why do you question him? Do you not see--"
+
+His hand was on her lips.
+
+"Hush!" he commanded. "You know my skill in moving about a house; how
+I sometimes deceive those who do not know me into believing that I can
+see, by the readiness with which I avoid obstacles and find my way even
+in strange and untried scenes. Do not try to make them think I am not
+in my right mind, or you will drive me into the very condition you
+attribute to me."
+
+His face, rigid, cold, and set, looked like that of a mask. Hers, drawn
+with horror and filled with question that was fast taking the form of
+doubt, bespoke an awful tragedy from which more than one of us recoiled.
+
+"Can you shoot a man dead without seeing him?" asked the Superintendent,
+with painful effort.
+
+"Give me a pistol and I will show you," was the quick reply.
+
+A low cry came from the wife. In a drawer near to every one of us there
+lay a pistol, but no one moved to take it out. There was a look in the
+doctor's eye which made us fear to trust him with a pistol just then.
+
+"We will accept your assurance that you possess a skill beyond that of
+most men," returned the Superintendent. And beckoning me forward, he
+whispered: "This is a case for the doctors and not for the police.
+Remove him quietly, and notify Dr. Southyard of what I say."
+
+But Dr. Zabriskie, who seemed to have an almost supernatural acuteness
+of hearing, gave a violent start at this, and spoke up for the first
+time with real passion in his voice:
+
+"No, no, I pray you. I can bear anything but that. Remember, gentlemen,
+that I am blind; that I cannot see who is about me; that my life would
+be a torture if I felt myself surrounded by spies watching to catch some
+evidence of madness in me. Rather conviction at once, death, dishonour,
+and obloquy. These I have incurred. These I have brought upon myself by
+crime, but not this worse fate--oh! not this worse fate."
+
+His passion was so intense and yet so confined within the bounds of
+decorum, that we felt strangely impressed by it. Only the wife stood
+transfixed, with the dread growing in her heart, till her white,
+waxen visage seemed even more terrible to contemplate than his
+passion-distorted one.
+
+"It is not strange that my wife thinks me demented," the doctor
+continued, as if afraid of the silence that answered him. "But it is
+your business to discriminate, and you should know a sane man when you
+see him."
+
+Inspector D---- no longer hesitated.
+
+"Very well," said he, "give me the least proof that your assertions are
+true, and we will lay your case before the prosecuting attorney."
+
+"Proof? Is not a man's word--"
+
+"No man's confession is worth much without some evidence to support
+it. In your case there is none. You cannot even produce the pistol with
+which you assert yourself to have committed the deed."
+
+"True, true. I was frightened by what I had done, and the instinct of
+self-preservation led me to rid myself of the weapon in any way I could.
+But someone found this pistol; someone picked it up from the sidewalk of
+Lafayette Place on that fatal night. Advertise for it. Offer a reward.
+I will give you the money." Suddenly he appeared to realize how all this
+sounded. "Alas!" cried he, "I know the story seems improbable; but it is
+not the probable things that happen in this life, as, you should know,
+who every day dig deep into the heart of human affairs."
+
+Were these the ravings of insanity? I began to understand the wife's
+terror.
+
+"I bought the pistol," he went on, "of--alas! I cannot tell you his
+name. Everything is against me. I cannot adduce one proof; yet even she
+is beginning to fear that my story is true. I know it by her silence, a
+silence that yawns between us like a deep and unfathomable gulf."
+
+But at these words her voice rang out with passionate vehemence.
+
+"No, no, it is false! I will never believe that your hands have been
+plunged in blood. You are my own pure-hearted Constant, cold, perhaps,
+and stern, but with no guilt upon your conscience save in your own wild
+imagination."
+
+"Zulma, you are no friend to me," he declared, pushing her gently aside.
+"Believe me innocent, but say nothing to lead these others to doubt my
+word."
+
+And she said no more, but her looks spoke volumes.
+
+The result was that he was not detained, though he prayed for instant
+commitment. He seemed to dread his own home, and the surveillance to
+which he instinctively knew he would henceforth be subjected. To see him
+shrink from his wife's hand as she strove to lead him from the room was
+sufficiently painful; but the feeling thus aroused was nothing to that
+with which we observed the keen and agonized expectancy of his look as
+he turned and listened for the steps of the officer who followed him.
+
+"From this time on I shall never know whether or not I am alone," was
+his final observation as he left the building.
+
+Here is where the matter rests and here, Miss Strange, is where you come
+in. The police were for sending an expert alienist into the house; but
+agreeing with me, and, in fact, with the doctor himself, that if he were
+not already out of his mind, this would certainly make them so, they, at
+my earnest intercession, have left the next move to me.
+
+That move as you must by this time understand involves you. You have
+advantages for making Mrs. Zabriskie's acquaintance of which I beg you
+to avail yourself. As friend or patient, you must win your way into that
+home? You must sound to its depths one or both of these two wretched
+hearts. Not so much now for any possible reward which may follow the
+elucidation of this mystery which has come so near being shelved, but
+for pity's sake and the possible settlement of a question which is fast
+driving a lovely member of your sex distracted.
+
+May I rely on you? If so--
+
+Various instructions followed, over which Violet mused with a
+deprecatory shaking of her head till the little clock struck two. Why
+should she, already in a state of secret despondency, intrude herself
+into an affair at once so painful and so hopeless?
+
+IV
+
+But by morning her mood changed. The pathos of the situation had seized
+upon her in her dreams, and before the day was over, she was to be seen,
+as a prospective patient, in Dr. Zabriskie's office. She had a slight
+complaint as her excuse, and she made the most of it. That is, at first,
+but as the personality of this extraordinary man began to make its
+usual impression, she found herself forgetting her own condition in the
+intensity of interest she felt in his. Indeed, she had to pull herself
+together more than once lest he should suspect the double nature of
+her errand, and she actually caught herself at times rejoicing in his
+affliction since it left her with only her voice to think of, in her
+hated but necessary task of deception.
+
+That she succeeded in this effort, even with one of his nice ear, was
+evident from the interested way in which he dilated upon her malady, and
+the minute instructions he was careful to give her--the physician being
+always uppermost in his strange dual nature, when he was in his office
+or at the bedside of the sick;--and had she not been a deep reader of
+the human soul she would have left his presence in simple wonder at his
+skill and entire absorption in an exacting profession.
+
+But as it was, she carried with her an image of subdued suffering, which
+drove her, from that moment on, to ask herself what she could do to aid
+him in his fight against his own illusion; for to associate such a man
+with a senseless and cruel murder was preposterous.
+
+What this wish, helped by no common determination, led her into, it was
+not in her mind to conceive. She was making her one great mistake, but
+as yet she was in happy ignorance of it, and pursued the course laid out
+for her without a doubt of the ultimate result.
+
+Having seen and made up her mind about the husband, she next sought to
+see and gauge the wife. That she succeeded in doing this by means of
+one of her sly little tricks is not to the point; but what followed in
+natural consequence is very much so. A mutual interest sprang up between
+them which led very speedily to actual friendship. Mrs. Zabriskie's
+hungry heart opened to the sympathetic little being who clung to her in
+such evident admiration; while Violet, brought face to face with a real
+woman, succumbed to feelings which made it no imposition on her part to
+spend much of her leisure in Zulma Zabriskie's company.
+
+The result were the following naive reports which drifted into her
+employer's office from day to day, as this intimacy deepened.
+
+The doctor is settling into a deep melancholy, from which he tries to
+rise at times, but with only indifferent success. Yesterday he rode
+around to all his patients for the purpose of withdrawing his services
+on the plea of illness. But he still keeps his office open, and today
+I had the opportunity of witnessing his reception and treatment of the
+many sufferers who came to him for aid. I think he was conscious of
+my presence, though an attempt had been made to conceal it. For the
+listening look never left his face from the moment he entered the room,
+and once he rose and passed quickly from wall to wall, groping with
+out-stretched hands into every nook and corner, and barely escaping
+contact with the curtain behind which I was hidden. But if he suspected
+my presence, he showed no displeasure at it, wishing perhaps for a
+witness to his skill in the treatment of disease.
+
+And truly I never beheld a finer manifestation of practical insight
+in cases of a more or less baffling nature. He is certainly a most
+wonderful physician, and I feel bound to record that his mind is as
+clear for business as if no shadow had fallen upon it.
+
+Dr. Zabriskie loves his wife, but in a way torturing to himself and
+to her. If she is gone from the house he is wretched, and yet when she
+returns he often forbears to speak to her, or if he does speak it is
+with a constraint that hurts her more than his silence. I was present
+when she came in today. Her step, which had been eager on the stairway,
+flagged as she approached the room, and he naturally noted the change
+and gave his own interpretation to it. His face, which had been very
+pale, flushed suddenly, and a nervous trembling seized him which he
+sought in vain to hide. But by the time her tall and beautiful figure
+stood in the doorway, he was his usual self again in all but the
+expression of his eyes, which stared straight before him in an agony of
+longing only to be observed in those who have once seen.
+
+"Where have you been, Zulma?" he asked, as contrary to his wont, he
+moved to meet her.
+
+"To my mother's, to Arnold & Constable's, and to the hospital, as
+you requested," was her quick answer, made without faltering or
+embarrassment.
+
+He stepped still nearer and took her hand, and as he did so my eye
+fell on his and I noted that his finger lay over her pulse in seeming
+unconsciousness.
+
+"Nowhere else?" he queried.
+
+She smiled the saddest kind of smile and shook her head; then,
+remembering that he could not see this movement, she cried in a wistful
+tone:
+
+"Nowhere else, Constant; I was too anxious to get back."
+
+I expected him to drop her hand at this, but he did not; and his finger
+still rested on her pulse.
+
+"And whom did you see while you were gone?" he continued.
+
+She told him, naming over several names.
+
+"You must have enjoyed yourself," was his cold comment, as he let go her
+hand and turned away. But his manner showed relief, and I could not but
+sympathize with the pitiable situation of a man who found himself forced
+into means like this for probing the heart of his young wife.
+
+Yet when I turned towards her, I realized that her position was but
+little happier than his. Tears are no strangers to her eyes, but those
+which welled up at this moment seemed to possess a bitterness that
+promised but little peace for her future. Yet she quickly dried them and
+busied herself with ministrations for his comfort.
+
+If I am any judge of woman, Zulma Zabriskie is superior to most of her
+sex. That her husband mistrusts her is evident, but whether this is the
+result of the stand she has taken in his regard, or only a manifestation
+of dementia, I have as yet been unable to determine. I dread to leave
+them alone together, and yet when I presume to suggest that she should
+be on her guard in her interviews with him, she smiles very placidly and
+tells me that nothing would give her greater joy than to see him lift
+his hand against her, for that would argue that he is not accountable
+for his deeds or assertions.
+
+Yet it would be a grief to see her injured by this passionate and
+unhappy man.
+
+You have said that you wanted all the details I could give; so I feel
+bound to say that Dr. Zabriskie tries to be considerate of his wife,
+though he often fails in the attempt. When she offers herself as his
+guide, or assists him with his mail or performs any of the many acts of
+kindness by which she continually manifests her sense of his affliction,
+he thanks her with courtesy and often with kindness, yet I know she
+would willingly exchange all his set phrases for one fond embrace or
+impulsive smile of affection. It would be too much to say that he is
+not in the full possession of his faculties, and yet upon what other
+hypothesis can we account for the inconsistencies of his conduct?
+
+I have before me two visions of mental suffering. At noon I passed the
+office door, and looking within, saw the figure of Dr. Zabriskie seated
+in his great chair, lost in thought or deep in those memories which make
+an abyss in one's consciousness. His hands, which were clenched, rested
+upon the arms of his chair, and in one of them I detected a woman's
+glove, which I had no difficulty in recognizing as one of the pair worn
+by his wife this morning. He held it as a tiger might hold his prey or a
+miser his gold, but his set features and sightless eyes betrayed that a
+conflict of emotions was being waged within him, among which tenderness
+had but little share.
+
+Though alive as he usually is to every sound, he was too absorbed at
+this moment to notice my presence, though I had taken no pains to
+approach quietly. I therefore stood for a full minute watching him, till
+an irresistible sense of the shame at thus spying upon a blind man in
+his moments of secret anguish compelled me to withdraw. But not before I
+saw his features relax in a storm of passionate feeling, as he rained
+kisses after kisses on the senseless kid he had so long held in his
+motionless grasp. Yet when an hour later he entered the dining-room on
+his wife's arm, there was nothing in his manner to show that he had in
+any way changed in his attitude towards her.
+
+The other picture was more tragic still. I was seeking Mrs. Zabriskie in
+her own room, when I caught a fleeting vision of her tall form, with her
+arms thrown up over her head in a paroxysm of feeling which made her as
+oblivious to my presence as her husband had been several hours before.
+Were the words that escaped her lips "Thank God we have no children!"
+or was this exclamation suggested to me by the passion and unrestrained
+impulse of her action?
+
+So much up to date. Interesting enough, or so her employer seemed
+to think, as he went hurriedly through the whole story, one special
+afternoon in his office, tapping each sheet as he laid it aside with his
+sagacious forefinger, as though he would say, "Enough! My theory still
+holds good; nothing contradictory here; on the contrary complete and
+undisputable confirmation of the one and only explanation of this
+astounding crime."
+
+What was that theory; and in what way and through whose efforts had he
+been enabled to form one? The following notes may enlighten us. Though
+written in his own hand, and undoubtedly a memorandum of his own
+activities, he evidently thinks it worth while to reperuse them in
+connection with those he had just laid aside.
+
+We can do no better than read them also.
+
+We omit dates.
+
+Watched the Zabriskie mansion for five hours this morning, from the
+second story window of an adjoining hotel. Saw the doctor when he drove
+away on his round of visits, and saw him when he returned. A coloured
+man accompanied him.
+
+Today I followed Mrs. Zabriskie. She went first to a house in Washington
+Place where I am told her mother lives. Here she stayed some time, after
+which she drove down to Canal Street, where she did some shopping,
+and later stopped at the hospital, into which I took the liberty of
+following her. She seemed to know many there, and passed from cot to cot
+with a smile in which I alone discerned the sadness of a broken heart.
+When she left, I left also, without having learned anything beyond the
+fact that Mrs. Zabriskie is one who does her duty in sorrow as in joy.
+A rare, and trustworthy woman I should say, and yet her husband does not
+trust her. Why?
+
+I have spent this day in accumulating details in regard to Dr. and Mrs.
+Zabriskie's life previous to the death of Mr. Hasbrouck. I learned from
+sources it would be unwise to quote just here, that Mrs. Zabriskie had
+not lacked enemies to charge her with coquetry; that while she had never
+sacrificed her dignity in public, more than one person had been heard to
+declare that Dr. Zabriskie was fortunate in being blind, since the sight
+of his wife's beauty would have but poorly compensated him for the pain
+he would have suffered in seeing how that beauty was admired.
+
+That all gossip is more or less tinged with exaggeration I have no
+doubt, yet when a name is mentioned in connection with such stories,
+there is usually some truth at the bottom of them. And a name is
+mentioned in this case, though I do not think it worth my while to
+repeat it here; and loth as I am to recognize the fact, it is a name
+that carries with it doubts that might easily account for the husband's
+jealousy. True, I have found no one who dares hint that she still
+continues to attract attention or to bestow smiles in any direction save
+where they legally belong. For since a certain memorable night which
+we all know, neither Dr. Zabriskie nor his wife have been seen save
+in their own domestic circle, and it is not into such scenes that this
+serpent, to whom I have just alluded, ever intrudes, nor is it in
+places of sorrow or suffering that his smile shines, or his fascinations
+flourish.
+
+And so one portion of my theory is proved to be sound. Dr. Zabriskie is
+jealous of his wife; whether with good cause or bad I am not prepared to
+decide; since her present attitude, clouded as it is by the tragedy in
+which she and her husband are both involved, must differ very much
+from that which she held when her life was unshadowed by doubt, and her
+admirers could be counted by the score.
+
+I have just found out where Leonard is. As he is in service some miles
+up the river, I shall have to be absent from my post for several hours,
+but I consider the game well worth the candle.
+
+Light at last. I have not only seen Leonard, but succeeded in making
+him talk. His story is substantially this: That on the night so often
+mentioned, he packed his master's portmanteau at eight o'clock and at
+ten called a taxi and rode with the doctor to the Central station. He
+was told to buy tickets to Poughkeepsie where his master had been
+called in consultation, and having done this, hurried back to join Dr.
+Zabriskie on the platform. They had walked together as far as the cars,
+and Dr. Zabriskie was just stepping on to the train, when a man pushed
+himself hurriedly between them and whispered something into his master's
+ear, which caused him to fall back and lose his footing. Dr. Zabriskie's
+body slid half under the car, but he was withdrawn before any harm
+was done, though the cars gave a lurch at that moment which must have
+frightened him exceedingly, for his face was white when he rose to his
+feet, and when Leonard offered to assist him again on the train, he
+refused to go and said he would return home and not attempt to ride to
+Poughkeepsie that night.
+
+The gentleman, whom Leonard now saw to be Mr. Stanton, an intimate
+friend of Dr. Zabriskie, smiled very queerly at this, and taking the
+doctor's arm led him back to his own auto. Leonard naturally followed
+them, but the doctor, hearing his steps, turned and bade him, in a
+very peremptory tone, to take the cars home, and then, as if on second
+thought, told him to go to Poughkeepsie in his stead and explain to the
+people there that he was too shaken up by his misstep to do his duty,
+and that he would be with them next morning. This seemed strange to
+Leonard, but he had no reasons for disobeying his master's orders, and
+so rode to Poughkeepsie. But the doctor did not follow him the next day;
+on the contrary he telegraphed for him to return, and when he got back
+dismissed him with a month's wages. This ended Leonard's connection with
+the Zabriskie family.
+
+A simple story bearing out what the wife has already told us; but it
+furnishes a link which may prove invaluable. Mr. Stanton, whose first
+name is Theodore, knows the real reason why Dr. Zabriskie returned
+home on the night of the seventeenth of July, 19--. Mr. Stanton,
+consequently, is the man to see, and this shall be my business tomorrow.
+
+Checkmate! Theodore Stanton is not in this country. Though this points
+him out as the man from whom Dr. Zabriskie bought the pistol, it does
+not facilitate my work, which is becoming more and more difficult.
+
+Mr. Stanton's whereabouts are not even known to his most intimate
+friends. He sailed from this country most unexpectedly on the eighteenth
+of July a year ago, which was the day after the murder of Mr. Hasbrouck.
+It looks like a flight, especially as he has failed to maintain open
+communication even with his relatives. Was he the man who shot Mr.
+Hasbrouck? No; but he was the man who put the pistol in Dr. Zabriskie's
+hand that night, and whether he did this with purpose or not, was
+evidently so alarmed at the catastrophe which followed that he took the
+first outgoing steamer to Europe. So far, all is clear, but there are
+mysteries yet to be solved, which will require my utmost tact. What if I
+should seek out the gentleman with whose name that of Mrs. Zabriskie has
+been linked, and see if I can in any way connect him with Mr. Stanton or
+the events of that night.
+
+Eureka! I have discovered that Mr. Stanton cherished a mortal hatred
+for the gentleman above mentioned. It was a covert feeling, but no
+less deadly on that account; and while it never led him into any
+extravagances, it was of force sufficient to account for many a secret
+misfortune occurring to that gentleman. Now if I can prove that he is
+the Mephistopheles who whispered insinuations into the ear of our blind
+Faust, I may strike a fact that will lead me out of this maze.
+
+But how can I approach secrets so delicate without compromising the
+woman I feel bound to respect if only for the devoted love she manifests
+for her unhappy husband!
+
+I shall have to appeal to Joe Smithers. This is something which I always
+hate to do, but as long as he will take money, and as long as he is
+fertile in resources for obtaining the truth from people I am myself
+unable to reach, I must make use of his cupidity and his genius. He is
+an honourable fellow in one way, and never retails as gossip what he
+acquires for our use. How will he proceed in this case, and by what
+tactics will he gain the very delicate information which we need? I own
+that I am curious to see.
+
+I shall really have to put down at length the incidents of this night.
+I always knew that Joe Smithers was invaluable not only to myself but to
+the police, but I really did not know he possessed talents of so high
+an order. He wrote me this morning that he had succeeded in getting Mr.
+T--'s promise to spend the evening with him, and advised me that if I
+desired to be present as well, his own servant would not be at home, and
+that an opener of bottles would be required.
+
+As I was very anxious to see Mr. T---- with my own eyes, I accepted
+this invitation to play the spy, and went at the proper hour to Mr.
+Smithers's rooms. I found them picturesque in the extreme. Piles of
+books stacked here and there to the ceiling made nooks and corners which
+could be quite shut off by a couple of old pictures set into movable
+frames capable of swinging out or in at the whim or convenience of the
+owner.
+
+As I had use for the dark shadows cast by these pictures, I pulled
+them both out, and made such other arrangements as appeared likely to
+facilitate the purpose I had in view; then I sat down and waited for the
+two gentlemen who were expected to come in together.
+
+They arrived almost immediately, whereupon I rose and played my part
+with all necessary discretion. While ridding Mr. T---- of his overcoat,
+I stole a look at his face. It is not a handsome one, but it boasts of
+a gay, devil-may-care expression which doubtless makes it dangerous to
+many women, while his manners are especially attractive, and his voice
+the richest and most persuasive that I ever heard. I contrasted him,
+almost against my will, with Dr. Zabriskie, and decided that with most
+women the former's undoubted fascinations of speech and bearing would
+outweigh the latter's great beauty and mental endowments; but I doubted
+if they would with her.
+
+The conversation which immediately began was brilliant but desultory,
+for Mr. Smithers, with an airy lightness for which he is remarkable,
+introduced topic after topic, perhaps for the purpose of showing off Mr.
+T-'s versatility, and perhaps for the deeper and more sinister purpose
+of shaking the kaleidoscope of talk so thoroughly, that the real topic
+which we were met to discuss should not make an undue impression on the
+mind of his guest.
+
+Meanwhile one, two, three bottles passed, and I had the pleasure
+of seeing Joe Smithers's eye grow calmer and that of Mr. T---- more
+brilliant and more uncertain. As the last bottle was being passed, Joe
+cast me a meaning glance, and the real business of the evening began.
+
+I shall not attempt to relate the half dozen failures which Joe made in
+endeavouring to elicit the facts we were in search of, without arousing
+the suspicion of his visitor. I am only going to relate the successful
+attempt. They had been talking now for some hours, and I, who had long
+before been waved aside from their immediate presence, was hiding my
+curiosity and growing excitement behind one of the pictures, when I
+suddenly heard Joe say:
+
+"He has the most remarkable memory I ever met. He can tell to a day when
+any notable event occurred."
+
+"Pshaw!" answered his companion, who, by the way, was known to pride
+himself upon his own memory for dates, "I can state where I went and
+what I did on every day in the year. That may not embrace what you call
+'notable events,' but the memory required is all the more remarkable, is
+it not?"
+
+"Pooh!" was his friend's provoking reply, "you are bluffing, Ben; I will
+never believe that."
+
+Mr. T-, who had passed by this time into that stage of intoxication
+which makes persistence in an assertion a duty as well as a pleasure,
+threw back his head, and as the wreaths of smoke rose in airy spirals
+from his lips, reiterated his statement, and offered to submit to any
+test of his vaunted powers which the other might dictate.
+
+"You keep a diary--" began Joe.
+
+"Which at the present moment is at home," completed the other.
+
+"Will you allow me to refer to it tomorrow, if I am suspicious of the
+accuracy of your recollections?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," returned the other.
+
+"Very well, then, I will wager you a cool fifty that you cannot tell
+where you were between the hours of ten and eleven on a certain night
+which I will name."
+
+"Done!" cried the other, bringing out his pocket-book and laying it on
+the table before him.
+
+Joe followed his example and then summoned me.
+
+"Write a date down here," he commanded, pushing a piece of paper towards
+me, with a look keen as the flash of a blade. "Any date, man," he added,
+as I appeared to hesitate in the embarrassment I thought natural under
+the circumstances. "Put down day, month, and year, only don't go too far
+back; not farther than two years."
+
+Smiling with the air of a flunkey admitted to the sports of his
+superiors, I wrote a line and laid it before Mr. Smithers, who at once
+pushed it with a careless gesture towards his companion. You can of
+course guess the date I made use of: July 17, 19--. Mr. T--, who had
+evidently looked upon this matter as mere play, flushed scarlet as he
+read these words, and for one instant looked as if he had rather fly the
+house than answer Joe Smithers's nonchalant glance of inquiry.
+
+"I have given my word and will keep it," he said at last, but with a
+look in my direction that sent me reluctantly back to my retreat. "I
+don't suppose you want names," he went on; "that is, if anything I have
+to tell is of a delicate nature?"
+
+"Oh, no," answered the other, "only facts and places."
+
+"I don't think places are necessary either," he returned. "I will tell
+you what I did and that must serve you. I did not promise to give number
+and street."
+
+"Well, well," Joe exclaimed; "earn your fifty, that is all. Show that
+you remember where you were on the night of"--and with an admirable show
+of indifference he pretended to consult the paper between them--"the
+seventeenth of July, two years ago, and I shall be satisfied."
+
+"I was at the club for one thing," said Mr. T-; "then I went to see a
+lady friend, where I stayed until eleven. She wore a blue muslin--What
+is that?"
+
+I had betrayed myself by a quick movement which sent a glass tumbler
+crashing to the floor. Zulma Zabriskie had worn a blue muslin on
+that same night. You will find it noted in the report given me by the
+policeman who saw her on their balcony.
+
+"That noise?" It was Joe who was speaking. "You don't know Reuben as
+well as I do or you wouldn't ask. It is his practice, I am sorry to say,
+to accentuate his pleasure in draining my bottles by dropping a glass at
+every third one."
+
+Mr. T---- went on.
+
+"She was a married woman and I thought she loved me; but--and this is
+the greatest proof I can offer you that I am giving you a true account
+of that night--she had not the slightest idea of the extent of my
+passion, and only consented to see me at all because she thought,
+poor thing, that a word from her would set me straight, and rid her
+of attentions she evidently failed to appreciate. A sorry figure for a
+fellow like me to cut; but you caught me on the most detestable date in
+my calendar and--"
+
+There he ceased being interesting and I anxious. The secret of a crime
+for which there seemed to be no reasonable explanation is no longer a
+mystery to me. I have but to warn Miss Strange--
+
+He had got thus far when a sound in the room behind him led him to look
+up. A lady had entered; a lady heavily veiled and trembling with what
+appeared to be an intense excitement.
+
+He thought he knew the figure, but the person, whoever it was, stood so
+still and remained so silent, he hesitated to address her; which seeing,
+she pushed up her veil and all doubt vanished.
+
+It was Violet herself. In disregard of her usual practice she had
+come alone to the office. This meant urgency of some kind. Had she too
+sounded this mystery? No, or her aspect would not have worn this look
+of triumph. What had happened then? He made an instant endeavour to find
+out.
+
+"You have news," he quietly remarked. "Good news, I should judge, by
+your very cheery smile."
+
+"Yes; I think I have found the way of bringing Dr. Zabriskie to
+himself."
+
+Astonished beyond measure, so little did these words harmonize with the
+impressions and conclusions at which he had just arrived, something
+very like doubt spoke in his voice as he answered with the simple
+exclamation:
+
+"You do!"
+
+"Yes. He is obsessed by a fixed idea, and must be given an opportunity
+to test the truth of that idea. The shock of finding it a false one
+may restore him to his normal condition. He believes that he shot Mr.
+Hasbrouck with no other guidance than his sense of hearing. Now if it
+can be proved that his hearing is an insufficient guide for such an act
+(as of course it is) the shock of the discovery may clear his brain of
+its cobwebs. Mrs. Zabriskie thinks so, and the police--"
+
+"What's that? The police?"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Zabriskie would be taken before them again this morning. No
+entreaties on the part of his wife would prevail; he insisted upon his
+guilt and asked her to accompany him there; and the poor woman found
+herself forced to go. Of course he encountered again the same division
+of opinion among the men he talked with. Three out of the four judged
+him insane, which observing, he betrayed great agitation and reiterated
+his former wish to be allowed an opportunity to prove his sanity
+by showing his skill in shooting. This made an impression; and a
+disposition was shown to grant his request then and there. But Mrs.
+Zabriskie would not listen to this. She approved of the experiment but
+begged that it might be deferred till another day and then take place in
+some spot remote from the city. For some reason they heeded her, and
+she has just telephoned me that this attempt of his is to take place
+tomorrow in the New Jersey woods. I am sorry that this should have been
+put through without you; and when I tell you that the idea originated
+with me--that from some word I purposely let fall one day, they both
+conceived this plan of ending the uncertainty that was devouring their
+lives, you will understand my excitement and the need I have of your
+support. Tell me that I have done well. Do not show me such a face--you
+frighten me--"
+
+"I do not wish to frighten you. I merely wish to know just who are going
+on this expedition."
+
+"Some members of the police, Dr. Zabriskie, his wife, and--and myself.
+She begged--"
+
+"You must not go."
+
+"Why? The affair is to be kept secret. The doctor will shoot, fail--Oh!"
+she suddenly broke in, alarmed by his expression, "you think he will not
+fail--"
+
+"I think that you had better heed my advice and stay out of it. The
+affair is now in the hands of the police, and your place is anywhere but
+where they are."
+
+"But I go as her particular friend. They have given her the privilege
+of taking with her one of her own sex and she has chosen me. I shall not
+fail her. Father is away, and if the awful disappointment you suggest
+awaits her, there is all the more reason why she should have some
+sympathetic support?"
+
+This was so true, that the fresh protest he was about to utter died on
+his lips. Instead, he simply remarked as he bowed her out:
+
+"I foresee that we shall not work much longer together. You are nearing
+the end of your endurance."
+
+He never forgot the smile she threw back at him.
+
+V
+
+There are some events which impress the human mind so deeply that their
+memory mingles with all after-experiences. Though Violet had made it a
+rule to forget as soon as possible the tragic episodes incident to the
+strange career upon which she had so mysteriously embarked, there was
+destined to be one scene, if not more, which she has never been able to
+dismiss at will.
+
+This was the sight which met her eyes from the bow of the small boat
+in which Dr. Zabriskie and his wife were rowed over to Jersey on the
+afternoon which saw the end of this most sombre drama.
+
+Though it was by no means late in the day, the sun was already sinking,
+and the bright red glare which filled the west and shone full upon
+the faces of the half dozen people before her added much to the tragic
+nature of the scene, though she was far from comprehending its full
+significance.
+
+The doctor sat with his wife in the stern and it was upon their faces
+Violet's glance was fixed. The glare shone luridly on his sightless
+eyeballs, and as she noticed his unwinking lids, she realized as never
+before what it was to be blind in the midst of sunshine. His wife's
+eyes, on the contrary, were lowered, but there was a look of hopeless
+misery in her colourless face which made her appearance infinitely
+pathetic, and Violet felt confident that if he could only have seen
+her, he would not have maintained the cold and unresponsive manner which
+chilled the words on his poor wife's lips and made all advance on her
+part impossible.
+
+On the seat in front of them sat an inspector and from some quarter,
+possibly from under the inspector's coat, there came the monotonous
+ticking of the small clock, which was to serve as a target for the blind
+man's aim.
+
+This ticking was all Violet heard, though the river was alive with
+traffic and large and small boats were steaming by them on every side.
+And I am sure it was all that Mrs. Zabriskie heard also, as with hand
+pressed to her heart, and eyes fixed on the opposite shore, she waited
+for the event which was to determine whether the man she loved was a
+criminal or only a being afflicted of God and worthy of her unceasing
+care and devotion.
+
+As the sun cast its last scarlet gleam over the water, the boat
+grounded, and Violet was enabled to have one passing word with Mrs.
+Zabriskie. She hardly knew what she said but the look she received in
+return was like that of a frightened child.
+
+But there was always to be seen in Mrs. Zabriskie's countenance this
+characteristic blending of the severe and the childlike, and beyond an
+added pang of pity for this beautiful but afflicted woman, Violet let
+the moment pass without giving it the weight it perhaps demanded.
+
+"The doctor and his wife had a long talk last night," was whispered in
+her ear as she wound her way with the rest into the heart of the woods.
+With a start she turned and perceived her employer following close
+behind her. He had come by another boat.
+
+"But it did not seem to heal whatever breach lies between them," he
+proceeded. Then, in a quick, anxious tone, he whispered: "Whatever
+happens, do not lift your veil. I thought I saw a reporter skulking in
+the rear."
+
+"I will be careful," Violet assured him, and could say no more, as they
+had already reached the ground which had been selected for this trial
+at arms, and the various members of the party were being placed in their
+several positions.
+
+The doctor, to whom light and darkness were alike, stood with his face
+towards the western glow, and at his side were grouped the inspector and
+the two physicians. On the arm of one of the latter hung Dr. Zabriskie's
+overcoat, which he had taken off as soon as he reached the field.
+
+Mrs. Zabriskie stood at the other end of the opening near a tall stump,
+upon which it had been decided that the clock should be placed when the
+moment came for the doctor to show his skill. She had been accorded the
+privilege of setting the clock on this stump, and Violet saw it shining
+in her hand as she paused for a moment to glance back at the circle of
+gentlemen who were awaiting her movements. The hands of the clock stood
+at five minutes to five, though Violet scarcely noted it at the time,
+for Mrs. Zabriskie was passing her and had stopped to say:
+
+"If he is not himself, he cannot be trusted. Watch him carefully and see
+that he does no mischief to himself or others. Ask one of the inspectors
+to stand at his right hand, and stop him if he does not handle his
+pistol properly."
+
+Violet promised, and she passed on, setting the clock upon the stump and
+immediately drawing back to a suitable distance at the right, where she
+stood, wrapped in her long dark cloak. Her face shone ghastly white,
+even in its environment of snow-covered boughs, and noting this, Violet
+wished the minutes fewer between the present moment and the hour of
+five, at which time he was to draw the trigger.
+
+"Dr. Zabriskie," quoth the inspector, "we have endeavoured to make this
+trial a perfectly fair one. You are to have a shot at a small clock
+which has been placed within a suitable distance, and which you are
+expected to hit, guided only by the sound which it will make in striking
+the hour of five. Are you satisfied with the arrangement?"
+
+"Perfectly. Where is my wife?"
+
+"On the other side of the field some ten paces from the stump upon which
+the clock is fixed." He bowed, and his face showed satisfaction.
+
+"May I expect the clock to strike soon?"
+
+"In less than five minutes," was the answer.
+
+"Then let me have the pistol; I wish to become acquainted with its size
+and weight."
+
+We glanced at each other, then across at her.
+
+She made a gesture; it was one of acquiescence.
+
+Immediately the inspector placed the weapon in the blind man's hand.
+It was at once apparent that he understood the instrument, and Violet's
+hopes which had been strong up to this moment, sank at his air of
+confidence.
+
+"Thank God I am blind this hour and cannot see her," fell from his lips,
+then, before the echo of these words had died away, he raised his voice
+and observed calmly enough, considering that he was about to prove
+himself a criminal in order to save himself from being thought a madman:
+
+"Let no one move. I must have my ears free for catching the first stroke
+of the clock." And he raised the pistol before him.
+
+There was a moment of torturing suspense and deep, unbroken silence.
+Violet's eyes were on him so she did not watch the clock, but she was
+suddenly moved by some irresistible impulse to note how Mrs. Zabriskie
+was bearing herself at this critical moment, and casting a hurried
+glance in her direction she perceived her tall figure swaying from side
+to side, as if under an intolerable strain of feeling. Her eyes were on
+the clock, the hands of which seemed to creep with snail-like pace along
+the dial, when unexpectedly, and a full minute before the minute hand
+had reached the stroke of five, Violet caught a movement on her part,
+saw the flash of something round and white show for an instant against
+the darkness of her cloak, and was about to shriek warning to the
+doctor, when the shrill, quick stroke of a clock rang out on the frosty
+air, followed by the ping and flash of a pistol.
+
+A sound of shattered glass, followed by a suppressed cry, told the
+bystanders that the bullet had struck the mark, but before any one could
+move, or they could rid their eyes of the smoke which the wind had blown
+into their faces, there came another sound which made their hair stand
+on end and sent the blood back in terror to their hearts. Another clock
+was striking, which they now perceived was still standing upright on the
+stump where Mrs. Zabriskie had placed it.
+
+Whence came the clock, then, which had struck before the time and been
+shattered for its pains? One quick look told them. On the ground, ten
+paces to the right, lay Zulma Zabriskie, a broken clock at her side, and
+in her breast a bullet which was fast sapping the life from her sweet
+eyes.
+
+They had to tell him, there was such pleading in her looks; and never
+will any of the hearers forget the scream which rang from his lips as
+he realized the truth. Breaking from their midst, he rushed forward, and
+fell at her feet as if guided by some supernatural instinct.
+
+"Zulma," he shrieked, "what is this? Were not my hands dyed deep enough
+in blood that you should make me answerable for your life also?"
+
+Her eyes were closed but she opened them. Looking long and steadily at
+his agonized face, she faltered forth:
+
+"It is not you who have killed me; it is your crime. Had you been
+innocent of Mr. Hasbrouck's death your bullet would never have found my
+heart. Did you think I could survive the proof that you had killed that
+good man?"
+
+"I did it unwittingly. I--"
+
+"Hush!" she commanded, with an awful look, which happily he could not
+see. "I had another motive. I wished to prove to you, even at the cost
+of my life, that I loved you, had always loved you, and not--"
+
+It was now his turn to silence her. His hand crept to her lips, and his
+despairing face turned itself blindly towards those about them.
+
+"Go!" he cried; "leave us! Let me take a last farewell of my dying wife,
+without listeners or spectators."
+
+Consulting the eye of her employer who stood close beside her, and
+seeing no hope in it, Violet fell slowly back. The others, followed, and
+the doctor was left alone with his wife. From the distant position
+they took, they saw her arms creep round his neck, saw her head fall
+confidingly on his breast, then silence settled upon them, and upon all
+nature, the gathering twilight deepening, till the last glow disappeared
+from the heavens above and from the circle of leafless trees which
+enclosed this tragedy from the outside world.
+
+But at last there came a stir, and Dr. Zabriskie, rising up before them
+with the dead body of his wife held closely to his breast, confronted
+them with a countenance so rapturous that he looked like a man
+transfigured.
+
+"I will carry her to the boat," said he. "Not another hand shall
+touch her. She was my true wife, my true wife!" And he towered into an
+attitude of such dignity and passion that for a moment he took on heroic
+proportions and they forgot that he had just proved himself to have
+committed a cold-blooded and ghastly crime.
+
+The stars were shining when the party again took their seats in the
+boat; and if the scene of their crossing to Jersey was impressive, what
+shall be said of the return?
+
+The doctor, as before, sat in the stern, an awesome figure, upon which
+the moon shone with a white radiance that seemed to lift his face out
+of the surrounding darkness and set it like an image of frozen horror
+before their eyes. Against his breast he held the form of his dead wife,
+and now and then Violet saw him stoop as if he were listening for some
+token of life from her set lips. Then he would lift himself again with
+hopelessness stamped upon his features, only to lean forward in renewed
+hope that was again destined to disappointment.
+
+Violet had been so overcome by this tragic end to all her hopes, that
+her employer had been allowed to enter the boat with her. Seated at her
+side in the seat directly in front of the doctor, he watched with
+her these simple tokens of a breaking heart, saying nothing till they
+reached midstream, when true to his instincts for all his awe and
+compassion, he suddenly bent towards him and said:
+
+"Dr. Zabriskie, the mystery of your crime is no longer a mystery to me.
+Listen and see if I do not understand your temptation, and how you, a
+conscientious and God-fearing man, came to slay your innocent neighbour.
+
+"A friend of yours, or so he called himself, had for a long time filled
+your ears with tales tending to make you suspicious of your wife and
+jealous of a certain man whom I will not name. You knew that your friend
+had a grudge against this man, and so for many months turned a deaf ear
+to his insinuations. But finally some change which you detected in your
+wife's bearing or conversation roused your own suspicions, and you
+began to doubt her truth and to curse your blindness, which in a measure
+rendered you helpless. The jealous fever grew and had risen to a high
+point when one night--a memorable night--this friend met you just as you
+were leaving town, and with cruel craft whispered in your ear that the
+man you hated was even then with your wife and that if you would return
+at once to your home you would find him in her company.
+
+"The demon that lurks at the heart of all men, good or bad, thereupon
+took complete possession of you, and you answered this false friend by
+saying that you would not return without a pistol. Whereupon he offered
+to take you to his house and give you his. You consented, and getting
+rid of your servant by sending him to Poughkeepsie with your excuses,
+you entered your friend's automobile.
+
+"You say you bought the pistol, and perhaps you did, but, however
+that may be, you left his house with it in your pocket, and declining
+companionship, walked home, arriving at the Colonnade a little before
+midnight.
+
+"Ordinarily you have no difficulty in recognizing your own doorstep.
+But, being in a heated frame of mind, you walked faster than usual and
+so passed your own house and stopped at that of Mr. Hasbrouck, one door
+beyond. As the entrances of these houses are all alike, there was but
+one way by which you could have made yourself sure that you had reached
+your own dwelling, and that was by feeling for the doctor's sign at the
+side of the door. But you never thought of that. Absorbed in dreams
+of vengeance, your sole impulse was to enter by the quickest means
+possible. Taking out your night key, you thrust it into the lock. It
+fitted, but it took strength to turn it, so much strength that the key
+was twisted and bent by the effort. But this incident, which would have
+attracted your attention at another time, was lost upon you at this
+moment. An entrance had been effected, and you were in too excited a
+frame of mind to notice at what cost, or to detect the small differences
+apparent in the atmosphere and furnishings of the two houses, trifles
+which would have arrested your attention under other circumstances, and
+made you pause before the upper floor had been reached.
+
+"It was while going up the stairs that you took out your pistol, so that
+by the time you arrived at the front room door you held it already drawn
+and cocked in your hand. For, being blind, you feared escape on the part
+of your victim, and so waited for nothing but the sound of a man's voice
+before firing. When, therefore, the unfortunate Mr. Hasbrouck, roused by
+this sudden intrusion, advanced with an exclamation of astonishment,
+you pulled the trigger, and killed him on the spot. It must have been
+immediately upon his fall that you recognized from some word he uttered,
+or from some contact you may have had with your surroundings, that you
+were in the wrong house and had killed the wrong man; for you cried
+out, in evident remorse, 'God! what have I done!' and fled without
+approaching your victim.
+
+"Descending the stairs, you rushed from the house, closing the front
+door behind you and regaining your own without being seen. But here you
+found yourself baffled in your attempted escape, by two things. First,
+by the pistol you still held in your hand, and secondly, by the fact
+that the key upon which you depended for entering your own door was
+so twisted out of shape that you knew it would be useless for you to
+attempt to use it. What did you do in this emergency? You have already
+told us, though the story seemed so improbable at the time, you found
+nobody to believe it but myself. The pistol you flung far away from
+you down the pavement, from which, by one of those rare chances which
+sometimes happen in this world, it was presently picked up by some late
+passer-by of more or less doubtful character. The door offered less
+of an obstacle than you had anticipated; for when you turned again you
+found it, if I am not greatly mistaken, ajar, left so, as we have reason
+to believe, by one who had gone out of it but a few minutes before in a
+state which left him but little master of his actions. It was this fact
+which provided you with an answer when you were asked how you succeeded
+in getting into Mr. Hasbrouck's house after the family had retired for
+the night.
+
+"Astonished at the coincidence, but hailing with gladness the
+deliverance which it offered, you went in and ascended at once into your
+wife's presence; and it was from her lips, and not from those of Mrs.
+Hasbrouck, that the cry arose which startled the neighbourhood and
+prepared men's minds for the tragic words which were shouted a moment
+later from the next house.
+
+"But she who uttered the scream knew of no tragedy save that which
+was taking place in her own breast. She had just repulsed a dastardly
+suitor, and seeing you enter so unexpectedly in a state of unaccountable
+horror and agitation, was naturally stricken with dismay, and thought
+she saw your ghost, or what was worse, a possible avenger; while you,
+having failed to kill the man you sought, and having killed a man
+you esteemed, let no surprise on her part lure you into any dangerous
+self-betrayal. You strove instead to soothe her, and even attempted to
+explain the excitement under which you laboured, by an account of your
+narrow escape at the station, till the sudden alarm from next door
+distracted her attention, and sent both your thoughts and hers in a
+different direction. Not till conscience had fully awakened and the
+horror of your act had had time to tell upon your sensitive nature, did
+you breathe forth those vague confessions, which, not being supported by
+the only explanations which would have made them credible, led her, as
+well as the police, to consider you affected in your mind. Your pride as
+a man and your consideration for her as a woman kept you silent, but did
+not keep the worm from preying upon your heart.
+
+"Am I not correct in my surmises, Dr. Zabriskie, and is not this the
+true explanation of your crime?"
+
+With a strange look, he lifted up his face.
+
+"Hush!" said he; "you will waken her. See how peacefully she sleeps! I
+should not like to have her wakened now, she is so tired, and I--I have
+not watched over her as I should."
+
+Appalled at his gesture, his look, his tone, Violet drew back, and for a
+few minutes no sound was to be heard but the steady dip-dip of the oars
+and the lap-lap of the waters against the boat. Then there came a
+quick uprising, the swaying before her of something dark and tall and
+threatening, and before she could speak or move, or even stretch forth
+her hands to stay him, the seat before her was empty and darkness had
+filled the place where but an instant previous he had sat, a fearsome
+figure, erect and rigid as a sphinx.
+
+What little moonlight there was, only served to show a few rising
+bubbles, marking the spot where the unfortunate man had sunk with his
+much-loved burden. As the widening circles fled farther and farther out,
+the tide drifted the boat away, and the spot was lost which had seen the
+termination of one of earth's saddest tragedies.
+
+END OF PROBLEM VII
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM VIII. MISSING: PAGE THIRTEEN
+
+"One more! just one more well paying affair, and I promise to stop;
+really and truly to stop."
+
+"But, Puss, why one more? You have earned the amount you set for
+yourself,--or very nearly,--and though my help is not great, in three
+months I can add enough--"
+
+"No, you cannot, Arthur. You are doing well; I appreciate it; in fact,
+I am just delighted to have you work for me in the way you do, but you
+cannot, in your present position, make enough in three months, or in
+six, to meet the situation as I see it. Enough does not satisfy me.
+The measure must be full, heaped up, and running over. Possible failure
+following promise must be provided for. Never must I feel myself called
+upon to do this kind of thing again. Besides, I have never got over the
+Zabriskie tragedy. It haunts me continually. Something new may help to
+put it out of my head. I feel guilty. I was responsible--"
+
+"No, Puss. I will not have it that you were responsible. Some such end
+was bound to follow a complication like that. Sooner or later he would
+have been driven to shoot himself--"
+
+"But not her."
+
+"No, not her. But do you think she would have given those few minutes
+of perfect understanding with her blind husband for a few years more of
+miserable life?"
+
+Violet made no answer; she was too absorbed in her surprise. Was this
+Arthur? Had a few weeks' work and a close connection with the really
+serious things of life made this change in him? Her face beamed at the
+thought, which seeing, but not understanding what underlay this evidence
+of joy, he bent and kissed her, saying with some of his old nonchalance:
+
+"Forget it, Violet; only don't let any one or anything lead you to
+interest yourself in another affair of the kind. If you do, I shall have
+to consult a certain friend of yours as to the best way of stopping this
+folly. I mention no names. Oh! you need not look so frightened. Only
+behave; that's all."
+
+"He's right," she acknowledged to herself, as he sauntered away;
+"altogether right."
+
+Yet because she wanted the extra money--
+
+The scene invited alarm,--that is, for so young a girl as Violet,
+surveying it from an automobile some time after the stroke of midnight.
+An unknown house at the end of a heavily shaded walk, in the open
+doorway of which could be seen the silhouette of a woman's form leaning
+eagerly forward with arms outstretched in an appeal for help! It
+vanished while she looked, but the effect remained, holding her to
+her seat for one startled moment. This seemed strange, for she had
+anticipated adventure. One is not summoned from a private ball to ride a
+dozen miles into the country on an errand of investigation, without some
+expectation of encountering the mysterious and the tragic. But Violet
+Strange, for all her many experiences, was of a most susceptible nature,
+and for the instant in which that door stood open, with only the memory
+of that expectant figure to disturb the faintly lit vista of the
+hall beyond, she felt that grip upon the throat which comes from an
+indefinable fear which no words can explain and no plummet sound.
+
+But this soon passed. With the setting of her foot to ground, conditions
+changed and her emotions took on a more normal character. The figure of
+a man now stood in the place held by the vanished woman; and it was not
+only that of one she knew but that of one whom she trusted--a friend
+whose very presence gave her courage. With this recognition came a
+better understanding of the situation, and it was with a beaming eye and
+unclouded features that she tripped up the walk to meet the expectant
+figure and outstretched hand of Roger Upjohn.
+
+"You here!" she exclaimed, amid smiles and blushes, as he drew her into
+the hall.
+
+He at once launched forth into explanations mingled with apologies for
+the presumption he had shown in putting her to this inconvenience. There
+was trouble in the house--great trouble. Something had occurred for
+which an explanation must be found before morning, or the happiness
+and honour of more than one person now under this unhappy roof would be
+wrecked. He knew it was late--that she had been obliged to take a long
+and dreary ride alone, but her success with the problem which had once
+come near wrecking his own life had emboldened him to telephone to the
+office and--"But you are in ball-dress," he cried in amazement. "Did you
+think--"
+
+"I came from a ball. Word reached me between the dances. I did not go
+home. I had been bidden to hurry."
+
+He looked his appreciation, but when he spoke it was to say:
+
+"This is the situation. Miss Digby--"
+
+"The lady who is to be married tomorrow?"
+
+"Who hopes to be married tomorrow."
+
+"How, hopes?"
+
+"Who will be married tomorrow, if a certain article lost in this house
+tonight can be found before any of the persons who have been dining here
+leave for their homes."
+
+Violet uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Then, Mr. Cornell," she began--
+
+"Mr. Cornell has our utmost confidence," Roger hastened to interpose.
+"But the article missing is one which he might reasonably desire
+to possess and which he alone of all present had the opportunity of
+securing. You can therefore see why he, with his pride--the pride off
+a man not rich, engaged to marry a woman who is--should declare that
+unless his innocence is established before daybreak, the doors of St.
+Bartholomew will remain shut to-morrow."
+
+"But the article lost--what is it?"
+
+"Miss Digby will give you the particulars. She is waiting to receive
+you," he added with a gesture towards a half-open door at their right.
+
+Violet glanced that way, then cast her looks up and down the hall in
+which they stood.
+
+"Do you know that you have not told me in whose house I am? Not hers, I
+know. She lives in the city."
+
+"And you are twelve miles from Harlem. Miss Strange, you are in the Van
+Broecklyn mansion, famous enough you will acknowledge. Have you never
+been here before?"
+
+"I have been by here, but I recognized nothing in the dark. What an
+exciting place for an investigation!"
+
+"And Mr. Van Broecklyn? Have you never met him?"
+
+"Once, when a child. He frightened me then."
+
+"And may frighten you now; though I doubt it. Time has mellowed him.
+Besides, I have prepared him for what might otherwise occasion him some
+astonishment. Naturally he would not look for just the sort of lady
+investigator I am about to introduce to him."
+
+She smiled. Violet Strange was a very charming young woman, as well as a
+keen prober of odd mysteries.
+
+The meeting between herself and Miss Digby was a sympathetic one. After
+the first inevitable shock which the latter felt at sight of the beauty
+and fashionable appearance of the mysterious little being who was to
+solve her difficulties, her glance, which, under other circumstances,
+might have lingered unduly upon the piquant features and exquisite
+dressing of the fairy-like figure before her, passed at once to Violet's
+eyes, in whose steady depths beamed an intelligence quite at odds with
+the coquettish dimples which so often misled the casual observer in his
+estimation of a character singularly subtle and well-poised.
+
+As for the impression she herself made upon Violet, it was the same she
+made upon everyone. No one could look long at Florence Digby and not
+recognize the loftiness of her spirit and the generous nature of her
+impulses. In person she was tall and as she leaned to take Violet's
+hand, the difference between them brought out the salient points in
+each, to the great admiration of the one onlooker.
+
+Meantime, for all her interest in the case in hand, Violet could not
+help casting a hurried look about her, in gratification of the curiosity
+incited by her entrance into a house signalized from its foundation by
+such a series of tragic events. The result was disappointing. The walls
+were plain, the furniture simple. Nothing suggestive in either, unless
+it was the fact that nothing was new, nothing modern. As it looked in
+the days of Burr and Hamilton so it looked to-day, even to the rather
+startling detail of candles which did duty on every side in place of
+gas.
+
+As Violet recalled the reason for this, the fascination of the past
+seized upon her imagination. There was no knowing where this might have
+carried her, had not the feverish gleam in Miss Digby's eyes warned
+her that the present held its own excitement. Instantly, she was all
+attention and listening with undivided mind to that lady's disclosures.
+
+They were brief and to the following effect:
+
+The dinner which had brought some half-dozen people together in this
+house had been given in celebration of her impending marriage. But it
+was also in a way meant as a compliment to one of the other guests, a
+Mr. Spielhagen, who, during the week, had succeeded in demonstrating to
+a few experts the value of a discovery he had made which would transform
+a great industry.
+
+In speaking of this discovery, Miss Digby did not go into particulars,
+the whole matter being far beyond her understanding; but in stating its
+value she openly acknowledged that it was in the line of Mr. Cornell's
+own work, and one which involved calculations and a formula which, if
+prematurely disclosed, would invalidate the contract Mr. Spielhagen
+hoped to make, and thus destroy his present hopes.
+
+Of this formula but two copies existed. One was locked up in a safe
+deposit vault in Boston, the other he had brought into the house on
+his person, and it was the latter which was now missing, having been
+abstracted during the evening from a manuscript of sixteen or more
+sheets, under circumstances which she would now endeavour to relate.
+
+Mr. Van Broecklyn, their host, had in his melancholy life but one
+interest which could be at all absorbing. This was for explosives.
+As consequence, much of the talk at the dinner-table had been on Mr.
+Spielhagen's discovery, and possible changes it might introduce into
+this especial industry. As these, worked out from a formula kept secret
+from the trade, could not but affect greatly Mr. Cornell's interests,
+she found herself listening intently, when Mr. Van Broecklyn, with an
+apology for his interference, ventured to remark that if Mr. Spielhagen
+had made a valuable discovery in this line, so had he, and one which he
+had substantiated by many experiments. It was not a marketable one, such
+as Mr. Spielhagen's was, but in his work upon the same, and in the tests
+which he had been led to make, he had discovered certain instances
+he would gladly name, which demanded exceptional procedure to be
+successful. If Mr. Spielhagen's method did not allow for these
+exceptions, nor make suitable provision for them, then Mr. Spielhagen's
+method would fail more times than it would succeed. Did it so allow and
+so provide? It would relieve him greatly to learn that it did.
+
+The answer came quickly. Yes, it did. But later and after some further
+conversation, Mr. Spielhagen's confidence seemed to wane, and before
+they left the dinner-table, he openly declared his intention of looking
+over his manuscript again that very night, in order to be sure that the
+formula therein contained duly covered all the exceptions mentioned by
+Mr. Van Broecklyn.
+
+If Mr. Cornell's countenance showed any change at this moment, she for
+one had not noticed it; but the bitterness with which he remarked upon
+the other's good fortune in having discovered this formula of whose
+entire success he had no doubt, was apparent to everybody, and naturally
+gave point to the circumstances which a short time afterward associated
+him with the disappearance of the same.
+
+The ladies (there were two others besides herself) having withdrawn in
+a body to the music-room, the gentlemen all proceeded to the library to
+smoke. Here, conversation loosed from the one topic which had hitherto
+engrossed it, was proceeding briskly, when Mr. Spielhagen, with nervous
+gesture, impulsively looked about him and said:
+
+"I cannot rest till I have run through my thesis again. Where can I find
+a quiet spot? I won't be long; I read very rapidly."
+
+It was for Mr. Van Broecklyn to answer, but no word coming from him,
+every eye turned his way, only to find him sunk in one of those fits of
+abstraction so well known to his friends, and from which no one who has
+this strange man's peace of mind at heart ever presumes to rouse him.
+
+What was to be done? These moods of their singular host sometimes lasted
+half an hour, and Mr. Spielhagen had not the appearance of a man of
+patience. Indeed he presently gave proof of the great uneasiness he was
+labouring under, for noticing a door standing ajar on the other side of
+the room, he remarked to those around him:
+
+"A den! and lighted! Do you see any objection to my shutting myself in
+there for a few minutes?"
+
+No one venturing to reply, he rose, and giving a slight push to the
+door, disclosed a small room exquisitely panelled and brightly lighted,
+but without one article of furniture in it, not even a chair.
+
+"The very place," quoth Mr. Spielhagen, and lifting a light
+cane-bottomed chair from the many standing about, he carried it inside
+and shut the door behind him.
+
+Several minutes passed during which the man who had served at table
+entered with a tray on which were several small glasses evidently
+containing some choice liqueur. Finding his master fixed in one of his
+strange moods, he set the tray down and, pointing to one of the glasses,
+said:
+
+"That is for Mr. Van Broecklyn. It contains his usual quieting powder."
+And urging the gentlemen to help themselves, he quietly left the room.
+Mr. Upjohn lifted the glass nearest him, and Mr. Cornell seemed about to
+do the same when he suddenly reached forward and catching up one farther
+off started for the room in which Mr. Spielhagen had so deliberately
+secluded himself.
+
+Why he did all this--why, above all things, he should reach across the
+tray for a glass instead of taking the one under his hand, he can no
+more explain than why he has followed many another unhappy impulse.
+Nor did he understand the nervous start given by Mr. Spielhagen at his
+entrance, or the stare with which that gentleman took the glass from his
+hand and mechanically drank its contents, till he saw how his hand had
+stretched itself across the sheet of paper he was reading, in an open
+attempt to hide the lines visible between his fingers. Then indeed the
+intruder flushed and withdrew in great embarrassment, fully conscious
+of his indiscretion but not deeply disturbed till Mr. Van Broecklyn,
+suddenly arousing and glancing down at the tray placed very near his
+hand remarked in some surprise: "Dobbs seems to have forgotten me." Then
+indeed, the unfortunate Mr. Cornell realized what he had done. It was
+the glass intended for his host which he had caught up and carried into
+the other room--the glass which he had been told contained a drug.
+Of what folly he had been guilty, and how tame would be any effort at
+excuse!
+
+Attempting none, he rose and with a hurried glance at Mr. Upjohn who
+flushed in sympathy at his distress, he crossed to the door he had
+lately closed upon Mr. Spielhagen. But feeling his shoulder touched
+as his hand pressed the knob, he turned to meet the eye of Mr. Van
+Broecklyn fixed upon him with an expression which utterly confounded
+him.
+
+"Where are you going?" that gentleman asked.
+
+The questioning tone, the severe look, expressive at once of displeasure
+and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed to
+stammer forth:
+
+"Mr. Spielhagen is in here consulting his thesis. When your man brought
+in the cordial, I was awkward enough to catch up your glass and carry it
+in to. Mr. Spielhagen. He drank it and I--I am anxious to see if it did
+him any harm."
+
+As he uttered the last word he felt Mr. Van Broecklyn's hand slip from
+his shoulder, but no word accompanied the action, nor did his host make
+the least move to follow him into the room.
+
+This was a matter of great regret to him later, as it left him for a
+moment out of the range of every eye, during which he says he simply
+stood in a state of shock at seeing Mr. Spielhagen still sitting there,
+manuscript in hand, but with head fallen forward and eyes closed; dead,
+asleep or--he hardly knew what; the sight so paralysed him.
+
+Whether or not this was the exact truth and the whole truth, Mr. Cornell
+certainly looked very unlike himself as he stepped back into Mr. Van
+Broecklyn's presence; and he was only partially reassured when that
+gentleman protested that there was no real harm in the drug, and that
+Mr. Spielhagen would be all right if left to wake naturally and without
+shock. However, as his present attitude was one of great discomfort,
+they decided to carry him back and lay him on the library lounge. But
+before doing this, Mr. Upjohn drew from his flaccid grasp, the precious
+manuscript, and carrying it into the larger room placed it on a remote
+table, where it remained undisturbed till Mr. Spielhagen, suddenly
+coming to himself at the end of some fifteen minutes, missed the sheets
+from his hand, and bounding up, crossed the room to repossess himself of
+them.
+
+His face, as he lifted them up and rapidly ran through them with
+ever-accumulating anxiety, told them what they had to expect.
+
+The page containing the formula was gone!
+
+Violet now saw her problem.
+
+II
+
+There was no doubt about the loss I have mentioned; all could see that
+page 13 was not there. In vain a second handling of every sheet, the one
+so numbered was not to be found. Page 14 met the eye on the top of
+the pile, and page 12 finished it off at the bottom, but no page 13 in
+between, or anywhere else.
+
+Where had it vanished, and through whose agency had this misadventure
+occurred? No one could say, or, at least, no one there made any attempt
+to do so, though everybody started to look for it.
+
+But where look? The adjoining small room offered no facilities for
+hiding a cigar-end, much less a square of shining white paper. Bare
+walls, a bare floor, and a single chair for furniture, comprised all
+that was to be seen in this direction. Nor could the room in which they
+then stood be thought to hold it, unless it was on the person of some
+one of them. Could this be the explanation of the mystery? No man looked
+his doubts; but Mr. Cornell, possibly divining the general feeling,
+stepped up to Mr. Van Broecklyn and in a cool voice, but with the red
+burning hotly on either cheek, said, so as to be heard by everyone
+present:
+
+"I demand to be searched--at once and thoroughly."
+
+A moment's silence, then the common cry:
+
+"We will all be searched."
+
+"Is Mr. Spielhagen sure that the missing page was with the others when
+he sat down in the adjoining room to read his thesis?" asked their
+perturbed host.
+
+"Very sure," came the emphatic reply. "Indeed, I was just going through
+the formula itself when I fell asleep."
+
+"You are ready to assert this?"
+
+"I am ready to swear it."
+
+Mr. Cornell repeated his request.
+
+"I demand that you make a thorough search of my person. I must be
+cleared, and instantly, of every suspicion," he gravely asserted, "or
+how can I marry Miss Digby to-morrow."
+
+After that there was no further hesitation. One and all subjected
+themselves to the ordeal suggested; even Mr. Spielhagen. But this effort
+was as futile as the rest. The lost page was not found.
+
+What were they to think? What were they to do?
+
+There seemed to be nothing left to do, and yet some further attempt must
+be made towards the recovery of this important formula. Mr. Cornell's
+marriage and Mr. Spielhagen's business success both depended upon its
+being in the latter's hands before six in the morning, when he was
+engaged to hand it over to a certain manufacturer sailing for Europe on
+an early steamer.
+
+Five hours!
+
+Had Mr. Van Broecklyn a suggestion to offer? No, he was as much at sea
+as the rest.
+
+Simultaneously look crossed look. Blankness was on every face.
+
+"Let us call the ladies," suggested one.
+
+It was done, and however great the tension had been before, it was even
+greater when Miss Digby stepped upon the scene. But she was not a woman
+to be shaken from her poise even by a crisis of this importance. When
+the dilemma had been presented to her and the full situation grasped,
+she looked first at Mr. Cornell and then at Mr. Spielhagen, and quietly
+said:
+
+"There is but one explanation possible of this matter. Mr. Spielhagen
+will excuse me, but he is evidently mistaken in thinking that he saw the
+lost page among the rest. The condition into which he was thrown by the
+unaccustomed drug he had drank, made him liable to hallucinations. I
+have not the least doubt he thought he had been studying the formula
+at the time he dropped off to sleep. I have every confidence in
+the gentleman's candour. But so have I in that of Mr. Cornell," she
+supplemented, with a smile.
+
+An exclamation from Mr. Van Broecklyn and a subdued murmur from all but
+Mr. Spielhagen testified to the effect of this suggestion, and there
+is no saying what might have been the result if Mr. Cornell had not
+hurriedly put in this extraordinary and most unexpected protest:
+
+"Miss Digby has my gratitude," said he, "for a confidence which I hope
+to prove to be deserved. But I must say this for Mr. Spielhagen. He was
+correct in stating that he was engaged in looking over his formula when
+I stepped into his presence with the glass of cordial. If you were not
+in a position to see the hurried way in which his hand instinctively
+spread itself over the page he was reading, I was; and if that does not
+seem conclusive to you, then I feel bound to state that in unconsciously
+following this movement of his, I plainly saw the number written on the
+top of the page, and that number was--13."
+
+A loud exclamation, this time from Spielhagen himself, announced his
+gratitude and corresponding change of attitude toward the speaker.
+
+"Wherever that damned page has gone," he protested, advancing towards
+Cornell with outstretched hand, "you have nothing to do with its
+disappearance."
+
+Instantly all constraint fled, and every countenance took on a relieved
+expression. But the problem remained.
+
+Suddenly those very words passed some one's lips, and with their
+utterance Mr. Upjohn remembered how at an extraordinary crisis in his
+own life he had been helped and an equally difficult problem settled,
+by a little lady secretly attached to a private detective agency. If she
+could only be found and hurried here before morning, all might yet be
+well. He would make the effort. Such wild schemes sometimes work. He
+telephoned to the office and--
+
+Was there anything else Miss Strange would like to know?
+
+III
+
+Miss Strange, thus appealed to, asked where the gentlemen were now.
+
+She was told that they were still all together in the library; the
+ladies had been sent home.
+
+"Then let us go to them," said Violet, hiding under a smile her great
+fear that here was an affair which might very easily spell for her that
+dismal word, failure.
+
+So great was that fear that under all ordinary circumstances she would
+have had no thought for anything else in the short interim between
+this stating of the problem and her speedy entrance among the persons
+involved. But the circumstances of this case were so far from ordinary,
+or rather let me put it in this way, the setting of the case was so very
+extraordinary, that she scarcely thought of the problem before her, in
+her great interest in the house through whose rambling halls she was
+being so carefully guided. So much that was tragic and heartrending had
+occurred here. The Van Broecklyn name, the Van Broecklyn history, above
+all the Van Broecklyn tradition, which made the house unique in the
+country's annals (of which more hereafter), all made an appeal to her
+imagination, and centred her thoughts on what she saw about her. There
+was door which no man ever opened--had never opened since Revolutionary
+times--should she see it? Should she know it if she did see it? Then Mr.
+Van Broecklyn himself! just to meet him, under any conditions and in
+any place, was an event. But to meet him here, under the pall of his
+own mystery! No wonder she had no words for her companions, or that
+her thoughts clung to this anticipation in wonder and almost fearsome
+delight.
+
+His story was a well-known one. A bachelor and a misanthrope, he lived
+absolutely alone save for a large entourage of servants, all men and
+elderly ones at that. He never visited. Though he now and then, as on
+this occasion, entertained certain persons under his roof, he declined
+every invitation for himself, avoiding even, with equal strictness, all
+evening amusements of whatever kind, which would detain him in the city
+after ten at night. Perhaps this was to ensure no break in his rule of
+life never to sleep out of his own bed. Though he was a man well over
+fifty he had not spent, according to his own statement, but two nights
+out of his own bed since his return from Europe in early boyhood, and
+those were in obedience to a judicial summons which took him to Boston.
+
+This was his main eccentricity, but he had another which is apparent
+enough from what has already been said. He avoided women. If thrown in
+with them during his short visits into town, he was invariably polite
+and at times companionable, but he never sought them out, nor had
+gossip, contrary to its usual habit, ever linked his name with one of
+the sex.
+
+Yet he was a man of more than ordinary attraction. His features were
+fine and his figure impressive. He might have been the cynosure of all
+eyes had he chosen to enter crowded drawing-rooms, or even to frequent
+public assemblages, but having turned his back upon everything of the
+kind in his youth, he had found it impossible to alter his habits with
+advancing years; nor was he now expected to. The position he had taken
+was respected. Leonard Van Broecklyn was no longer criticized.
+
+Was there any explanation for this strangely self-centred life? Those
+who knew him best seemed to think so. In the first place he had sprung
+from an unfortunate stock. Events of unusual and tragic nature had
+marked the family of both parents. Nor had his parents themselves
+been exempt from this seeming fatality. Antagonistic in tastes and
+temperament, they had dragged on an unhappy existence in the old home,
+till both natures rebelled, and a separation ensued which not only
+disunited their lives but sent them to opposite sides of the globe
+never to return again. At least, that was the inference drawn from
+the peculiar circumstances attending the event. On the morning of one
+never-to-be-forgotten day, John Van Broecklyn, the grandfather of the
+present representative of the family, found the following note from his
+son lying on the library table:
+
+"FATHER:
+
+"Life in this house, or any house, with her is no longer endurable.
+One of us must go. The mother should not be separated from her child.
+Therefore it is I whom you will never see again. Forget me, but be
+considerate of her and the boy.
+
+"WILLIAM."
+
+Six hours later another note was found, this time from the wife:
+
+"FATHER:
+
+"Tied to a rotting corpse what does one do? Lop off one's arm if
+necessary to rid one of the contact. As all love between your son and
+myself is dead, I can no longer live within the sound of his voice. As
+this is his home, he is the one to remain in it. May our child reap the
+benefit of his mother's loss and his father's affection.
+
+"RHODA."
+
+Both were gone, and gone forever. Simultaneous in their departure, they
+preserved each his own silence and sent no word back. If the one went
+east and the other west, they may have met on the other side of the
+globe, but never again in the home which sheltered their boy. For him
+and for his grandfather they had sunk from sight in the great sea of
+humanity, leaving them stranded on an isolated and mournful shore. The
+grand-father steeled himself to the double loss, for the child's sake;
+but the boy of eleven succumbed. Few of the world's great sufferers, of
+whatever age or condition, have mourned as this child mourned, or shown
+the effects of his grief so deeply or so long. Not till he had passed
+his majority did the line, carved in one day in his baby forehead, lose
+any of its intensity; and there are those who declare that even later
+than that, the midnight stillness of the house was disturbed from time
+to time by his muffled shriek of "Mother! Mother!", sending the servants
+from the house, and adding one more horror to the many which clung about
+this accursed mansion.
+
+Of this cry Violet had heard, and it was that and the door--But I have
+already told you about the door which she was still looking for,
+when her two companions suddenly halted, and she found herself on the
+threshold of the library, in full view of Mr. Van Broecklyn and his two
+guests.
+
+Slight and fairy-like in figure, with an air of modest reserve more in
+keeping with her youth and dainty dimpling beauty than with her errand,
+her appearance produced an astonishment none of which the gentlemen were
+able to disguise. This the clever detective, with a genius for social
+problems and odd elusive cases! This darling of the ball-room in satin
+and pearls! Mr. Spielhagen glanced at Mr. Cornell, and Mr. Cornell at
+Mr. Spielhagen, and both at Mr. Upjohn, in very evident distrust. As for
+Violet, she had eyes only for Mr. Van Broecklyn who stood before her in
+a surprise equal to that of the others but with more restraint in its
+expression.
+
+She was not disappointed in him. She had expected to see a man, reserved
+almost to the point of austerity. And she found his first look even more
+awe-compelling than her imagination had pictured; so much so indeed,
+that her resolution faltered, and she took a quick step backward; which
+seeing, he smiled and her heart and hopes grew warm again. That he could
+smile, and smile with absolute sweetness, was her great comfort when
+later--But I am introducing you too hurriedly to the catastrophe. There
+is much to be told first.
+
+I pass over the preliminaries, and come at once to the moment when
+Violet, having listened to a repetition of the full facts, stood with
+downcast eyes before these gentlemen, complaining in some alarm to
+herself: "They expect me to tell them now and without further search
+or parley just where this missing page is. I shall have to balk that
+expectation without losing their confidence. But how?"
+
+Summoning up her courage and meeting each inquiring eye with a look
+which seemed to carry a different message to each, she remarked very
+quietly:
+
+"This is not a matter to guess at. I must have time and I must look a
+little deeper into the facts just given me. I presume that the table
+I see over there is the one upon which Mr. Upjohn laid the manuscript
+during Mr. Spielhagen's unconsciousness."
+
+All nodded.
+
+"Is it--I mean the table--in the same condition it was then? Has nothing
+been taken from it except the manuscript?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Then the missing page is not there," she smiled, pointing to its bare
+top. A pause, during which she stood with her gaze fixed on the floor
+before her. She was thinking and thinking hard.
+
+Suddenly she came to a decision. Addressing Mr. Upjohn she asked if he
+were quite sure that in taking the manuscript from Mr. Spielhagen's hand
+he had neither disarranged nor dropped one of its pages.
+
+The answer was unequivocal.
+
+"Then," she declared, with quiet assurance and a steady meeting with her
+own of every eye, "as the thirteenth page was not found among the others
+when they were taken from this table, nor on the persons of either Mr.
+Cornell or Mr. Spielhagen, it is still in that inner room."
+
+"Impossible!" came from every lip, each in a different tone. "That room
+is absolutely empty."
+
+"May I have a look at its emptiness?" she asked, with a naive glance at
+Mr. Van Broecklyn.
+
+"There is positively nothing in the room but the chair Mr. Spielhagen
+sat on," objected that gentleman with a noticeable air of reluctance.
+
+"Still, may I not have a look at it?" she persisted, with that disarming
+smile she kept for great occasions.
+
+Mr. Van Broecklyn bowed. He could not refuse a request so urged, but his
+step was slow and his manner next to ungracious as he led the way to the
+door of the adjoining room and threw it open.
+
+Just what she had been told to expect! Bare walls and floors and an
+empty chair! Yet she did not instantly withdraw, but stood silently
+contemplating the panelled wainscoting surrounding her, as though she
+suspected it of containing some secret hiding-place not apparent to the
+eye.
+
+Mr. Van Broecklyn, noting this, hastened to say:
+
+"The walls are sound, Miss Strange. They contain no hidden cupboards."
+
+"And that door?" she asked, pointing to a portion of the wainscoting so
+exactly like the rest that only the most experienced eye could detect
+the line of deeper colour which marked an opening.
+
+For an instant Mr. Van Broecklyn stood rigid, then the immovable pallor,
+which was one of his chief characteristics, gave way to a deep flush as
+he explained:
+
+"There was a door there once; but it has been permanently closed. With
+cement," he forced himself to add, his countenance losing its evanescent
+colour till it shone ghastly again in the strong light.
+
+With difficulty Violet preserved her show of composure. "The door!" she
+murmured to herself. "I have found it. The great historic door!" But her
+tone was light as she ventured to say:
+
+"Then it can no longer be opened by your hand or any other?"
+
+"It could not be opened with an axe."
+
+Violet sighed in the midst of her triumph. Her curiosity had
+been satisfied, but the problem she had been set to solve looked
+inexplicable. But she was not one to yield easily to discouragement.
+Marking the disappointment approaching to disdain in every eye but Mr.
+Upjohn's, she drew herself up--(she had not far to draw) and made this
+final proposal.
+
+"A sheet of paper," she remarked, "of the size of this one cannot be
+spirited away, or dissolved into thin air. It exists; it is here; and
+all we want is some happy thought in order to find it. I acknowledge
+that that happy thought has not come to me yet, but sometimes I get
+it in what may seem to you a very odd way. Forgetting myself, I try to
+assume the individuality of the person who has worked the mystery. If I
+can think with his thoughts, I possibly may follow him in his actions.
+In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am
+Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this) "I should
+like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by
+Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like to nod and
+slip off mentally into a deep sleep. Possibly in that sleep the dream
+may come which will clarify the whole situation. Will you humour me so
+far?"
+
+A ridiculous concession, but finally she had her way; the farce was
+enacted and they left her as she had requested them to do, alone with
+her dreams in the small room.
+
+Suddenly they heard her cry out, and in another moment she appeared
+before them, the picture of excitement.
+
+"Is this chair standing exactly as it did when Mr. Spielhagen occupied
+it?" she asked.
+
+"No," said Mr. Upjohn, "it faced the other way."
+
+She stepped back and twirled the chair about with her disengaged hand.
+
+"So?"
+
+Mr. Upjohn and Mr. Spielhagen both nodded, so did the others when she
+glanced at them.
+
+With a sign of ill-concealed satisfaction, she drew their attention to
+herself; then eagerly cried:
+
+"Gentlemen, look here!"
+
+Seating herself, she allowed her whole body to relax till she presented
+the picture of one calmly asleep. Then, as they continued to gaze at
+with fascinated eyes, not knowing what to expect, they saw something
+white escape from her lap and slide across the floor till it touched and
+was stayed by the wainscot. It was the top page of the manuscript she
+held, and as some inkling of the truth reached their astonished minds,
+she sprang impetuously to her feet and, pointing to the fallen sheet,
+cried:
+
+"Do you understand now? Look where it lies and then look here!"
+
+She had bounded towards the wall and was now on her knees pointing to
+the bottom of the wainscot, just a few inches to the left of the fallen
+page.
+
+"A crack!" she cried, "under what was once the door. It's a very thin
+one, hardly perceptible to the eye. But see!" Here she laid her finger
+on the fallen paper and drawing it towards her, pushed it carefully
+against the lower edge of the wainscot. Half of it at once disappeared.
+
+"I could easily slip it all through," she assured them, withdrawing
+the sheet and leaping to her feet in triumph. "You know now where the
+missing page lies, Mr. Spielhagen. All that remains is for Mr. Van
+Broecklyn to get it for you."
+
+IV
+
+The cries of mingled astonishment and relief which greeted this simple
+elucidation of the mystery were broken by a curiously choked, almost
+unintelligible, cry. It came from the man thus appealed to, who,
+unnoticed by them all, had started at her first word and gradually, as
+action followed action, withdrawn himself till he now stood alone and in
+an attitude almost of defiance behind the large table in the centre of
+the library.
+
+"I am sorry," he began, with a brusqueness which gradually toned
+down into a forced urbanity as he beheld every eye fixed upon him in
+amazement, "that circumstances forbid my being of assistance to you in
+this unfortunate matter. If the paper lies where you say, and I see no
+other explanation of its loss, I am afraid it will have to remain there
+for this night at least. The cement in which that door is embedded
+is thick as any wall; it would take men with pickaxes, possibly with
+dynamite, to make a breach there wide enough for any one to reach in.
+And we are far from any such help."
+
+In the midst of the consternation caused by these words, the clock
+on the mantel behind his back rang out the hour. It was but a double
+stroke, but that meant two hours after midnight and had the effect of a
+knell in the hearts of those most interested.
+
+"But I am expected to give that formula into the hands of our manager
+before six o'clock in the morning. The steamer sails at a quarter
+after."
+
+"Can't you reproduce a copy of it from memory?" some one asked; "and
+insert it in its proper place among the pages you hold there?"
+
+"The paper would not be the same. That would lead to questions and the
+truth would come out. As the chief value of the process contained in
+that formula lies in its secrecy, no explanation I could give would
+relieve me from the suspicions which an acknowledgment of the existence
+of a third copy, however well hidden, would entail. I should lose my
+great opportunity."
+
+Mr. Cornell's state of mind can be imagined. In an access of mingled
+regret and despair, he cast a glance at Violet, who, with a nod of
+understanding, left the little room in which they still stood, and
+approached Mr. Van Broecklyn.
+
+Lifting up her head,--for he was very tall,--and instinctively rising on
+her toes the nearer to reach his ear, she asked in a cautious whisper:
+
+"Is there no other way of reaching that place?"
+
+She acknowledged afterwards, that for one moment her heart stood still
+from fear, such a change took place in his face, though she says he did
+not move a muscle. Then, just when she was expecting from him some harsh
+or forbidding word, he wheeled abruptly away from her and crossing to a
+window at his side, lifted the shade and looked out. When he returned,
+he was his usual self so far as she could see.
+
+"There is a way," he now confided to her in a tone as low as her own,
+"but it can only be taken by a child."
+
+"Not by me?" she asked, smiling down at her own childish proportions.
+
+For an instant he seemed taken aback, then she saw his hand begin to
+tremble and his lips twitch. Somehow--she knew not why--she began to
+pity him, and asked herself as she felt rather than saw the struggle in
+his mind, that here was a trouble which if once understood would greatly
+dwarf that of the two men in the room behind them.
+
+"I am discreet," she whisperingly declared. "I have heard the history
+of that door--how it was against the tradition of the family to have
+it opened. There must have been some very dreadful reason. But old
+superstitions do not affect me, and if you will allow me to take the way
+you mention, I will follow your bidding exactly, and will not trouble
+myself about anything but the recovery of this paper, which must lie
+only a little way inside that blocked-up door."
+
+Was his look one of rebuke at her presumption, or just the constrained
+expression of a perturbed mind? Probably, the latter, for while she
+watched him for some understanding of his mood, he reached out his hand
+and touched one of the satin folds crossing her shoulder.
+
+"You would soil this irretrievably," said he.
+
+"There is stuff in the stores for another," she smiled. Slowly his touch
+deepened into pressure. Watching him she saw the crust of some old fear
+or dominant superstition melt under her eyes, and was quite prepared,
+when he remarked, with what for him was a lightsome air:
+
+"I will buy the stuff, if you will dare the darkness and intricacies of
+our old cellar. I can give you no light. You will have to feel your way
+according to my direction."
+
+"I am ready to dare anything."
+
+He left her abruptly.
+
+"I will warn Miss Digby," he called back. "She shall go with you as far
+as the cellar."
+
+V
+
+Violet in her short career as an investigator of mysteries had been in
+many a situation calling for more than womanly nerve and courage. But
+never--or so it seemed to her at the time--had she experienced a greater
+depression of spirit than when she stood with Miss Digby before a small
+door at the extreme end of the cellar, and understood that here was her
+road--a road which once entered, she must take alone.
+
+First, it was such a small door! No child older than eleven could
+possibly squeeze through it. But she was of the size of a child of
+eleven and might possibly manage that difficulty.
+
+Secondly: there are always some unforeseen possibilities in every
+situation, and though she had listened carefully to Mr. Van Broecklyn's
+directions and was sure that she knew them by heart, she wished she had
+kissed her father more tenderly in leaving him that night for the ball,
+and that she had not pouted so undutifully at some harsh stricture he
+had made. Did this mean fear? She despised the feeling if it did.
+
+Thirdly: She hated darkness. She knew this when she offered herself for
+this undertaking; but she was in a bright room at the moment and only
+imagined what she must now face as a reality. But one jet had been lit
+in the cellar and that near the entrance. Mr. Van Broecklyn seemed not
+to need light, even in his unfastening of the small door which Violet
+was sure had been protected by more than one lock.
+
+Doubt, shadow, and a solitary climb between unknown walls, with only
+a streak of light for her goal, and the clinging pressure of Florence
+Digby's hand on her own for solace--surely the prospect was one to tax
+the courage of her young heart to its limit. But she had promised, and
+she would fulfill. So with a brave smile she stooped to the little door,
+and in another moment had started her journey.
+
+For journey the shortest distance may seem when every inch means a
+heart-throb and one grows old in traversing a foot. At first the way
+was easy; she had but to crawl up a slight incline with the comforting
+consciousness that two people were within reach of her voice, almost
+within sound of her beating heart. But presently she came to a turn,
+beyond which her fingers failed to reach any wall on her left. Then came
+a step up which she stumbled, and farther on a short flight, each tread
+of which she had been told to test before she ventured to climb it, lest
+the decay of innumerable years should have weakened the wood too much to
+bear her weight. One, two, three, four, five steps! Then a landing with
+an open space beyond. Half of her journey was done. Here she felt
+she could give a minute to drawing her breath naturally, if the air,
+unchanged in years, would allow her to do so. Besides, here she had been
+enjoined to do a certain thing and to do it according to instructions.
+Three matches had been given her and a little night candle. Denied all
+light up to now, it was at this point she was to light her candle and
+place it on the floor, so that in returning she should not miss the
+staircase and get a fall. She had promised to do this, and was only too
+happy to see a spark of light scintillate into life in the immeasurable
+darkness.
+
+She was now in a great room long closed to the world, where once
+officers in Colonial wars had feasted, and more than one council had
+been held. A room, too, which had seen more than one tragic happening,
+as its almost unparalleled isolation proclaimed. So much Mr. Van
+Broecklyn had told her; but she was warned to be careful in traversing
+it and not upon any pretext to swerve aside from the right-hand wall
+till she came to a huge mantelpiece. This passed, and a sharp corner
+turned, she ought to see somewhere in the dim spaces before her a streak
+of vivid light shining through the crack at the bottom of the blocked-up
+door. The paper should be somewhere near this streak.
+
+All simple, all easy of accomplishment, if only that streak of light
+were all she was likely to see or think of. If the horror which was
+gripping her throat should not take shape! If things would remain
+shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and not force themselves in shadowy
+suggestion upon her excited fancy! But the blackness of the passage-way
+through which she had just struggled was not to be found here. Whether
+it was the effect of that small flame flickering at the top of the
+staircase behind her, or of some change in her own powers of seeing,
+surely there was a difference in her present outlook. Tall shapes were
+becoming visible--the air was no longer blank--she could see--Then
+suddenly she saw why. In the wall high up on her right was a window.
+It was small and all but invisible, being covered on the outside with
+vines, and on the inside with the cobwebs of a century. But some small
+gleams from the star-light night came through, making phantasms out of
+ordinary things, which unseen were horrible enough, and half seen choked
+her heart with terror.
+
+"I cannot bear it," she whispered to herself even while creeping
+forward, her hand upon the wall. "I will close my eyes" was her next
+thought. "I will make my own darkness," and with a spasmodic forcing of
+her lids together, she continued to creep on, passing the mantelpiece,
+where she knocked against something which fell with an awful clatter.
+
+This sound, followed as it was by that of smothered voices from the
+excited group awaiting the result of her experiment from behind the
+impenetrable wall she should be nearing now if she had followed her
+instructions aright, freed her instantly from her fancies; and opening
+her eyes once more, she cast a look ahead, and to her delight, saw but a
+few steps away, the thin streak of bright light which marked the end of
+her journey.
+
+It took her but a moment after that to find the missing page, and
+picking it up in haste from the dusty floor, she turned herself quickly
+about and joyfully began to retrace her steps. Why then, was it that in
+the course of a few minutes more her voice suddenly broke into a wild,
+unearthly shriek, which ringing with terror burst the bounds of that
+dungeon-like room, and sank, a barbed shaft, into the breasts of those
+awaiting the result of her doubtful adventure, at either end of this
+dread no-thoroughfare.
+
+What had happened?
+
+If they had thought to look out, they would have seen that the
+moon--held in check by a bank of cloud occupying half the heavens--had
+suddenly burst its bounds and was sending long bars of revealing light
+into every uncurtained window.
+
+VI
+
+Florence Digby, in her short and sheltered life, had possibly never
+known any very great or deep emotion. But she touched the bottom of
+extreme terror at that moment, as with her ears still thrilling with
+Violet's piercing cry, she turned to look at Mr. Van Broecklyn, and
+beheld the instantaneous wreck it had made of this seemingly strong
+man. Not till he came to lie in his coffin would he show a more ghastly
+countenance; and trembling herself almost to the point of falling,
+caught him by the arm and sought to read his face what had happened.
+Something disastrous she was sure; something which he had feared and was
+partially prepared for, yet which in happening had crushed him. Was it
+a pitfall into which the poor little lady had fallen? If so--But he is
+speaking--mumbling low words to himself. Some of them she can hear. He
+is reproaching himself--repeating over and over that he should never
+have taken such a chance; that he should have remembered her youth--the
+weakness of a young girl's nerve. He had been mad, and now--and now--
+
+With the repetition of this word his murmuring ceased. All his energies
+were now absorbed in listening at the low door separating him from what
+he was agonizing to know--a door impossible to enter, impossible to
+enlarge--a barrier to all help--an opening whereby sound might pass but
+nothing else, save her own small body, now lying--where?
+
+"Is she hurt?" faltered Florence, stooping, herself, to listen. "Can you
+hear anything--anything?"
+
+For an instant he did not answer; every faculty was absorbed in the one
+sense; then slowly and in gasps he began to mutter:
+
+"I think--I hear--something. Her step--no, no, no step. All is as quiet
+as death; not a sound, not a breath--she has fainted. O God! O God! Why
+this calamity on top of all!"
+
+He had sprung to his feet at the utterance this invocation, but next
+moment was down on knees again, listening--listening.
+
+Never was silence more profound; they were hearkening for murmurs from a
+tomb. Florence began to sense the full horror of it all, and was swaying
+helplessly when Mr. Van Broecklyn impulsively lifted his hand in an
+admonitory Hush! and through the daze of her faculties a small far sound
+began to make itself heard, growing louder as she waited, then becoming
+faint again, then altogether ceasing only to renew itself once more,
+till it resolved into an approaching step, faltering in its course, but
+coming ever nearer and nearer.
+
+"She's safe! She's not hurt!" sprang from Florence's lips in
+inexpressible relief; and expecting Mr. Van Broecklyn to show an equal
+joy, she turned towards him, with the cheerful cry,
+
+"Now if she has been so fortunate as to that missing page, we shall all
+be repaid for our fright."
+
+A movement on his part, a shifting of position which brought him finally
+to his feet, but he gave no other proof of having heard her, nor did
+his countenance mirror her relief. "It is as if he dreaded, instead of
+hailed, her return," was Florence's inward comment as she watched him
+involuntarily recoil at each fresh token of Violet's advance.
+
+Yet because this seemed so very unnatural, she persisted in her efforts
+to lighten the situation, and when he made no attempt to encourage
+Violet in her approach, she herself stooped and called out a cheerful
+welcome which must have rung sweetly in the poor little detective's
+ears.
+
+A sorry sight was Violet, when, helped by Florence, she finally crawled
+into view through the narrow opening and stood once again on the cellar
+floor. Pale, trembling, and soiled with the dust of years, she presented
+a helpless figure enough, till the joy in Florence's face recalled some
+of her spirit, and, glancing down at her hand in which a sheet of paper
+was visible, she asked for Mr. Spielhagen.
+
+"I've got the formula," she said. "If you will bring him, I will hand it
+over to him here."
+
+Not a word of her adventure; nor so much as one glance at Mr. Van
+Broecklyn, standing far back in the shadows.
+
+Nor was she more communicative, when, the formula restored and
+everything made right with Mr. Spielhagen, they all came together again
+in the library for a final word. "I was frightened by the silence
+and the darkness, and so cried out," she explained in answer to their
+questions. "Any one would have done so who found himself alone in
+so musty a place," she added, with an attempt at lightsomeness which
+deepened the pallor on Mr. Van Broecklyn's cheek, already sufficiently
+noticeable to have been remarked upon by more than one.
+
+"No ghosts?" laughed Mr. Cornell, too happy in the return of his hopes
+to be fully sensible of the feelings of those about him. "No whispers
+from impalpable lips or touches from spectre hands? Nothing to explain
+the mystery of that room long shut up that even Mr. Van Broecklyn
+declares himself ignorant of its secret?"
+
+"Nothing," returned Violet, showing her dimples in full force now.
+
+"If Miss Strange had any such experiences--if she has anything to tell
+worthy of so marked a curiosity, she will tell it now," came from the
+gentleman just alluded to, in tones so stern and strange that all show
+of frivolity ceased on the instant. "Have you anything to tell, Miss
+Strange?"
+
+Greatly startled, she regarded him with widening eyes for a moment, then
+with a move towards the door, remarked, with a general look about her:
+
+"Mr. Van Broecklyn knows his own house, and doubtless can relate its
+histories if he will. I am a busy little body who having finished my
+work am now ready to return home, there to wait for the next problem
+which an indulgent fate may offer me."
+
+She was near the threshold--she was about to take her leave, when
+suddenly she felt two hands fall on her shoulder, and turning, met the
+eyes of Mr. Van Broecklyn burning into her own.
+
+"You saw!" dropped in an almost inaudible whisper from his lips.
+
+The shiver which shook her answered him better than any word.
+
+With an exclamation of despair, he withdrew his hands, and facing the
+others now standing together in a startled group, he said, as soon as he
+could recover some of his self-possession:
+
+"I must ask for another hour of your company. I can no longer keep my
+sorrow to myself. A dividing line has just been drawn across my life,
+and I must have the sympathy of someone who knows my past, or I shall
+go mad in my self-imposed solitude. Come back, Miss Strange. You of all
+others have the prior right to hear."
+
+VII
+
+"I shall have to begin," said he, when they were all seated and ready to
+listen, "by giving you some idea, not so much of the family tradition,
+as of the effect of this tradition upon all who bore the name of Van
+Broecklyn. This is not the only house, even in America, which contains
+a room shut away from intrusion. In England there are many. But there is
+this difference between most of them and ours. No bars or locks forcibly
+held shut the door we were forbidden to open. The command was enough;
+that and the superstitious fear which such a command, attended by a long
+and unquestioning obedience, was likely to engender.
+
+"I know no more than you do why some early ancestor laid his ban upon
+this room. But from my earliest years I was given to understand that
+there was one latch in the house which was never to be lifted; that any
+fault would be forgiven sooner than that; that the honour of the whole
+family stood in the way of disobedience, and that I was to preserve that
+honour to my dying day. You will say that all this is fantastic, and
+wonder that sane people in these modern times should subject themselves
+to such a ridiculous restriction, especially when no good reason was
+alleged, and the very source of the tradition from which it sprung
+forgotten. You are right; but if you look long into human nature,
+you will see that the bonds which hold the firmest are not material
+ones--that an idea will make a man and mould a character--that it lies
+at the source of all heroisms and is to be courted or feared as the case
+may be.
+
+"For me it possessed a power proportionate to my loneliness. I don't
+think there was ever a more lonely child. My father and mother were
+so unhappy in each other's companionship that one or other of them was
+almost always away. But I saw little of either even when they were at
+home. The constraint in their attitude towards each other affected their
+conduct towards me. I have asked myself more than once if either of them
+had any real affection for me. To my father I spoke of her; to her
+of him; and never pleasurably. This I am forced to say, or you cannot
+understand my story. Would to God I could tell another tale! Would
+to God I had such memories as other men have of a father's clasp, a
+mother's kiss--but no! my grief, already profound, might have become
+abysmal. Perhaps it is best as it is; only, I might have been a
+different child, and made for myself a different fate--who knows.
+
+"As it was, I was thrown almost entirely upon my own resources for any
+amusement. This led me to a discovery I made one day. In a far part of
+the cellar behind some heavy casks, I found a little door. It was so
+low--so exactly fitted to my small body, that I had the greatest desire
+to enter it. But I could not get around the casks. At last an expedient
+occurred to me. We had an old servant who came nearer loving me than any
+one else. One day when I chanced to be alone in the cellar, I took out
+my ball and began throwing it about. Finally it landed behind the casks,
+and I ran with a beseeching cry to Michael, to move them.
+
+"It was a task requiring no little strength and address, but he managed,
+after a few herculean efforts, to shift them aside and I saw with
+delight, my way opened to that mysterious little door. But I did not
+approach it then; some instinct deterred me. But when the opportunity
+came for me to venture there alone, I did so, in the most adventurous
+spirit, and began my operations by sliding behind the casks and testing
+the handle of the little door. It turned, and after a pull or two the
+door yielded. With my heart in my mouth, I stooped and peered in. I
+could see nothing--a black hole and nothing more. This caused me a
+moment's hesitation. I was afraid of the dark--had always been. But
+curiosity and the spirit of adventure triumphed. Saying to myself that I
+was Robinson Crusoe exploring the cave, I crawled in, only to find that
+I had gained nothing. It was as dark inside as it had looked to be from
+without.
+
+"There was no fun in this, so I crawled back, and when I tried the
+experiment again, it was with a bit of candle in my hand, and a
+surreptitious match or two. What I saw, when with a very trembling
+little hand I had lighted one of the matches, would have been
+disappointing to most boys, but not to me. The litter and old boards
+I saw in odd corners about me were full of possibilities, while in the
+dimness beyond I seemed to perceive a sort of staircase which might
+lead--I do not think I made any attempt to answer that question even
+in my own mind, but when, after some hesitation and a sense of great
+daring, I finally crept up those steps, I remember very well my
+sensation at finding myself in front of a narrow closed door. It
+suggested too vividly the one in Grandfather's little room--the door in
+the wainscot which we were never to open. I had my first real trembling
+fit here, and at once fascinated and repelled by this obstruction I
+stumbled and lost my candle, which, going out in the fall, left me in
+total darkness and a very frightened state of mind. For my imagination
+which had been greatly stirred by my own vague thoughts of the forbidden
+room, immediately began to people the space about me with ghoulish
+figures. How should I escape them, how ever reach my own little room
+again undetected and in safety?
+
+"But these terrors, deep as they were, were nothing to the real fright
+which seized me when, the darkness finally braved, and the way found
+back into the bright, wide-open halls of the house, I became conscious
+of having dropped something besides the candle. My match-box was
+gone--not my match-box, but my grandfather's which I had found lying on
+his table and carried off on this adventure, in all the confidence of
+irresponsible youth. To make use of it for a little while, trusting to
+his not missing it in the confusion I had noticed about the house that
+morning, was one thing; to lose it was another. It was no common
+box. Made of gold and cherished for some special reason well known to
+himself, I had often hear him say that some day I would appreciate its
+value, and be glad to own it. And I had left it in that hole and at
+any minute he might miss it--possibly ask for it! The day was one of
+torment. My mother was away or shut up in her room. My father--I don't
+know just what thoughts I had about him. He was not to be seen either,
+and the servants cast strange looks at me when I spoke his name. But
+I little realized the blow which had just fallen upon the house in his
+definite departure, and only thought of my own trouble, and of how I
+should meet my grandfather's eye when the hour came for him to draw me
+to his knee for his usual good-night.
+
+"That I was spared this ordeal for the first time this very night first
+comforted me, then added to my distress. He had discovered his loss and
+was angry. On the morrow he would ask me for the box and I would have
+to lie, for never could I find the courage to tell him where I had been.
+Such an act of presumption he would never forgive, or so I thought as
+I lay and shivered in my little bed. That his coldness, his neglect,
+sprang from the discovery just made that my mother as well as my father
+had just fled the house forever was as little known to me as the morning
+calamity. I had been given my usual tendance and was tucked safely into
+bed; but the gloom, the silence which presently settled upon the house
+had a very different explanation in my mind from the real one. My sin
+(for such it loomed large in my mind by this time) coloured the whole
+situation and accounted for every event.
+
+"At what hour I slipped from my bed on to the cold floor, I shall never
+know. To me it seemed to be in the dead of night; but I doubt if it were
+more than ten. So slowly creep away the moments to a wakeful child.
+I had made a great resolve. Awful as the prospect seemed to
+me,--frightened as I was by the very thought,--I had determined in
+my small mind to go down into the cellar, and into that midnight hole
+again, in search of the lost box. I would take a candle and matches,
+this time from my own mantel-shelf, and if everyone was asleep, as
+appeared from the deathly quiet of the house, I would be able to go and
+come without anybody ever being the wiser.
+
+"Dressing in the dark, I found my matches and my candle and, putting
+them in one of my pockets, softly opened my door and looked out. Nobody
+was stirring; every light was out except a solitary one in the lower
+hall. That this still burned conveyed no meaning to my mind. How could I
+know that the house was so still and the rooms dark because everyone was
+out searching for some clue to my mother's flight? If I had looked at
+the clock--but I did not; I was too intent upon my errand, too filled
+with the fever of my desperate undertaking, to be affected by anything
+not bearing directly upon it.
+
+"Of the terror caused by my own shadow on the wall as I made the turn
+in the hall below, I have as keen a recollection today as though it
+happened yesterday. But that did not deter me; nothing deterred me, till
+safe in the cellar I crouched down behind the casks to get my breath
+again before entering the hole beyond.
+
+"I had made some noise in feeling my way around these casks, and I
+trembled lest these sounds had been heard upstairs! But this fear soon
+gave place to one far greater. Other sounds were making themselves
+heard. A din of small skurrying feet above, below, on every side of me!
+Rats! rats in the wall! rats on the cellar bottom! How I ever stirred
+from the spot I do not know, but when I did stir, it was to go forward,
+and enter the uncanny hole.
+
+"I had intended to light my candle when I got inside; but for some
+reason I went stumbling along in the dark, following the wall till I got
+to the steps where I had dropped the box. Here a light was necessary,
+but my hand did not go to my pocket. I thought it better to climb the
+steps first, and softly one foot found the tread and then another. I
+had only three more to climb and then my right hand, now feeling its
+way along the wall, would be free to strike a match. I climbed the three
+steps and was steadying myself against the door for a final plunge,
+when something happened--something so strange, so unexpected, and so
+incredible that I wonder I did not shriek aloud in my terror. The door
+was moving under my hand. It was slowly opening inward. I could feel the
+chill made by the widening crack. Moment by moment this chill increased;
+the gap was growing--a presence was there--a presence before which I sank
+in a small heap upon the landing. Would it advance? Had it feet--hands?
+Was it a presence which could be felt?
+
+"Whatever it was, it made no attempt to pass, and presently I lifted
+my head only to quake anew at the sound of a voice--a human voice--my
+mother's voice--so near me that by putting out my arms I might have
+touched her.
+
+"She was speaking to my father. I knew from the tone. She was saying
+words which, little understood as they were, made such a havoc in my
+youthful mind that I have never forgotten the effect.
+
+"'I have come!' she said. 'They think I have fled the house and are
+looking far and wide for me. We shall not be disturbed. Who would think
+looking of here for either you or me.'
+
+"Here! The word sank like a plummet in my breast. I had known for some
+few minutes that I was on the threshold of the forbidden room; but they
+were in it. I can scarcely make you understand the tumult which this
+awoke in my brain. Somehow, I had never thought that any such braving of
+the house's law would be possible.
+
+"I heard my father's answer, but it conveyed no meaning to me. I also
+realized that he spoke from a distance,--that he was at one end of
+the room while we were at the other. I was presently to have this idea
+confirmed, for while I was striving with all my might and main to
+subdue my very heart-throbs so that she would not hear me or suspect my
+presence, the darkness--I should rather say the blackness of the place
+yielded to a flash of lightning--heat lightning, all glare and no
+sound--and I caught an instantaneous vision of my father's figure
+standing with gleaming things about him, which affected me at the moment
+as supernatural, but which, in later years, I decided to have been
+weapons hanging on a wall.
+
+"She saw him too, for she gave a quick laugh and said they would not
+need any candles; and then, there was another flash and I saw something
+in his hand and something in hers, and though I did not yet understand,
+I felt myself turning deathly sick and gave a choking gasp which was
+lost in the rush she made into the centre of the room, and the keenness
+of her swift low cry.
+
+"'Garde-toi! for only one of us will ever leave this room alive!'
+
+"A duel! a duel to the death between this husband and wife--this father
+and mother--in this hole of dead tragedies and within the sight and
+hearing of their child! Has Satan ever devised a scheme more hideous for
+ruining the life of an eleven-year-old boy!
+
+"Not that I took it all in at once. I was too innocent and much too
+dazed to comprehend such hatred, much less the passions which engender
+it. I only knew that something horrible--something beyond the conception
+of my childish mind--was going to take place in the darkness before me;
+and the terror of it made me speechless; would to God it had made me
+deaf and blind and dead!
+
+"She had dashed from her corner and he had slid away from his, as the
+next fantastic glare which lit up the room showed me. It also showed
+the weapons in their hands, and for a moment I felt reassured when I saw
+that these were swords, for I had seen them before with foils in their
+hands practising for exercise, as they said, in the great garret. But
+the swords had buttons on them, and this time the tips were sharp and
+shone in the keen light.
+
+"An exclamation from her and a growl of rage from him were followed by
+movements I could scarcely hear, but which were terrifying from their
+very quiet. Then the sound of a clash. The swords had crossed.
+
+"Had the lightning flashed forth then, the end of one of them might
+have occurred. But the darkness remained undisturbed, and when the glare
+relit the great room again, they were already far apart. This called out
+a word from him; the one sentence he spoke--I can never forget it:
+
+"'Rhoda, there is blood on your sleeve; I have wounded you. Shall we
+call it off and fly, as the poor creatures in there think we have, to
+the opposite ends of the earth?'
+
+"I almost spoke; I almost added my childish plea to his for them to
+stop--to remember me and stop. But not a muscle in my throat responded
+to my agonized effort. Her cold, clear 'No!' fell before my tongue was
+loosed or my heart freed from the ponderous weight crushing it.
+
+"'I have vowed and I keep my promises,' she went on in a tone quite
+strange to me. 'What would either's life be worth with the other alive
+and happy in this world.'
+
+"He made no answer; and those subtle movements--shadows of movements
+I might almost call them--recommenced. Then there came a sudden cry,
+shrill and poignant--had Grandfather been in his room he would surely
+have heard it--and the flash coming almost simultaneously with its
+utterance, I saw what has haunted my sleep from that day to this, my
+father pinned against the wall, sword still in hand, and before him my
+mother, fiercely triumphant, her staring eyes fixed on his and--
+
+"Nature could bear no more; the band loosened from my throat; the
+oppression lifted from my breast long enough for me to give one wild
+wail and she turned, saw (heaven sent its flashes quickly at this
+moment) and recognizing my childish form, all the horror of her deed (or
+so I have fondly hoped) rose within her, and she gave a start and fell
+full upon the point upturned to receive her.
+
+"A groan; then a gasping sigh from him, and silence settled upon the
+room and upon my heart, and so far as I knew upon the whole created
+world.
+
+"That is my story, friends. Do you wonder that I have never been or
+lived like other men?"
+
+After a few moments of sympathetic silence, Mr. Van Broecklyn went on,
+to say:
+
+"I don't think I ever had a moment's doubt that my parents both lay dead
+on the floor of that great room. When I came to myself--which may have
+been soon, and may not have been for a long while--the lightning had
+ceased to flash, leaving the darkness stretching like a blank pall
+between me and that spot in which were concentrated all the terrors of
+which my imagination was capable. I dared not enter it. I dared not take
+one step that way. My instinct was to fly and hide my trembling body
+again in my own bed; and associated with this, in fact dominating it and
+making me old before my time, was another--never to tell; never to let
+any one, least of all my grandfather--know what that forbidden room now
+contained. I felt in an irresistible sort of way that my father's and
+mother's honour was at stake. Besides, terror held me back; I felt that
+I should die if I spoke. Childhood has such terrors and such heroisms.
+Silence often covers in such, abysses of thought and feeling which
+astonish us in later years. There is no suffering like a child's,
+terrified by a secret which it dare not for some reason disclose.
+
+"Events aided me. When, in desperation to see once more the light and
+all the things which linked me to life--my little bed, the toys on the
+window-sill, my squirrel in its cage--I forced myself to retraverse the
+empty house, expecting at every turn to hear my father's voice or come
+upon the image of my mother--yes, such was the confusion of my mind,
+though I knew well enough even then that they were dead and that I
+should never hear the one or see the other. I was so benumbed with the
+cold in my half-dressed condition, that I woke in a fever next morning
+after a terrible dream which forced from my lips the cry of 'Mother!
+Mother!'--only that.
+
+"I was cautious even in delirium. This delirium and my flushed cheeks
+and shining eyes led them to be very careful of me. I was told that my
+mother was away from home; and when after two days of search they were
+quite sure that all effort to find either her or my father were likely
+to prove fruitless, that she had gone to Europe where we would follow
+her as soon as I was well. This promise, offering as it did, a prospect
+of immediate release from the terrors which were consuming me, had an
+extraordinary effect upon me. I got up out of my bed saying that I was
+well now and ready to start on the instant. The doctor, finding my pulse
+equable, and my whole condition wonder fully improved, and attributing
+it, as was natural, to my hope of soon joining my mother, advised
+my whim to be humoured and this hope kept active till travel and
+intercourse with children should give me strength and prepare me for
+the bitter truth ultimately awaiting me. They listened to him and
+in twenty-four hours our preparations were made. We saw the house
+closed--with what emotions surging in one small breast, I leave you to
+imagine--and then started on our long tour. For five years we wandered
+over the continent of Europe, my grandfather finding distraction, as
+well as myself, in foreign scenes and associations.
+
+"But return was inevitable. What I suffered on reentering this house,
+God and my sleepless pillow alone know. Had any discovery been made in
+our absence; or would it be made now that renovation and repairs of all
+kinds were necessary? Time finally answered me. My secret was safe
+and likely to continue so, and this fact once settled, life became
+endurable, if not cheerful. Since then I have spent only two nights out
+of this house, and they were unavoidable. When my grandfather died I had
+the wainscot door cemented in. It was done from this side and the
+cement painted to match the wood. No one opened the door nor have I
+ever crossed its threshold. Sometimes I think I have been foolish; and
+sometimes I know that I have been very wise. My reason has stood firm;
+how do I know that it would have done so if I had subjected myself to
+the possible discovery that one or both of them might have been saved if
+I had disclosed instead of concealed my adventure."
+
+A pause during which white horror had shone on every face; then with a
+final glance at Violet, he said:
+
+"What sequel do you see to this story, Miss Strange? I can tell the
+past, I leave you to picture the future."
+
+Rising, she let her eye travel from face to face till it rested on the
+one awaiting it, when she answered dreamily:
+
+"If some morning in the news column there should appear an account of
+the ancient and historic home of the Van Broecklyns having burned to the
+ground in the night, the whole country would mourn, and the city feel
+defrauded of one of its treasures. But there are five persons who would
+see in it the sequel which you ask for."
+
+When this happened, as it did happen, some few weeks later, the
+astonishing discovery was made that no insurance had been put upon this
+house. Why was it that after such a loss Mr. Van Broecklyn seemed to
+renew his youth? It was a constant source of comment among his friends.
+
+END OF PROBLEM VIII
+
+
+
+
+PROBLEM IX. VIOLET'S OWN
+
+"It has been too much for you?"
+
+"I am afraid so."
+
+It was Roger Upjohn who had asked the question; it was Violet who
+answered. They had withdrawn from a crowd of dancers to a balcony,
+half-shaded, half open to the moon,--a balcony made, it would seem, for
+just such stolen interviews between waltzes.
+
+Now, as it happened, Roger's face was in the shadow, but Violet's in the
+full light. Very sweet it looked, very ethereal, but also a little wan.
+He noticed this and impetuously cried:
+
+"You are pale; and your hand! see, how it trembles!"
+
+Slowly withdrawing it from the rail where it had rested, she sent one
+quick glance his way and, in a low voice, said:
+
+"I have not slept since that night."
+
+"Four days!" he murmured. Then, after a moment of silence, "You bore
+yourself so bravely at the time, I thought, or rather, I hoped, that
+success had made you forget the horror. I could not have slept myself,
+if I had known--"
+
+"It is part of the price I pay," she broke in gently. "All good things
+have to be paid for. But I see--I realize that you do not consider
+what I am doing good. Though it helps other people--has helped you--you
+wonder why, with all the advantages I possess, I should meddle with
+matters so repugnant to a woman's natural instincts."
+
+Yes, he wondered. That was evident from his silence. Seeing her as she
+stood there, so quaintly pretty, so feminine in look and manner--in
+short, such a flower--it was but natural that he should marvel at the
+incongruity she had mentioned.
+
+"It has a strange, odd look," she admitted, after a moment of troubled
+hesitation. "The most considerate person cannot but regard it as a
+display of egotism or of a most mercenary spirit. The cheque you sent
+me for what I was enabled to do for you in Massachusetts (the only one
+I have ever received which I have been tempted to refuse) shows to what
+extent you rated my help and my--my expectations. Had I been a poor girl
+struggling for subsistence, this generosity would have warmed my heart
+as a token of your desire to cut that struggle short. But taken with
+your knowledge of my home and its luxuries, it has often made me wonder
+what you thought."
+
+"Shall I tell you?"
+
+He had stepped forward at this question and his countenance, hitherto
+concealed, became visible in the moonlight. She no longer recognized it.
+Transformed by feeling, it shone down upon her, instinct with all
+that is finest and best in masculine nature. Was she ready for this
+revelation of what she had nevertheless dreamed of for many more nights
+than four? She did not know, and instinctively drew herself back till it
+was she who now stood in the semi-obscurity made by the drooping vines.
+From this retreat, she faltered forth a very tremulous No, which in
+another moment was disavowed by a Yes so faint it was little more than a
+murmur, followed by a still fainter, Tell me.
+
+But he did not seem in any haste to obey, sweetly as her low-toned
+injunction must have sounded in his ears. On the contrary, he hesitated
+to speak, growing paler every minute as he sought to catch a glimpse of
+her downcast face so tantalizingly hidden from him. Did she recognize
+the nature of the feelings which held him back, or was she simply
+gathering up sufficient courage to plead her own cause? Whatever her
+reason, it was she, not he, who presently spoke saying as if no time had
+elapsed:
+
+"But first, I feel obliged to admit that it was money I wanted, that
+I had to have. Not for myself. I lack nothing and could have more if I
+wished. Father has never limited his generosity in any matter affecting
+myself, but--" She drew a deep breath and, coming out of the shadow,
+lifted a face to him so changed from its usual expression as to make him
+start. "I have a cause at heart--one which should appeal to my father
+and does not; and for that purpose I have sacrificed myself, in many
+ways, though--though I have not disliked my work up to this last
+attempt. Not really. I want to be honest and so must admit that much.
+I have even gloried (quietly and all by myself, of course) over the
+solution of a mystery which no one else seemed able to penetrate. I am
+made that way. I have known it ever since--but that is a story all by
+itself. Some day I may tell it to you, but not now."
+
+"No, not now." The emphasis sent the colour into her cheek but did not
+relieve his pallor. "Miss Strange, I have always felt, even in my worst
+days, that the man who for selfish ends brought a woman under the shadow
+of his own unhappy reputation was a man to be despised. And I think so
+still, and yet--and yet--nothing in the world but your own word or
+look can hold me back now from telling you that I love you--love you
+notwithstanding my unworthy past, my scarring memories, my all but
+blasted hopes. I do not expect any response; you are young; you are
+beautiful; you are gifted with every grace; but to speak,--to say over
+and over again, 'I love you, I love you!' eases my heart and makes my
+future more endurable. Oh, do not look at me like that unless--unless--"
+
+But the bright head did not fall, nor the tender gaze falter; and driven
+out of himself, Roger Upjohn was about to step passionately forward,
+when, seized by fresh compunction, he hoarsely cried:
+
+"It is not right. The balance dips too much my way. You bring me
+everything. I can give you nothing but what you already possess
+abundance--love, and money. Besides, your father--"
+
+She interrupted him with a glance at once arch and earnest.
+
+"I had a talk with Father this morning. He came to my room, and--and it
+was very near being serious. Someone had told him I was doing things on
+the sly which he had better look into; and of course he asked questions
+and--and I answered them. He wasn't pleased--in fact he was very
+displeased,--I don't think we can blame him for that--but we had no open
+break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that,
+and it helped, though he did say after I had given my promise to stop
+where I was and never to take up such work again, that--" here she stole
+a shy look at the face bent so eagerly towards her--"that I had lost my
+social status and need never hope now for the attentions of--of--well,
+of such men as he admires and puts faith in. So you see," her dimples
+all showing, "that I am not such a very good match for an Upjohn of
+Massachusetts, even if he has a reputation to recover and an honourable
+name to achieve. The scale hangs more evenly than you think."
+
+"Violet!"
+
+A mutual look, a moment of perfect silence, then a low whisper, airy as
+the breath of flowers rising from the garden below: "I have never known
+what happiness was till this moment. If you will take me with my story
+untold--"
+
+"Take you! take you!" The man's whole yearning heart, the loss and
+bitterness of years, the hope and promise of the future, all spoke in
+that low, half-smothered exclamation. Violet's blushes faded under its
+fervency, and only her spirit spoke, as leaning towards him, she laid
+her two hands in his, and said with all a woman's earnestness:
+
+"I do not forget little Roger, or the father who I hope may have many
+more days before him in which to bid good-night to the sea. Such union
+as ours must be hallowed, because we have so many persons to make happy
+besides ourselves."
+
+
+The evening before their marriage, Violet put a dozen folded sheets of
+closely written paper in his hand. They contained her story; let us read
+it with him.
+
+DEAR ROGER,--
+
+I could not have been more than seven years old, when one night I woke
+up shivering, at the sound of angry voices. A conversation which no
+child should ever have heard, was going on in the room where I lay. My
+father was talking to my sister--perhaps, you do not know that I have
+a sister; few of my personal friends do,--and the terror she evinced
+I could well understand but not his words nor the real cause of his
+displeasure.
+
+There are times even yet when the picture, forced upon my infantile
+consciousness at that moment of first awakening, comes back to me with
+all its original vividness. There was no light in the room save such as
+the moon made; but that was enough to reveal the passion burningly alive
+in either face, as, bending towards each other, she in supplication
+and he in a tempest of wrath which knew no bounds, he uttered and she
+listened to what I now know to have been a terrible arraignment.
+
+I may have an interesting countenance; you have told me so sometimes;
+but she--she was beautiful. My elder by ten years, she had stood in my
+mother's stead to me for almost as long as I could remember, and as I
+saw her lovely features contorted with pain and her hands extended in
+a desperate plea to one who had never shown me anything but love, my
+throat closed sharply and I could not cry out though I wanted to, nor
+move head or foot though I longed with all my heart to bury myself in
+the pillows.
+
+For the words I heard were terrifying, little as I comprehended their
+full purport. He had surprised her talking from her window to someone
+down below, and after saying cruel things about that, he shouted out:
+"You have disgraced me, you have disgraced yourself, you have disgraced
+your brother and your little sister. Was it not enough that you should
+refuse to marry the good man I had picked out for you, that you should
+stoop to this low-down scoundrel--this--" I did not hear what else he
+called him, I was wondering so to whom she had been stooping; I had
+never seen her stoop except to tie my little shoes.
+
+But when she cried out as she did after an interval, "I love him! I
+love him!" then I listened again, for she spoke as though she were in
+dreadful pain, and I did not know that loving made one ill and unhappy.
+"And I am going to marry him," I heard her add, standing up, as she said
+it, very straight and tall.
+
+Marry! I knew what that meant. A long aisle in a church; women in white
+and big music in the air behind. I had been flower-girl at a wedding
+once and had not forgotten. We had had ice cream and cake and--
+
+But my childish thoughts stopped short at the answer she received and
+all the words which followed--words which burned their way into my
+infantile brain and left scorched places in my memory which will never
+be eradicated. He spoke them--spoke them all; she never answered again
+after that once, and when he was gone did not move for a long time and
+when she did it was to lie down, stiff and straight, just as she had
+stood, on her bed alongside mine.
+
+I was frightened; so frightened, my little brass bed rattled under me. I
+wonder she did not hear it. But she heard nothing; and after awhile she
+was so still I fell asleep. But I woke again. Something hot had fallen
+on my cheek. I put up my hand to brush it away and did not know even
+when I felt my fingers wet that it was a tear from my sister-mother's
+eye.
+
+For she was kneeling then; kneeling close beside me and her arm was over
+my small body; and the bed was shaking again but not this time with my
+tremors only. And I was sorry and cried too until I dropped off to sleep
+again with her arm still passionately embracing me.
+
+In the morning, she was gone.
+
+It must have been that very afternoon that Father came in where Arthur
+and I were trying to play,--trying, but not quite succeeding, for I had
+been telling Arthur, for whom I had a great respect in those days, what
+had happened the night before, and we had been wondering in our childish
+way if there would be a wedding after all, and a church full of people,
+and flowers, and kissing, and lots of good things to eat, and Arthur had
+said No, it was too expensive; that that was why Father was so angry;
+and comforted by the assertion, I was taking up my doll again, when the
+door opened and Father stepped in.
+
+It was a great event--any visit from him to the nursery--and we both
+dropped our toys and stood staring, not knowing whether he was going
+to be nice and kind as he sometimes was, or scold us as I had heard him
+scold our beautiful sister.
+
+Arthur showed at once what he thought, for without the least hesitation
+he took the one step which placed him in front of me, where he stood
+waiting with his two little fists hanging straight at his sides but
+manfully clenched in full readiness for attack. That this display of
+pigmy chivalry was not quite without its warrant is evident to me now,
+for Father did not look like himself or act like himself any more than
+he had the night before.
+
+However, we had no cause for fear. Having no suspicion of my having been
+awake during his terrible interview with Theresa, he saw only two lonely
+and forsaken children, interrupted in their play.
+
+Can I remember what he said to us? Not exactly, though Arthur and I
+often went over it choked whispers in some secret nook of the dreary old
+house; but his meaning--that we took in well enough. Theresa had left
+us. She would never come back. We were not to look out of the window for
+her, or run to the door when the bell rang. Our mother had left us too,
+a long time ago, and she lay in the cemetery where we sometimes carried
+flowers. Theresa was not in the cemetery, but we must think of her as
+there; though not as if she had any need of flowers. Having said this,
+he looked at us quietly for a minute. Arthur was trying very hard not to
+cry, but I was sobbing like the lost child I was, with my cheek against
+the floor where I had thrown myself when he said that awful thing about
+the cemetery. She there! my sister-mother there! I think he felt a
+little sorry for me; for he half stooped as if to lift me up. But he
+straightened again and said very sternly:
+
+"Now, children, listen to me. When God takes people to heaven and leaves
+us only their cold, dead bodies we carry flowers to their graves and
+talk about them some if not very much. But when people die because they
+love dark ways better than light, then we do not remember them with
+gifts and we do not talk about them. Your sister's name has been spoken
+for the last time in this house. You, Arthur, are old enough to know
+what I mean when I say that I will never listen to another word about
+her from either you or Violet as long as you and I live. She is gone and
+nothing that is mine shall she ever touch again.
+
+"You hear me, Arthur; you hear me, Violet. Heed me, or you go too."
+
+His aspect was terrible, so was his purpose; much more terrible than
+we realized at the time with our limited understanding and experience.
+Later, we came to know the full meaning of this black drop which had
+been infused into our lives. When we saw every picture of her destroyed
+which had been in the house; her name cut out from the leaves of books;
+the little tokens she had given us surreptitiously taken away, till not
+a vestige of her once beloved presence remained, we began to realize
+that we had indeed lost her.
+
+But children as young as we were then do not long retain the poignancy
+of their first griefs. Gradually my memories of that awful night ceased
+to disturb my dreams and I was sixteen before they were again recalled
+to me with any vividness, and then it was by accident. I had been
+strolling through a picture gallery and had stopped short to study more
+particularly one which had especially taken my fancy. There were two
+ladies sitting on a bench behind me and one of them was evidently very
+deaf, for their talk was loud, though I am sure they did not mean for
+me to hear, for they were discussing my family. That is, one of them had
+said:
+
+"That's Violet Strange. She will never be the beauty her sister was; but
+perhaps that's not to be deplored. Theresa made a great mess of it."
+
+"That's true. I hear that she and the Signor have been seen lately here
+in town. In poverty, of course. He hadn't even as much go in him as the
+ordinary singing-master."
+
+I suppose I should have hurried away, and left this barbed arrow to
+rankle where it fell. But I could not. I had never learned a word of
+Theresa's fate and that word poverty, proving that she was alive and
+suffering, held me to my place to hear what more they might say of
+her who for years had been for me an indistinct figure bathed in cruel
+moonlight.
+
+"I have never approved of Peter Strange's conduct at that time," one of
+the voices now went on. "He didn't handle her right. She had a lovely
+disposition and would have listened to him had he been more gentle with
+her. But it isn't in him. I hope this one--"
+
+I didn't hear the end of that. I had no interest in anything they might
+say about myself. It was of her I wanted to hear, of her. Weren't they
+going to say anything more about my poor sister? Yes; it was a topic
+which interested both and presently I heard:
+
+"He'll never do anything for her, no matter what happens; I've heard him
+say so. And Laura has vowed the same." (Laura is our aunt.) "Besides,
+Theresa has a pride of her own quite equal to her father's. She wouldn't
+take anything from him now. She'd rather struggle on. I'm told--I don't
+know how true it is--that she's working in a department store; one of
+the Sixth Avenue ones. Oh, there's Mrs. Vandegraff! Don't you want to
+speak to her?"
+
+They moved off, leaving me still gazing with unseeing eyes at the
+picture before which I stood planted, and saying over and over in
+monotonous iteration, "One of the department stores in Sixth Avenue! One
+of the department stores in Sixth Avenue!"
+
+Which department store?
+
+I meant to find out.
+
+I do not know whether up till then I had had the least consciousness of
+possessing what is called the detective instinct. But, at the prospect
+of this quest, so much like that of the proverbial needle in a haystack,
+as I did not even know my sister's married name and something within me
+forbade my asking it, I experienced an odd sense of elation followed
+by a certainty of success which in five minutes changed me from an
+irresponsible girl to a woman with a deliberate purpose in life.
+
+I am not going to write down here all the details of that search.
+Some day I may relate them to you, but not now. I looked first for
+a beautiful woman, for the straight, slim, and exquisite creature I
+remembered. I did not find her. Then I tried another course. Her figure
+might have changed in the ten years which had elapsed; so might her
+expression. I would look for a woman with beautiful dark eyes; time
+could not have altered them. I had forgotten the effect of constant
+weeping. And I saw many eyes, but not hers; not the ones I had seen
+smiling upon me as I lay in my crib before the days I was lifted to the
+dignity of the little brass bed. So I gave that up too and listened to
+the inner voice which said, "You must wait for her to recognize you. You
+can never hope to recognize her." And it was by following this plan
+that I found her. I had arranged to have my name spoken aloud at every
+counter where I bargained; and oh, the bargains I sought, and the
+garments I had tried on! But I made little progress until one day, after
+my name had been uttered a little louder than usual I saw a woman turn
+from rearranging gowns on a hanger, and give me one look.
+
+I uttered a low cry and sprang impetuously, forward. Instantly she
+turned her back and went on hanging, or trying to hang up, gowns on
+the rack before her. Had I been mistaken? She was not the sister of
+my dreams, but there was something fine in her outline; something
+distinguished in the way she carried her head which--
+
+Next minute my last doubt fled! She had fallen her length on the floor
+and lay with her face buried in her hands in a dead faint.
+
+Oh, Roger, Roger, Roger! I had that dear head on my breast in a moment.
+I talked to her, I whispered prayers in her unconscious ear. I did
+everything I should not have done till they all thought me demented.
+When she came to, as she did under other ministrations than mine, I
+was for carrying her off in my limousine. But she shook her head with
+a gesture of such disapproval, that I realized I could not do that. The
+limousine was my father's, and nothing of his was ever to be used for
+her again. I would call a cab; but she told me that she had not the
+money to pay for it and she would not take mine. Carfare she had; five
+cents would take her home. I need not worry.
+
+She smiled as she said this and for an instant I saw my dream-sister
+again in this weary half-disheartened woman. But the smile was a
+fleeting one, for this was to be her last day in the store; she had no
+talent as a saleswoman and was merely working out her week.
+
+I felt my heart sink heavily at this, for the evidences of poverty
+were plainly to be seen in her clothes and the thinness of her face and
+figure. How could I help? What could I do? I took her to a restaurant
+for food and talk, and before she would order, she looked into her
+purse, with the result that we had only a little toast and tea. It was
+all she could afford and I, with a hundred dollars in bills at that
+moment in my bag, could not offer her anything more though she was
+needing nourishment and dishes piled with savoury meats were going by us
+every moment.
+
+I think, if she had let me, I would have dared my father's displeasure
+and been disobedient to his wishes by giving her one wholesome meal.
+But she was as resolute of mind as he, and, as she said afterwards,
+had chosen her course in life and must abide by it. My love she would
+accept. It took nothing from Father and gave her what her heart was
+pining for--had pined for for years. But nothing more--not another thing
+more. She would not even let me go home with her; and I knew why when
+her eyes fell at the searching look I gave her. Something would turn
+up, and when her husband's health was better and she had found another
+position she would send me her address and then I could come and see
+her. As we walked out of the restaurant we ran against a gentleman
+I knew. He stopped me for a passing word and in that minute she
+disappeared. I did not try to follow her. I could get her street and
+number from the store where she had worked.
+
+But when I had done this and embraced the first opportunity which
+offered to visit her, I found that she had moved away in the interim,
+leaving everything behind in payment of her rent, except such small
+things as she and her husband could carry. This was discouraging as it
+left me without any clue by which to follow them. But I was determined
+not to yield to her desire for concealment in the difficult and
+disheartening task I now saw before me.
+
+Seeking advice from the man who has since become my employer, I entered
+upon this second search with a quiet resolution which admitted of no
+defeat. It took me six months, but I finally found her, and satisfied
+with knowing where she was, desisted from rushing in upon her, till I
+had caught one glimpse of her husband whom, in the last six months,
+I had heard described but had never seen. To understand her, it was
+perhaps necessary to understand him, and if I could not hope to do this
+offhand, I could not fail to get some idea of the man from even the most
+casual look.
+
+He was, as I soon learned, the fetcher and carrier of the small menage;
+and the day came when I met him face to face in the street where they
+lived. Did he disappoint me; or did I see something in his appearance
+to justify her desertion of her father's home and her present life of
+poverty? If I say Yes to the first question, I must also say it to the
+last. If handsome once, he was not handsome now; but with a personality
+such as his, this did not matter. He had that better thing--that
+greatest gift of the gods--charm. It was in his bearing, his movement,
+the regard of his weary eye; more than that it was in his very nature or
+it would have vanished long ago under disappointment and privation.
+
+But that was all there was to the man,--a golden net in which my
+sister's youthful fancy had been caught and no doubt held meshed to
+this very day. I felt less like blaming her for her folly, after that
+instant's view of him as we passed each other in the street. But, as I
+took time to think, I found myself growing sorrier and sorrier for her
+and yet, in a way, gladder and gladder, for the man was a physical wreck
+and would soon pass out of her life leaving her to my love and possibly
+to our father's forgiveness.
+
+But I did not know Theresa. After her husband's death, which occurred
+very soon, she let me come to her and we had a long talk. Shall I ever
+forget it or the sight of her beauty in that sordid room? For, account
+for it as you will, the loveliness which had fled under her sense of
+complete isolation had slowly regained its own with the recognition that
+she still had a place in the heart of her little sister. Not even the
+sorrow she felt for the loss of her suffering husband--and she did mourn
+him; this I am glad to say--could more than temporarily stay this. Six
+months of ease and wholesome food would make her--I hardly dared to
+think what. For I knew, without asking her, or she telling me, that
+she would accept neither; that she was as determined now, as ever that
+nothing which came directly or indirectly from Father should go to the
+rebuilding of her life. That she intended to start anew and work her way
+up to a place where I should be glad to see her she did say. But
+nothing more. She was still the sister-mother, loving, but sufficient to
+herself, though she had but ten dollars left in the world, as she showed
+me with a smile that made her beautiful as an angel.
+
+I can see that shabby little purse yet with its one poor greasy bill;--a
+sum to her but to me the price of a luncheon or a gift of flowers. How
+I longed, as I looked at it to tear every jewel from my poor, bedecked
+body and fling them one and all into her lap. I had worn them in
+profusion, though carefully hidden under my coat, in the hope that she
+would accept one of them at least, But she refused all, even such as had
+been gifts of friends and schoolmates, only humouring me this far, that
+she let me hang them for a few minutes about her neck and in her hair
+and then pull them all off again. But this one vision of her in the
+splendour she was born to comforted me. Henceforth in wearing them it
+would be of her and not of myself I should think.
+
+Well, I had to leave her and go home to my French and Italian lessons,
+my music-masters and all the luxuries of our father's house. Should I
+ever see her again? I did not know; she had not promised. I could not go
+often into the quarter where she lived, without rousing suspicion;
+and she had bidden me not to come again for a month. So I waited, half
+fearing she would flit again before the month was up. But she did not.
+She was still there when--
+
+But I am going too fast. The meeting I was about to mention was a very
+memorable one to me, and I must describe it from the beginning. I had
+ridden in my own car as near as I dared to the street where she lived;
+the rest of the way I went on foot with one of the servants--a new
+one--following close behind me. I was not exactly afraid, but the
+actions of some of the people I had encountered at my former visit
+warned me to be a little careful for my father's sake if not for my own.
+Her room--she had but one--was high up in a triangular court it was
+no pleasure to enter. But love and loyalty heed nothing but the object
+sought, and I was hunting about for the dark doorway which opened upon
+the staircase leading to her room when--and this was the great moment of
+my life--a sudden stream of melody floated down into that noisome court,
+which from its clearness, its accuracy, its richness, and its feeling
+startled me as I had never before been startled even by the first notes
+of the world's greatest singers. What a voice for a place like this!
+What a voice for any place! Whose could it be? With a start, I stopped
+short, in the middle of that court, heedless of the crowd of pushing,
+shouting children who at once gathered about me. I had been struck by an
+old recollection. My sister used to sing. I remembered where her piano
+had stood in the great drawing-room. It had been carted away during
+those dreadful weeks and her music all burned; but the vision of her
+graceful figure bending over the keyboard was one not to be forgotten
+even by a thoughtless child. Could it be--oh, heaven! if this voice were
+hers! Her future was certain; she had but to sing.
+
+In a transport of hope I rushed for the dim entrance the children had
+pointed out and flew up to her room. As I reached it, I heard a trill as
+perfect as Tetrazzini's. The singer was Theresa; there could be no more
+doubt. Theresa! exercising a grand voice as only a great artist would or
+could.
+
+The joy of it made me almost faint. I leaned against her door and
+sobbed. Then when I thought I could speak quite calmly, I went in.
+
+Roger, you must understand me now,--my desire for money and the means I
+have taken to obtain it. My sister had the makings of a prima-donna. Her
+husband, of whose ability I had formed so low an estimate, had trained
+her with consummate skill and judgment. All she needed was a year with
+some great maestro in the foreign atmosphere of art. But this meant
+money--not hundreds but thousands, and the one sure source to which we
+might rightfully look for any such amount was effectually closed to
+us. It is true we had relatives--an aunt on our mother's side, and I
+mentioned her to Theresa. But she would not listen to the suggestion.
+She would take nothing from any one whom she would find it hard to face
+in case of failure. Love must go with an advance involving so much
+risk; love deep enough and strong enough to feel no loss save that of a
+defeated hope. In short, to be acceptable, the money must come from me,
+and as this was manifestly impossible, she considered the matter closed
+and began to talk of a position she had been offered in some choir. I
+let her talk, listening and not listening; for the idea had come to me
+that if in some way I could earn money, she might be induced to take it.
+Finally, I asked her. She laughed, letting her kisses answer me. But
+I did not laugh. If she had capabilities in one way, I had them in
+another.
+
+I went home to think.
+
+Two weeks later, I began, in a very quiet way to do certain work for the
+man who had helped me in my second search for Theresa. The money I have
+earned has been immense; since it was troubles of the rich I was given
+to settle, and I was almost always successful. Every cent has gone to
+her. She has been in Europe for a year and last week she made her debut.
+You read about it in the papers, but neither you nor any one else in
+this country but myself knew that under the name she chosen to assume,
+Theresa Strange, the long forgotten beauty, has recovered that place in
+the world, to which her love and genius entitle her.
+
+This is my story and hers. From now on, you are the third in the secret.
+Some day, my father will be the fourth. I think then, a new dawn of
+love will arise for us all, which will stay the whitening of his dear
+head--for I believe in him after all. Yesterday when he passed the wall
+where her picture once hung--no other has ever hung there--I saw him
+stop and look up, and, Roger, when he passed me a minute later, there
+was a tear in his hard eye.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Golden Slipper, by Anna Katharine Green
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