The Woman in the Alcove

By Anna Katharine Green




CONTENTS

  I. THE WOMAN WITH THE DIAMOND
  II. THE GLOVES
  III. ANSON DURAND
  IV. EXPLANATIONS
  V. SUPERSTITION
  VI. SUSPENSE
  VII. NIGHT AND A VOICE
  VIII. ARREST
  IX. THE MOUSE NIBBLES AT THE NET
  X. I ASTONISH THE INSPECTOR
  XI. THE INSPECTOR ASTONISHES ME
  XII. ALMOST
  XIII. THE MISSING RECOMMENDATION
  XIV. TRAPPED
  XV. SEARS OR WELLGOOD
  XVI. DOUBT
  XVII. SWEETWATER IN A NEW ROLE
  XVIII. THE CLOSED DOOR
  XIX. THE FACE
  XX. MOONLIGHT—AND A CLUE
  XXI. GRIZEL! GRIZEL!
  XXII. GUILT
  XXIII. THE GREAT MOGUL




I.
THE WOMAN WITH THE DIAMOND


I was, perhaps, the plainest girl in the room that night. I was also the
happiest—up to one o’clock. Then my whole world crumbled, or, at least,
suffered an eclipse. Why and how, I am about to relate.

I was not made for love. This I had often said to myself; very often of late.
In figure I am too diminutive, in face far too unbeautiful, for me to cherish
expectations of this nature. Indeed, love had never entered into my plan of
life, as was evinced by the nurse’s diploma I had just gained after three years
of hard study and severe training.

I was not made for love. But if I had been; had I been gifted with height,
regularity of feature, or even with that eloquence of expression which redeems
all defects save those which savor of deformity, I knew well whose eye I should
have chosen to please, whose heart I should have felt proud to win.

This knowledge came with a rush to my heart—(did I say heart? I should
have said understanding, which is something very different)—when, at the
end of the first dance, I looked up from the midst of the bevy of girls by whom
I was surrounded and saw Anson Durand’s fine figure emerging from that quarter
of the hall where our host and hostess stood to receive their guests. His eye
was roaming hither and thither and his manner was both eager and expectant.
Whom was he seeking? Some one of the many bright and vivacious girls about me,
for he turned almost instantly our way. But which one?

I thought I knew. I remembered at whose house I had met him first, at whose
house I had seen him many times since. She was a lovely girl, witty and
vivacious, and she stood at this very moment at my elbow. In her beauty lay the
lure, the natural lure for a man of his gifts and striking personality. If I
continued to watch, I should soon see his countenance light up under the
recognition she could not fail to give him. And I was right; in another instant
it did, and with a brightness there was no mistaking. But one feeling common to
the human heart lends such warmth, such expressiveness to the features. How
handsome it made him look, how distinguished, how everything I was not
except—

But what does this mean? He has passed Miss Sperry—passed her with a
smile and a friendly word—and is speaking to me, singling me out,
offering me his arm! He is smiling, too, not as he smiled on Miss Sperry, but
more warmly, with more that is personal in it. I took his arm in a daze. The
lights were dimmer than I thought; nothing was really bright except his smile.
It seemed to change the world for me. I forgot that I was plain, forgot that I
was small, with nothing to recommend me to the eye or heart, and let myself be
drawn away, asking nothing, anticipating nothing, till I found myself alone
with him in the fragrant recesses of the conservatory, with only the throb of
music in our ears to link us to the scene we had left.

Why had he brought me here, into this fairyland of opalescent lights and
intoxicating perfumes? What could he have to say—to show? Ah in another
moment I knew. He had seized my hands, and love, ardent love, came pouring from
his lips.

Could it be real? Was I the object of all this feeling, I? If so, then life had
changed for me indeed.

Silent from rush of emotion, I searched his face to see if this Paradise, whose
gates I was thus passionately bidden to enter, was indeed a verity or only a
dream born of the excitement of the dance and the charm of a scene exceptional
in its splendor and picturesqueness even for so luxurious a city as New York.

But it was no mere dream. Truth and earnestness were in his manner, and his
words were neither feverish nor forced.

“I love you I! I need you!” So I heard, and so he soon made me believe. “You
have charmed me from the first. Your tantalizing, trusting, loyal self, like no
other, sweeter than any other, has drawn the heart from my breast. I have seen
many women, admired many women, but you only have I loved. Will you be my
wife?”

I was dazzled; moved beyond anything I could have conceived. I forgot all that
I had hitherto said to myself—all that I had endeavored to impress upon
my heart when I beheld him approaching, intent, as I believed, in his search
for another woman; and, confiding in his honesty, trusting entirely to his
faith, I allowed the plans and purposes of years to vanish in the glamour of
this new joy, and spoke the word which linked us together in a bond which half
an hour before I had never dreamed would unite me to any man.

His impassioned “Mine! mine!” filled my cup to overflowing. Something of the
ecstasy of living entered my soul; which, in spite of all I have suffered
since, recreated the world for me and made all that went before but the prelude
to the new life, the new joy.

Oh, I was happy, happy, perhaps too happy! As the conservatory filled and we
passed back into the adjoining room, the glimpse I caught of myself in one of
the mirrors startled me into thinking so. For had it not been for the odd color
of my dress and the unique way in which I wore my hair that night, I should not
have recognized the beaming girl who faced me so naively from the depths of the
responsive glass.

Can one be too happy? I do not know. I know that one can be too perplexed, too
burdened and too sad.

Thus far I have spoken only of myself in connection with the evening’s
elaborate function. But though entitled by my old Dutch blood to a certain
social consideration which I am happy to say never failed me, I, even in this
hour of supreme satisfaction, attracted very little attention and awoke small
comment. There was another woman present better calculated to do this. A fair
woman, large and of a bountiful presence, accustomed to conquest, and gifted
with the power of carrying off her victories with a certain lazy grace
irresistibly fascinating to the ordinary man; a gorgeously appareled woman,
with a diamond on her breast too vivid for most women, almost too vivid for
her. I noticed this diamond early in the evening, and then I noticed her. She
was not as fine as the diamond, but she was very fine, and, had I been in a
less ecstatic frame of mind, I might have envied the homage she received from
all the men, not excepting him upon whose arm I leaned. Later, there was no one
in the world I envied less.

The ball was a private and very elegant one. There were some notable guests.
One gentleman in particular was pointed out to me as an Englishman of great
distinction and political importance. I thought him a very interesting man for
his years, but odd and a trifle self-centered. Though greatly courted, he
seemed strangely restless under the fire of eyes to which he was constantly
subjected, and only happy when free to use his own in contemplation of the
scene about him. Had I been less absorbed in my own happiness I might have
noted sooner than I did that this contemplation was confined to such groups as
gathered about the lady with the diamond. But this I failed to observe at the
time, and consequently was much surprised to come upon him, at the end of one
of the dances, talking With this lady in an animated and courtly manner totally
opposed to the apathy, amounting to boredom, with which he had hitherto met all
advances.

Yet it was not admiration for her person which he openly displayed. During the
whole time he stood there his eyes seldom rose to her face; they lingered
mainly-and this was what aroused my curiosity—on the great fan of ostrich
plumes which this opulent beauty held against her breast. Was he desirous of
seeing the great diamond she thus unconsciously (or was it consciously)
shielded from his gaze? It was possible, for, as I continued to note him, he
suddenly bent toward her and as quickly raised himself again with a look which
was quite inexplicable to me. The lady had shifted her fan a moment and his
eyes had fallen on the gem.

The next thing I recall with any definiteness was a _tête-à-tête_
conversation which I held with my lover on a certain yellow divan at the end of
one of the halls.

To the right of this divan rose a curtained recess, highly suggestive of
romance, called “the alcove.” As this alcove figures prominently in my story, I
will pause here to describe it.

It was originally intended to contain a large group of statuary which our host,
Mr. Ramsdell, had ordered from Italy to adorn his new house. He is a man of
original ideas in regard to such matters, and in this instance had gone so far
as to have this end of the house constructed with a special view to an
advantageous display of this promised work of art. Fearing the ponderous effect
of a pedestal large enough to hold such a considerable group, he had planned to
raise it to the level of the eye by having the alcove floor built a few feet
higher than the main one. A flight of low, wide steps connected the two, which,
following the curve of the wall, added much to the beauty of this portion of
the hall.

The group was a failure and was never shipped; but the alcove remained, and,
possessing as it did all the advantages of a room in the way of heat and light,
had been turned into a miniature retreat of exceptional beauty.

The seclusion it offered extended, or so we were happy to think, to the
solitary divan at its base on which Mr. Durand and I were seated. With possibly
an undue confidence in the advantage of our position, we were discussing a
subject interesting only to ourselves, when Mr. Durand interrupted himself to
declare: “You are the woman I want, you and you only. And I want you soon. When
do you think you can marry me? Within a week—if—”

Did my look stop him? I was startled. I had heard no incoherent phrase from him
before.

“A week!” I remonstrated. “We take more time than that to fit ourselves for a
journey or some transient pleasure. I hardly realize my engagement yet.”

“You have not been thinking of it for these last two months as I have.”

“No,” I replied demurely, forgetting everything else in my delight at this
admission.

“Nor are you a nomad among clubs and restaurants.”

“No, I have a home.”

“Nor do you love me as deeply as I do you.”

This I thought open to argument.

“The home you speak of is a luxurious one,” he continued. “I can not offer you
its equal Do you expect me to?”

I was indignant.

“You know that I do not. Shall I, who deliberately chose a nurse’s life when an
indulgent uncle’s heart and home were open to me, shrink from braving poverty
with the man I love? We will begin as simply as you please—”

“No,” he peremptorily put in, yet with a certain hesitancy which seemed to
speak of doubts he hardly acknowledged to himself, “I will not marry you if I
must expose you to privation or to the genteel poverty I hate. I love you more
than you realize, and wish to make your life a happy one. I can not give you
all you have been accustomed to in your rich uncle’s house, but if matters
prosper with me, if the chance I have built on succeeds—and it will fail
or succeed tonight—you will have those comforts which love will heighten
into luxuries and—and—”

He was becoming incoherent again, and this time with his eyes fixed elsewhere
than on my face. Following his gaze, I discovered what had distracted his
attention. The lady with the diamond was approaching us on her way to the
alcove. She was accompanied by two gentlemen, both strangers to me, and her
head, sparkling with brilliants, was turning from one to the other with an
indolent grace. I was not surprised that the man at my side quivered and made a
start as if to rise. She was a gorgeous image. In comparison with her imposing
figure in its trailing robe of rich pink velvet, my diminutive frame in its
sea-green gown must have looked as faded and colorless as a half-obliterated
pastel.

“A striking woman,” I remarked as I saw he was not likely to resume the
conversation which her presence had interrupted. “And what a diamond!”

The glance he cast me was peculiar.

“Did you notice it particularly?” he asked.

Astonished, for there was something very uneasy in his manner so that I half
expected to see him rise and join the group he was so eagerly watching without
waiting for my lips to frame a response, I quickly replied:

“It would be difficult not to notice what one would naturally expect to see
only on the breast of a queen. But perhaps she is a queen. I should judge so
from the homage which follows her.”

His eyes sought mine. There was inquiry in them, but it was an inquiry I did
not understand.

“What can you know about diamonds?” he presently demanded. “Nothing but their
glitter, and glitter is not all,—the gem she wears may be a very tawdry
one.”

I flushed with humiliation. He was a dealer in gems—that was his
business—and the check which he had put upon my enthusiasm certainly made
me conscious of my own presumption. Yet I was not disposed to take back my
words. I had had a better opportunity than himself for seeing this remarkable
jewel, and, with the perversity of a somewhat ruffled mood, I burst forth, as
soon as the color had subsided from my cheeks:

“No, no! It is glorious, magnificent. I never saw its like. I doubt if you ever
have, for all your daily acquaintance with jewels. Its value must be enormous.
Who is she? You seem to know her.”

It was a direct question, but I received no reply. Mr. Durand’s eyes had
followed the lady, who had lingered somewhat ostentatiously on the top step and
they did not return to me till she had vanished with her companions behind the
long plush curtain which partly veiled the entrance. By this time he had
forgotten my words, if he had ever heard them and it was with the forced
animation of one whose thoughts are elsewhere that he finally returned to the
old plea:

When would I marry him? If he could offer me a home in a month—and he
would know by to-morrow if he could do so—would I come to him then? He
would not say in a week; that was perhaps to soon; but in a month? Would I not
promise to be his in a month?

What I answered I scarcely recall. His eyes had stolen back to the alcove and
mine had followed them. The gentlemen who had accompanied the lady inside were
coming out again, but others were advancing to take their places, and soon she
was engaged in holding a regular court in this favored retreat.

Why should this interest me? Why should I notice her or look that way at all?
Because Mr. Durand did? Possibly. I remember that for all his ardent
love-making, I felt a little piqued that he should divide his attentions in
this way. Perhaps I thought that for this evening, at least, he might have been
blind to a mere coquette’s fascinations.

I was thus doubly engaged in listening to my lover’s words and in watching the
various gentlemen who went up and down the steps, when a former partner
advanced and reminded me that I had promised him a waltz. Loath to leave Mr.
Durand, yet seeing no way of excusing myself to Mr. Fox, I cast an appealing
glance at the former and was greatly chagrined to find him already on his feet.

“Enjoy your dance,” he cried; “I have a word to say to Mrs. Fairbrother,” and
was gone before my new partner had taken me on his arm.

Was Mrs. Fairbrother the lady with the diamond? Yes; as I turned to enter the
parlor with my partner, I caught a glimpse of Mr. Durand’s tall figure just
disappearing from the step behind the sage-green curtains.

“Who is Mrs. Fairbrother?” I inquired of Mr. Fox at the end of the dance.

Mr. Fox, who is one of society’s perennial beaux, knows everybody.

“She is—well, she was Abner Fairbrother’s wife. You know Fairbrother, the
millionaire who built that curious structure on Eighty-sixth Street. At present
they are living apart—an amicable understanding, I believe. Her diamond
makes her conspicuous. It is one of the most remarkable stones in New York,
perhaps in the United States. Have you observed it?”

“Yes—that is, at a distance. Do you think her very handsome?”

“Mrs. Fairbrother? She’s called so, but she’s not my style.” Here he gave me a
killing glance. “I admire women of mind and heart. They do not need to wear
jewels worth an ordinary man’s fortune.”

I looked about for an excuse to leave this none too desirable partner.

“Let us go back into the long hall,” I urged. “The ceaseless whirl of these
dancers is making me dizzy.”

With the ease of a gallant man he took me on his arm and soon we were
promenading again in the direction of the alcove. A passing glimpse of its
interior was afforded me as we turned to retrace our steps in front of the
yellow divan. The lady with the diamond was still there. A fold of the superb
pink velvet she wore protruded across the gap made by the half-drawn curtains,
just as it had done a half-hour before. But it was impossible to see her face
or who was with her. What I could see, however, and did, was the figure of a
man leaning against the wall at the foot of the steps. At first I thought this
person unknown to me, then I perceived that he was no other than the chief
guest of the evening, the Englishman of whom I have previously spoken.

His expression had altered. He looked now both anxious and absorbed,
particularly anxious and particularly absorbed; so much so that I was not
surprised that no one ventured to approach him. Again I wondered and again I
asked myself for whom or for what he was waiting. For Mr. Durand to leave this
lady’s presence? No, no, I would not believe that. Mr. Durand could not be
there still; yet some women make it difficult for a man to leave them and,
realizing this, I could not forbear casting a parting glance behind me as,
yielding to Mr. Fox’s importunities, I turned toward the supper-room. It showed
me the Englishman in the act of lifting two cups of coffee from a small table
standing near the reception-room door. As his manner plainly betokened whither
he was bound with this refreshment, I felt all my uneasiness vanish, and was
able to take my seat at one of the small tables with which the supper-room was
filled, and for a few minutes, at least, lend an ear to Mr. Fox’s vapid
compliments and trite opinions. Then my attention wandered.

I had not moved nor had I shifted my gaze from the scene before me the ordinary
scene of a gay and well-filled supper-room, yet I found myself looking, as if
through a mist I had not even seen develop, at something as strange, unusual
and remote as any phantasm, yet distinct enough in its outlines for me to get a
decided impression of a square of light surrounding the figure of a man in a
peculiar pose not easily imagined and not easily described. It all passed in an
instant, and I sat staring at the window opposite me with the feeling of one
who has just seen a vision. Yet almost immediately I forgot the whole
occurrence in my anxiety as to Mr. Durand’s whereabouts. Certainly he was
amusing himself very much elsewhere or he would have found an opportunity of
joining me long before this. He was not even in sight, and I grew weary of the
endless menu and the senseless chit chat of my companion, and, finding him
amenable to my whims, rose from my seat at table and made my way to a group of
acquaintances standing just outside the supper-room door. As I listened to
their greetings some impulse led me to cast another glance down the hall toward
the alcove. A man—a waiter—was issuing from it in a rush. Bad news
was in his face, and as his eyes encountered those of Mr. Ramsdell, who was
advancing hurriedly to meet him, he plunged down the steps with a cry which
drew a crowd about the two in an instant.

What was it? What had happened?

Mad with an anxiety I did not stop to define, I rushed toward this group now
swaying from side to side in irrepressible excitement, when suddenly everything
swam before me and I fell in a swoon to the floor.

Some one had shouted aloud

“Mrs. Fairbrother has been murdered and her diamond stolen! Lock the doors!”




II.
THE GLOVES


I must have remained insensible for many minutes, for when I returned to full
consciousness the supper-room was empty and the two hundred guests I had left
seated at table were gathered in agitated groups about the hall. This was what
I first noted; not till afterward did I realize my own situation. I was lying
on a couch in a remote corner of this same hall and beside me, but not looking
at me, stood my lover, Mr. Durand.

How he came to know my state and find me in the general disturbance I did not
stop to inquire. It was enough for me at that moment to look up and see him so
near. Indeed, the relief was so great, the sense of his protection so
comforting that I involuntarily stretched out my hand in gratitude toward him,
but, failing to attract his attention, slipped to the floor and took my stand
at his side. This roused him and he gave me a look which steadied me, in spite
of the thrill of surprise with which I recognized his extreme pallor and a
certain peculiar hesitation in his manner not at all natural to it.

Meanwhile, some words uttered near us were slowly making their way into my
benumbed brain. The waiter who had raised the first alarm was endeavoring to
describe to an importunate group in advance of us what he had come upon in that
murderous alcove.

“I was carrying about a tray of ices,” he was saying, “and seeing the lady
sitting there, went up. I had expected to find the place full of gentlemen, but
she was all alone, and did not move as I picked my way over her long train. The
next moment I had dropped ices, tray and all. I bad come face to face with her
and seen that she was dead. She had been stabbed and robbed. There was no
diamond on her breast, but there was blood.”

A hubbub of disordered sentences seasoned with horrified cries followed this
simple description. Then a general movement took place in the direction of the
alcove, during which Mr. Durand stooped to my ear and whispered:

“We must get out of this. You are not strong enough to stand such excitement.
Don’t you think we can escape by the window over there?”

“What, without wraps and in such a snowstorm?” I protested. “Besides, uncle
will be looking for me. He came with me, you know.”

An expression of annoyance, or was it perplexity, crossed Mr. Durand’s face,
and he made a movement as if to leave me.

“I must go,” he began, but stopped at my glance of surprise and assumed a
different air—one which became him very much better. “Pardon me, dear, I
will take you to your uncle. This—this dreadful tragedy, interrupting so
gay a scene, has quite upset me. I was always sensitive to the sight, the
smell, even to the very mention of the word blood.”

So was I, but not to the point of cowardice. But then I had not just come from
an interview with the murdered woman. Her glances, her smiles, the lift of her
eyebrows were not fresh memories to me. Some consideration was certainly due
him for the shock he must be laboring under. Yet I did not know how to keep
back the vital question.

“Who did it? You must have heard some one say.”

“I have heard nothing,” was his somewhat fierce rejoinder. Then, as I made a
move, “What you do not wish to follow the crowd there?”

“I wish to find my uncle, and he is in that crowd.”

Mr. Durand said nothing further, and together we passed down the hall. A
strange mood pervaded my mind. Instead of wishing to fly a scene which under
ordinary conditions would have filled me with utter repugnance, I felt a desire
to see and hear everything. Not from curiosity, such as moved most of the
people about me, but because of some strong instinctive feeling I could not
understand; as if it were my heart which had been struck, and my fate which was
trembling in the balance.

We were consequently among the first to hear such further details as were
allowed to circulate among the now well-nigh frenzied guests. No one knew the
perpetrator of the deed nor did there appear to be any direct evidence
calculated to fix his identity. Indeed, the sudden death of this beautiful
woman in the midst of festivity might have been looked upon as suicide, if the
jewel had not been missing from her breast and the instrument of death removed
from the wound. So far, the casual search which had been instituted had failed
to produce this weapon; but the police would be here soon and then something
would be done. As to the means of entrance employed by the assassin, there
seemed to be but one opinion. The alcove contained a window opening upon a
small balcony. By this he had doubtless entered and escaped. The long plush
curtains which, during the early part of the evening, had remained looped back
on either side of the casement, were found at the moment of the crime’s
discovery closely drawn together. Certainly a suspicious circumstance. However,
the question was one easily settled. If any one had approached by the balcony
there would be marks in the snow to show it. Mr. Ramsdell had gone out to see.
He would be coming back soon.

“Do you think this a probable explanation of the crime?” I demanded of Mr.
Durand at this juncture. “If I remember rightly this window overlooks the
carriage drive; it must, therefore, be within plain sight of the door through
which some three hundred guests have passed to-night. How could any one climb
to such a height, lift the window and step in without being seen?”

“You forget the awning.” He spoke quickly and with unexpected vivacity. “The
awning runs up very near this window and quite shuts it off from the sight of
arriving guests. The drivers of departing carriages could see it if they
chanced to glance back. But their eyes are usually on their horses in such a
crowd. The probabilities are against any of them having looked up.” His brow
had cleared; a weight seemed removed from his mind. “When I went into the
alcove to see Mrs. Fairbrother, she was sitting in a chair near this window
looking out. I remember the effect of her splendor against the snow sifting
down in a steady stream behind her. The pink velvet—the soft green of the
curtains on either side—her brilliants—and the snow for a
background! Yes, the murderer came in that way. Her figure would be plain to
any one outside, and if she moved and the diamond shone—Don’t you see
what a probable theory it is? There must be ways by which a desperate man might
reach that balcony. I believe—”

How eager he was and with what a look he turned when the word came filtering
through the crowd that, though footsteps had been found in the snow pointing
directly toward the balcony, there was none on the balcony itself, proving, as
any one could see, that the attack had not come from without, since no one
could enter the alcove by the window without stepping on the balcony.

“Mr. Durand has suspicions of his own,” I explained determinedly to myself. “He
met some one going in as he stepped out. Shall I ask him to name this person?”
No, I did not have the courage; not while his face wore so stern a look and was
so resolutely turned away.

The next excitement was a request from Mr. Ramsdell for us all to go into the
drawing-room. This led to various cries from hysterical lips, such as, “We are
going to be searched!” “He believes the thief and murderer to be still in the
house!” “Do you see the diamond on me?” “Why don’t they confine their
suspicions to the favored few who were admitted to the alcove?”

“They will,” remarked some one close to my ear.

But quickly as I turned I could not guess from whom the comment came. Possibly
from a much beflowered, bejeweled, elderly dame, whose eyes were fixed on Mr.
Durand’s averted face. If so, she received a defiant look from mine, which I do
not believe she forgot in a hurry.

Alas! it was not the only curious, I might say searching glance I surprised
directed against him as we made our way to where I could see my uncle
struggling to reach us from a short side hall. The whisper seemed to have gone
about that Mr. Durand had been the last one to converse with Mrs. Fairbrother
prior to the tragedy.

In time I had the satisfaction of joining my uncle. He betrayed great relief at
the sight of me, and, encouraged by his kindly smile, I introduced Mr. Durand.
My conscious air must have produced its impression, for he turned a startled
and inquiring look upon my companion, then took me resolutely on his own arm,
saying:

“There is likely to be some unpleasantness ahead for all of us. I do not think
the police will allow any one to go till that diamond has been looked for. This
is a very serious matter, dear. So many think the murderer was one of the
guests.”

“I think so, too,” said I. But why I thought so or why I should say so with
such vehemence, I do not know even now.

My uncle looked surprised.

“You had better not advance any opinions,” he advised. “A lady like yourself
should have none on a subject so gruesome. I shall never cease regretting
bringing you here tonight. I shall seize on the first opportunity to take you
home. At present we are supposed to await the action of our host.”

“He can not keep all these people here long,” I ventured.

“No; most of us will be relieved soon. Had you not better get your wraps so as
to be ready to go as soon as he gives the word?”

“I should prefer to have a peep at the people in the drawing-room first,” was
my perverse reply. “I don’t know why I want to see them, but I do; and, uncle,
I might as well tell you now that I engaged myself to Mr. Durand this
evening—the gentleman with me when you first came up.”

“You have engaged yourself to—to this man—to marry him, do you
mean?”

I nodded, with a sly look behind to see if Mr. Durand were near enough to hear.
He was not, and I allowed my enthusiasm to escape in a few quick words.

“He has chosen me,” I said, “the plainest, most uninteresting puss in the whole
city.” My uncle smiled. “And I believe he loves me; at all events, I know that
I love him.”

My uncle sighed, while giving me the most affectionate of glances.

“It’s a pity you should have come to this understanding to-night,” said he.
“He’s an acquaintance of the murdered woman, and it is only right for you to
know that you will have to leave him behind when you start for home. All who
have been seen entering that alcove this evening will necessarily be detained
here till the coroner arrives.”

My uncle and I strolled toward the drawing-room and as we did so we passed the
library. It held but one occupant, the Englishman. He was seated before a
table, and his appearance was such as precluded any attempt at intrusion, even
if one had been so disposed. There was a fixity in his gaze and a frown on his
powerful forehead which bespoke a mind greatly agitated. It was not for me to
read that mind, much as it interested me, and I passed on, chatting, as if I
had not the least desire to stop.

I can not say how much time elapsed before my uncle touched me on the arm with
the remark:

“The police are here in full force. I saw a detective in plain clothes look in
here a minute ago. He seemed to have his eye on you. There he is again! What
can he want? No, don’t turn; he’s gone away now.”

Frightened as I had never been in all my life, I managed to keep my head up and
maintain an indifferent aspect. What, as my uncle said, could a detective want
of me? I had nothing to do with the crime; not in the remotest way could I be
said to be connected with it; why, then, had I caught the attention of the
police? Looking about, I sought Mr. Durand. He had left me on my uncle’s coming
up, but had remained, as I supposed, within sight. But at this moment he was
nowhere to be seen. Was I afraid on his account? Impossible; yet—

Happily just then the word was passed about that the police had given orders
that, with the exception of such as had been requested to remain to answer
questions, the guests generally should feel themselves at liberty to depart.

The time had now come to take a stand and I informed my uncle, to his evident
chagrin, that I should not leave as long as any excuse could be found for
staying.

He said nothing at the time, but as the noise of departing carriages gradually
lessened and the great hall and drawing-rooms began to wear a look of desertion
he at last ventured on this gentle protest:

“You have more pluck, Rita, than I supposed. Do you think it wise to stay on
here? Will not people imagine that you have been requested to do so? Look at
those waiters hanging about in the different doorways. Run up and put on your
wraps. Mr. Durand will come to the house fast enough as soon as he is released.
I give you leave to sit up for him if you will; only let us leave this place
before that impertinent little man dares to come around again,” he artfully
added.

But I stood firm, though somewhat moved by his final suggestion; and, being a
small tyrant in my way, at least with him, I carried my point.

Suddenly my anxiety became poignant. A party of men, among whom I saw Mr.
Durand, appeared at the end of the hall, led by a very small but self-important
personage whom my uncle immediately pointed out as the detective who had twice
come to the door near which I stood. As this man looked up and saw me still
there, a look of relief crossed his face, and, after a word or two with another
stranger of seeming authority, he detached himself from the group he had
ushered upon the scene, and, approaching me respectfully enough, said with a
deprecatory glance at my uncle whose frown he doubtless understood:

“Miss Van Arsdale, I believe?”

I nodded, too choked to speak.

“I am sorry, Madam, if you were expecting to go. Inspector Dalzell has arrived
and would like to speak to you. Will you step into one of these rooms? Not the
library, but any other. He will come to you as quickly as he can.”

I tried to carry it off bravely and as if I saw nothing in this summons which
was unique or alarming. But I succeeded only in dividing a wavering glance
between him and the group of men of which he had just formed a part. In the
latter were several gentlemen whom I had noted in Mrs. Fairbrother’s train
early in the evening and a few strangers, two of whom were officials. Mr.
Durand was with the former, and his expression did not encourage me.

“The affair is very serious,” commented the detective on leaving me. “That’s
our excuse for any trouble we may be putting you to.” I clutched my uncle’s
arm.

“Where shall we go?” I asked. “The drawing-room is too large. In this hall my
eyes are for ever traveling in the direction of the alcove. Don’t you know some
little room? Oh, what, what can he want of me?”

“Nothing serious, nothing important,” blustered my good uncle. “Some triviality
such as you can answer in a moment. A little room? Yes, I know one, there,
under the stairs. Come, I will find the door for you. Why did we ever come to
this wretched ball?”

I had no answer for this. Why, indeed!

My uncle, who is a very patient man, guided me to the place he had picked out,
without adding a word to the ejaculation in which he had just allowed his
impatience to expend itself. But once seated within, and out of the range of
peering eyes and listening ears, he allowed a sigh to escape him which
expressed the fullness of his agitation.

“My dear,” he began, and stopped. “I feel—” here he again came to a
pause—“that you should know—”

“What?” I managed to ask.

“That I do not like Mr. Durand and—that others do not like him.”

“Is it because of something you knew about him before to-night?”

He made no answer.

“Or because he was seen, like many other gentlemen, talking with that woman
some time before—a long time before—she was attacked for her
diamond and murdered?”

“Pardon me, my dear, he was the last one seen talking to her. Some one may yet
be found who went in after he came out, but as yet he is considered the last.
Mr. Ramsdell himself told me so.”

“It makes no difference,” I exclaimed, in all the heat of my long-suppressed
agitation. “I am willing to stake my life on his integrity and honor. No man
could talk to me as he did early this evening with any vile intentions at
heart. He was interested, no doubt, like many others, in one who had the name
of being a captivating woman, but—”

I paused in sudden alarm. A look had crossed my uncle’s face which assured me
that we were no longer alone. Who could have entered so silently? In some
trepidation I turned to see. A gentleman was standing in the doorway, who
smiled as I met his eye.

“Is this Miss Van Arsdale?” he asked.

Instantly my courage, which had threatened to leave me, returned and I smiled.

“I am,” said I. “Are you the inspector?”

“Inspector Dalzell,” he explained with a bow, which included my uncle.

Then he closed the door.

“I hope I have not frightened you,” he went on, approaching me with a
gentlemanly air. “A little matter has come up concerning which I mean to be
perfectly frank with you. It may prove to be of trivial importance; if so, you
will pardon my disturbing you. Mr. Durand—you know him?”

“I am engaged to him,” I declared before poor uncle could raise his hand.

“You are engaged to him. Well, that makes it difficult, and yet, in some
respects, easier for me to ask a certain question.”

It must have made it more difficult than easy, for he did not proceed to put
this question immediately, but went on:

“You know that Mr. Durand visited Mrs. Fairbrother in the alcove a little while
before her death?”

“I have been told so.”

“He was seen to go in, but I have not yet found any one who saw him come out;
consequently we have been unable to fix the exact minute when he did so. What
is the matter, Miss Van Arsdale? You want to say something?”

“No, no,” I protested, reconsidering my first impulse. Then, as I met his look,
“He can probably tell you that himself. I am sure he would not hesitate.”

“We shall ask him later,” was the inspector’s response. “Meanwhile, are you
ready to assure me that since that time he has not intrusted you with a little
article to keep—No, no, I do not mean the diamond,” he broke in, in very
evident dismay, as I fell back from him in irrepressible indignation and alarm.
“The diamond—well, we shall look for that later; it is another article we
are in search of now, one which Mr. Durand might very well have taken in his
hand without realizing just what he was doing. As it is important for us to
find this article, and as it is one he might very naturally have passed over to
you when he found himself in the hall with it in his hand, I have ventured to
ask you if this surmise is correct.”

“It is not,” I retorted fiercely, glad that I could speak from my very heart.
“He has given me nothing to keep for him. He would not—”

Why that peculiar look in the inspector’s eye? Why did he reach out for a chair
and seat me in it before he took up my interrupted sentence and finished it?

“—would not give you anything to hold which had belonged to another
woman? Miss Van Arsdale, you do not know men. They do many things which a
young, trusting girl like yourself would hardly expect from them.”

“Not Mr. Durand,” I maintained stoutly.

“Perhaps not; let us hope not.” Then, with a quick change of manner, he bent
toward me, with a sidelong look at uncle, and, pointing to my gloves, remarked:
“You wear gloves. Did you feel the need of two pairs, that you carry another in
that pretty bag hanging from your arm?”

I started, looked down, and then slowly drew up into my hand the bag he had
mentioned. The white finger of a glove was protruding from the top. Any one
could see it; many probably had. What did it mean? I had brought no extra pair
with me.

“This is not mine,” I began, faltering into silence as I perceived my uncle
turn and walk a step or two away.

“The article we are looking for,” pursued the inspector, “is a pair of long,
white gloves, supposed to have been worn by Mrs. Fairbrother when she entered
the alcove. Do you mind showing me those, a finger of which I see?”

I dropped the bag into his hand. The room and everything in it was whirling
around me. But when I noted what trouble it was to his clumsy fingers to open
it, my senses returned and, reaching for the bag, I pulled it open and snatched
out the gloves. They had been hastily rolled up and some of the fingers were
showing.

“Let me have them,” he said.

With quaking heart and shaking fingers I handed over the gloves.

“Mrs. Fairbrother’s hand was not a small one,” he observed as he slowly
unrolled them. “Yours is. We can soon tell—”

But that sentence was never finished. As the gloves fell open in his grasp he
uttered a sudden, sharp ejaculation and I a smothered shriek. An object of
superlative brilliancy had rolled out from them. The diamond! the gem which men
said was worth a king’s ransom, and which we all knew had just cost a life.




III.
ANSON DURAND


With benumbed senses and a dismayed heart, I stared at the fallen jewel as at
some hateful thing menacing both my life and honor.

“I have had nothing to do with it,” I vehemently declared. “I did not put the
gloves in my bag, nor did I know the diamond was in them. I fainted at the
first alarm, and—”

“There! there! I know,” interposed the inspector kindly. “I do not doubt you in
the least; not when there is a man to doubt. Miss Van Arsdale, you had better
let your uncle take you home. I will see that the hall is cleared for you.
Tomorrow I may wish to talk to you again, but I will spare you all further
importunity tonight.”

I shook my head. It would require more courage to leave at that moment than to
stay. Meeting the inspector’s eye firmly, I quietly declared,

“If Mr. Durand’s good name is to suffer in any way, I will not forsake him. I
have confidence in his integrity, if you have not. It was not his hand, but one
much more guilty, which dropped this jewel into the bag.”

“So! so! do not be too sure of that, little woman. You had better take your
lesson at once. It will be easier for you, and more wholesome for him.”

Here he picked up the jewel.

“Well, they said it was a wonder!” he exclaimed, in sudden admiration. “I am
not surprised, now that I have seen a great gem, at the famous stories I have
read of men risking life and honor for their possession. If only no blood had
been shed!”

“Uncle! uncle!” I wailed aloud in my agony.

It was all my lips could utter, but to uncle it was enough. Speaking for the
first time, he asked to have a passage made for us, and when the inspector
moved forward to comply, he threw his arm about me, and was endeavoring to find
fitting words with which to fill up the delay, when a short altercation was
heard from the doorway, and Mr. Durand came rushing in, followed immediately by
the inspector.

His first look was not at myself, but at the bag, which still hung from my arm.
As I noted this action, my whole inner self seemed to collapse, dragging my
happiness down with it. But my countenance remained unchanged, too much so, it
seems; for when his eye finally rose to my face, he found there what made him
recoil and turn with something like fierceness on his companion.

“You have been talking to her,” he vehemently protested. “Perhaps you have gone
further than that. What has happened here? I think I ought to know. She is so
guileless, Inspector Dalzell; so perfectly free from all connection with this
crime. Why have you shut her up here, and plied her with questions, and made
her look at me with such an expression, when all you have against me is just
what you have against some half-dozen others,—that I was weak enough, or
unfortunate enough, to spend a few minutes with that unhappy woman in the
alcove before she died?”

“It might be well if Miss Van Arsdale herself would answer you,” was the
inspector’s quiet retort. “What you have said may constitute all that we have
against you, but it is not all we have against her.”

I gasped, not so much at this seeming accusation, the motive of which I
believed myself to understand, but at the burning blush with which it was
received by Mr. Durand.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, with certain odd breaks in his voice. “What
can you have against her?”

“A triviality,” returned the inspector, with a look in my direction that was, I
felt, not to be mistaken.

“I do not call it a triviality,” I burst out. “It seems that Mrs. Fairbrother,
for all her elaborate toilet, was found without gloves on her arms. As she
certainly wore them on entering the alcove, the police have naturally been
looking for them. And where do you think they have found them? Not in the
alcove with her, not in the possession of the man who undoubtedly carried them
away with him, but—”

“I know, I know,” Mr. Durand hoarsely put in. “You need not say any more. Oh,
my poor Rita! what have I brought upon you by my weakness?”

“Weakness!”

He started; I started; my voice was totally unrecognizable.

“I should give it another name,” I added coldly.

For a moment he seemed to lose heart, then he lifted his head again, and looked
as handsome as when he pleaded for my hand in the little conservatory.

“You have that right,” said he; “besides, weakness at such a time, and under
such an exigency, is little short of wrong. It was unmanly in me to endeavor to
secrete these gloves; more than unmanly for me to choose for their hiding-place
the recesses of an article belonging exclusively to yourself. I acknowledge it,
Rita, and shall meet only my just punishment if you deny me in the future both
your sympathy and regard. But you must let me assure you and these gentlemen
also, one of whom can make it very unpleasant for me, that consideration for
you, much more than any miserable anxiety about myself, lay at the bottom of
what must strike you all as an act of unpardonable cowardice. From the moment I
learned of this woman’s murder in the alcove, where I had visited her, I
realized that every one who had been seen to approach her within a half-hour of
her death would be subjected to a more or less rigid investigation, and I
feared, if her gloves were found in my possession, some special attention might
be directed my way which would cause you unmerited distress. So, yielding to an
impulse which I now recognize as a most unwise, as well as unworthy one, I took
advantage of the bustle about us, and of the insensibility into which you had
fallen, to tuck these miserable gloves into the bag I saw lying on the floor at
your side. I do not ask your pardon. My whole future life shall be devoted to
winning that; I simply wish to state a fact.”

“Very good!” It was the inspector who spoke; I could not have uttered a word to
save my life. “Perhaps you will now feel that you owe it to this young lady to
add how you came to have these gloves in your possession?”

“Mrs. Fairbrother handed them to me.”

“Handed them to you?”

“Yes, I hardly know why myself. She asked me to take care of them for her. I
know that this must strike you as a very peculiar statement. It was my
realization of the unfavorable effect it could not fail to produce upon those
who beard it, which made me dread any interrogation on the subject. But I
assure you it was as I say. She put the gloves into my hand while I was talking
to her, saying they incommoded her.”

“And you?”

“Well, I held them for a few minutes, then I put them in my pocket, but quite
automatically, and without thinking very much about it. She was a woman
accustomed to have her own way. People seldom questioned it, I judge.”

Here the tension about my throat relaxed, and I opened my lips to speak. But
the inspector, with a glance of some authority, forestalled me.

“Were the gloves open or rolled up when she offered them to you?”

“They were rolled up.”

“Did you see her take them off?”

“Assuredly.”

“And roll them up?”

“Certainly.”

“After which she passed them over to you?”

“Not immediately. She let them lie in her lap for a while.”

“While you talked?”

Mr. Durand bowed.

“And looked at the diamond?”

Mr. Durand bowed for the second time.

“Had you ever seen so fine a diamond before?”

“No.”

“Yet you deal in precious stones?”

“That is my business.”

“And are regarded as a judge of them?”

“I have that reputation.”

“Mr. Durand, would you know this diamond if you saw it?”

“I certainly should.”

“The setting was an uncommon one, I hear.”

“Quite an unusual one.”

The inspector opened his hand.

“Is this the article?”

“Good God! Where—”

“Don’t you know?”

“I do not.”

The inspector eyed him gravely.

“Then I have a bit of news for you. It was hidden in the gloves you took from
Mrs. Fairbrother. Miss Van Arsdale was present at their unrolling.”

Do we live, move, breathe at certain moments? It hardly seems so. I know that I
was conscious of but one sense, that of seeing; and of but one faculty, that of
judgment. Would he flinch, break down, betray guilt, or simply show
astonishment? I chose to believe it was the latter feeling only which informed
his slowly whitening and disturbed features. Certainly it was all his words
expressed, as his glances flew from the stone to the gloves, and back again to
the inspector’s face.

“I can not believe it. I can not believe it.” And his hand flew wildly to his
forehead.

“Yet it is the truth, Mr. Durand, and one you have now to face. How will you do
this? By any further explanations, or by what you may consider a discreet
silence?”

“I have nothing to explain,—the facts are as I have stated.”

The inspector regarded him with an earnestness which made my heart sink.

“You can fix the time of this visit, I hope; tell us, I mean, just when you
left the alcove. You must have seen some one who can speak for you.”

“I fear not.”

Why did he look so disturbed and uncertain?

“There were but few persons in the hall just then,” he went on to explain. “No
one was sitting on the yellow divan.”

“You know where you went, though? Whom you saw and what you did before the
alarm spread?”

“Inspector, I am quite confused. I did go somewhere; I did not remain in that
part of the hall. But I can tell you nothing definite, save that I walked
about, mostly among strangers, till the cry rose which sent us all in one
direction and me to the side of my fainting sweetheart.”

“Can you pick out any stranger you talked to, or any one who might have noted
you during this interval? You see, for the sake of this little woman, I wish to
give you every chance.”

“Inspector, I am obliged to throw myself on your mercy. I have no such witness
to my innocence as you call for. Innocent people seldom have. It is only the
guilty who take the trouble to provide for such contingencies.”

This was all very well, if it had been uttered with a straightforward air and
in a clear tone. But it was not. I who loved him felt that it was not, and
consequently was more or less prepared for the change which now took place in
the inspector’s manner. Yet it pierced me to the heart to observe this change,
and I instinctively dropped my face into my hands when I saw him move toward
Mr. Durand with some final order or word of caution.

Instantly (and who can account for such phenomena?) there floated into view
before my retina a reproduction of the picture I had seen, or imagined myself
to have seen, in the supper-room; and as at that time it opened before me an
unknown vista quite removed from the surrounding scene, so it did now, and I
beheld again in faint outlines, and yet with the effect of complete
distinctness, a square of light through which appeared an open passage partly
shut off from view by a half-lifted curtain and the tall figure of a man
holding back this curtain and gazing, or seeming to gaze, at his own breast, on
which he had already laid one quivering finger.

What did it mean? In the excitement of the horrible occurrence which had
engrossed us all, I had forgotten this curious experience; but on feeling anew
the vague sensation of shock and expectation which seemed its natural
accompaniment, I became conscious of a sudden conviction that the picture which
had opened before me in the supper-room was the result of a reflection in a
glass or mirror of something then going on in a place not otherwise within the
reach of my vision; a reflection, the importance of which I suddenly realized
when I recalled at what a critical moment it had occurred. A man in a state of
dread looking at his breast, within five minutes of the stir and rush of the
dreadful event which had marked this evening!

A hope, great as the despair in which I had just been sunk, gave me courage to
drop my hands and advance impetuously toward the inspector.

“Don’t speak, I pray; don’t judge any of us further till you have heard what I
have to say.”

In great astonishment and with an aspect of some severity, he asked me what I
had to say now which I had not had the opportunity of saying before. I replied
with all the passion of a forlorn hope that it was only at this present moment
I remembered a fact which might have a very decided bearing on this case; and,
detecting evidences, as I thought, of relenting on his part, I backed up this
statement by an entreaty for a few words with him apart, as the matter I had to
tell was private and possibly too fanciful for any ear but his own.

He looked as if he apprehended some loss of valuable time, but, touched by the
involuntary gesture of appeal with which I supplemented my request, he led me
into a corner, where, with just an encouraging glance toward Mr. Durand, who
seemed struck dumb by my action, I told the inspector of that momentary picture
which I had seen reflected in what I was now sure was some window-pane or
mirror.

“It was at a time coincident, or very nearly coincident, with the perpetration
of the crime you are now investigating,” I concluded. “Within five minutes
afterward came the shout which roused us all to what had happened in the
alcove. I do not know what passage I saw or what door or even what figure; but
the latter, I am sure, was that of the guilty man. Something in the outline
(and it was the outline only I could catch) expressed an emotion
incomprehensible to me at the moment, but which, in my remembrance, impresses
me as that of fear and dread. It was not the entrance to the alcove I
beheld—that would have struck me at once—but some other opening
which I might recognize if I saw it. Can not that opening be found, and may it
not give a clue to the man I saw skulking through it with terror and remorse in
his heart?”

“Was this figure, when you saw it, turned toward you or away?” the inspector
inquired with unexpected interest.

“Turned partly away. He was going from me.”

“And you sat—where?”

“Shall I show you?”

The inspector bowed, then with a low word of caution turned to my uncle.

“I am going to take this young lady into the hall for a moment, at her own
request. May I ask you and Mr. Durand to await me here?”

Without pausing for reply, he threw open the door and presently we were pacing
the deserted supper-room, seeking the place where I had sat. I found it almost
by a miracle,—everything being in great disorder. Guided by my bouquet,
which I had left behind me in my escape from the table, I laid hold of the
chair before which it lay, and declared quite confidently to the inspector:

“This is where I sat.”

Naturally his glance and mine both flew to the opposite wall. A window was
before us of an unusual size and make. Unlike any which had ever before come
under my observation, it swung on a pivot, and, though shut at the present
moment, might very easily, when opened, present its huge pane at an angle
capable of catching reflections from some of the many mirrors decorating the
reception-room situated diagonally across the hall. As all the doorways on this
lower floor were of unusual width, an open path was offered, as it were, for
these reflections to pass, making it possible for scenes to be imaged here
which, to the persons involved, would seem as safe from any one’s scrutiny as
if they were taking place in the adjoining house.

As we realized this, a look passed between us of more than ordinary
significance. Pointing to the window, the inspector turned to a group of
waiters watching us from the other side of the room and asked if it had been
opened that evening.

The answer came quickly.

“Yes, sir,—just before the—the—”

“I understand,” broke in the inspector; and, leaning over me, he whispered:
“Tell me again exactly what you thought you saw.”

But I could add little to my former description. “Perhaps you can tell me
this,” he kindly persisted. “Was the picture, when you saw it, on a level with
your eye, or did you have to lift your head in order to see it?”

“It was high up,—in the air, as it were. That seemed its oddest feature.”

The inspector’s mouth took a satisfied curve. “Possibly I might identify the
door and passage, if I saw them,” I suggested.

“Certainly, certainly,” was his cheerful rejoinder; and, summoning one of his
men, he was about to give some order, when his impulse changed, and he asked if
I could draw.

I assured him, in some surprise, that I was far from being an adept in that
direction, but that possibly I might manage a rough sketch; whereupon he pulled
a pad and pencil from his pocket and requested me to make some sort of attempt
to reproduce, on paper, my memory of this passage and the door.

My heart was beating violently, and the pencil shook in my hand, but I knew
that it would not do for me to show any hesitation in fixing for all eyes what,
unaccountably to myself, continued to be perfectly plain to my own. So I
endeavored to do as he bade me, and succeeded, to some extent, for he uttered a
slight ejaculation at one of its features, and, while duly expressing his
thanks, honored me with a very sharp look.

“Is this your first visit to this house?” he asked.

“No; I have been here before.”

“In the evening, or in the afternoon?”

“In the afternoon.”

“I am told that the main entrance is not in use to-night.”

“No. A side door is provided for occasions like the present. Guests entering
there find a special hall and staircase, by which they can reach the upstairs
dressing-rooms, without crossing the main hall. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, that is what I mean.”

I stared at him in wonder. What lay back of such questions as these?

“You came in, as others did, by this side entrance,” he now proceeded. “Did you
notice, as you turned to go up stairs, an arch opening into a small passageway
at your left?”

“I did not,” I began, flushing, for I thought I understood him now. “I was too
eager to reach the dressing-room to look about me.”

“Very well,” he replied; “I may want to show you that arch.”

The outline of an arch, backing the figure we were endeavoring to identify, was
a marked feature in the sketch I had shown him.

“Will you take a seat near by while I make a study of this matter?”

I turned with alacrity to obey. There was something in his air and manner which
made me almost buoyant. Had my fanciful interpretation of what I had seen
reached him with the conviction it had me? If so, there was hope,—hope
for the man I loved, who had gone in and out between curtains, and not through
any arch such as he had mentioned or I had described. Providence was working
for me. I saw it in the way the men now moved about, swinging the window to and
fro, under the instruction of the inspector, manipulating the lights, opening
doors and drawing back curtains. Providence was working for me, and when, a few
minutes later, I was asked to reseat myself in my old place at the supper-table
and take another look in that slightly deflected glass, I knew that my effort
had met with its reward, and that for the second time I was to receive the
impression of a place now indelibly imprinted on my consciousness.

“Is not that it?” asked the inspector, pointing at the glass with a last look
at the imperfect sketch I had made him, and which he still held in his hand.

“Yes,” I eagerly responded. “All but the man. He whose figure I see there is
another person entirely; I see no remorse, or even fear, in his looks.”

“Of course not. You are looking at the reflection of one of my men. Miss Van
Arsdale, do you recognize the place now under your eye?”

“I do not. You spoke of an arch in the hall, at the left of the carriage
entrance, and I see an arch in the window-pane before me, but—”

“You are looking straight through the alcove,—perhaps you did not know
that another door opened at its back,—into the passage which runs behind
it. Farther on is the arch, and beyond that arch the side hall and staircase
leading to the dressing-rooms. This door, the one in the rear of the alcove, I
mean, is hidden from those entering from the main hall by draperies which have
been hung over it for this occasion, but it is quite visible from the back
passageway, and there can be no doubt that it was by its means the man, whose
reflected image you saw, both entered and left the alcove. It is an important
fact to establish, and we feel very much obliged to you for the aid you have
given us in this matter.”

Then, as I continued to stare at him in my elation and surprise, he added, in
quick explanation:

“The lights in the alcove, and in the several parlors, are all hung with
shades, as you must perceive, but the one in the hall, beyond the arch, is very
bright, which accounts for the distinctness of this double reflection. Another
thing,—and it is a very interesting point,—it would have been
impossible for this reflection to be noticeable from where you sit, if the
level of the alcove flooring had not been considerably higher than that of the
main floor. But for this freak of the architect, the continual passing to and
fro of people would have prevented the reflection in its passage from surface
to surface. Miss Van Arsdale, it would seem that by one of those chances which
happen but once or twice in a lifetime, every condition was propitious at the
moment to make this reflection a possible occurrence, even the location and
width of the several doorways and the exact point at which the portiere was
drawn aside from the entrance to the alcove.”

“It is wonderful,” I cried, “wonderful!” Then, to his astonishment, perhaps, I
asked if there was not a small door of communication between the passageway
back of the alcove and the large central hall.

“Yes,” he replied. “It opens just beyond the fireplace. Three small steps lead
to it.”

“I thought so,” I murmured, but more to myself than to him. In my mind I was
thinking how a man, if he so wished, could pass from the very heart of this
assemblage into the quiet passageway, and so on into the alcove, without
attracting very much attention from his fellow guests. I forgot that there was
another way of approach even less noticeable that by the small staircase
running up beyond the arch directly to the dressing-rooms.

That no confusion may arise in any one’s mind in regard to these curious
approaches, I subjoin a plan of this portion of the lower floor as it afterward
appeared in the leading dailies.

“And Mr. Durand?” I stammered, as I followed the inspector back to the room
where we had left that gentleman. “You will believe his statement now and look
for this second intruder with the guiltily-hanging head and frightened mien?”

“Yes,” he replied, stopping me on the threshold of the door and taking my hand
kindly in his, “if—(don’t start, my dear; life is full of trouble for
young and old, and youth is the best time to face a sad experience) if he is
not himself the man you saw staring in frightened horror at his breast. Have
you not noticed that he is not dressed in all respects like the other gentlemen
present? That, though he has not donned his overcoat, he has put on, somewhat
prematurely, one might say, the large silk handkerchief he presumably wears
under it? Have you not noticed this, and asked yourself why?”

I had noticed it. I had noticed it from the moment I recovered from my fainting
fit, but I had not thought it a matter of sufficient interest to ask, even of
myself, his reason for thus hiding his shirt-front. Now I could not. My
faculties were too confused, my heart too deeply shaken by the suggestion which
the inspector’s words conveyed, for me to be conscious of anything but the
devouring question as to what I should do if, by my own mistaken zeal, I had
succeeded in plunging the man I loved yet deeper into the toils in which he had
become enmeshed.

The inspector left me no time for the settlement of this question. Ushering me
back into the room where Mr. Durand and my uncle awaited our return in
apparently unrelieved silence, he closed the door upon the curious eyes of the
various persons still lingering in the hall, and abruptly said to Mr. Durand:

“The explanations you have been pleased to give of the manner in which this
diamond came into your possession are not too fanciful for credence, if you can
satisfy us on another point which has awakened some doubt in the mind of one of
my men. Mr. Durand, you appear to have prepared yourself for departure somewhat
prematurely. Do you mind removing that handkerchief for a moment? My reason for
so peculiar a request will presently appear.”

Alas, for my last fond hope! Mr. Durand, with a face as white as the background
of snow framed by the uncurtained window against which he leaned, lifted his
hand as if to comply with the inspector’s request, then let it fall again with
a grating laugh.

“I see that I am not likely to escape any of the results of my imprudence,” he
cried, and with a quick jerk bared his shirt-front.

A splash of red defiled its otherwise uniform whiteness! That it was the red of
heart’s blood was proved by the shrinking look he unconsciously cast at it.




IV.
EXPLANATIONS


My love for Anson Durand died at sight of that crimson splash or I thought it
did. In this spot of blood on the breast of him to whom I had given my heart I
could read but one word—guilt—heinous guilt, guilt denied and now
brought to light in language that could be seen and read by all men. Why should
I stay in such a presence? Had not the inspector himself advised me to go?

Yes, but another voice bade me remain. Just as I reached the door, Anson Durand
found his voice and I heard, in the full, sweet tones I loved so well:

“Wait I am not to be judged like this. I will explain!”

But here the inspector interposed.

“Do you think it wise to make any such attempt without the advice of counsel,
Mr. Durand?”

The indignation with which Mr. Durand wheeled toward him raised in me a faint
hope.

“Good God, yes!” he cried. “Would you have me leave Miss Van Arsdale one minute
longer than is necessary to such dreadful doubts? Rita—Miss Van
Arsdale—weakness, and weakness only, has brought me into my present
position. I did not kill Mrs. Fairbrother, nor did I knowingly take her
diamond, though appearances look that way, as I am very ready to acknowledge. I
did go to her in the alcove, not once, but twice, and these are my reasons for
doing so: About three months ago a certain well-known man of enormous wealth
came to me with the request that I should procure for him a diamond of superior
beauty. He wished to give it to his wife, and he wished it to outshine any
which could now be found in New York. This meant sending abroad—an
expense he was quite willing to incur on the sole condition that the stone
should not disappoint him when he saw it, and that it was to be in his hands on
the eighteenth of March, his wife’s birthday. Never before had I had such an
opportunity for a large stroke of business. Naturally elated, I entered at once
into correspondence with the best known dealers on the other side, and last
week a diamond was delivered to me which seemed to fill all the necessary
requirements. I had never seen a finer stone, and was consequently rejoicing in
my success, when some one, I do not remember who now, chanced to speak in my
hearing of the wonderful stone possessed by a certain Mrs. Fairbrother—a
stone so large, so brilliant and so precious altogether that she seldom wore
it, though it was known to connoisseurs and had a great reputation at
Tiffany’s, where it had once been sent for some alteration in the setting. Was
this stone larger and finer than the one I had procured with so much trouble?
If so, my labor had all been in vain, for my patron must have known of this
diamond and would expect to see it surpassed.

“I was so upset by this possibility that I resolved to see the jewel and make
comparisons for myself. I found a friend who agreed to introduce me to the
lady. She received me very graciously and was amiable enough until the subject
of diamonds was broached, when she immediately stiffened and left me without an
opportunity of proffering my request. However, on every other subject she was
affable, and I found it easy enough to pursue the acquaintance till we were
almost on friendly terms. But I never saw the diamond, nor would she talk about
it, though I caused her some surprise when one day I drew out before her eyes
the one I had procured for my patron and made her look at it. ‘Fine,’ she
cried, ‘fine!’ But I failed to detect any envy in her manner, and so knew that
I had not achieved the object set me by my wealthy customer. This was a woeful
disappointment; yet, as Mrs. Fairbrother never wore her diamond, it was among
the possibilities that he might be satisfied with the very fine gem I had
obtained for him, and, influenced by this hope, I sent him this morning a
request to come and see it tomorrow. Tonight I attended this ball, and almost
as soon as I enter the drawing-room I hear that Mrs. Fairbrother is present and
is wearing her famous jewel. What could you expect of me? Why, that I would
make an effort to see it and so be ready with a reply to my exacting customer
when he should ask me to-morrow if the stone I showed him had its peer in the
city. But was not in the drawing-room then, and later I became interested
elsewhere”—here he cast a look at me—“so that half the evening
passed before I had an opportunity to join her in the so-called alcove, where I
had seen her set up her miniature court. What passed between us in the short
interview we held together you will find me prepared to state, if necessary. It
was chiefly marked by the one short view I succeeded in obtaining of her
marvelous diamond, in spite of the pains she took to hide it from me by some
natural movement whenever she caught my eyes leaving her face. But in that one
short look I had seen enough. This was a gem for a collector, not to be worn
save in a royal presence. How had she come by it? And could Mr. Smythe expect
me to procure him a stone like that? In my confusion I arose to depart, but the
lady showed a disposition to keep me, and began chatting so vivaciously that I
scarcely noticed that she was all the time engaged in drawing off her gloves.
Indeed, I almost forgot the jewel, possibly because her movements hid it so
completely, and only remembered it when, with a sudden turn from the window
where she had drawn me to watch the falling flakes, she pressed the gloves into
my hand with the coquettish request that I should take care of them for her. I
remember, as I took them, of striving to catch another glimpse of the stone,
whose brilliancy had dazzled me, but she had opened her fan between us. A
moment after, thinking I heard approaching steps, I quitted the room. This was
my first visit.”

As he stopped, possibly for breath, possibly to judge to what extent I was
impressed by his account, the inspector seized the opportunity to ask if Mrs.
Fairbrother had been standing any of this time with her back to him. To which
he answered yes, while they were in the window.

“Long enough for her to pluck off the jewel and thrust it into the gloves, if
she had so wished?”

“Quite long enough.”

“But you did not see her do this?”

“I did not.”

“And so took the gloves without suspicion?”

“Entirely so.”

“And carried them away?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Without thinking that she might want them the next minute?”

“I doubt if I was thinking seriously of her at all. My thoughts were on my own
disappointment.”

“Did you carry these gloves out in your hand?”

“No, in my pocket.”

“I see. And you met—”

“No one. The sound I heard must have come from the rear hall.”

“And there was nobody on the steps?”

“No. A gentleman was standing at their foot—Mr. Grey, the
Englishman—but his face was turned another way, and he looked as if he
had been in that same position for several minutes.”

“Did this gentleman—Mr. Grey—see you?”

“I can not say, but I doubt it. He appeared to be in a sort of dream. There
were other people about, but nobody with whom I was acquainted.”

“Very good. Now for the second visit you acknowledge having paid this
unfortunate lady.”

The inspector’s voice was hard. I clung a little more tightly to my uncle, and
Mr. Durand, after one agonizing glance my way, drew himself up as if quite
conscious that he had entered upon the most serious part of the struggle.

“I had forgotten the gloves in my hurried departure; but presently I remembered
them, and grew very uneasy. I did not like carrying this woman’s property about
with me. I had engaged myself, an hour before, to Miss Van Arsdale, and was
very anxious to rejoin her. The gloves worried me, and finally, after a little
aimless wandering through the various rooms, I determined to go back and
restore them to their owner. The doors of the supper-room had just been flung
open, and the end of the hall near the alcove was comparatively empty, save for
a certain quizzical friend of mine, whom I saw sitting with his partner on the
yellow divan. I did not want to encounter him just then, for he had already
joked me about my admiration for the lady with the diamond, and so I conceived
the idea of approaching her by means of a second entrance to the alcove,
unsuspected by most of those present, but perfectly well-known to me, who have
been a frequent guest in this house. A door, covered by temporary draperies,
connects, as you may know, this alcove with a passageway communicating directly
with the hall of entrance and the up-stairs dressing-rooms. To go up the main
stairs and come down by the side one, and so on, through a small archway, was a
very simple matter for me. If no early-departing or late arriving guests were
in that hall, I need fear but one encounter, and that was with the servant
stationed at the carriage entrance. But even he was absent at this propitious
instant, and I reached the door I sought without any unpleasantness. This door
opened out instead of in,—this I also knew when planning this
surreptitious intrusion, but, after pulling it open and reaching for the
curtain, which hung completely across it, I found it not so easy to proceed as
I had imagined. The stealthiness of my action held back my hand; then the faint
sounds I heard within advised me that she was not alone, and that she might
very readily regard with displeasure my unexpected entrance by a door of which
she was possibly ignorant. I tell you all this because, if by any chance I was
seen hesitating in face of that curtain, doubts might have been raised which I
am anxious to dispel.” Here his eyes left my face for that of the inspector.

“It certainly had a bad look,—that I don’t deny; but I did not think of
appearances then. I was too anxious to complete a task which had suddenly
presented unexpected difficulties. That I listened before entering was very
natural, and when I heard no voice, only something like a great sigh, I
ventured to lift the curtain and step in. She was sitting, not where I had left
her, but on a couch at the left of the usual entrance, her face toward me,
and—you know how, Inspector. It was her last sigh I had heard. Horrified,
for I had never looked on death before, much less crime, I reeled forward,
meaning, I presume, to rush down the steps shouting for help, when, suddenly,
something fell splashing on my shirt-front, and I saw myself marked with a
stain of blood. This both frightened and bewildered me, and it was a minute or
two before I had the courage to look up. When I did do so, I saw whence this
drop had come. Not from her, though the red stream was pouring down the rich
folds of her dress, but from a sharp needle-like instrument which had been
thrust, point downward, in the open work of an antique lantern hanging near the
doorway. What had happened to me might have happened to any one who chanced to
be in that spot at that special moment, but I did not realize this then.
Covering the splash with my hands, I edged myself back to the door by which I
had entered, watching those deathful eyes and crushing under my feet the
remnants of some broken china with which the carpet was bestrewn. I had no
thought of her, hardly any of myself. To cross the room was all; to escape as
secretly as I came, before the portiere so nearly drawn between me and the main
hall should stir under the hand of some curious person entering. It was my
first sight of blood; my first contact with crime, and that was what I
did,—I fled.”

The last word was uttered with a gasp. Evidently he was greatly affected by
this horrible experience.

“I am ashamed of myself,” he muttered, “but nothing can now undo the fact. I
slid from the presence of this murdered woman as though she had been the victim
of my own rage or cupidity; and, being fortunate enough to reach the
dressing-room before the alarm had spread beyond the immediate vicinity of the
alcove, found and put on the handkerchief, which made it possible for me to
rush down and find Miss Van Arsdale, who, somebody told me, had fainted. Not
till I stood over her in that remote corner beyond the supper-room did I again
think of the gloves. What I did when I happened to think of them, you already
know. I could have shown no greater cowardice if I had known that the murdered
woman’s diamond was hidden inside them. Yet, I did not know this, or even
suspect it. Nor do I understand, now, her reason for placing it there. Why
should Mrs. Fairbrother risk such an invaluable gem to the custody of one she
knew so little? An unconscious custody, too? Was she afraid of being murdered
if she retained this jewel?”

The inspector thought a moment, and then said:

“You mention your dread of some one entering by the one door before you could
escape by the other. Do you refer to the friend you left sitting on the divan
opposite?”

“No, my friend had left that seat. The portiere was sufficiently drawn for me
to detect that. If I had waited a minute longer,” he bitterly added, “I should
have found my way open to the regular entrance, and so escaped all this.”

“Mr. Durand, you are not obliged to answer any of my questions; but, if you
wish, you may tell me whether, at this moment of apprehension, you thought of
the danger you ran of being seen from outside by some one of the many coachmen
passing by on the driveway?”

“No,—I did not even think of the window,—I don’t know why; but, if
any one passing by did see me, I hope they saw enough to substantiate my
story.”

The inspector made no reply. He seemed to be thinking. I heard afterward that
the curtains, looped back in the early evening, had been found hanging at full
length over this window by those who first rushed in upon the scene of death.
Had he hoped to entrap Mr. Durand into some damaging admission? Or was he
merely testing his truth? His expression afforded no clue to his thoughts, and
Mr. Durand, noting this, remarked with some dignity:

“I do not expect strangers to accept these explanations, which must sound
strange and inadequate in face of the proof I carry of having been with that
woman after the fatal weapon struck her heart. But, to one who knows me, and
knows me well, I can surely appeal for credence to a tale which I here declare
to be as true as if I had sworn to it in a court of justice.”

“Anson!” I passionately cried out, loosening my clutch upon my uncle’s arm. My
confidence in him had returned.

And then, as I noted the inspector’s businesslike air, and my uncle’s wavering
look and unconvinced manner, I felt my heart swell, and, flinging all
discretion to the wind, I bounded eagerly forward. Laying my hands in those of
Mr. Durand, I cried fervently:

“I believe in you. Nothing but your own words shall ever shake my confidence in
your innocence.”

The sweet, glad look I received was my best reply. I could leave the room,
after that.

But not the house. Another experience awaited me, awaited us all, before this
full, eventful evening came to a close.




V.
SUPERSTITION


I had gone up stairs for my wraps—my uncle having insisted on my
withdrawing from a scene where my very presence seemed in some degree to
compromise me.

Soon prepared for my departure, I was crossing the hall to the small door
communicating with the side staircase where my uncle had promised to await me,
when I felt myself seized by a desire to have another look below before leaving
the place in which were centered all my deepest interests.

A wide landing, breaking up the main flight of stairs some few feet from the
top, offered me an admirable point of view. With but little thought of possible
consequences, and no thought at all of my poor, patient uncle, I slipped down
to this landing, and, protected by the unusual height of its balustrade,
allowed myself a parting glance at the scene with which my most poignant
memories were henceforth to be connected.

Before me lay the large square of the central hall. Opening out from this was
the corridor leading to the front door, and incidentally to the library. As my
glance ran down this corridor, I beheld, approaching from the room just
mentioned, the tall figure of the Englishman.

He halted as he reached the main hall and stood gazing eagerly at a group of
men and women clustered near the fireplace—a group on which I no sooner
cast my own eye than my attention also became fixed.

The inspector had come from the room where I had left him with Mr. Durand and
was showing to these people the extraordinary diamond, which he had just
recovered under such remarkable if not suspicious circumstances. Young heads
and old were meeting over it, and I was straining my ears to hear such comments
as were audible above the general hubbub, when Mr. Grey made a quick move and I
looked his way again in time to mark his air of concern and the uncertainty he
showed whether to advance or retreat.

Unconscious of my watchful eye, and noting, no doubt, that most of the persons
in the group on which his own eye was leveled stood with their backs toward
him, he made no effort to disguise his profound interest in the stone. His eye
followed its passage from hand to hand with a covetous eagerness of which he
may not have been aware, and I was not at all surprised when, after a short
interval of troubled indecision, he impulsively stepped forward and begged the
privilege of handling the gem himself.

Our host, who stood not far from the inspector, said something to that
gentleman which led to this request being complied with. The stone was passed
over to Mr. Grey, and I saw, possibly because my heart was in my eyes, that the
great man’s hand trembled as it touched his palm. Indeed, his whole frame
trembled, and I was looking eagerly for the result of his inspection when, on
his turning to hold the jewel up to the light, something happened so abnormal
and so strange that no one who was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be
present in the house at that instant will ever forget it.

This something was a cry, coming from no one knew where, which, unearthly in
its shrillness and the power it had on the imagination, reverberated through
the house and died away in a wail so weird, so thrilling and so prolonged that
it gripped not only my own nerveless and weakened heart, but those of the ten
strong men congregated below me. The diamond dropped from Mr. Grey’s hand, and
neither he nor any one else moved to pick it up. Not till silence had come
again—a silence almost as unendurable to the sensitive ear as the cry
which had preceded it—did any one stir or think of the gem. Then one
gentleman after another bent to look for it, but with no success, till one of
the waiters, who possibly had followed it with his eye or caught sight of its
sparkle on the edge of the rug, whither it had rolled, sprang and picked it up
and handed it back to Mr. Grey.

Instinctively the Englishman’s hand closed on it, but it was very evident to
me, and I think to all, that his interest in it was gone. If he looked at it he
did not see it, for he stood like one stunned all the time that agitated men
and women were running hither and thither in unavailing efforts to locate the
sound yet ringing in their ears. Not till these various searchers had all come
together again, in terror of a mystery they could not solve, did he let his
hand fall and himself awake to the scene about him.

The words he at once gave utterance to were as remarkable as all the rest.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “you must pardon my agitation. This cry—you need
not seek its source—is one to which I am only too well accustomed. I have
been the happy father of six children. Five I have buried, and, before the
death of each, this same cry has echoed in my ears. I have but one child left,
a daughter,—she is ill at the hotel. Do you wonder that I shrink from
this note of warning, and show myself something less than a man under its
influence? I am going home; but, first, one word about this stone.” Here he
lifted it and bestowed, or appeared to bestow on it, an anxious scrutiny,
putting on his glasses and examining it carefully before passing it back to the
inspector.

“I have heard,” said he, with a change of tone which must have been noticeable
to every one, “that this stone was a very superior one, and quite worthy of the
fame it bore here in America. But, gentlemen, you have all been greatly
deceived in it; no one more than he who was willing to commit murder for its
possession. The stone, which you have just been good enough to allow me to
inspect, is no diamond, but a carefully manufactured bit of paste not worth the
rich and elaborate setting which has been given to it. I am sorry to be the one
to say this, but I have made a study of precious stones, and I can not let this
bare-faced imitation pass through my hands without a protest. Mr. Ramsdell,”
this to our host, “I beg you will allow me to utter my excuses, and depart at
once. My daughter is worse,—this I know, as certainly as that I am
standing here. The cry you have heard is the one superstition of our family.
Pray God that I find her alive!”

After this, what could be said? Though no one who had heard him, not even my
own romantic self, showed any belief in this interpretation of the remarkable
sound that had just gone thrilling through the house, yet, in face of his
declared acceptance of it as a warning, and the fact that all efforts had
failed to locate the sound, or even to determine its source, no other course
seemed open but to let this distinguished man depart with the suddenness his
superstitious fears demanded.

That this was in opposition to the inspector’s wishes was evident enough.
Naturally, he would have preferred Mr. Grey to remain, if only to make clear
his surprising conclusions in regard to a diamond which had passed through the
hands of some of the best judges in the country, without a doubt having been
raised as to its genuineness.

With his departure the inspector’s manner changed. He glanced at the stone in
his hand, and slowly shook his head.

“I doubt if Mr. Grey’s judgment can be depended on, to-night,” said he, and
pocketed the gem as carefully as if his belief in its real value had been but
little disturbed by the assertions of this renowned foreigner.

I have no distinct remembrance of how I finally left the house, or of what
passed between my uncle and myself on our way home. I was numb with the shock,
and neither my intelligence nor my feelings were any longer active. I recall
but one impression, and that was the effect made on me by my old home on our
arrival there, as of something new and strange; so much had happened, and such
changes had taken place in myself since leaving it five hours before. But
nothing else is vivid in my remembrance till that early hour of the dreary
morning, when, on waking to the world with a cry, I beheld my uncle’s anxious
figure, bending over me from the foot-board.

Instantly I found tongue, and question after question leaped from my lips. He
did not answer them; he could not; but when I grew feverish and insistent, he
drew the morning paper from behind his back, and laid it quietly down within my
reach. I felt calmed in an instant, and when, after a few affectionate words,
he left me to myself, I seized on the sheet and read what so many others were
reading at that moment throughout the city.

I spare you the account so far as it coincides with what I had myself seen and
heard the night before. A few particulars which had not reached my ears will
interest you. The instrument of death found in the place designated by Mr.
Durand was one of note to such as had any taste or knowledge of curios. It was
a stiletto of the most delicate type, long, keen and slender. Not an American
product, not even of this century’s manufacture, but a relic of the days when
deadly thrusts were given in the corners and by-ways of medieval streets.

This made the first mystery.

The second was the as yet unexplainable presence, on the alcove floor, of two
broken coffee-cups, which no waiter nor any other person, in fact, admitted
having carried there. The tray, which had fallen from Peter Mooney’s
hand,—the waiter who had been the first to give the alarm of
murder,—had held no cups, only ices. This was a fact, proved. But the
handles of two cups had been found among the debris,—cups which must have
been full, from the size of the coffee stain left on the rug where they had
fallen.

In reading this I remembered that Mr. Durand had mentioned stepping on some
broken pieces of china in his escape from the fatal scene, and, struck with
this confirmation of a theory which was slowly taking form in my own mind, I
passed on to the next paragraph, with a sense of expectation.

The result was a surprise. Others may have been told, I was not, that Mrs.
Fairbrother had received a communication from outside only a few minutes
previous to her death. A Mr. Fullerton, who had preceded Mr. Durand in his
visit to the alcove, owned to having opened the window for her at some call or
signal from outside, and taken in a small piece of paper which he saw lifted up
from below on the end of a whip handle. He could not see who held the whip, but
at Mrs. Fairbrother’s entreaty he unpinned the note and gave it to her. While
she was puzzling over it, for it was apparently far from legible, he took
another look out in time to mark a figure rush from below toward the carriage
drive. He did not recognize the figure nor would he know it again. As to the
nature of the communication itself he could say nothing, save that Mrs.
Fairbrother did not seem to be affected favorably by it. She frowned and was
looking very gloomy when he left the alcove. Asked if he had pulled the
curtains together after closing the window, he said that he had not; that she
had not requested him to do so.

This story, which was certainly a strange one, had been confirmed by the
testimony of the coachman who had lent his whip for the purpose. This coachman,
who was known to be a man of extreme good nature, had seen no harm in lending
his whip to a poor devil who wished to give a telegram or some such hasty
message to the lady sitting just above them in a lighted window. The wind was
fierce and the snow blinding, and it was natural that the man should duck his
head, but he remembered his appearance well enough to say that he was either
very cold or very much done up and that he wore a greatcoat with the collar
pulled up about his ears. When he came back with the whip he seemed more
cheerful than when he asked for it, but had no “thank you” for the favor done
him, or if he had, it was lost in his throat and the piercing gale.

The communication, which was regarded by the police as a matter of the highest
importance, had been found in her hand by the coroner. It was a mere scrawl
written in pencil on a small scrap of paper. The following facsimile of the
scrawl was given to the public in the hope that some one would recognize the
handwriting.

The first two lines overlapped and were confused, but the last one was clear
enough. Expect trouble if—If what? Hundreds were asking the question and
at this very moment. I should soon be asking it, too, but first, I must make an
effort to understand the situation,—a situation which up to now appeared
to involve Mr. Durand, and Mr. Durand only, as the suspected party.

This was no more than I expected, yet it came with a shock under the broad
glare of this wintry morning; so impossible did it seem in the light of
every-day life that guilt could be associated in any one’s mind with a man of
such unblemished record and excellent standing. But the evidence adduced
against him was of a kind to appeal to the common mind—we all know that
evidence—nor could I say, after reading the full account, that I was
myself unaffected by its seeming weight. Not that my faith in his innocence was
shaken. I had met his look of love and tender gratitude and my confidence in
him had been restored, but I saw, with all the clearness of a mind trained by
continuous study, how difficult it was going to be to counteract the prejudice
induced, first, by his own inconsiderate acts, especially by that unfortunate
attempt of his to secrete Mrs. Fairbrother’s gloves in another woman’s bag, and
secondly, by his peculiar explanations—explanations which to many must
seem forced and unnatural.

I saw and felt nerved to a superhuman task. I believed him innocent, and if
others failed to prove him so, I would undertake to clear him myself,—I,
the little Rita, with no experience of law or courts or crime, but with simply
an unbounded faith in the man suspected and in the keenness of my own
insight,—an insight which had already served me so well and would serve
me yet better, once I had mastered the details which must be the prelude to all
intelligent action.

The morning’s report stopped with the explanations given by Mr. Durand of the
appearances against him. Consequently no word appeared of the after events
which had made such an impression at the time on all the persons present. Mr.
Grey was mentioned, but simply as one of the guests, and to no one reading this
early morning issue would any doubt come as to the genuineness of the diamond
which, to all appearance, had been the leading motive in the commission of this
great crime.

The effect on my own mind of this suppression was a curious one. I began to
wonder if the whole event had not been a chimera of my disturbed brain—a
nightmare which had visited me, and me alone, and not a fact to be reckoned
with. But a moment’s further thought served to clear my mind of all such
doubts, and I perceived that the police had only exercised common prudence in
withholding Mr. Grey’s sensational opinion of the stone till it could be
verified by experts.

The two columns of gossip devoted to the family differences which had led to
the separation of Mr. and Mrs. Fairbrother, I shall compress into a few lines.
They had been married three years before in the city of Baltimore. He was a
rich man then, but not the multimillionaire he is to-day. Plain-featured and
without manner, lie was no mate for this sparkling coquette, whose charm was of
the kind which grows with exercise. Though no actual scandal was ever
associated with her name, he grew tired of her caprices, and the conquests
which she made no endeavor to hide either from him or from the world at large;
and at some time during the previous year they had come to a friendly
understanding which led to their living apart, each in grand style and with a
certain deference to the proprieties which retained them their friends and an
enviable place in society. He was not often invited where she was, and she
never appeared in any assemblage where he was expected; but with this
exception, little feeling was shown; matters progressed smoothly, and to their
credit, let it be said, no one ever heard either of them speak otherwise than
considerately of the other. He was at present out or town, having started some
three weeks before for the southwest, but would probably return on receipt of
the telegram which had been sent him.

The comments made on the murder were necessarily hurried. It was called a
mystery, but it was evident enough that Mr. Durand’s detention was looked on as
the almost certain prelude to his arrest on the charge of murder.

I had had some discipline in life. Although a favorite of my wealthy uncle, I
had given up very early the prospects he held out to me of a continued
enjoyment of his bounty, and entered on duties which required self-denial and
hard work. I did this because I enjoy having both my mind and heart occupied.
To be necessary to some one, as a nurse is to a patient, seemed to me an
enviable fate till I came under the influence of Anson Durand. Then the craving
of all women for the common lot of their sex became my craving also; a craving,
however, to which I failed at first to yield, for I felt that it was unshared,
and thus a token of weakness. Fighting my battle, I succeeded in winning it, as
I thought, just as the nurse’s diploma was put in my hands. Then came the great
surprise of my life. Anson Durand expressed his love for me and I awoke to the
fact that all my preparation had been for home joys and a woman’s true
existence. One hour of ecstasy in the light of this new hope, then tragedy and
something approaching chaos! Truly I had been through a schooling. But was it
one to make me useful in the only way I could be useful now? I did not know; I
did not care; I was determined on my course, fit or unfit, and, in the relief
brought by this appeal to my energy, I rose and dressed and went about the
duties of the day.

One of these was to determine whether Mr. Grey, on his return to his hotel, had
found his daughter as ill as his fears had foreboded. A telephone message or
two satisfied me on this point. Miss Grey was very ill, but not considered
dangerously so; indeed, if anything, her condition was improved, and if nothing
happened in the way of fresh complications, the prospects were that she would
be out in a fortnight.

I was not surprised. It was more than I had expected. The cry of the banshee in
an American house was past belief, even in an atmosphere surcharged with fear
and all the horror surrounding a great crime; and in the secret reckoning I was
making against a person I will not even name at this juncture, I added it as
another suspicious circumstance.




VI.
SUSPENSE


To relate the full experiences of the next few days would be to encumber my
narrative with unnecessary detail.

I did not see Mr. Durand again. My uncle, so amenable in most matters, proved
Inexorable on this point. Till Mr. Durand’s good name should be restored by the
coroner’s verdict, or such evidence brought to light as should effectually
place him beyond all suspicion, I was to hold no communication with him of any
sort whatever. I remember the very words with which my uncle ended the one
exhaustive conversation we had on the subject. They were these:

“You have fully expressed to Mr. Durand your entire confidence In his
Innocence. That must suffice him for the present. If he Is the honest gentleman
you think him, It will.”

As uncle seldom asserted himself, and as he is very much in earnest when he
does, I made no attempt to combat this resolution, especially as it met the
approval of my better judgment. But though my power to convey sympathy fell
thus under a yoke, my thoughts and feelings remained free, and these were all
consecrated to the man struggling under an imputation, the disgrace and
humiliation of which he was but poorly prepared, by his former easy life of
social and business prosperity, to meet.

For Mr. Durand, in spite of the few facts which came up from time to time in
confirmation of his story, continued to be almost universally regarded as a
suspect.

This seemed to me very unjust. What if no other clue offered—no other
clue, I mean, recognized as such by police or public! Was he not to have the
benefit of whatever threw a doubt on his own culpability? For instance, that
splash of blood on his shirt-front, which I had seen, and the shape of which I
knew! Why did not the fact that it was a splash and not a spatter (and spatter
it would have been had it spurted there, instead of falling from above, as he
stated), count for more in the minds of those whose business it was to probe
into the very heart of this crime? To me, it told such a tale of innocence that
I wondered how a man like the inspector could pass over it. But later I
understood. A single word enlightened me. The stain, it was true, was in the
form of a splash and not a spurt, but a splash would have been the result of a
drop falling from the reeking end of the stiletto, whether it dislodged itself
early or late. And what was there to prove that this drop had not fallen at the
instant the stiletto was being thrust Into the lantern, instead of after the
escape of the criminal, and the entrance of another man?

But the mystery of the broken coffee-cups! For that no explanation seemed to be
forthcoming.

And the still unsolved one of the written warning found in the murdered woman’s
hand—a warning which had been deciphered to read: “Be warned! He means to
be at the ball! Expect trouble if—” Was that to be looked upon as
directed against a man who, from the nature of his projected attempt, would
take no one into his confidence?

Then the stiletto—a photographic reproduction of which was in all the
papers—was that the kind of instrument which a plain New York gentleman
would be likely to use In a crime of this nature? It was a marked and unique
article, capable, as one would think, of being easily traced to its owner. Had
it been claimed by Mr. Ramsdell, had it been recognized as one of the many
works of art scattered about the highly-decorated alcove, its employment as a
means of death would have gone only to prove the possibly unpremeditated nature
of the crime, and so been valueless as the basis of an argument in favor of Mr.
Durand’s innocence. But Mr. Ramsdell had disclaimed from the first all
knowledge of it, consequently one could but feel justified in asking whether a
man of Mr. Durand’s judgment would choose such an extraordinary weapon in
meditating so startling a crime which from its nature and circumstance could
not fail to attract the attention of the whole civilized world.

Another argument, advanced by himself and subscribed to by all his friends, was
this: That a dealer in precious stones would be the last man to seek by any
unlawful means to possess so conspicuous a jewel. For he, better than any one
else, would know the impossibility of disposing of a gem of this distinction in
any market short of the Orient. To which the unanswerable reply was made that
no one attributed to him any such folly; that if he had planned to possess
himself of this great diamond, it was for the purpose of eliminating it from
competition with the one he had procured for Mr. Smythe; an argument,
certainly, which drove us back on the only plea we had at our command—his
hitherto unblemished reputation and the confidence which was felt In him by
those who knew him.

But the one circumstance which affected me most at the time, and which
undoubtedly was the source of the greatest confusion to all minds, whether
official or otherwise, was the unexpected confirmation by experts of Mr. Grey’s
opinion in regard to the diamond. His name was not used, indeed it had been
kept out of the papers with the greatest unanimity, but the hint he had given
the inspector at Mr. Ramsdell’s ball had been acted upon and, the proper tests
having been made, the stone, for which so many believed a life to have been
risked and another taken, was declared to be an imitation, fine and successful
beyond all parallel, but still an imitation, of the great and renowned gem
which had passed through Tiffany’s hands a twelve-month before: a decision
which fell like a thunderbolt on all such as had seen the diamond blazing in
unapproachable brilliancy on the breast of the unhappy Mrs. Fairbrother only an
hour or two before her death.

On me the effect was such that for days I lived in a dream, a condition that,
nevertheless, did not prevent me from starting a certain little inquiry of my
own, of which more hereafter.

Here let me say that I did not share the general confusion on this topic. I had
my own theory, both as to the cause of this substitution and the moment when it
was made. But the time had not yet come for me to advance it. I could only
stand back and listen to the suppositions aired by the press, suppositions
which fomented so much private discussion that ere long the one question most
frequently heard in this connection was not who struck the blow which killed
Mrs. Fairbrother (this was a question which some seemed to think settled), but
whose juggling hand had palmed off the paste for the diamond, and how and when
and where had the jugglery taken place?

Opinions on this point were, as I have said, many and various. Some fixed upon
the moment of exchange as that very critical and hardly appreciable one
elapsing between the murder and Mr. Durand’s appearance upon the scene. This
theory, I need not say, was advanced by such as believed that while he was not
guilty of Mrs. Fairbrother’s murder, he had been guilty of taking advantage of
the same to rob the body of what, in the terror and excitement of the moment,
he evidently took to be her great gem. To others, among whom were many
eyewitnesses of the event, it appeared to be a conceded fact that this
substitution had been made prior to the ball and with Mrs. Fairbrother’s full
cognizance. The effectual way in which she had wielded her fan between the
glittering ornament on her breast and the inquisitive glances constantly
leveled upon it might at the time have been due to coquetry, but to them it
looked much more like an expression of fear lest the deception in which she was
indulging should be discovered. No one fixed the time where I did; but then, no
one but myself had watched the scene with the eyes of love; besides, and this
must be remembered, most people, among whom I ventured to count the police
officials, were mainly interested in proving Mr. Durand guilty, while I, with
contrary mind, was bent on establishing such facts as confirmed the
explanations he had been pleased to give us, explanations which necessitated a
conviction, on Mrs. Fairbrother’s part, of the great value of the jewel she
wore, and the consequent advisability of ridding herself of it temporarily, if,
as so many believed, the full letter of the warning should read: “Be warned, he
means to be at the ball. Expect trouble if you are found wearing the great
diamond.”

True, she may herself have been deceived concerning it. Unconsciously to
herself, she may have been the victim of a daring fraud on the part of some
hanger-on who had access to her jewels, but, as no such evidence had yet come
to life, as she had no recognized, or, so far as could be learned, secret lover
or dishonest dependent; and, moreover, as no gem of such unusual value was
known to have been offered within the year, here or abroad, in public or
private market, I could not bring myself to credit this assumption; possibly
because I was so ignorant as to credit another, and a different one,—one
which you have already seen growing in my mind, and which, presumptuous as it
was, kept my courage from failing through all those dreadful days of enforced
waiting and suspense. For I was determined not to intrude my suggestions,
valuable as I considered them, till all hope was gone of his being righted by
the judgment of those who would not lightly endure the interference of such an
insignificant mote in the great scheme of justice as myself.

The inquest, which might be trusted to bring out all these doubtful points, had
been delayed in anticipation of Mr. Fairbrother’s return. His testimony could
not but prove valuable, if not in fixing the criminal, at least in settling the
moot point as to whether the stone, which the estranged wife had carried away
with her on leaving the house, had been the genuine one returned to him from
Tiffany’s or the well-known imitation now in the hands of the police. He had
been located somewhere in the mountains of lower Colorado, but, strange to say,
It had been found impossible to enter into direct communication with him; nor
was it known whether he was aware as yet of his wife’s tragic death. So affairs
went slowly in New York and the case seemed to come to a standstill, when
public opinion was suddenly reawakened and a more definite turn given to the
whole matter by a despatch from Santa Fe to the Associated Press. This despatch
was to the effect that Abner Fairbrother had passed through that city some
three days before on his way to his new mining camp, the Placide; that he then
showed symptoms of pneumonia, and from advices since received might be regarded
as a very sick man.

Ill,—well, that explained matters. His silence, which many had taken for
indifference, was that of a man physically disabled and unfit for exertion of
any kind. Ill,—a tragic circumstance which roused endless conjecture. Was
he aware, or was he not aware, of his wife’s death? Had he been taken ill
before or after he left Colorado for New Mexico? Was he suffering mainly from
shock, or, as would appear from his complaint, from a too rapid change of
climate?

The whole country seethed with excitement, and my poor little unthought-of,
insignificant self burned with impatience, which only those who have been
subjected to a like suspense can properly estimate. Would the proceedings which
were awaited with so much anxiety be further delayed? Would Mr. Durand remain
indefinitely in durance and under such a cloud of disgrace as would kill some
men and might kill him? Should I be called upon to endure still longer the
suffering which this entailed upon me, when I thought I knew?

But fortune was less obdurate than I feared. Next morning a telegraphic
statement from Santa Fe settled one of the points of this great dispute, a
statement which you will find detailed at more length in the following
communication, which appeared a few days later in one of our most enterprising
journals.

It was from a resident correspondent in New Mexico, and was written, as the
editor was careful to say, for his own eyes and not for the public. He had
ventured, however, to give It in full, knowing the great interest which this
whole subject had for his readers.




VII.
NIGHT AND A VOICE


Not to be outdone by the editor, I insert the article here with all its
details, the importance of which I trust I have anticipated.

SANTA FE, N.M., April—.

Arrived in Santa Fe, I inquired where Abner Fairbrother could be found. I was
told that he was at his mine, sick.

Upon inquiring as to the location of the Placide, I was informed that it was
fifteen miles or so distant in the mountains, and upon my expressing an
intention of going there immediately, I was given what I thought very
unnecessary advice and then directed to a certain livery stable, where I was
told I could get the right kind of a horse and such equipment as I stood in
need of.

I thought I was equipped all right as it was, but I said nothing and went on to
the livery stable. Here I was shown a horse which I took to at once and was
about to mount, when a pair of leggings was brought to me.

“You will need these for your journey,” said the man.

“Journey!” I repeated. “Fifteen miles!”

The livery stable keeper—a half-breed with a peculiarly pleasant
smile—cocked up his shoulders with the remark:

“Three men as willing but as inexperienced as yourself have attempted the same
journey during the last week and they all came back before they reached the
divide. You will probably come back, too; but I shall give you as fair a start
as if I knew you were going straight through.”

“But a woman has done it,” said I; “a nurse from the hospital went up that very
road last week.”

“Oh, women! they can do anything—women who are nurses. But they don’t
start off alone. You are going alone.”

“Yes,” I remarked grimly. “Newspaper correspondents make their journeys singly
when they can.”

“Oh! you are a newspaper correspondent! Why do so many men from the papers want
to see that sick old man? Because he’s so rich?”

“Don’t you know?” I asked.

He did not seem to.

I wondered at his ignorance but did not enlighten him.

“Follow the trail and ask your way from time to time. All the goatherds know
where the Placide mine is.”

Such were his simple instructions as he headed my horse toward the canyon. But
as I drew off, he shouted out:

“If you get stuck, leave it to the horse. He knows more about it than you do.”

With a vague gesture toward the northwest, he turned away, leaving me in
contemplation of the grandest scenery I had yet come upon in all my travels.

Fifteen miles! but those miles lay through the very heart of the mountains,
ranging anywhere from six to seven thousand feet high. In ten minutes the city
and all signs of city life were out of sight. In five more I was seemingly as
far removed from all civilization as if I had gone a hundred miles into the
wilderness.

As my horse settled down to work, picking his way, now here and now there,
sometimes over the brown earth, hard and baked as in a thousand furnaces, and
sometimes over the stunted grass whose needle-like stalks seemed never to have
known moisture, I let my eyes roam to such peaks as were not cut off from view
by the nearer hillsides, and wondered whether the snow which capped them was
whiter than any other or the blue of the sky bluer, that the two together had
the effect upon me of cameo work on a huge and unapproachable scale.

Certainly the effect of these grand mountains, into which you leap without any
preparation from the streets and market-places of America’s oldest city, is
such as is not easily described.

We struck water now and then,—narrow water—courses which my horse
followed in mid stream, and, more interesting yet, goatherds with their flocks,
Mexicans all, who seemed to understand no English, but were picturesque enough
to look at and a welcome break in the extreme lonesomeness of the way.

I had been told that they would serve me as guides if I felt at all doubtful of
the trail, and in one or two instances they proved to be of decided help. They
could gesticulate, if they could not speak English, and when I tried them with
the one word Placide they would nod and point out which of the many side
canyons I was to follow. But they always looked up as they did so, up, up, till
I took to looking up, too, and when, after miles multiplied indefinitely by the
winding of the trail, I came out upon a ledge from which a full view of the
opposite range could be had, and saw fronting me, from the side of one of its
tremendous peaks, the gap of a vast hole not two hundred feet from the
snowline, I knew that, inaccessible as it looked, I was gazing up at the
opening of Abner Fairbrother’s new mine, the Placide.

The experience was a strange one. The two ranges approached so nearly that it
seemed as if a ball might be tossed from one to the other. But the chasm
between was stupendous. I grew dizzy as I looked downward and saw the endless
zigzags yet to be traversed step by step before the bottom of the canyon could
be reached, and then the equally interminable zigzags up the acclivity beyond,
all of which I must trace, still step by step, before I could hope to arrive at
the camp which, from where I stood, looked to be almost within hail of my
voice.

I have described the mine as a hole. That was all I saw at first—a great
black hole in the dark brown earth of the mountain-side, from which ran down a
still darker streak into the waste places far below it. But as I looked longer
I saw that it was faced by a ledge cut out of the friable soil, on which I was
now able to descry the pronounced white of two or three tent-tops and some
other signs of life, encouraging enough to the eye of one whose lot it was to
crawl like a fly up that tremendous mountain-side.

Truly I could understand why those three men, probably newspaper correspondents
like myself, had turned back to Santa Fe, after a glance from my present
outlook. But though I understood I did not mean to duplicate their retreat.

The sight of those tents, the thought of what one of them contained, inspired
me with new courage, and, releasing my grip upon the rein, I allowed my patient
horse to proceed. Shortly after this I passed the divide—that is where
the water sheds both ways—then the descent began. It was zigzag, just as
the climb had been, but I preferred the climb. I did not have the unfathomable
spaces so constantly before me, nor was my imagination so active. It was fixed
on heights to be attained rather than on valleys to roll into. However, I did
not roll.

The Mexican saddle held me securely at whatever angle I was poised, and once
the bottom was reached I found that I could face, with considerable equanimity,
the corresponding ascent. Only, as I saw how steep the climb bade fair to be, I
did not see how I was ever to come down again. Going up was possible, but the
descent—

However, as what goes up must in the course of nature come down, I put this
question aside and gave my horse his head, after encouraging him with a few
blades of grass, which he seemed to find edible enough, though they had the
look and something of the feel of spun glass.

How we got there you must ask this good animal, who took all the responsibility
and did all the work. I merely clung and balanced, and at times, when he
rounded the end of a zigzag, for instance, I even shut my eyes, though the
prospect was magnificent. At last even his patience seemed to give out, and he
stopped and trembled. But before I could open my eyes on the abyss beneath he
made another effort. I felt the brush of tree branches across my face, and,
looking up, saw before me the ledge or platform dotted with tents, at which I
had looked with such longing from the opposite hillsides.

Simultaneously I heard voices, and saw approaching a bronzed and bearded man
with strongly-marked Scotch features and a determined air.

“The doctor!” I involuntarily exclaimed, with a glance at the small and curious
tent before which he stood guard.

“Yes, the doctor,” he answered in unexpectedly good English. “And who are you?
Have you brought the mail and those medicines I sent for?”

“No,” I replied with as propitiatory a smile as I could muster up in face of
his brusk forbidding expression. “I came on my own errand. I am a
representative of the New York—and I hope you will not deny me a word
with Mr. Fairbrother.”

With a gesture I hardly knew how to interpret he took my horse by the rein and
led us on a few steps toward another large tent, where he motioned me to
descend. Then he laid his hand on my shoulder and, forcing me to meet his eye,
said:

“You have made this journey—I believe you said from New York—to see
Mr. Fairbrother. Why?”

“Because Mr. Fairbrother is at present the most sought-for man in America,” I
returned boldly. “His wife—you know about his wife—”

“No. How should I know about his wife? I know what his temperature is and what
his respiration is—but his wife? What about his wife? He don’t know
anything about her now himself; he is not allowed to read letters.”

“But you read the papers. You must have known, before you left Santa Fe, of
Mrs. Fairbrother’s foul and most mysterious murder in New York. It has been the
theme of two continents for the last ten days.”

He shrugged his shoulders, which might mean anything, and confined his reply to
a repetition of my own words.

“Mrs. Fairbrother murdered!” he exclaimed, but in a suppressed voice, to which
point was given by the cautious look he cast behind him at the tent which had
drawn my attention. “He must not know it, man. I could not answer for his life
if he received the least shock in his present critical condition. Murdered?
When?”

“Ten days ago, at a ball in New York. It was after Mr. Fairbrother left the
city. He was expected to return, after hearing the news, but he seems to have
kept straight on to his destination. He was not very fond of his
wife,—that is, they have not been living together for the last year. But
he could not help feeling the shock of her death which he must have heard of
somewhere along the route.”

“He has said nothing in his delirium to show that he knew it. It is possible,
just possible, that he didn’t read the papers. He could not have been well for
days before he reached Santa Fe.”

“When were you called in to attend him?”

“The very night after he reached this place. It was thought he wouldn’t live to
reach the camp. But he is a man of great pluck. He held up till his foot
touched this platform. Then he succumbed.”

“If he was as sick as that,” I muttered, “why did he leave Santa Fe? He must
have known what it would mean to be sick here.”

“I don’t think he did. This is his first visit to the mine. He evidently knew
nothing of the difficulties of the road. But he would not stop. He was
determined to reach the camp, even after he had been given a sight of it from
the opposite mountain. He told them that he had once crossed the Sierras in
midwinter. But he wasn’t a sick man then.”

“Doctor, they don’t know who killed his wife.”

“He didn’t.”

“I know, but under such circumstances every fact bearing on the event is of
immense importance. There is one which Mr. Fairbrother only can make clear. It
can be said in a word—”

The grim doctor’s eye flashed angrily and I stopped.

“Were you a detective from the district attorney’s office in New York, sent on
with special powers to examine him, I should still say what I am going to say
now. While Mr. Fairbrother’s temperature and pulse remain where they now are,
no one shall see him and no one shall talk to him save myself and his nurse.”

I turned with a sick look of disappointment toward the road up which I had so
lately come. “Have I panted, sweltered, trembled, for three mortal hours on the
worst trail a man ever traversed to go back with nothing for my journey? That
seems to me hard lines. Where is the manager of this mine?”

The doctor pointed toward a man bending over the edge of the great hole from
which, at that moment, a line of Mexicans was issuing, each with a sack on his
back which he flung down before what looked like a furnace built of clay.

“That’s he. Mr. Haines, of Philadelphia. What do you want of him?”

“Permission to stay the night. Mr. Fairbrother may be better to-morrow.”

“I won’t allow it and I am master here, so far as my patient is concerned. You
couldn’t stay here without talking, and talking makes excitement, and
excitement is just what he can not stand. A week from now I will see about
it—that is, if my patient continues to improve. I am not sure that he
will.”

“Let me spend that week here. I’ll not talk any more than the dead. Maybe the
manager will let me carry sacks.”

“Look here,” said the doctor, edging me farther and farther away from the tent
he hardly let out of his sight for a moment. “You’re a canny lad, and shall
have your bite and something to drink before you take your way back. But back
you go before sunset and with this message: No man from any paper north or
south will be received here till I hang out a blue flag. I say blue, for that
is the color of my bandana. When my patient is in a condition to discuss murder
I’ll hoist it from his tent-top. It can be seen from the divide, and if you
want to camp there on the lookout, well and good. As for the police, that’s
another matter. I will see them if they come, but they need not expect to talk
to my patient. You may say so down there. It will save scrambling up this trail
to no purpose.”

“You may count on me,” said I; “trust a New York correspondent to do the right
thing at the right time to head off the boys. But I doubt if they will believe
me.”

“In that case I shall have a barricade thrown up fifty feet down the
mountain-side,” said he.

“But the mail and your supplies?”

“Oh, the burros can make their way up. We shan’t suffer.”

“You are certainly master,” I remarked.

All this time I had been using my eyes. There was not much to see, but what
there was was romantically interesting. Aside from the furnace and what was
going on there, there was little else but a sleeping-tent, a cooking-tent, and
the small one I had come on first, which, without the least doubt, contained
the sick man. This last tent was of a peculiar construction and showed the
primitive nature of everything at this height. It consisted simply of a cloth
thrown over a thing like a trapeze. This cloth did not even come to the ground
on either side, but stopped short a foot or so from the flat mound of adobe
which serves as a base or floor for hut or tent in New Mexico. The rear of the
simple tent abutted on the mountain-side; the opening was toward the valley. I
felt an intense desire to look into this opening,—so intense that I
thought I would venture on an attempt to gratify it. Scrutinizing the resolute
face of the man before me and flattering myself that I detected signs of humor
underlying his professional bruskness, I asked, somewhat mournfully, if he
would let me go away without so much as a glance at the man I had come so far
to see. A glimpse would satisfy me I assured him, as the hint of a twinkle
flashed in his eye. “Surely there will be no harm in that. I’ll take it instead
of supper.”

He smiled, but not encouragingly, and I was feeling very despondent, indeed,
when the canvas on which our eyes were fixed suddenly shook and the calm figure
of a woman stepped out before us, clad in the simplest garb, but showing in
every line of face and form a character of mingled kindness and shrewdness. She
was evidently on the lookout for the doctor, for she made a sign as she saw him
and returned instantly into the tent.

“Mr. Fairbrother has just fallen asleep,” he explained. “It isn’t discipline
and I shall have to apologize to Miss Serra, but if you will promise not to
speak nor make the least disturbance I will let you take the one peep you
prefer to supper.”

“I promise,” said I.

Leading the way to the opening, he whispered a word to the nurse, then motioned
me to look in. The sight was a simple one, but to me very impressive. The owner
of palaces, a man to whom millions were as thousands to such poor devils as
myself, lay on an improvised bed of evergreens, wrapped in a horse blanket and
with nothing better than another of these rolled up under his head. At his side
sat his nurse on what looked like the uneven stump of a tree. Close to her hand
was a tolerably flat stone, on which I saw arranged a number of bottles and
such other comforts as were absolutely necessary to a proper care of the
sufferer.

That was all. In these few words I have told the whole story. To be sure, this
simple tent, perched seven thousand feet and more above sea-level, had one
advantage which even his great house in New York could not offer. This was the
out look. Lying as he did facing the valley, he had only to open his eyes to
catch a full view of the panorama of sky and mountain stretched out before him.
It was glorious; whether seen at morning, noon or night, glorious. But I doubt
if he would not gladly have exchanged it for a sight of his home walls.

As I started to go, a stir took place in the blanket wrapped about his chin,
and I caught a glimpse of the iron-gray head and hollow cheeks of the great
financier. He was a very sick man. Even I could see that. Had I obtained the
permission I sought and been allowed to ask him one of the many questions
burning on my tongue, I should have received only delirium for reply. There was
no reaching that clouded intelligence now, and I felt grateful to the doctor
for convincing me of it.

I told him so and thanked him quite warmly when we were well away from the
tent, and his answer was almost kindly, though he made no effort to hide his
impatience and anxiety to see me go. The looks he cast at the sun were
significant, and, having no wish to antagonize him and every wish to visit the
spot again, I moved toward my horse with the intention of untying him.

To my surprise the doctor held me back.

“You can’t go to-night,” said he, “your horse has hurt himself.”

It was true. There was something the matter with the animal’s left forefoot. As
the doctor lifted it, the manager came up. He agreed with the doctor. I could
not make the descent to Santa Fe on that horse that night. Did I feel elated?
Rather. I had no wish to descend. Yet I was far from foreseeing what the night
was to bring me.

I was turned over to the manager, but not without a final injunction from the
doctor. “Not a word to any one about your errand! Not a word about the New York
tragedy, as you value Mr. Fairbrother’s life.”

“Not a word,” said I.

Then he left me.

To see the sun go down and the moon come up from a ledge hung, as it were, in
mid air! The experience was novel—but I refrain. I have more important
matters to relate.

I was given a bunk at the extreme end of the long sleeping-tent, and turned in
with the rest. I expected to sleep, but on finding that I could catch a sight
of the sick tent from under the canvas, I experienced such fascination in
watching this forbidden spot that midnight came before I had closed my eyes.
Then all desire to sleep left me, for the patient began to moan and presently
to talk, and, the stillness of the solitary height being something abnormal, I
could sometimes catch the very words. Devoid as they were of all rational
meaning, they excited my curiosity to the burning point; for who could tell if
he might not say something bearing on the mystery?

But that fevered mind had recurred to early scenes and the babble which came to
my ears was all of mining camps in the Rockies and the dicker of horses.
Perhaps the uneasy movement of my horse pulling at the end of his tether had
disturbed him. Perhaps—

But at the inner utterance of the second “perhaps” I found myself up on my
elbow listening with all my ears, and staring with wide-stretched eyes at the
thicket of stunted trees where the road debouched on the platform. Something
was astir there besides my horse. I could catch sounds of an unmistakable
nature. A rider was coming up the trail.

Slipping back into my place, I turned toward the doctor, who lay some two or
three bunks nearer the opening. He had started up, too, and in a moment was out
of the tent. I do not think he had observed my action, for it was very dark
where I lay and his back had been turned toward me. As for the others, they
slept like the dead, only they made more noise.

Interested—everything is interesting at such a height—I brought my
eye to bear on the ledge, and soon saw by the limpid light of a full moon the
stiff, short branches of the trees, on which my gaze was fixed, give way to an
advancing horse and rider.

“Halloo!” saluted the doctor in a whisper, which was in itself a warning. “Easy
there! We have sickness in this camp and it’s a late hour for visitors.”

“I know?”

The answer was subdued, but earnest.

“I’m the magistrate of this district. I’ve a question to ask this sick man, on
behalf of the New York Chief of Police, who is a personal friend of mine. It is
connected with—”

“Hush!”

The doctor had seized him by the arm and turned his face away from the sick
tent. Then the two heads came together and an argument began.

I could not hear a word of it, but their motions were eloquent. My sympathy was
with the magistrate, of course, and I watched eagerly while he passed a letter
over to the doctor, who vainly strove to read it by the light of the moon.
Finding this impossible, he was about to return it, when the other struck a
match and lit a lantern hanging from the horn of his saddle. The two heads came
together again, but as quickly separated with every appearance of
irreconcilement, and I was settling back with sensations of great
disappointment, when a sound fell on the night so unexpected to all concerned
that with a common impulse each eye sought the sick tent.

“Water! will some one give me water?” a voice had cried, quietly and with none
of the delirium which had hitherto rendered it unnatural.

The doctor started for the tent. There was the quickness of surprise in his
movement and the gesture he made to the magistrate, as he passed in, reawakened
an expectation in my breast which made me doubly watchful.

Providence was intervening in our favor, and I was not surprised to see him
presently reissue with the nurse, whom he drew into the shadow of the trees,
where they had a short conference. If she returned alone into the tent after
this conference I should know that the matter was at an end and that the doctor
had decided to maintain his authority against that of the magistrate. But she
remained outside and the magistrate was invited to join their council; when
they again left the shadow of the trees it was to approach the tent.

The magistrate, who was in the rear, could not have more than passed the
opening, but I thought him far enough inside not to detect any movement on my
part, so I took advantage of the situation to worm myself out of my corner and
across the ledge to where the tent made a shadow in the moonlight.

Crouching close, and laying my ear against the canvas, I listened.

The nurse was speaking in a gently persuasive tone. I imagined her kneeling by
the head of the patient and breathing words into his ear. These were what I
heard:

“You love diamonds. I have often noticed that; you look so long at the ring on
your hand. That is why I have let it stay there, though at times I have feared
it would drop off and roll away over the adobe down the mountain-side. Was I
right?”

“Yes, yes.” The words came with difficulty, but they were clear enough. “It’s
of small value. I like it because—”

He appeared to be too weak to finish.

A pause, during which she seemed to edge nearer to him.

“We all have some pet keepsake,” said she. “But I should never have supposed
this stone of yours an inexpensive one. But I forget that you are the owner of
a very large and remarkable diamond, a diamond that is spoken of sometimes in
the papers. Of course, if you have a gem like that, this one must appear very
small and valueless to you.”

“Yes, this is nothing, nothing.” And he appeared to turn away his head.

“Mr. Fairbrother! Pardon me, but I want to tell you something about that big
diamond of yours. You have been in and have not been able to read your letters,
so do not know that your wife has had some trouble with that diamond. People
have said that it is not a real stone, but a well-executed imitation. May I
write to her that this is a mistake, that it is all you have ever claimed for
it—that is, an unusually large diamond of the first water?”

I listened in amazement. Surely, this was an insidious way to get at the
truth,—a woman’s way, but who would say it was not a wise one, the
wisest, perhaps, which could be taken under the circumstances? What would his
reply be? Would it show that he was as ignorant of his wife’s death as was
generally believed, both by those about him here and those who knew him well in
New York? Or would the question convey nothing further to him than the
doubt—in itself an insult of the genuineness of that great stone which
had been his pride?

A murmur—that was all it could be called—broke from his fever-dried
lips and died away in an inarticulate gasp. Then, suddenly, sharply, a cry
broke from him, an intelligible cry, and we heard him say:

“No imitation! no imitation! It was a sun! a glory! No other like it! It lit
the air! it blazed, it burned! I see it now! I see—”

There the passion succumbed, the strength failed; another murmur, another, and
the great void of night which stretched over—I might almost say under
us—was no more quiet or seemingly impenetrable than the silence of that
moon-enveloped tent.

Would he speak again? I did not think so. Would she even try to make him? I did
not think this, either. But I did not know the woman.

Softly her voice rose again. There was a dominating insistence in her tones,
gentle as they were; the insistence of a healthy mind which seeks to control a
weakened one.

“You do not know of any imitation, then? It was the real stone you gave her.
You are sure of it; you would be ready to swear to it if—say just yes or
no,” she finished in gentle urgency.

Evidently he was sinking again into unconsciousness, and she was just holding
him back long enough for the necessary word.

It came slowly and with a dragging intonation, but there was no mistaking the
ring of truth with which he spoke.

“Yes,” said he.

When I heard the doctor’s voice and felt a movement in the canvas against which
I leaned, I took the warning and stole back hurriedly to my quarters.

I was scarcely settled, when the same group of three I had before watched
silhouetted itself again against the moonlight. There was some talk, a mingling
and separating of shadows; then the nurse glided back to her duties and the two
men went toward the clump of trees where the horse had been tethered.

Ten minutes and the doctor was back in his bunk. Was it imagination, or did I
feel his hand on my shoulder before he finally lay down and composed himself to
sleep? I can not say; I only know that I gave no sign, and that soon all stir
ceased in his direction and I was left to enjoy my triumph and to listen with
anxious interest to the strange and unintelligible sounds which accompanied the
descent of the horseman down the face of the cliff, and finally to watch with a
fascination, which drew me to my knees, the passage of that sparkling star of
light hanging from his saddle. It crept to and fro across the side of the
opposite mountain as he threaded its endless zigzags and finally disappeared
over the brow into the invisible canyons beyond.

With the disappearance of this beacon came lassitude and sleep, through whose
hazy atmosphere floated wild sentences from the sick tent, which showed that
the patient was back again in Nevada, quarreling over the price of a horse
which was to carry him beyond the reach of some threatening avalanche.

When next morning I came to depart, the doctor took me by both hands and looked
me straight in the eyes.

“You heard,” he said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I can tell a satisfied man when I see him,” he growled, throwing down my hands
with that same humorous twinkle in his eyes which had encouraged me from the
first.

I made no answer, but I shall remember the lesson.

One detail more. When I stared on my own descent I found why the leggings, with
which I had been provided, were so indispensable. I was not allowed to ride;
indeed, riding down those steep declivities was impossible. No horse could
preserve his balance with a rider on his back. I slid, so did my horse, and
only in the valley beneath did we come together again.




VIII.
ARREST


The success of this interview provoked other attempts on the part of the
reporters who now flocked into the Southwest. Ere long particulars began to
pour in of Mr. Fairbrother’s painful journey south, after his illness set in.
The clerk of the hotel in El Moro, where the great mine-owner’s name was found
registered at the time of the murder, told a story which made very good reading
for those who were more interested in the sufferings and experiences of the
millionaire husband of the murdered lady than in those of the unhappy but
comparatively insignificant man upon whom public opinion had cast the odium of
her death.

It seems that when the first news came of the great crime which had taken place
in New York, Mr. Fairbrother was absent from the hotel on a prospecting tour
through the adjacent mountains. Couriers had been sent after him, and it was
one of these who finally brought him into town. He had been found wandering
alone on horseback among the defiles of an untraveled region, sick and almost
incoherent from fever. Indeed, his condition was such that neither the courier
nor such others as saw him had the heart to tell him the dreadful news from New
York, or even to show him the papers. To their great relief, he betrayed no
curiosity in them. All he wanted was a berth in the first train going south,
and this was an easy way for them out of a great responsibility. They listened
to his wishes and saw him safely aboard, with such alacrity and with so many
precautions against his being disturbed that they have never doubted that he
left El Moro in total ignorance, not only of the circumstances of his great
bereavement, but of the bereavement itself.

This ignorance, which he appeared to have carried with him to the Placide, was
regarded by those who knew him best as proving the truth of the affirmation
elicited from him in the pauses of his delirium of the genuineness of the stone
which had passed from his hands to those of his wife at the time of their
separation; and, further despatches coming in, some private and some official,
but all insisting upon the fact that it would be weeks before he would be in a
condition to submit to any sort of examination on a subject so painful, the
authorities in New York decided to wait no longer for his testimony, but to
proceed at once with the inquest.

Great as is the temptation to give a detailed account of proceedings which were
of such moment to myself, and to every word of which I listened with the
eagerness of a novice and the anguish of a woman who sees her lover’s
reputation at the mercy of a verdict which may stigmatize him as a possible
criminal, I see no reason for encumbering my narrative with what, for the most
part, would be a mere repetition of facts already known to you.

Mr. Durand’s intimate and suggestive connection with this crime, the
explanations he had to give of this connection, frequently bizarre and, I must
acknowledge, not always convincing,—nothing could alter these nor change
the fact of the undoubted cowardice he displayed in hiding Mrs. Fairbrother’s
gloves in my unfortunate little bag.

As for the mystery of the warning, it remained as much of a mystery as ever.
Nor did any better success follow an attempt to fix the ownership of the
stiletto, though a half-day was exhausted in an endeavor to show that the
latter might have come into Mr. Durand’s possession in some of the many visits
he was shown to have made of late to various curio-shops in and out of New York
City.*

* Mr. Durand’s visits to the curio-shops, as explained by him, were made with a
view of finding a casket in which to place his diamond. This explanation was
looked upon with as much doubt as the others he had offered where the situation
seemed to be of a compromising character.


I had expected all this, just as I had expected Mr. Grey to be absent from the
proceedings and his testimony ignored. But this expectation did not make the
ordeal any easier, and when I noticed the effect of witness after witness
leaving the stand without having improved Mr. Durand’s position by a jot or
offering any new clue capable of turning suspicion into other directions, I
felt my spirit harden and my purpose strengthen till I hardly knew myself. I
must have frightened my uncle, for his hand was always on my arm and his
chiding voice in my ear, bidding me beware, not only for my own sake and his,
but for that of Mr. Durand, whose eye was seldom away from my face.

The verdict, however, was not the one I had so deeply dreaded. While it did not
exonerate Mr. Durand, it did not openly accuse him, and I was on the point of
giving him a smile of congratulation and renewed hope when I saw my little
detective—the one who had spied the gloves in my bag at the
ball—advance and place his hand upon his arm.

The police had gone a step further than the coroner’s jury, and Mr. Durand was
arrested, before my eyes, on a charge of murder.




IX.
THE MOUSE NIBBLES AT THE NET


The next day saw me at police headquarters begging an interview from the
inspector, with the intention of confiding to him a theory which must either
cost me his sympathy or open the way to a new inquiry, which I felt sure would
lead to Mr. Durand’s complete exoneration.

I chose this gentleman for my confidant, from among all those with whom I had
been brought in contact by my position as witness in a case of this magnitude,
first, because he had been present at the most tragic moment of my life, and
secondly, because I was conscious of a sympathetic bond between us which would
insure me a kind hearing. However ridiculous my idea might appear to him, I was
assured that he would treat me with consideration and not visit whatever folly
I might be guilty of on the head of him for whom I risked my reputation for
good sense.

Nor was I disappointed in this. Inspector Dalzell’s air was fatherly and his
tone altogether gentle as, in reply to my excuses for troubling him with my
opinions, he told me that in a case of such importance he was glad to receive
the impressions even of such a prejudiced little partizan as myself. The word
fired me, and I spoke.

“You consider Mr. Durand guilty, and so do many others, I fear, in spite of his
long record for honesty and uprightness. And why? Because you will not admit
the possibility of another person’s guilt,—a person standing so high in
private and public estimation that the very idea seems preposterous and little
short of insulting to the country of which he is an acknowledged ornament.”

“My dear!”

The inspector had actually risen. His expression and whole attitude showed
shock. But I did not quail; I only subdued my manner and spoke with quieter
conviction.

“I am aware,” said I, “how words so daring must impress you. But listen, sir;
listen to what I have to say before you utterly condemn me. I acknowledge that
it is the frightful position into which I threw Mr. Durand by my officious
attempt to right him which has driven me to make this second effort to fix the
crime on the only other man who had possible access to Mrs. Fairbrother at the
fatal moment. How could I live in inaction? How could you expect me to weigh
for a moment this foreigner’s reputation against that of my own lover? If I
have reasons—”

“Reasons!”

“—reasons which would appeal to all; if instead of this person’s having
an international reputation at his back he had been a simple gentleman like Mr.
Durand,—would you not consider me entitled to speak?”

“Certainly, but—”

“You have no confidence in my reasons, Inspector; they may not weigh against
that splash of blood on Mr. Durand’s shirt-front, but such as they are I must
give them. But first, it will be necessary for you to accept for the nonce Mr.
Durand’s statements as true. Are you willing to do this?”

“I will try.”

“Then, a harder thing yet,—to put some confidence in my judgment. I saw
the man and did not like him long before any intimation of the evening’s
tragedy had turned suspicion on any one. I watched him as I watched others. I
saw that he had not come to the ball to please Mr. Ramsdell or for any pleasure
he himself hoped to reap from social intercourse, but for some purpose much
more important, and that this purpose was connected with Mrs. Fairbrother’s
diamond. Indifferent, almost morose before she came upon the scene, he
brightened to a surprising extent the moment he found himself in her presence.
Not because she was a beautiful woman, for he scarcely honored her face or even
her superb figure with a look. All his glances were centered on her large fan,
which, in swaying to and fro, alternately hid and revealed the splendor on her
breast; and when by chance it hung suspended for a moment in her forgetful hand
and he caught a full glimpse of the great gem, I perceived such a change in his
face that, if nothing more had occurred that night to give prominence to this
woman and her diamond, I should have carried home the conviction that interests
of no common import lay behind a feeling so extraordinarily displayed.”

“Fanciful, my dear Miss Van Arsdale! Interesting, but fanciful.”

“I know. I have not yet touched on fact. But facts are coming, Inspector.”

He stared. Evidently he was not accustomed to hear the law laid down in this
fashion by a midget of my proportions.

“Go on,” said he; “happily, I have no clerk here to listen.”

“I would not speak if you had. These are words for but one ear as yet. Not even
my uncle suspects the direction of my thoughts.”

“Proceed,” he again enjoined.

Upon which I plunged into my subject.

“Mrs. Fairbrother wore the real diamond, and no imitation, to the ball. Of this
I feel sure. The bit of glass or paste displayed to the coroner’s jury was
bright enough, but it was not the star of light I saw burning on her breast as
she passed me on her way to the alcove.”

“Miss Van Arsdale!”

“The interest which Mr. Durand displayed in it, the marked excitement into
which he was thrown by his first view of its size and splendor, confirm in my
mind the evidence which he gave on oath (and he is a well-known diamond expert,
you know, and must have been very well aware that he would injure rather than
help his cause by this admission) that at that time he believed the stone to be
real and of immense value. Wearing such a gem, then, she entered the fatal
alcove, and, with a smile on her face, prepared to employ her fascinations on
whoever chanced to come within their reach. But now something happened. Please
let me tell it my own way. A shout from the driveway, or a bit of snow thrown
against the window, drew her attention to a man standing below, holding up a
note fastened to the end of a whip-handle. I do not know whether or not you
have found that man. If you have—” The inspector made no sign. “I judge
that you have not, so I may go on with my suppositions. Mrs. Fairbrother took
in this note. She may have expected it and for this reason chose the alcove to
sit in, or it may have been a surprise to her. Probably we shall never know the
whole truth about it; but what we can know and do, if you are still holding to
our compact and viewing this crime in the light of Mr. Durand’s explanations,
is that it made a change in her and made her anxious to rid herself of the
diamond. It has been decided that the hurried scrawl should read, ‘Take
warning. He means to be at the ball. Expect trouble if you do not give him the
diamond,’ or something to that effect. But why was it passed up to her
unfinished? Was the haste too great? I hardly think so. I believe in another
explanation, which points with startling directness to the possibility that the
person referred to in this broken communication was not Mr. Durand, but one
whom I need not name; and that the reason you have failed to find the
messenger, of whose appearance you have received definite information, is that
you have not looked among the servants of a certain distinguished visitor in
town. Oh,” I burst forth with feverish volubility, as I saw the inspector’s
lips open in what could not fail to be a sarcastic utterance, “I know what you
feel tempted to reply. Why should a servant deliver a warning against his own
master? If you will be patient with me you will soon see; but first I wish to
make it clear that Mrs. Fairbrother, having received this warning just before
Mr. Durand appeared in the alcove,—reckless, scheming woman that she
was!—sought to rid herself of the object against which it was directed in
the way we have temporarily accepted as true. Relying on her arts, and possibly
misconceiving the nature of Mr. Durand’s interest in her, she hands over the
diamond hidden in her rolled-up gloves, which he, without suspicion, carries
away with him, thus linking himself indissolubly to a great crime of which
another was the perpetrator. That other, or so I believe from my very heart of
hearts, was the man I saw leaning against the wall at the foot of the alcove a
few minutes before I passed into the supper-room.”

I stopped with a gasp, hardly able to meet the stern and forbidding look with
which the inspector sought to restrain what he evidently considered the
senseless ravings of a child. But I had come there to speak, and I hastily
proceeded before the rebuke thus expressed could formulate itself into words.

“I have some excuse for a declaration so monstrous. Perhaps I am the only
person who can satisfy you in regard to a certain fact about which you have
expressed some curiosity. Inspector, have you ever solved the mystery of the
two broken coffee-cups found amongst the debris at Mrs. Fairbrother’s feet? It
did not come out in the inquest, I noticed.”

“Not yet,” he cried, “but—you can not tell me anything about them!”

“Possibly not. But I can tell you this: When I reached the supper-room door
that evening I looked back and, providentially or otherwise—only the
future can determine that—detected Mr. Grey in the act of lifting two
cups from a tray left by some waiter on a table standing just outside the
reception-room door. I did not see where he carried them; I only saw his face
turned toward the alcove; and as there was no other lady there, or anywhere
near there, I have dared to think—”

Here the inspector found speech.

“You saw Mr. Grey lift two cups and turn toward the alcove at a moment we all
know to have been critical? You should have told me this before. He may be a
possible witness.”

I scarcely listened. I was too full of my own argument.

“There were other people in the hall, especially at my end of it. A perfect
throng was coming from the billiard-room, where the dancing had been, and it
might easily be that he could both enter and leave that secluded spot without
attracting attention. He had shown too early and much too unmistakably his lack
of interest in the general company for his every movement to be watched as at
his first arrival. But this is simple conjecture; what I have to say next is
evidence. The stiletto—have you studied it, sir? I have, from the
pictures. It is very quaint; and among the devices on the handle is one that
especially attracted my attention. See! This is what I mean.” And I handed him
a drawing which I had made with some care in expectation of this very
interview.

He surveyed it with some astonishment.

“I understand,” I pursued in trembling tones, for I was much affected by my own
daring, “that no one has so far succeeded in tracing this weapon to its owner.
Why didn’t your experts study heraldry and the devices of great houses? They
would have found that this one is not unknown in England. I can tell you on
whose blazon it can often be seen, and so could—Mr. Grey.”




X.
I ASTONISH THE INSPECTOR


I was not the only one to tremble now. This man of infinite experience and
daily contact with crime had turned as pale as ever I myself had done in face
of a threatening calamity.

“I shall see about this,” he muttered, crumpling the paper in his hand. “But
this is a very terrible business you are plunging me into. I sincerely hope
that you are not heedlessly misleading me.”

“I am correct in my facts, if that is what you mean,” said I. “The stiletto is
an English heirloom, and bears on its blade, among other devices, that of Mr.
Grey’s family on the female side. But that is not all I want to say. If the
blow was struck to obtain the diamond, the shock of not finding it on his
victim must have been terrible. Now Mr. Grey’s heart, if my whole theory is not
utterly false, was set upon obtaining this stone. Your eye was not on him as
mine was when you made your appearance in the hall with the recovered jewel. He
showed astonishment, eagerness, and a determination which finally led him
forward, as you know, with the request to take the diamond in his hand. Why did
he want to take it in his hand? And why, having taken it, did he drop
it—a diamond supposed to be worth an ordinary man’s fortune? Because he
was startled by a cry he chose to consider the traditional one of his family
proclaiming death? Is it likely, sir? Is it conceivable even that any such cry
as we heard could, in this day and generation, ring through such an assemblage,
unless it came with ventriloquial power from his own lips? You observed that he
turned his back; that his face was hidden from us. Discreet and reticent as we
have all been, and careful in our criticisms of so bizarre an event, there
still must be many to question the reality of such superstitious fears, and
some to ask if such a sound could be without human agency, and a very guilty
agency, too. Inspector, I am but a child in your estimation, and I feel my
position in this matter much more keenly than you do, but I would not be true
to the man whom I have unwittingly helped to place in his present unenviable
position if I did not tell you that, in my judgment, this cry was a spurious
one, employed by the gentleman himself as an excuse for dropping the stone.”

“And why should he wish to drop the stone?”

“Because of the fraud he meditated. Because it offered him an opportunity for
substituting a false stone for the real. Did you not notice a change in the
aspect of this jewel dating from this very moment? Did it shine with as much
brilliancy in your hand when you received it back as when you passed it over?”

“Nonsense! I do not know; it is all too absurd for argument.” Yet he did stop
to argue, saying in the next breath: “You forget that the stone has a setting.
Would you claim that this gentleman of family, place and political distinction
had planned this hideous crime with sufficient premeditation to have provided
himself with the exact counterpart of a brooch which it is highly improbable he
ever saw? You would make him out a Cagliostro or something worse. Miss Van
Arsdale, I fear your theory will topple over of its own weight.”

He was very patient with me; he did not show me the door.

“Yet such a substitution took place, and took place that evening,” I insisted.
“The bit of paste shown us at the inquest was never the gem Mrs. Fairbrother
wore on entering the alcove. Besides, where all is sensation, why cavil at one
more improbability? Mr. Grey may have come over to America for no other reason.
He is known as a collector, and when a man has a passion for
diamond-getting—”

“He is known as a collector?”

“In his own country.”

“I was not told that.”

“Nor I. But I found it out.”

“How, my dear child, how?”

“By a cablegram or so.”

“You—cabled—his name—to England?”

“No, Inspector; uncle has a code, and I made use of it to ask a friend in
London for a list of the most noted diamond fanciers in the country. Mr. Grey’s
name was third on the list.”

He gave me a look in which admiration was strangely blended with doubt and
apprehension.

“You are making a brave struggle,” said he, “but it is a hopeless one.”

“I have one more confidence to repose in you. The nurse who has charge of Miss
Grey was in my class in the hospital. We love each other, and to her I dared
appeal on one point. Inspector—” here my voice unconsciously fell as he
impetuously drew nearer—“a note was sent from that sick chamber on the
night of the ball,—a note surreptitiously written by Miss Grey, while the
nurse was in an adjoining room. The messenger was Mr. Grey’s valet, and its
destination the house in which her father was enjoying his position as chief
guest. She says that it was meant for him, but I have dared to think that the
valet would tell a different story. My friend did not see what her patient
wrote, but she acknowledged that if her patient wrote more than two words the
result must have been an unintelligible scrawl, since she was too weak to hold
a pencil firmly, and so nearly blind that she would have had to feel her way
over the paper.”

The inspector started, and, rising hastily, went to his desk, from which he
presently brought the scrap of paper which had already figured in the inquest
as the mysterious communication taken from Mrs. Fairbrother’s hand by the
coroner. Pressing it out flat, he took another look at it, then glanced up in
visible discomposure.

“It has always looked to us as if written in the dark, by an agitated hand;
but—”

I said nothing; the broken and unfinished scrawl was sufficiently eloquent.

“Did your friend declare Miss Grey to have written with a pencil and on a small
piece of unruled paper?”

“Yes, the pencil was at her bedside; the paper was torn from a book which lay
there. She did not put the note when written in an envelope, but gave it to the
valet just as it was. He is an old man and had come to her room for some final
orders.”

“The nurse saw all this? Has she that book?”

“No, it went out next morning, with the scraps. It was some pamphlet, I
believe.”

The inspector turned the morsel of paper over and over in his hand.

“What is this nurse’s name?”

“Henrietta Pierson.”

“Does she share your doubts?”

“I can not say.”

“You have seen her often?”

“No, only the one time.”

“Is she discreet?”

“Very. On this subject she will be like the grave unless forced by you to
speak.”

“And Miss Grey?”

“She is still ill, too ill to be disturbed by questions, especially on so
delicate a topic. But she is getting well fast. Her father’s fears as we heard
them expressed on one memorable occasion were ill founded, sir.”

Slowly the inspector inserted this scrap of paper between the folds of his
pocketbook. He did not give me another look, though I stood trembling before
him. Was he in any way convinced or was he simply seeking for the most
considerate way in which to dismiss me and my abominable theory? I could not
gather his intentions from his expression, and was feeling very faint and
heart-sick when he suddenly turned upon me with the remark:

“A girl as ill as you say Miss Grey was must have had some very pressing matter
on her mind to attempt to write and send a message under such difficulties.
According to your idea, she had some notion of her father’s designs and wished
to warn Mrs. Fairbrother against them. But don’t you see that such conduct as
this would be preposterous, nay, unparalleled in persons of their distinction?
You must find some other explanation for Miss Grey’s seemingly mysterious
action, and I an agent of crime other than one of England’s most reputable
statesmen.”

“So that Mr. Durand is shown the same consideration, I am content,” said I. “It
is the truth and the truth only I desire. I am willing to trust my cause with
you.”

He looked none too grateful for this confidence. Indeed, now that I look back
on this scene, I do not wonder that he shrank from the responsibility thus
foisted upon him.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Prove something. Prove that I am altogether wrong or altogether right. Or if
proof is not possible, pray allow me the privilege of doing what I can myself
to clear up the matter.”

“You?”

There was apprehension, disapprobation, almost menace in his tone. I bore it
with as steady and modest a glance as possible, saying, when I thought he was
about to speak again:

“I will do nothing without your sanction. I realize the dangers of this inquiry
and the disgrace that would follow if our attempt was suspected before proof
reached a point sufficient to justify it. It is not an open attack I meditate,
but one—”

Here I whispered in his ear for several minutes, when I had finished he gave me
a prolonged stare, then he laid his hand on my head.

“You are a little wonder,” he declared. “But your ideas are very quixotic,
very. However,” he added, suddenly growing grave, “something, I must admit, may
be excused a young girl who finds herself forced to choose between the guilt of
her lover and that of a man esteemed great by the world, but altogether removed
from her and her natural sympathies.”

“You acknowledge, then, that it lies between these two?”

“I see no third,” said he.

I drew a breath of relief.

“Don’t deceive yourself, Miss Van Arsdale; it is not among the possibilities
that Mr. Grey has had any connection with this crime. He is an eccentric man,
that’s all.”

“But—but—”

“I shall do my duty. I shall satisfy you and myself on certain points, and
if—” I hardly breathed “—there is the least doubt, I will see you
again and—”

The change he saw in me frightened away the end of his sentence. Turning upon
me with some severity, he declared: “There are nine hundred and ninety-nine
chances in a thousand that my next word to you will be to prepare yourself for
Mr. Durand’s arraignment and trial. But an infinitesimal chance remains to the
contrary. If you choose to trust to it, I can only admire your pluck and the
great confidence you show in your unfortunate lover.”

And with this half-hearted encouragement I was forced to be content, not only
for that day, but for many days, when—




XI.
THE INSPECTOR ASTONISHES ME


But before I proceed to relate what happened at the end of those two weeks, I
must say a word or two in regard to what happened during them.

Nothing happened to improve Mr. Durand’s position, and nothing openly to
compromise Mr. Grey’s. Mr. Fairbrother, from whose testimony many of us hoped
something would yet be gleaned calculated to give a turn to the suspicion now
centered on one man, continued ill in New Mexico; and all that could be learned
from him of any importance was contained in a short letter dictated from his
bed, in which he affirmed that the diamond, when it left him, was in a unique
setting procured by himself in France; that he knew of no other jewel similarly
mounted, and that if the false gem was set according to his own description,
the probabilities were that the imitation stone had been put in place of the
real one under his wife’s direction and in some workshop in New York, as she
was not the woman to take the trouble to send abroad for anything she could get
done in this country. The description followed. It coincided with the one we
all knew.

This was something of a blow to me. Public opinion would naturally reflect that
of the husband, and it would require very strong evidence indeed to combat a
logical supposition of this kind with one so forced and seemingly extravagant
as that upon which my own theory was based. Yet truth often transcends
imagination, and, having confidence in the inspector’s integrity, I subdued my
impatience for a week, almost for two, when my suspense and rapidly culminating
dread of some action being taken against Mr. Durand were suddenly cut short by
a message from the inspector, followed by his speedy presence in my uncle’s
house.

We have a little room on our parlor floor, very snug and secluded, and in this
room I received him. Seldom have I dreaded a meeting more and seldom have I
been met with greater kindness and consideration. He was so kind that I feared
he had only disappointing news to communicate, but his first words reassured
me. He said:

“I have come to you on a matter of importance. We have found enough truth in
the suppositions you advanced at our last interview to warrant us in the
attempt you yourself proposed for the elucidation of this mystery. That this is
the most risky and altogether the most unpleasant duty which I have encountered
during my several years of service, I am willing to acknowledge to one so
sensible and at the same time of so much modesty as yourself. This English
gentleman has a reputation which lifts him far above any unworthy suspicion,
and were it not for the favorable impression made upon us by Mr. Durand in a
long talk we had with him last night, I would sooner resign my place than
pursue this matter against him. Success would create a horror on both sides the
water unprecedented during my career, while failure would bring down ridicule
on us which would destroy the prestige of the whole force. Do you see my
difficulty, Miss Van Arsdale? We can not even approach this haughty and highly
reputable Englishman with questions without calling down on us the wrath of the
whole English nation. We must be sure before we make a move, and for us to be
sure where the evidence is all circumstantial, I know of no better plan than
the one you were pleased to suggest, which, at the time, I was pleased to call
quixotic.”

Drawing a long breath I surveyed him timidly. Never had I so realized my
presumption or experienced such a thrill of joy in my frightened yet elated
heart. They believed in Anson’s innocence and they trusted me. Insignificant as
I was, it was to my exertions this great result was due. As I realized this, I
felt my heart swell and my throat close. In despair of speaking I held out my
hands. He took them kindly and seemed to be quite satisfied.

“Such a little, trembling, tear-filled Amazon!” he cried. “Shall you have
courage to undertake the task before you? If not—”

“Oh, but I have,” said I. “It is your goodness and the surprise of it all which
unnerves me. I can go through what we have planned if you think the secret of
my personality and interest in Mr. Durand can be kept from the people I go
among.”

“It can if you will follow our advice implicitly. You say that you know the
doctor and that he stands ready to recommend you in case Miss Pierson withdraws
her services.”

“Yes, he is eager to give me a chance. He was a college mate of my father’s.”

“How will you explain to him your wish to enter upon your duties under another
name?”

“Very simply. I have already told him that the publicity given my name in the
late proceedings has made me very uncomfortable; that my first case of nursing
would require all my self-possession and that if he did not think it wrong I
should like to go to it under my mother’s name. He made no dissent and I think
I can persuade him that I would do much better work as Miss Ayers than as the
too well-known Miss Van Arsdale.”

“You have great powers of persuasion. But may you not meet people at the hotel
who know you?”

“I shall try to avoid people; and, if my identity is discovered, its effect or
non-effect upon one we find it difficult to mention will give us our clue. If
he has no guilty interest in the crime, my connection with it as a witness will
not disturb him. Besides, two days of unsuspicious acceptance of me as Miss
Grey’s nurse are all I want. I shall take immediate opportunity, I assure you,
to make the test I mentioned. But how much confidence you will have to repose
in me! I comprehend all the importance of my undertaking, and shall work as if
my honor, as well as yours, were at stake.”

“I am sure you will.” Then for the first time in my life I was glad that I was
small and plain rather than tall and fascinating like so many of my friends,
for he said: “If you had been a triumphant beauty, depending on your charms as
a woman to win people to your will, we should never have listened to your
proposition or risked our reputation in your hands. It is your wit, your
earnestness and your quiet determination which have impressed us. You see I
speak plainly. I do so because I respect you. And now to business.”

Details followed. After these were well understood between us, I ventured to
say: “Do you object—would it be asking too much—if I requested some
enlightenment as to what facts you have discovered about Mr. Grey which go to
substantiate my theory? I might work more intelligently.”

“No, Miss Van Arsdale, you would not work more intelligently, and you know it.
But you have the natural curiosity of one whose very heart is bound up in this
business. I could deny you what you ask but I won’t, for I want you to work
with quiet confidence, which you would not do if your mind were taken up with
doubts and questions. Miss Van Arsdale, one surmise of yours was correct. A man
was sent that night to the Ramsdell house with a note from Miss Grey. We know
this because he boasted of it to one of the bell-boys before he went out,
saying that he was going to have a glimpse of one of the swellest parties of
the season. It is also true that this man was Mr. Grey’s valet, an old servant
who came over with him from England. But what adds weight to all this and makes
us regard the whole affair with suspicion, is the additional fact that this man
received his dismissal the following morning and has not been seen since by any
one we could reach. This looks bad to begin with, like the suppression of
evidence, you know. Then Mr. Grey has not been the same man since that night.
He is full of care and this care is not entirely in connection with his
daughter, who is doing very well and bids fair to be up in a few days. But all
this would be nothing if we had not received advices from England which prove
that Mr. Grey’s visit here has an element of mystery in it. There was every
reason for his remaining in his own country, where a political crisis is
approaching, yet he crossed the water, bringing his sickly daughter with him.
The explanation as volunteered by one who knew him well was this: That only his
desire to see or acquire some precious object for his collection could have
taken him across the ocean at this time, nothing else rivaling his interest in
governmental affairs. Still this would be nothing if a stiletto similar to the
one employed in this crime had not once formed part of a collection of curios
belonging to a cousin of his whom he often visited. This stiletto has been
missing for some time, stolen, as the owner declared, by some unknown person.
All this looks bad enough, but when I tell you that a week before the fatal
ball at Mr. Ramsdell’s, Mr. Grey made a tour of the jewelers on Broadway and,
with the pretext of buying a diamond for his daughter, entered into a talk
about famous stones, ending always with some question about the Fairbrother
gem, you will see that his interest in that stone is established and that it
only remains for us to discover if that interest is a guilty one. I can not
believe this possible, but you have our leave to make your experiment and see.
Only do not count too much on his superstition. If he is the deep-dyed criminal
you imagine, the cry which startled us all at a certain critical instant was
raised by himself and for the purpose you suggested. None of the sensitiveness
often shown by a man who has been surprised into crime will be his. Relying on
his reputation and the prestige of his great name, he will, if he thinks
himself under fire, face every shock unmoved.”

“I see; I understand. He must believe himself all alone; then, the natural man
may appear. I thank you, Inspector. That idea is of inestimable value to me,
and I shall act on it. I do not say immediately; not on the first day, and
possibly not on the second, but as soon as opportunity offers for my doing what
I have planned with any chance of success. And now, advise me how to circumvent
my uncle and aunt, who must never know to what an undertaking I have committed
myself.”

Inspector Dalzell spared me another fifteen minutes, and this last detail was
arranged. Then he rose to go. As he turned from me he said:

“To-morrow?”

And I answered with a full heart, but a voice clear as my purpose:

“To-morrow.”




XII.
ALMOST


“This is your patient. Your new nurse, my dear. What did you say your name is?
Miss Ayers?”

“Yes, Mr. Grey, Alice Ayers.”

“Oh, what a sweet name!”

This expressive greeting, from the patient herself, was the first heart-sting I
received,—a sting which brought a flush into my cheek which I would fain
have kept down.

“Since a change of nurses was necessary, I am glad they sent me one like you,”
the feeble, but musical voice went on, and I saw a wasted but eager hand
stretched out.

In a whirl of strong feeling I advanced to take it. I had not counted on such a
reception. I had not expected any bond of congeniality to spring up between
this high-feeling English girl and myself to make my purpose hateful to me.
Yet, as I stood there looking down at her bright if wasted face, I felt that it
would be very easy to love so gentle and cordial a being, and dreaded raising
my eyes to the gentleman at my side lest I should see something in him to
hamper me, and make this attempt, which I had undertaken in such loyalty of
spirit, a misery to myself and ineffectual to the man I had hoped to save by
it. When I did look up and catch the first beams of Mr. Grey’s keen blue eyes
fixed inquiringly on me, I neither knew what to think nor how to act. He was
tall and firmly knit, and had an intellectual aspect altogether. I was
conscious of regarding him with a decided feeling of awe, and found myself
forgetting why I had come there, and what my suspicions were,—suspicions
which had carried hope with them, hope for myself and hope for my lover, who
would never escape the opprobrium, even if he did the punishment, of this great
crime, were this, the only other person who could possibly be associated with
it, found to be the fine, clear-souled man he appeared to be in this my first
interview with him.

Perceiving very soon that his apprehensions in my regard were limited to a fear
lest I should not feel at ease in my new home under the restraint of a presence
more accustomed to intimidate than attract strangers, I threw aside all doubts
of myself and met the advances of both father and daughter with that quiet
confidence which my position there demanded.

The result both gratified and grieved me. As a nurse entering on her first case
I was happy; as a woman with an ulterior object in view verging on the
audacious and unspeakable, I was wretched and regretful and just a little
shaken in the conviction which had hitherto upheld me.

I was therefore but poorly prepared to meet the ordeal which awaited me, when,
a little later in the day, Mr. Grey called me into the adjoining room, and,
after saying that it would afford him great relief to go out for an hour or so,
asked if I were afraid to be left alone with my patient.

“O no, sir—” I began, but stopped in secret dismay. I was afraid, but not
on account of her condition; rather on account of my own. What if I should be
led into betraying my feelings on finding myself under no other eye than her
own! What if the temptation to probe her poor sick mind should prove stronger
than my duty toward her as a nurse!

My tones were hesitating but Mr. Grey paid little heed; his mind was too fixed
on what he wished to say himself.

“Before I go,” said he, “I have a request to make—I may as well say a
caution to give you. Do not, I pray, either now or at any future time, carry or
allow any one else to carry newspapers into Miss Grey’s room. They are just now
too alarming. There has been, as you know, a dreadful murder in this city. If
she caught one glimpse of the headlines, or saw so much as the name of
Fairbrother—which—which is a name she knows, the result might be
very hurtful to her. She is not only extremely sensitive from illness but from
temperament. Will you be careful?”

“I shall be careful.”

It was such an effort for me to say these words, to say anything in the state
of mind into which I had been thrown by his unexpected allusion to this
subject, that I unfortunately drew his attention to myself and it was with what
I felt to be a glance of doubt that he added with decided emphasis:

“You must consider this whole subject as a forbidden one in this family. Only
cheerful topics are suitable for the sick-room. If Miss Grey attempts to
introduce any other, stop her. Do not let her talk about anything which will
not be conducive to her speedy recovery. These are the only instructions I have
to give you; all others must come from her physician.”

I made some reply with as little show of emotion as possible. It seemed to
satisfy him, for his face cleared as he kindly observed:

“You have a very trustworthy look for one so young. I shall rest easy while you
are with her, and I shall expect you to be always with her when I am not. Every
moment, mind. She is never to be left alone with gossiping servants. If a word
is mentioned in her hearing about this crime which seems to be in everybody’s
mouth, I shall feel forced, greatly as I should regret the fad, to blame you.”

This was a heart-stroke, but I kept up bravely, changing color perhaps, but not
to such a marked degree as to arouse any deeper suspicion in his mind than that
I had been wounded in my amour propre.

“She shall be well guarded,” said I. “You may trust me to keep from her all
avoidable knowledge of this crime.”

He bowed and I was about to leave his presence, when he detained me by
remarking with the air of one who felt that some explanation was necessary:

“I was at the ball where this crime took place. Naturally it has made a deep
impression on me and would on her if she heard of it.”

“Assuredly,” I murmured, wondering if he would say more and how I should have
the courage to stand there and listen if he did.

“It is the first time I have ever come in contact with crime,” he went on with
what, in one of his reserved nature, seemed a hardly natural insistence. “I
could well have been spared the experience. A tragedy with which one has been
even thus remotely connected produces a lasting effect upon the mind.”

“Oh yes, oh yes!” I murmured, edging involuntarily toward the door. Did I not
know? Had I not been there, too; I, little I, whom he stood gazing down upon
from such a height, little realizing the fatality which united us and, what was
even a more overwhelming thought to me at the moment, the fact that of all
persons in the world the shrinking little being, into whose eyes he was then
looking, was, perhaps, his greatest enemy and the one person, great or small,
from whom he had the most to fear.

But I was no enemy to his gentle daughter and the relief I felt at finding
myself thus cut off by my own promise from even the remotest communication with
her on this forbidden subject was genuine and sincere.

But the father! What was I to think of the father? Alas! I could have but one
thought, admirable as he appeared in all lights save the one in which his too
evident connection with this crime had placed him. I spent the hours of the
afternoon in alternately watching the sleeping face of my patient, too sweetly
calm in its repose, or so it seemed, for the mind beneath to harbor such doubts
as were shown in the warning I had ascribed to her, and vain efforts to explain
by any other hypothesis than that of guilt, the extraordinary evidence which
linked this man of great affairs and the loftiest repute to a crime involving
both theft and murder.

Nor did the struggle end that night. It was renewed with still greater
positiveness the next day, as I witnessed the glances which from time to time
passed between this father and daughter,—glances full of doubt and
question on both sides, but not exactly such doubt or such question as my
suspicions called for. Or so I thought, and spent another day or two hesitating
very much over my duty, when, coming unexpectedly upon Mr. Grey one evening, I
felt all my doubts revive in view of the extraordinary expression of
dread—I might with still greater truth say fear—which informed his
features and made them, to my unaccustomed eyes, almost unrecognizable.

He was sitting at his desk in reverie over some papers which he seemed not to
have touched for hours, and when, at some movement I made, he started up and
met my eye, I could swear that his cheek was pale, the firm carriage of his
body shaken, and the whole man a victim to some strong and secret apprehension
he vainly sought to hide, when I ventured to tell him what I wanted, he made an
effort and pulled himself together, but I had seen him with his mask off, and
his usually calm visage and self-possessed mien could not again deceive me.

My duties kept me mainly at Miss Grey’s bedside, but I had been provided with a
little room across the hall, and to this room I retired very soon after this,
for rest and a necessary understanding with myself.

For, in spite of this experience and my now settled convictions, my purpose
required whetting. The indescribable charm, the extreme refinement and nobility
of manner observable in both Mr. Grey and his daughter were producing their
effect. I felt guilty; constrained. whatever my convictions, the impetus to act
was leaving me. How could I recover it? By thinking of Anson Durand and his
present disgraceful position.

Anson Durand! Oh, how the feeling surged up in my breast as that name slipped
from my lips on crossing the threshold of my little room! Anson Durand, whom I
believed innocent, whom I loved, but whom I was betraying with every moment of
hesitation in which I allowed myself to indulge! what if the Honorable Mr. Grey
is an eminent statesman, a dignified, scholarly, and to all appearance,
high-minded man? what if my patient is sweet, dove-eyed and affectionate? Had
not Anson qualities as excellent in their way, rights as certain, and a hold
upon myself superior to any claims which another might advance? Drawing a
much-crumpled little note from my pocket, I eagerly read it. It was the only
one I had of his writing, the only letter he had ever written me. I had already
re-read it a hundred times, but as I once more repeated to myself its
well-known lines, I felt my heart grow strong and fixed in the determination
which had brought me into this family.

Restoring the letter to its place, I opened my gripsack and from its inmost
recesses drew forth an object which I had no sooner in hand than a natural
sense of disquietude led me to glance apprehensively, first at the door, then
at the window, though I had locked the one and shaded the other. It seemed as
if some other eye besides my own must be gazing at what I held so gingerly in
hand; that the walls were watching me, if nothing else, and the sensation this
produced was so exactly like that of guilt (or what I imagined to be guilt),
that I was forced to repeat once more to myself that it was not a good man’s
overthrow I sought, or even a bad man’s immunity from punishment, but the
truth, the absolute truth. No shame could equal that which I should feel if, by
any over-delicacy now, I failed to save the man who trusted me.

The article which I held—have you guessed it?—was the stiletto with
which Mrs. Fairbrother had been killed. It had been intrusted to me by the
police for a definite purpose. The time for testing that purpose had come, or
so nearly come, that I felt I must be thinking about the necessary ways and
means.

Unwinding the folds of tissue paper in which the stiletto was wrapped, I
scrutinized the weapon very carefully. Hitherto, I had seen only pictures of
it, now, I had the article itself in my hand. It was not a natural one for a
young woman to hold, a woman whose taste ran more toward healing than
inflicting wounds, but I forced myself to forget why the end of its blade was
rusty, and looked mainly at the devices which ornamented the handle. I had not
been mistaken in them. They belonged to the house of Grey, and to none other.
It was a legitimate inquiry I had undertaken. However the matter ended, I
should always have these historic devices for my excuse.

My plan was to lay this dagger on Mr. Grey’s desk at a moment when he would be
sure to see it and I to see him. If he betrayed a guilty knowledge of this
fatal steel; if, unconscious of my presence, he showed surprise and
apprehension,—then we should know how to proceed; justice would be loosed
from constraint and the police feel at liberty to approach him. It was a
delicate task, this. I realized how delicate, when I had thrust the stiletto
out of sight under my nurse’s apron and started to cross the hall. Should I
find the library clear? Would the opportunity be given me to approach his desk,
or should I have to carry this guilty witness of a world-famous crime on into
Miss Grey’s room, and with its unholy outline pressing a semblance of itself
upon my breast, sit at that innocent pillow, meet those innocent eyes, and
answer the gentle inquiries which now and then fell from the sweetest lips I
have ever seen smile into the face of a lonely, preoccupied stranger?

The arrangement of the rooms was such as made it necessary for me to pass
through this sitting-room in order to reach my patient’s bedroom.

With careful tread, so timed as not to appear stealthy, I accordingly advanced
and pushed open the door. The room was empty. Mr. Grey was still with his
daughter and I could cross the floor without fear. But never had I entered upon
a task requiring more courage or one more obnoxious to my natural instincts. I
hated each step I took, but I loved the man for whom I took those steps, and
moved resolutely on. Only, as I reached the chair in which Mr. Grey was
accustomed to sit, I found that it was easier to plan an action than to carry
it out. Home life and the domestic virtues had always appealed to me more than
a man’s greatness. The position which this man held in his own country, his
usefulness there, even his prestige as statesman and scholar, were facts, but
very dreamy facts, to me, while his feelings as a father, the place he held in
his daughter’s heart—these were real to me, these I could understand; and
it was of these and not of his place as a man, that this his favorite seat
spoke to me. How often had I beheld him sit by the hour with his eye on the
door behind which his one darling lay ill! Even now, it was easy for me to
recall his face as I had sometimes caught a glimpse of it through the crack of
the suddenly opened door, and I felt my breast heave and my hand falter as I
drew forth the stiletto and moved to place it where his eye would fall upon it
on his leaving his daughter’s bedside.

But my hand returned quickly to my breast and fell hack again empty. A pile of
letters lay before me on the open lid of the desk. The top one was addressed to
me with the word “Important” written in the corner. I did not know the writing,
but I felt that I should open and read this letter before committing myself or
those who stood back of me to this desperate undertaking.

Glancing behind me and seeing that the door into Miss Grey’s room was ajar, I
caught up this letter and rushed with it back into my own room. As I surmised,
it was from the inspector, and as I read it I realized that I had received it
not one moment too soon. In language purposely non-committal, but of a meaning
not to be mistaken, it advised me that some unforeseen facts had come to light
which altered all former suspicions and made the little surprise I had planned
no longer necessary.

There was no allusion to Mr. Durand but the final sentence ran:

“Drop all care and give your undivided attention to your patient.”




XIII.
THE MISSING RECOMMENDATION


My patient slept that night, but I did not. The shock given by this sudden cry
of Halt! at the very moment I was about to make my great move, the uncertainty
as to what it meant and my doubt of its effect upon Mr. Durand’s position, put
me on the anxious seat and kept my thoughts fully occupied till morning.

I was very tired and must have shown it, when, with the first rays of a very
meager sun, Miss Grey softly unclosed her eyes and found me looking at her, for
her smile had a sweet compassion in it, and she said as she pressed my hand:

“You must have watched me all night. I never saw any one look so
tired,—or so good,” she softly finished.

I had rather she had not uttered that last phrase. It did not fit me at the
moment,—did not fit me, perhaps, at any time. Good! I! when my thoughts
had not been with her, but with Mr. Durand; when the dominating feeling in my
breast was not that of relief, but a vague regret that I had not been allowed
to make my great test and so establish, to my own satisfaction, at least, the
perfect innocence of my lover even at the cost of untold anguish to this
confiding girl upon whose gentle spirit the very thought of crime would cast a
deadly blight.

I must have flushed; certainly I showed some embarrassment, for her eyes
brightened with shy laughter as she whispered:

“You do not like to be praised,—another of your virtues. You have too
many. I have only one—I love my friends.”

She did. One could see that love was life to her.

For an instant I trembled. How near I had been to wrecking this gentle soul!
Was she safe yet? I was not sure. My own doubts were not satisfied. I awaited
the papers with feverish impatience. They should contain news. News of what?
Ah, that was the question!

“You will let me see my mail this morning, will you not?” she asked, as I
busied myself about her.

“That is for the doctor to say,” I smiled. “You are certainly better this
morning.”

“It is so hard for me not to be able to read his letters, or to write a word to
relieve his anxiety.”

Thus she told me her heart’s secret, and unconsciously added another burden to
my already too heavy load.

I was on my way to give some orders about my patient’s breakfast, when Mr. Grey
came into the sitting-room and met me face to face. He had a newspaper in his
hand and my heart stood still as I noted his altered looks and disturbed
manner. Were these due to anything he had found in those columns? It was with
difficulty that I kept my eyes from the paper which he held in such a manner as
to disclose its glaring head-lines. These I dared not read with his eyes fixed
on mine.

“How is Miss Grey? How is my daughter?” he asked in great haste and uneasiness.
“Is she better this morning, or—worse?”

“Better,” I assured him, and was greatly astonished to see his brow instantly
clear.

“Really?” he asked. “You really consider her better? The doctors say so’ but I
have not very much faith in doctors in a case like this,” he added.

“I have seen no reason to distrust them,” I protested. “Miss Grey’s illness,
while severe, does not appear to be of an alarming nature. But then I have had
very little experience out of the hospital. I am young yet, Mr. Grey.”

He looked as if he quite agreed with me in this estimate of myself, and, with a
brow still clouded, passed into his daughter’s room, the paper in his hand.
Before I joined them I found and scanned another journal. Expecting great
things, I was both surprised and disappointed to find only a small paragraph
devoted to the Fairbrother case. In this it was stated that the authorities
hoped for new light on this mystery as soon as they had located a certain
witness, whose connection with the crime they had just discovered. No more, no
less than was contained in Inspector Dalzell’s letter. How could I bear
it,—the suspense, the doubt,—and do my duty to my patient! Happily,
I had no choice. I had been adjudged equal to this business and I must prove
myself to be so. Perhaps my courage would revive after I had had my breakfast;
perhaps then I should be able to fix upon the identity of the new
witness,—something which I found myself incapable of at this moment.

These thoughts were on my mind as I crossed the rooms on my way back to Miss
Grey’s bedside. By the time I reached her door I was outwardly calm, as her
first words showed:

“Oh, the cheerful smile! It makes me feel better in spite of myself.”

If she could have seen into my heart!

Mr. Grey, who was leaning over the foot of the bed, cast me a quick glance
which was not without its suspicion. Had he detected me playing a part, or were
such doubts as he displayed the product simply of his own uneasiness? I was not
able to decide, and, with this unanswered question added to the number already
troubling me, I was forced to face the day which, for aught I knew, might be
the precursor of many others equally trying and unsatisfactory.

But help was near. Before noon I received a message from my uncle to the effect
that if I could be spared he would be glad to see me at his home as near three
o’clock as possible. What could he want of me? I could not guess, and it was
with great inner perturbation that, having won Mr. Grey’s permission, I
responded to his summons.

I found my uncle awaiting me in a carriage before his own door, and I took my
seat at his side without the least idea of his purpose. I supposed that he had
planned this ride that he might talk to me unreservedly and without fear of
interruption. But I soon saw that he had some very different object in view,
for not only did he start down town instead of up, but his conversation, such
as it was, confined itself to generalities and studiously avoided the one topic
of supreme interest to us both.

At last, as we turned into Bleecker Street, I let my astonishment and
perplexity appear.

“Where are we bound?” I asked. “It can not be that you are taking me to see Mr.
Durand?”

“No,” said he, and said no more.

“Ah, Police Headquarters!” I faltered as the carriage made another turn and
drew up before a building I had reason to remember. “Uncle, what am I to do
here?”

“See a friend,” he answered, as he helped me to alight. Then as I followed him
in some bewilderment, he whispered in my ear: “Inspector Dalzell. He wants a
few minutes conversation with you.”

Oh, the weight which fell from my shoulders at these words! I was to hear,
then, what had intervened between me and my purpose. The wearing night I had
anticipated was to be lightened with some small spark of knowledge. I had
confidence enough in the kind-hearted inspector to be sure of that. I caught at
my uncle’s arm and squeezed it delightedly, quite oblivious of the curious
glances I must have received from the various officials we passed on our way to
the inspector’s office.

We found him waiting for us, and I experienced such pleasure at sight of his
kind and earnest face that I hardly noticed uncle’s sly retreat till the door
closed behind him.

“Oh, Inspector, what has happened?” I impetuously exclaimed in answer to his
greeting. “Something that will help Mr. Durand without disturbing Mr.
Grey—have you as good news for me as that?”

“Hardly,” he answered, moving up a chair and seating me in it with a fatherly
air which, under the circumstances, was more discouraging than consolatory. “We
have simply heard of a new witness, or rather a fact has come to light which
has turned our inquiries into a new direction.”

“And—and—you can not tell me what this fact is?” I faltered as he
showed no intention of adding anything to this very unsatisfactory explanation.

“I should not, but you were willing to do so much for us I must set aside my
principles a little and do something for you. After all, it is only
forestalling the reporters by a day. Miss Van Arsdale, this is the story:
Yesterday morning a man was shown into this room, and said that he had
information to give which might possibly prove to have some bearing on the
Fairbrother case. I had seen the man before and recognized him at the first
glance as one of the witnesses who made the inquest unnecessarily tedious. Do
you remember Jones, the caterer, who had only two or three facts to give and
yet who used up the whole afternoon in trying to state those facts?”

“I do, indeed,” I answered.

“Well, he was the man, and I own that I was none too delighted to see him. But
he was more at his ease with me than I expected, and I soon learned what he had
to tell. It was this: One of his men had suddenly left him, one of his very
best men, one of those who had been with him in the capacity of waiter at the
Ramsdell ball. It was not uncommon for his men to leave him, but they usually
gave notice. This man gave no notice; he simply did not show up at the usual
hour. This was a week or two ago. Jones, having a liking for the man, who was
an excellent waiter, sent a messenger to his lodging-house to see if he were
ill. But he had left his lodgings with as little ceremony as he had left the
caterer.

“This, under ordinary circumstances, would have ended the business, but there
being some great function in prospect, Jones did not feel like losing so good a
man without making an effort to recover him, so he looked up his references in
the hope of obtaining some clue to his present whereabouts.

“He kept all such matters in a special book and expected to have no trouble in
finding the man’s name, James Wellgood, or that of his former employer. But
when he came to consult this book, he was astonished to find that nothing was
recorded against this man’s name but the date of his first
employment—March 15.

“Had he hired him without a recommendation? He would not be likely to, yet the
page was clear of all reference; only the name and the date. But the date! You
have already noted its significance, and later he did, too. The day of the
Ramsdell ball! The day of the great murder! As he recalled the incidents of
that day he understood why the record of Wellgood’s name was unaccompanied by
the usual reference. It had been a difficult day all round. The function was an
important one, and the weather bad. There was, besides, an unusual shortage in
his number of assistants. Two men had that very morning been laid up with
sickness, and when this able-looking, self-confident Wellgood presented himself
for immediate employment, he took him out of hand with the merest glance at
what looked like a very satisfactory reference. Later, he had intended to look
up this reference, which he had been careful to preserve by sticking it, along
with other papers, on his spike-file. But in the distractions following the
untoward events of the evening, he had neglected to do so, feeling perfectly
satisfied with the man’s work and general behavior. Now it was a different
thing. The man had left him summarily, and he felt impelled to hunt up the
person who had recommended him and see whether this was the first time that
Wellgood had repaid good treatment with bad. Running through the papers with
which his file was now full, he found that the one he sought was not there.
This roused him in good earnest, for he was certain that he had not removed it
himself and there was no one else who had the right to do so. He suspected the
culprit,—a young lad who occasionally had access to his desk. But this
boy was no longer in the office. He had dismissed him for some petty fault the
previous week, and it took him several days to find him again. Meantime his
anger grew and when he finally came face to face with the lad, he accused him
of the suspected trick with so much vehemence that the inevitable happened, and
the boy confessed. This is what he acknowledged. He had taken the reference off
the file, but only to give it to Wellgood himself, who had offered him money
for it. When asked how much money, the boy admitted that the sum was ten
dollars,—an extraordinary amount from a poor man for so simple a service,
if the man merely wished to secure his reference for future use; so
extraordinary that Mr. Jones grew more and more pertinent in his inquiries,
eliciting finally what he surely could not have hoped for in the
beginning,—the exact address of the party referred to in the paper he had
stolen, and which, for some reason, the boy remembered. It was an uptown
address, and, as soon as the caterer could leave his business, he took the
elevated and proceeded to the specified street and number.

“Miss Van Arsdale, a surprise awaited him, and awaited us when he told the
result of his search. The name attached to the recommendation had
been—‘Hiram Sears, Steward.’ He did not know of any such
man—perhaps you do—but when he reached the house from which the
recommendation was dated, he saw that it was one of the great houses of New
York, though he could not at the instant remember who lived there. But he soon
found out. The first passer-by told him. Miss Van Arsdale, perhaps you can do
the same. The number was—Eighty-sixth Street.”

“—!” I repeated, quite aghast. “Why, Mr. Fairbrother himself! The husband
of—”

“Exactly so, and Hiram Sears, whose name you may have heard mentioned at the
inquest, though for a very good reason he was not there in person, is his
steward and general factotum.”

“Oh! and it was he who recommended Wellgood?”

“Yes.”

“And did Mr. Jones see him?”

“No. The house, you remember, is closed. Mr. Fairbrother, on leaving town, gave
his servants a vacation. His steward he took with him,—that is, they
started together. But we hear no mention made of him in our telegrams from
Santa Fe. He does not seem to have followed Mr. Fairbrother into the
mountains.”

“You say that in a peculiar way,” I remarked.

“Because it has struck us peculiarly. Where is Sears now? And why did he not go
on with Mr. Fairbrother when he left home with every apparent intention of
accompanying him to the Placide mine? Miss Van Arsdale, we were impressed with
this fact when we heard of Mr. Fairbrother’s lonely trip from where he was
taken ill to his mine outside of Santa Fe; but we have only given it its due
importance since hearing what has come to us to-day.

“Miss Van Arsdale,” continued the inspector, as I looked up quickly, “I am
going to show great confidence in you. I am going to tell you what our men have
learned about this Sears. As I have said before, it is but forestalling the
reporters by a day, and it may help you to understand why I sent you such
peremptory orders to stop, when your whole heart was fixed on an attempt by
which you hoped to right Mr. Durand. We can not afford to disturb so
distinguished a person as the one you have under your eye, while the least hope
remains of fixing this crime elsewhere. And we have such hope. This man, this
Sears, is by no means the simple character one would expect from his position.
Considering the short time we have had (it was only yesterday that Jones found
his way into this office), we have unearthed some very interesting facts in his
regard. His devotion to Mr. Fairbrother was never any secret, and we knew as
much about that the day after the murder as we do now. But the feelings with
which he regarded Mrs. Fairbrother—well, that is another thing—and
it was not till last night we heard that the attachment which bound him to her
was of the sort which takes no account of youth or age, fitness or unfitness.
He was no Adonis, and old enough, we are told, to be her father; but for all
that we have already found several persons who can tell strange stories of the
persistence with which his eager old eyes would follow her whenever chance
threw them together during the time she remained under her husband’s roof; and
others who relate, with even more avidity, how, after her removal to apartments
of her own, he used to spend hours in the adjoining park just to catch a
glimpse of her figure as she crossed the sidewalk on her way to and from her
carriage. Indeed, his senseless, almost senile passion for this magnificent
beauty became a by-word in some mouths, and it only escaped being mentioned at
the inquest from respect to Mr. Fairbrother, who had never recognized this
weakness in his steward, and from its lack of visible connection with her
horrible death and the stealing of her great jewel. Nevertheless, we have a
witness now—it is astonishing how many witnesses we can scare up by a
little effort, who never thought of coming forward themselves—who can
swear to having seen him one night shaking his fist at her retreating figure as
she stepped haughtily by him into her apartment house. This witness is sure
that the man he saw thus gesticulating was Sears, and he is sure the woman was
Mrs. Fairbrother. The only thing he is not sure of is how his own wife will
feel when she hears that he was in that particular neighborhood on that
particular evening, when he was evidently supposed to be somewhere else.” And
the inspector laughed.

“Is the steward’s disposition a bad one.” I asked, “that this display of
feeling should impress you so much?”

“I don’t know what to say about that yet. Opinions differ on this point. His
friends speak of him as the mildest kind of a man who, without native executive
skill, could not manage the great household he has in charge. His enemies, and
we have unearthed a few, say, on the contrary, that they have never had any
confidence in his quiet ways; that these were not in keeping with the fact or
his having been a California miner in the early fifties.

“You can see I am putting you very nearly where we are ourselves. Nor do I see
why I should not add that this passion of the seemingly subdued but really
hot-headed steward for a woman, who never showed him anything but what he might
call an insulting indifference, struck us as a clue to be worked up, especially
after we received this answer to a telegram we sent late last night to the
nurse who is caring for Mr. Fairbrother in New Mexico.”

He handed me a small yellow slip and I read:

“The steward left Mr. Fairbrother at El Moro. He has not heard from him since.

“ANNETTA LA SERRA

“For Abner Fairbrother.”

“At El Moro?” I cried. “Why, that was long enough ago.”

“For him to have reached New York before the murder. Exactly so, if he took
advantage of every close connection.”




XIV.
TRAPPED


I caught my breath sharply. I did not say anything. I felt that I did not
understand the inspector sufficiently yet to speak. He seemed to be pleased
with my reticence. At all events, his manner grew even kinder as he said:

“This Sears is a witness we must have. He is being looked for now, high and
low, and we hope to get some clue to his whereabouts before night. That is, if
he is in this city. Meanwhile, we are all glad—I am sure you are
also—to spare so distinguished a gentleman as Mr. Grey the slightest
annoyance.”

“And Mr. Durand? What of him in this interim?”

“He will have to await developments. I see no other way, my dear.”

It was kindly said, but my head drooped. This waiting was what was killing him
and killing me. The inspector saw and gently patted my hand.

“Come,” said he, “you have head enough to see that it is never wise to force
matters.” Then, possibly with an intention of rousing me, he remarked: “There
is another small fact which may interest you. It concerns the waiter, Wellgood,
recommended, as you will remember, by this Sears. In my talk with Jones it
leaked out as a matter of small moment, and so it was to him, that this
Wellgood was the waiter who ran and picked up the diamond after it fell from
Mr. Grey’s hand.”

“Ah!”

“This may mean nothing—it meant nothing to Jones—but I inform you
of it because there is a question I want to put to you in this connection. You
smile.”

“Did I?” I meekly answered. “I do not know why.”

This was not true. I had been waiting to see why the inspector had so honored
me with all these disclosures, almost with his thoughts. Now I saw. He desired
something in return.

“You were on the scene at this very moment,” he proceeded, after a brief
contemplation of my face, “and you must have seen this man when he lifted the
jewel and handed it back to Mr. Grey. Did you remark his features?”

“No, sir; I was too far off; besides, my eyes were on Mr. Grey.” “That is a
pity. I was in hopes you could satisfy me on a very important point.”

“What point is that, Inspector Dalzell?”

“Whether he answered the following description.” And, taking up another paper,
he was about to read it aloud to me, when an interruption occurred. A man
showed himself at the door, whom the inspector no sooner recognized than he
seemed to forget me in his eagerness to interrogate him. Perhaps the appearance
of the latter had something to do with it; he looked as if he had been running,
or had been the victim of some extraordinary adventure. At all events, the
inspector arose as he entered, and was about to question him when he remembered
me, and, casting about for some means of ridding himself of my presence without
injury to my feelings, he suddenly pushed open the door of an adjoining room
and requested me to step inside while he talked a moment with this man.

Of course I went, but I cast him an appealing look as I did so. It evidently
had its effect, for his expression changed as his hand fell on the doorknob.
Would he snap the lock tight, and so shut me out from what concerned me as much
as it did any one in the whole world? Or would he recognize my
anxiety—the necessity I was under of knowing just the ground I was
standing on—and let me hear what this man had to report?

I watched the door. It closed slowly, too slowly to latch. Would he catch it
anew by the knob? No; he left it thus, and, while the crack was hardly
perceptible, I felt confident that the least shake of the floor would widen it
and give me the opportunity I sought. But I did not have to wait for this. The
two men in the office I had just left began to speak, and to my unbounded
relief were sufficiently intelligible, even now, to warrant me in giving them
my fullest attention.

After some expressions of astonishment on the part of the inspector as to the
plight in which the other presented himself, the latter broke out:

“I’ve just escaped death! I’ll tell you about that later. What I want to tell
you now is that the man we want is in town. I saw him last night, or his
shadow, which is the same thing. It was in the house in Eighty-sixth
Street,—the house they all think closed. He came in with a key
and—”

“Wait! You have him?”

“No. It’s a long story, sir—”

“Tell it!”

The tone was dry. The inspector was evidently disappointed.

“Don’t blame me till you hear,” said the other. “He is no common crook. This is
how it was: You wanted the suspect’s photograph and a specimen of his writing.
I knew no better place to look for them than in his own room in Mr.
Fairbrother’s house. I accordingly got the necessary warrant and late last
evening undertook the job. I went alone I was always an egotistical chap,
more’s the pity—and with no further precaution than a passing explanation
to the officer I met at the corner, I hastened up the block to the rear
entrance on Eighty-seventh Street. There are three doors to the Fairbrother
house, as you probably know. Two on Eighty-sixth Street (the large front one
and a small one connecting directly with the turret stairs), and one on
Eighty-seventh Street. It was to the latter I had a key. I do not think any one
saw me go in. It was raining, and such people as went by were more concerned in
keeping their umbrellas properly over their heads than in watching men skulking
about in doorways.

“I got in, then, all right, and, being careful to close the door behind me,
went up the first short flight of steps to what I knew must be the main hall. I
had been given a plan of the interior, and I had studied it more or less before
starting out, but I knew that I should get lost if I did not keep to the rear
staircase, at the top of which I expected to find the steward’s room. There was
a faint light in the house, in spite of its closed shutters and tightly-drawn
shades; and, having a certain dread of using my torch, knowing my weakness for
pretty things and how hard it would be for me to pass so many fine rooms
without looking in, I made my way up stairs, with no other guide than the
hand-rail. When I had reached what I took to be the third floor I stopped.
Finding it very dark, I first listened—a natural instinct with
us—then I lit up and looked about me.

“I was in a large hall, empty as a vault and almost as desolate. Blank doors
met my eyes in all directions, with here and there an open passageway. I felt
myself in a maze. I had no idea which was the door I sought, and it is not
pleasant to turn unaccustomed knobs in a shut-up house at midnight, with the
rain pouring in torrents and the wind making pandemonium in a half-dozen great
chimneys.

“But it had to be done, and I went at it in regular order till I came to a
little narrow one opening on the turret-stair. This gave me my bearings. Sears’
room adjoined the staircase. There was no difficulty in spotting the exact door
now and, merely stopping to close the opening I had made to this little
staircase, I crossed to this door and flung it open. I had been right in my
calculations. It was the steward’s room, and I made at once for the desk.”

“And you found—?”

“Mostly locked drawers. But a key on my bunch opened some of these and my knife
the rest. Here are the specimens of his handwriting which I collected. I doubt
if you will get much out of them. I saw nothing compromising in the whole room,
but then I hadn’t time to go through his trunks, and one of them looked very
interesting,—old as the hills and—”

“You hadn’t time? Why hadn’t you time? What happened to cut it short?”

“Well, sir, I’ll tell you.” The tone in which this was said roused me if it did
not the inspector. “I had just come from the desk which had disappointed me,
and was casting a look about the room, which was as bare as my hand of
everything like ornament—I might almost say comfort—when I heard a
noise which was not that of swishing rain or even gusty wind—these had
not been absent from my ears for a moment. I didn’t like that noise; it had a
sneakish sound, and I shut my light off in a hurry. After that I crept hastily
out of the room, for I don’t like a set-to in a trap.

“It was darker than ever now in the hall, or so it seemed, and as I backed away
I came upon a jog in the wall, behind which I crept. For the sound I had heard
was no fancy. Some one besides myself was in the house, and that some one was
coming up the little turret-stair, striking matches as he approached. Who could
it be? A detective from the district attorney’s office? I hardly thought so. He
would have been provided with something better than matches to light his way. A
burglar? No, not on the third floor of a house as rich as this. Some fellow on
the force, then, who had seen me come in and, by some trick of his own, had
managed to follow me? I would see. Meantime I kept my place behind the jog and
watched, not knowing which way the intruder would go.

“Whoever he was, he was evidently astonished to see the turret door ajar, for
he lit another match as he threw it open and, though I failed to get a glimpse
of his figure, I succeeded in getting a very good one of his shadow. It was one
to arouse a detective’s instinct at once. I did not say to myself, this is the
man I want, but I did say, this is nobody from headquarters, and I steadied
myself for whatever might turn up.

“The first thing that happened was the sudden going out of the match which had
made this shadow visible. The intruder did not light another. I heard him move
across the floor with the rapid step of one who knows his way well, and the
next minute a gas-jet flared up in the steward’s room, and I knew that the man
the whole force was looking for had trapped himself.

“You will agree that it was not my duty to take him then and there without
seeing what he was after. He was thought to be in the eastern states, or south
or west, and he was here; but why here? That is what I knew you would want to
know, and it was just what I wanted to know myself. So I kept my place, which
was good enough, and just listened, for I could not see.

“What was his errand? What did he want in this empty house at midnight? Papers
first, and then clothes. I heard him at his desk, I heard him in the closet,
and afterward pottering in the old trunk I had been so anxious to look into
myself. He must have brought the key with him, for it was no time before I
heard him throwing out the contents in a wild search for something he wanted in
a great hurry. He found it sooner than you would believe, and began throwing
the things back, when something happened. Expectedly or unexpectedly, his eye
fell on some object which roused all his passions, and he broke into loud
exclamations ending in groans. Finally he fell to kissing this object with a
fervor suggesting rage, and a rage suggesting tenderness carried to the point
of agony. I have never heard the like; my curiosity was so aroused that I was
on the point of risking everything for a look, when he gave a sudden snarl and
cried out, loud enough for me to hear: ‘Kiss what I’ve hated? That is as bad as
to kill what I’ve loved.’ Those were the words. I am sure he said kiss and I am
sure he said kill.”

“This is very interesting. Go on with your story. Why didn’t you collar him
while he was in this mood? You would have won by the surprise.

“I had no pistol, sir, and he had. I heard him cock it. I thought he was going
to take his own life, and held my breath for the report. But nothing like that
was in his mind. Instead, he laid the pistol down and deliberately tore in two
the object of his anger. Then with a smothered curse he made for the door and
turret staircase.

“I was for following, but not till I had seen what he had destroyed in such an
excess of feeling. I thought I knew, but I wanted to feel sure. So, before
risking myself in the turret, I crept to the room he had left and felt about on
the floor till I came upon these.”

“A torn photograph! Mrs. Fairbrother’s!”

“Yes. Have you not heard how he loved her? A foolish passion, but evidently
sincere and—”

“Never mind comments, Sweetwater. Stick to facts.”

“I will, sir. They are interesting enough. After I had picked up these scraps I
stole back to the turret staircase. And here I made my first break. I stumbled
in the darkness, and the man below heard me, for the pistol clicked again. I
did not like this, and had some thoughts of backing out of my job. But I
didn’t. I merely waited till I heard his step again; then I followed.

“But very warily this time. It was not an agreeable venture. It was like
descending into a well with possible death at the bottom. I could see nothing
and presently could hear nothing but the almost imperceptible sliding of my own
fingers down the curve of the wall, which was all I had to guide me. Had he
stopped midway, and would my first intimation of his presence be the touch of
cold steel or the flinging around me of two murderous arms? I had met with no
break in the smooth surface of the wall, so could not have reached the second
story. When I should get there the question would be whether to leave the
staircase and seek him in the mazes of its great rooms, or to keep on down to
the parlor floor and so to the street, whither he was possibly bound. I own
that I was almost tempted to turn on my light and have done with it, but I
remembered of how little use I should be to you lying in this well of a
stairway with a bullet in me, and so I managed to compose myself and go on as I
had begun. Next instant my fingers slipped round the edge of an opening, and I
knew that the moment of decision had come. Realizing that no one can move so
softly that he will not give away his presence in some way, I paused for the
sound which I knew must come, and when a click rose from the depths of the hall
before me I plunged into that hall and thus into the house proper.

“Here it was not so dark; yet I could make out none of the objects I now and
then ran against. I passed a mirror (I hardly know how I knew it to be such),
and in that mirror I seemed to see the ghost of a ghost flit by and vanish. It
was too much. I muttered a suppressed oath and plunged forward, when I struck
against a closing door. It flew open again and I rushed in, turning on my light
in my extreme desperation, when, instead of hearing the sharp report of a
pistol, as I expected, I saw a second door fall to before me, this time with a
sound like the snap of a spring lock. Finding that this was so, and that all
advance was barred that way, I wheeled hurriedly back toward the door by which
I had entered the place, to find that that had fallen to simultaneously with
the other, a single spring acting for both. I was trapped—a prisoner in
the strangest sort of passageway or closet; and, as a speedy look about
presently assured me, a prisoner with very little hope of immediate escape, for
the doors were not only immovable, without even locks to pick or panels to
break in, but the place was bare of windows, and the only communication which
it could be said to have with the outside world at all was a shaft rising from
the ceiling almost to the top of the house. Whether this served as a
ventilator, or a means of lighting up the hole when both doors were shut, it
was much too inaccessible to offer any apparent way of escape.

“Never was a man more thoroughly boxed in. As I realized how little chance
there was of any outside interference, how my captor, even if he was seen
leaving the house by the officer on duty, would be taken for myself and so
allowed to escape, I own that I felt my position a hopeless one. But anger is a
powerful stimulant, and I was mortally angry, not only with Sears, but with
myself. So when I was done swearing I took another look around, and, finding
that there was no getting through the walls, turned my attention wholly to the
shaft, which would certainly lead me out of the place if I could only find
means to mount it.

“And how do you think I managed to do this at last? A look at my bedraggled,
lime-covered clothes may give you some idea. I cut a passage for myself up
those perpendicular walls as the boy did up the face of the natural bridge in
Virginia. Do you remember that old story in the Reader? It came to me like an
inspiration as I stood looking up from below, and though I knew that I should
have to work most of the way in perfect darkness, I decided that a man’s life
was worth some risk, and that I had rather fall and break my neck while doing
something than to spend hours in maddening inactivity, only to face death at
last from slow starvation.

“I had a knife, an exceedingly good knife, in my pocket—and for the first
few steps I should have the light of my electric torch. The difficulty (that
is, the first difficulty) was to reach the shaft from the floor where I stood.
There was but one article of furniture in the room, and that was something
between a table and a desk. No chairs, and the desk was not high enough to
enable me to reach the mouth of the shaft. If I could turn it on end there
might be some hope. But this did not look feasible. However, I threw off my
coat and went at the thing with a vengeance, and whether I was given superhuman
power or whether the clumsy thing was not as heavy as it looked, I did finally
succeed in turning it on its end close under the opening from which the shaft
rose. The next thing was to get on its top. That seemed about as impossible as
climbing the bare wall itself, but presently I bethought me of the drawers,
and, though they were locked, I did succeed by the aid of my keys to get enough
of them open to make for myself a very good pair of stairs.

“I could now see my way to the mouth of the shaft, but after that! Taking out
my knife, I felt the edge. It was a good one, so was the point, but was it good
enough to work holes in plaster? It depended somewhat upon the plaster. Had the
masons, in finishing that shaft, any thought of the poor wretch who one day
would have to pit his life against the hardness of the final covering? My first
dig at it would tell. I own I trembled violently at the prospect of what that
first test would mean to me, and wondered if the perspiration which I felt
starting at every pore was the result of the effort I had been engaged in or
just plain fear.

“Inspector, I do not intend to have you live with me through the five mortal
hours which followed. I was enabled to pierce that plaster with my knife, and
even to penetrate deep enough to afford a place for the tips of my fingers and
afterward for the point of my toes, digging, prying, sweating, panting,
listening, first for a sudden opening of the doors beneath, then for some shout
or wicked interference from above as I worked my way up inch by inch, foot by
foot, to what might not be safety after it was attained.

“Five hours—six. Then I struck something which proved to be a window; and
when I realized this and knew that with but one more effort I should breathe
freely again, I came as near falling as I had at any time before I began this
terrible climb.

“Happily, I had some premonition of my danger, and threw myself into a position
which held me till the dizzy minute passed. Then I went calmly on with my work,
and in another half-hour had reached the window, which, fortunately for me, not
only opened inward, but was off the latch. It was with a sense of inexpressible
relief that I clambered through this window and for a brief moment breathed in
the pungent odor of cedar. But it could have been only for a moment. It was
three o’clock in the afternoon before I found myself again in the outer air.
The only way I can account for the lapse of time is that the strain to which
both body and nerve had been subjected was too much for even my hardy body and
that I fell to the floor of the cedar closet and from a faint went into a sleep
that lasted until two. I can easily account for the last hour because it took
me that long to cut the thick paneling from the door of the closet. However, I
am here now, sir, and in very much the same condition in which I left that
house. I thought my first duty was to tell you that I had seen Hiram Sears in
that house last night and put you on his track.”

I drew a long breath,—I think the inspector did. I had been almost rigid
from excitement, and I don’t believe he was quite free from it either. But his
voice was calmer than I expected when he finally said:

“I’ll remember this. It was a good night’s work.” Then the inspector put to him
some questions, which seemed to fix the fact that Sears had left the house
before Sweetwater did, after which he bade him send certain men to him and then
go and fix himself up.

I believe he had forgotten me. I had almost forgotten myself.




XV.
SEARS OR WELLGOOD


Not till the inspector had given several orders was I again summoned into his
presence. He smiled as our eyes met, but did not allude, any more than I did,
to what had just passed. Nevertheless, we understood each other.

When I was again seated, he took up the conversation where we had left it.

“The description I was just about to read to you,” he went on; “will you listen
to it now?”

“Gladly,” said I; “it is Wellgood’s, I believe.”

He did not answer save by a curious glance from under his brows, but, taking
the paper again from his desk, went on reading:

“A man of fifty-five looking like one of sixty. Medium height, insignificant
features, head bald save for a ring of scanty dark hair. No beard, a heavy
nose, long mouth and sleepy half-shut eyes capable of shooting strange glances.
Nothing distinctive in face or figure save the depth of his wrinkles and a
scarcely observable stoop in his right shoulder. Do you see Wellgood in that?”
he suddenly asked.

“I have only the faintest recollection of his appearance,” was my doubtful
reply. “But the impression I get from this description is not exactly the one I
received of that waiter in the momentary glimpse I got of him.”

“So others have told me before;” he remarked, looking very disappointed. “The
description is of Sears given me by a man who knew him well, and if we could
fit the description of the one to that of the other, we should have it easy.
But the few persons who have seen Wellgood differ greatly in their remembrance
of his features, and even of his coloring. It is astonishing how superficially
most people see a man, even when they are thrown into daily contact with him.
Mr. Jones says the man’s eyes are gray, his hair a wig and dark, his nose
pudgy, and his face without much expression. His land-lady, that his eyes are
blue, his hair, whether wig or not, a dusty auburn, and his look quick and
piercing,—a look which always made her afraid. His nose she don’t
remember. Both agree, or rather all agree, that he wore no beard—Sears
did, but a beard can be easily taken off—and all of them declare that
they would know him instantly if they saw him. And so the matter stands. Even
you can give me no definite description,—one, I mean, as satisfactory or
unsatisfactory as this of Sears.”

I shook my head. Like the others, I felt that I should know him if I saw him,
but I could go no further than that. There seemed to be so little that was
distinctive about the man.

The inspector, hoping, perhaps, that all this would serve to rouse my memory,
shrugged his shoulders and put the best face he could on the matter.

“Well, well,” said he, “we shall have to be patient. A day may make all the
difference possible in our outlook. If we can lay hands on either of these
men—”

He seemed to realize he had said a word too much, for he instantly changed the
subject by asking if I had succeeded in getting a sample of Miss Grey’s
writing. I was forced to say no; that everything had been very carefully put
away. “But I do not know what moment I may come upon it,” I added. “I do not
forget its importance in this investigation.”

“Very good. Those lines handed up to Mrs. Fairbrother from the walk outside are
the second most valuable clue we possess.”

I did not ask him what the first was. I knew. It was the stiletto.

“Strange that no one has testified to that handwriting,” I remarked.

He looked at me in surprise.

“Fifty persons have sent in samples of writing which they think like it,” he
observed. “Often of persons who never heard of the Fairbrothers. We have been
bothered greatly with the business. You know little of the difficulties the
police labor under.”

“I know too much,” I sighed.

He smiled and patted me on the hand.

“Go back to your patient,” he said. “Forget every other duty but that of your
calling until you get some definite word from me. I shall not keep you in
suspense one minute longer than is absolutely necessary.”

He had risen. I rose too. But I was not satisfied. I could not leave the room
with my ideas (I might say with my convictions) in such a turmoil.

“Inspector,” said I, “you will think me very obstinate, but all you have told
me about Sears, all I have heard about him, in fact,”—this I
emphasized,—“does not convince me of the entire folly of my own
suspicions. Indeed, I am afraid that, if anything, they are strengthened. This
steward, who is a doubtful character, I acknowledge, may have had his reasons
for wishing Mrs. Fairbrother’s death, may even have had a hand in the matter;
but what evidence have you to show that he, himself, entered the alcove, struck
the blow or stole the diamond? I have listened eagerly for some such evidence,
but I have listened in vain.”

“I know,” he murmured, “I know. But it will come; at least I think so.”

This should have reassured me, no doubt, and sent me away quiet and happy. But
something—the tenacity of a deep conviction, possibly—kept me
lingering before the inspector and finally gave me the courage to say:

“I know I ought not to speak another word; that I am putting myself at a
disadvantage in doing so; but I can not help it, Inspector; I can not help it
when I see you laying such stress upon the few indirect clues connecting the
suspicious Sears with this crime, and ignoring the direct clues we have against
one whom we need not name.”

Had I gone too far? Had my presumption transgressed all bounds and would he
show a very natural anger? No, he smiled instead, an enigmatical smile, no
doubt, which I found it difficult to understand, but yet a smile.

“You mean,” he suggested, “that Sears’ possible connection with the crime can
not eliminate Mr. Grey’s very positive one; nor can the fact that Wellgood’s
hand came in contact with Mr. Grey’s, at or near the time of the exchange of
the false stone with the real, make it any less evident who was the guilty
author of this exchange?”

The inspector’s hand was on the door-knob, but he dropped it at this, and
surveying me very quietly said:

“I thought that a few days spent at the bedside of Miss Grey in the society of
so renowned and cultured a gentleman as her father would disabuse you of these
damaging suspicions.”

“I don’t wonder that you thought so,” I burst out. “You would think so all the
more, if you knew how kind he can be and what solicitude he shows for all about
him. But I can not get over the facts. They all point, it seems to me, straight
in one direction.”

“All? You heard what was said in this room—I saw it in your eye—how
the man, who surprised the steward in his own room last night, heard him
talking of love and death in connection with Mrs. Fairbrother. ‘To kiss what I
hate! It is almost as bad as to kill what I love’—he said something like
that.”

“Yes, I heard that. But did he mean that he had been her actual slayer? Could
you convict him on those words?”

“Well, we shall find out. Then, as to Wellgood’s part in the little business,
you choose to consider that it took place at the time the stone fell from Mr.
Grey’s hand. What proof have you that the substitution you believe in was not
made by him? He could easily have done it while crossing the room to Mr. Grey’s
side.”

“Inspector!” Then hotly, as the absurdity of the suggestion struck me with full
force: “He do this! A waiter, or as you think, Mr. Fairbrother’s steward, to be
provided with so hard-to-come-by an article as this counterpart of a great
stone? Isn’t that almost as incredible a supposition as any I have myself
presumed to advance?”

“Possibly, but the affair is full of incredibilities, the greatest of which, to
my mind, is the persistence with which you, a kind-hearted enough little woman,
persevere in ascribing the deepest guilt to one you profess to admire and
certainly would be glad to find innocent of any complicity with a great crime.”

I felt that I must justify myself.

“Mr. Durand has had no such consideration shown him,” said I.

“I know, my child, I know; but the cases differ. Wouldn’t it be well for you to
see this and be satisfied with the turn which things have taken, without
continuing to insist upon involving Mr. Grey in your suspicions?”

A smile took off the edge of this rebuke, yet I felt it keenly; and only the
confidence I had in his fairness as a man and public official enabled me to
say:

“But I am talking quite confidentially. And you have been so good to me, so
willing to listen to all I had to say, that I can not help but speak my whole
mind. It is my only safety valve. Remember how I have to sit in the presence of
this man with my thoughts all choked up. It is killing me. But I think I should
go back content if you will listen to one more suggestion I have to make. It is
my last.”

“Say it I am nothing if not indulgent.”

He had spoken the word. Indulgent, that was it. He let me speak, probably had
let me speak from the first, from pure kindness. He did not believe one little
bit in my good sense or logic. But I was not to be deterred. I would empty my
mind of the ugly thing that lay there. I would leave there no miserable dregs
of doubt to ferment and work their evil way with me in the dead watches of the
night, which I had yet to face. So I took him at his word.

“I only want to ask this. In case Sears is innocent of the crime, who wrote the
warning and where did the assassin get the stiletto with the Grey arms chased
into its handle? And the diamond? Still the diamond! You hint that he stole
that, too. That with some idea of its proving useful to him on this gala
occasion, he had provided himself with an imitation stone, setting and
all,—he who has never shown, so far as we have heard, any interest in
Mrs. Fairbrother’s diamond, only in Mrs. Fairbrother herself. If Wellgood is
Sears and Sears the medium by which the false stone was exchanged for the real,
then he made this exchange in Mr. Grey’s interests and not his own. But I don’t
believe he had anything to do with it. I think everything goes to show that the
exchange was made by Mr. Grey himself.”

“A second Daniel,” muttered the inspector lightly. “Go on, little lawyer!” But
for all this attempt at banter on his part, I imagined that I saw the beginning
of a very natural anxiety to close the conversation. I therefore hastened with
what I had yet to say, cutting my words short and almost stammering in my
eagerness.

“Remember the perfection of that imitation stone, a copy so exact that it
extends to the setting. That shows plan—forgive me if I repeat
myself—preparation, a knowledge of stones, a particular knowledge of this
one. Mr. Fairbrother’s steward may have had the knowledge, but he would have
been a fool to have used his knowledge to secure for himself a valuable he
could never have found a purchaser for in any market. But a fancier—one
who has his pleasure in the mere possession of a unique and invaluable
gem—ah! that is different! He might risk a crime—history tells us
of several.”

Here I paused to take breath, which gave the inspector chance to say:

“In other words, this is what you think. The Englishman, desirous of covering
up his tracks, conceived the idea of having this imitation on hand, in case it
might be of use in the daring and disgraceful undertaking you ascribe to him.
Recognizing his own inability to do this himself, he delegated the task to one
who in some way, he had been led to think, cherished a secret grudge against
its present possessor—a man who had had some opportunity for seeing the
stone and studying the setting. The copy thus procured, Mr. Grey went to the
ball, and, relying on his own seemingly unassailable position, attacked Mrs.
Fairbrother in the alcove and would have carried off the diamond, if he had
found it where he had seen it earlier blazing on her breast. But it was not
there. The warning received by her—a warning you ascribe to his daughter,
a fact which is yet to be proved—had led her to rid herself of the jewel
in the way Mr. Durand describes, and he found himself burdened with a dastardly
crime and with nothing to show for it. Later, however, to his intense surprise
and possible satisfaction, he saw that diamond in my hands, and, recognizing an
opportunity, as he thought, of yet securing it, he asked to see it, held it for
an instant, and then, making use of an almost incredible expedient for
distracting attention, dropped, not the real stone but the false one, retaining
the real one in his hand. This, in plain English, as I take it, is your present
idea of the situation.”

Astonished at the clearness with which he read my mind, I answered: “Yes,
Inspector, that is what was in my mind.”

“Good! then it is just as well that it is out. Your mind is now free and you
can give it entirely to your duties.” Then, as he laid his hand on the
door-knob, he added: “In studying so intently your own point of view, you seem
to have forgotten that the last thing which Mr. Grey would be likely to do,
under those circumstances, would be to call attention to the falsity of the gem
upon whose similarity to the real stone he was depending. Not even his
confidence in his own position, as an honored and highly-esteemed guest, would
lead him to do that.”

“Not if he were a well-known connoisseur,” I faltered, “with the pride of one
who has handled the best gems? He would know that the deception would be soon
discovered and that it would not do for him to fail to recognize it for what it
was, when the make-believe was in his hands.”

“Forced, my dear child, forced; and as chimerical as all the rest. It can not
stand putting into words. I will go further,—you are a good girl and can
bear to hear the truth from me. I don’t believe in your theory; I can’t. I have
not been able to from the first, nor have any of my men; but if your ideas are
true and Mr. Grey is involved in this matter, you will find that there has been
more of a hitch about that diamond than you, in your simplicity, believe. If
Mr. Grey were in actual possession of this valuable, he would show less care
than you say he does. So would he if it were in Wellgood’s hands with his
consent and a good prospect of its coming to him in the near future. But if it
is in Wellgood’s hands without his consent, or any near prospect of his
regaining it, then we can easily understand his present apprehensions and the
growing uneasiness he betrays.”

“True,” I murmured.

“If, then,” the inspector pursued, giving me a parting glance not without its
humor, probably not without something really serious underlying its humor, “we
should find, in following up our present clue, that Mr. Grey has had dealings
with this Wellgood or this Sears; or if you, with your advantages for learning
the fact, should discover that he shows any extraordinary interest in either of
them, the matter will take on a different aspect. But we have not got that far
yet. At present our task is to find one or the other of these men. If we are
lucky, we shall discover that the waiter and the steward are identical, in
spite of their seemingly different appearance. A rogue, such as this Sears has
shown himself to be, would be an adept at disguise.”

“You are right,” I acknowledged. “He has certainly the heart of a criminal. If
he had no hand in Mrs. Fairbrother’s murder, he came near having one in that of
your detective. You know what I mean. I could not help hearing, Inspector.”

He smiled, looked me steadfastly in the face for a moment, and then bowed me
out.

The inspector told me afterward that, in spite of the cavalier manner with
which he had treated my suggestions, he spent a very serious half-hour, head to
head with the district attorney. The result was the following order to
Sweetwater, the detective.

“You are to go to the St. Regis; make yourself solid there, and gradually, as
you can manage it, work yourself into a position for knowing all that goes on
in Room ——. If the gentleman (mind you, the gentleman; we care
nothing about the women) should go out, you are to follow him if it takes you
to—. We want to know his secret; but he must never know our interest in
it and you are to be as silent in this matter as if possessed of neither ear
nor tongue. I will add memory, for if you find this secret to be one in which
we have no lawful interest, you are to forget it absolutely and for ever. You
will understand why when you consult the St Regis register.”

But they expected nothing from it; absolutely nothing.




XVI.
DOUBT


I prayed uncle that we might be driven home by the way of Eighty-sixth Street.
I wanted to look at the Fairbrother house. I had seen it many times, but I felt
that I should see it with new eyes after the story I had just heard in the
inspector’s office. That an adventure of this nature could take place in a New
York house taxed my credulity. I might have believed it of Paris, wicked,
mysterious Paris, the home of intrigue and every redoubtable crime, but of our
own homely, commonplace metropolis—the house must be seen for me to be
convinced of the fact related.

Many of you know the building. It is usually spoken of with a shrug, the sole
reason for which seems to be that there is no other just like it in the city. I
myself have always considered it imposing and majestic; but to the average man
it is too suggestive of Old-World feudal life to be pleasing. On this
afternoon—a dull, depressing one—it looked undeniably heavy as we
approached it; but interesting in a very new way to me, because of the great
turret at one angle, the scene of that midnight descent of two men, each in
deadly fear of the other, yet quailing not in their purpose,—the one of
flight, the other of pursuit.

There was no railing in front of the house. It may have seemed an unnecessary
safeguard to the audacious owner. Consequently, the small door in the turret
opened directly upon the street, making entrance and exit easy enough for any
one who had the key. But the shaft and the small room at the bottom—where
were they? Naturally in the center of the great mass, the room being without
windows.

It was, therefore, useless to look for it, and yet my eye ran along the peaks
and pinnacles of the roof, searching for the skylight in which it undoubtedly
ended. At last I espied it, and, my curiosity satisfied on this score, I let my
eyes run over the side and face of the building for an open window or a lifted
shade. But all were tightly closed and gave no more sign of life than did the
boarded-up door. But I was not deceived by this. As we drove away, I thought
how on the morrow there would be a regular procession passing through this
street to see just the little I had seen to-day. The detective’s adventure was
like to make the house notorious. For several minutes after I had left its
neighborhood my imagination pictured room after room shut up from the light of
day, but bearing within them the impalpable aura of those two shadows flitting
through them like the ghosts of ghosts, as the detective had tellingly put it.

The heart has its strange surprises. Through my whole ride and the indulgence
in these thoughts I was conscious of a great inner revulsion against all I had
intimated and even honestly felt while talking with the inspector. Perhaps this
is what this wise old official expected. He had let me talk, and the inevitable
reaction followed. I could now see only Mr. Grey’s goodness and claims to
respect, and began to hate myself that I had not been immediately impressed by
the inspector’s views, and shown myself more willing to drop every suspicion
against the august personage I had presumed to associate with crime. What had
given me the strength to persist? Loyalty to my lover? His innocence had not
been involved. Indeed, every word uttered in the inspector’s office had gone to
prove that he no longer occupied a leading place in police calculations: that
their eyes were turned elsewhere, and that I had only to be patient to see Mr.
Durand quite cleared in their minds.

But was this really so? Was he as safe as that? What if this new clue failed?
What if they failed to find Sears or lay hands on the doubtful Wellgood? Would
Mr. Durand be released without a trial? Should we hear nothing more of the
strange and to many the suspicious circumstances which linked him to this
crime? It would be expecting too much from either police or official
discrimination.

No; Mr. Durand would never be completely exonerated till the true culprit was
found and all explanations made. I had therefore been simply fighting his
battles when I pointed out what I thought to be the weak place in their present
theory, and, sore as I felt in contemplation of my seemingly heartless action,
I was not the unimpressionable, addle-pated nonentity I must have seemed to the
inspector.

Yet my comfort was small and the effort it took to face Mr. Grey and my young
patient was much greater than I had anticipated. I blushed as I approached to
take my place at Miss Grey’s bedside, and, had her father been as suspicious of
me at that moment as I was of him, I am sure that I should have fared badly in
his thoughts.

But he was not on the watch for my emotions. He was simply relieved to see me
back. I noticed this immediately, also that something had occurred during my
absence which absorbed his thought and filled him with anxiety.

A Western Union envelope lay at his feet,—proof that he had just received
a telegram. This, under ordinary circumstances, would not have occasioned me a
second thought, such a man being naturally the recipient of all sorts of
communications from all parts of the world; but at this crisis, with the worm
of a half-stifled doubt still gnawing at my heart, everything that occurred to
him took on importance and roused questions.

When he had left the room, Miss Grey nestled up to me with the seemingly
ingenuous remark:

“Poor papa! something disturbs him. He will not tell me what. I suppose he
thinks I am not strong enough to share his troubles. But I shall be soon. Don’t
you see I am gaining every day?”

“Indeed I do,” was my hearty response. In face of such a sweet confidence and
open affection doubt vanished and I was able to give all my thoughts to her.

“I wish papa felt as sure of this as you do,” she said. “For some reason he
does not seem to take any comfort from my improvement. When Doctor Freligh
says, ‘Well, well! we are getting on finely to-day,’ I notice that he does not
look less anxious, nor does he even meet these encouraging words with a smile.
Haven’t you noticed it? He looks as care-worn and troubled about me now as he
did the first day I was taken sick. Why should he? Is it because he has lost so
many children he can not believe in his good fortune at having the most
insignificant of all left to him?”

“I do not know your father very well,” I protested; “and can not judge what is
going on in his mind. But he must see that you are quite a different girl from
what you were a week ago, and that, if nothing unforeseen happens, your
recovery will only be a matter of a week or two longer.”

“Oh, how I love to hear you say that! To be well again! To read letters!” she
murmured, “and to write them!” And I saw the delicate hand falter up to pinch
the precious packet awaiting that happy hour. I did not like to discuss her
father with her, so took this opportunity to turn the conversation aside into
safer channels. But we had not proceeded far before Mr. Grey returned and,
taking his stand at the foot of the bed, remarked, after a moment’s gloomy
contemplation of his daughter’s face:

“You are better today, the doctor says,—I have just been telephoning to
him. But do you feel well enough for me to leave you for a few days? There is a
man I must see—must go to, if you have no dread of being left alone with
your good nurse and the doctor’s constant attendance.”

Miss Grey looked startled. Doubtless she found it difficult to understand what
man in this strange country could interest her father enough to induce him to
leave her while he was yet laboring under such solicitude. But a smile speedily
took the place of her look of surprised inquiry and she affectionately
exclaimed:

“Oh, I haven’t the least dread in the world, not now. See, I can hold up my
arms. Go, papa, go; it will give me a chance to surprise you with my good looks
when you come back.”

He turned abruptly away. He was suffering from an emotion deeper than he cared
to acknowledge. But he gained control over himself speedily and, coming back,
announced with forced decision:

“I shall have to go to-night. I have no choice. Promise me that you will not go
back in my absence; that you will strive to get well; that you will put all
your mind into striving to get well.”

“Indeed, I will,” she answered, a little frightened by the feeling he showed.
“Don’t worry so much. I have more than one reason for living, papa.”

He shook his head and went immediately to make his preparations for departure.
His daughter gave one sob, then caught me by the hand.

“You look dumfounded,” said she. “But never mind, we shall get on very well
together. I have the most perfect confidence in you.”

Was it my duty to let the inspector know that Mr. Grey anticipated absenting
himself from the city for a few days? I decided that I would only be impressing
my own doubts upon him after a rebuke which should have allayed them.

Yet, when Mr. Grey came to take his departure I wished that the inspector might
have been a witness to his emotion, if only to give me one of his very
excellent explanations. The parting was more like that of one who sees no
immediate promise of return than of a traveler who intends to limit his stay to
a few days. He looked her in the eyes and kissed her a dozen times, each time
with an air of heartbreak which was good neither for her nor for himself, and
when he finally tore himself away it was to look back at her from the door with
an expression I was glad she did not see, or it would certainly have interfered
with the promise she had made to concentrate all her energies on getting well.

What was at the root of his extreme grief at leaving her? Did he fear the
person he was going to meet, or were his plans such as involved a much longer
stay than he had mentioned? Did he even mean to return at all?

Ah, that was the question! Did he intend to return, or had I been the
unconscious witness of a flight?




XVII.
SWEETWATER IN A NEW ROLE


A few days later three men were closeted in the district attorney’s office. Two
of them were officials—the district attorney himself, and our old friend,
the inspector. The third was the detective, Sweetwater, chosen by them to keep
watch on Mr. Grey.

Sweetwater had just come to town,—this was evident from the gripsack he
had set down in a corner on entering, also from a certain tousled appearance
which bespoke hasty rising and but few facilities for proper attention to his
person. These details counted little, however, in the astonishment created by
his manner. For a hardy chap he looked strangely nervous and indisposed, so
much so that, after the first short greeting, the inspector asked him what was
up, and if he had had another Fairbrother-house experience.

He replied with a decided no; that it was not his adventure which had upset
him, but the news he had to bring.

Here he glanced at every door and window; and then, leaning forward over the
table at which the two officials sat, he brought his head as nearly to them as
possible and whispered five words.

They produced a most unhappy sensation. Both the men, hardened as they were by
duties which soon sap the sensibilities, started and turned as pale as the
speaker himself. Then the district attorney, with one glance at the inspector,
rose and locked the door.

It was a prelude to this tale which I give, not as it came from his mouth, but
as it was afterward related to me. The language, I fear, is mostly my own.

The detective had just been with Mr. Grey to the coast of Maine. Why there,
will presently appear. His task had been to follow this gentleman, and follow
him he did.

Mr. Grey was a very stately man, difficult of approach, and was absorbed,
besides, by some overwhelming care. But this fellow was one in a thousand and
somehow, during the trip, he managed to do him some little service, which drew
the attention of the great man to himself. This done, he so improved his
opportunity that the two were soon on the best of terms, and he learned that
the Englishman was without a valet, and, being unaccustomed to move about
without one, felt the awkwardness of his position very much. This gave
Sweetwater his cue, and when he found that the services of such a man were
wanted only during the present trip and for the handling of affairs quite apart
from personal tendance upon the gentleman himself, he showed such an honest
desire to fill the place, and made out to give such a good account of himself,
that he found himself engaged for the work before reaching C—.

This was a great stroke of luck, he thought, but he little knew how big a
stroke or into what a series of adventures it was going to lead him.

Once on the platform of the small station at which Mr. Grey had bidden him to
stop, he noticed two things: the utter helplessness of the man in all practical
matters, and his extreme anxiety to see all that was going on about him without
being himself seen. There was method in this curiosity, too much method. Women
did not interest him in the least. They could pass and repass without arousing
his attention, but the moment a man stepped his way, he shrank from him only to
betray the greatest curiosity concerning him the moment he felt it safe to turn
and observe him. All of which convinced Sweetwater that the Englishman’s errand
was in connection with a man whom he equally dreaded and desired to meet.

Of this he was made absolutely certain a little later. As they were leaving the
depot with the rest of the arrivals, Mr. Grey said:

“I want you to get me a room at a very quiet hotel. This done, you are to hunt
up the man whose name you will find written in this paper, and when you have
found him, make up your mind how it will be possible for me to get a good look
at him without his getting any sort of a look at me. Do this and you will earn
a week’s salary in one day.”

Sweetwater, with his head in air and his heart on fire—for matters were
looking very promising indeed—took the paper and put it in his pocket;
then he began to hunt for a hotel. Not till he had found what he wished, and
installed the Englishman in his room, did he venture to open the precious
memorandum and read the name he had been speculating over for an hour. It was
not the one he had anticipated, but it came near to it. It was that of James
Wellgood.

Satisfied now that he had a ticklish matter to handle, he prepared for it, with
his usual enthusiasm and circumspection.

Sauntering out into the street, he strolled first toward the post-office. The
train on which he had just come had been a mail-train, and he calculated that
he would find half the town there.

His calculation was a correct one. The store was crowded with people. Taking
his place in the line drawn up before the post-office window, he awaited his
turn, and when it came shouted out the name which was his one
talisman—James Wellgood.

The man behind the boxes was used to the name and reached out a hand toward a
box unusually well stacked, but stopped half-way there and gave Sweetwater a
sharp look.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“A stranger,” that young man put in volubly, “looking for James Wellgood. I
thought, perhaps, you could tell me where to find him. I see that his letters
pass through this office.”

“You’re taking up another man’s time,” complained the postmaster. He probably
alluded to the man whose elbow Sweetwater felt boring into his back. “Ask Dick
over there; he knows him.”

The detective was glad enough to escape and ask Dick. But he was better pleased
yet when Dick—a fellow with a squint whose hand was always in the
sugar—told him that Mr. Wellgood would probably be in for his mail in a
few moments. “That is his buggy standing before the drug-store on the opposite
side of the way.”

So! he had netted Jones’ quondam waiter at the first cast! “Lucky!” was what he
said to himself, “still lucky!”

Sauntering to the door, he watched for the owner of that buggy. He had learned,
as such fellows do, that there was a secret hue and cry after this very man by
the New York police; that he was supposed by some to be Sears himself. In this
way he would soon be looking upon the very man whose steps he had followed
through the Fairbrother house a few nights before, and through whose resolute
action he had very nearly run the risk of a lingering death from starvation.

“A dangerous customer,” thought he. “I wonder if my instinct will go so far as
to make me recognize his presence. I shouldn’t wonder. It has served me almost
as well as that many times before.”

It appeared to serve him now, for when the man finally showed himself on the
cross-walk separating the two buildings he experienced a sudden indecision not
unlike that of dread, and there being nothing in the man’s appearance to
warrant apprehension, he took it for the instinctive recognition it undoubtedly
was.

He therefore watched him narrowly and succeeded in getting one glance from his
eye. It was enough. The man was commonplace,—commonplace in feature,
dress and manner, but his eye gave him away. There was nothing commonplace in
that. It was an eye to beware of.

He had taken in Sweetwater as he passed, but Sweetwater was of a commonplace
type, too, and woke no corresponding dread in the other’s mind; for he went
whistling into the store, from which he presently reissued with a bundle of
mail in his hand. The detective’s first instinct was to take him into custody
as a suspect much wanted by the New York police; but reason assured him that he
not only had no warrant for this, but that he would better serve the ends of
justice by following out his present task of bringing this man and the
Englishman together and watching the result. But how, with the conditions laid
on him by Mr. Grey, was this to be done? He knew nothing of the man’s
circumstances or of his position in the town. How, then, go to work to secure
his cooperation in a scheme possibly as mysterious to him as it was to himself?
He could stop this stranger in mid-street, with some plausible excuse, but it
did not follow that he would succeed in luring him to the hotel where Mr. Grey
could see him. Wellgood, or, as he believed, Sears, knew too much of life to be
beguiled by any open clap-trap, and Sweetwater was obliged to see him drive off
without having made the least advance in the purpose engrossing him.

But that was nothing. He had all the evening before him, and reentering the
store, he took up his stand near the sugar barrel. He had perceived that in the
pauses of weighing and tasting, Dick talked; if he were guided with suitable
discretion, why should he not talk of Wellgood?

He was guided, and he did talk and to some effect. That is, he gave information
of the man which surprised Sweetwater. If in the past and in New York he had
been known as a waiter, or should I say steward, he was known here as a
manufacturer of patent medicine designed to rejuvenate the human race. He had
not been long in town and was somewhat of a stranger yet, but he wouldn’t be so
long. He was going to make things hum, he was. Money for this, money for that,
a horse where another man would walk, and mail—well, that alone would
make this post-office worth while. Then the drugs ordered by wholesale. Those
boxes over there were his, ready to be carted out to his manufactory. Count
them, some one, and think of the bottles and bottles of stuff they stand for.
If it sells as he says it will—then he will soon be rich: and so on, till
Sweetwater brought the garrulous Dick to a standstill by asking whether
Wellgood had been away for any purpose since he first came to town. He received
the reply that he had just come home from New York, where he had been for some
articles needed in his manufactory. Sweetwater felt all his convictions
confirmed, and ended the colloquy with the final question:

“And where is his manufactory? Might be worth visiting, perhaps.”

The other made a gesture, said something about northwest and rushed to help a
customer. Sweetwater took the opportunity to slide away. More explicit
directions could easily be got elsewhere, and he felt anxious to return to Mr.
Grey and discover, if possible, whether it would prove as much a matter of
surprise to him as to Sweetwater himself that the man who answered to the name
of Wellgood was the owner of a manufactory and a barrel or two of drugs, out of
which he proposed to make a compound that would rob the doctors of their
business and make himself and this little village rich.

Sweetwater made only one stop on his way to Mr. Grey’s hotel rooms, and that
was at the stables. Here he learned whatever else there was to know, and, armed
with definite information, he appeared before Mr. Grey, who, to his
astonishment, was dining in his own room.

He had dismissed the waiter and was rather brooding than eating. He looked up
eagerly, however, when Sweetwater entered, and asked what news.

The detective, with some semblance of respect, answered that he had seen
Wellgood, but that he had been unable to detain him or bring him within his
employer’s observation.

“He is a patent-medicine man,” he then explained, “and manufactures his own
concoctions in a house he has rented here on a lonely road some half-mile out
of town.”

“Wellgood does? the man named Wellgood?” Mr. Grey exclaimed with all the
astonishment the other secretly expected.

“Yes; Wellgood, James Wellgood. There is no other in town.”

“How long has this man been here?” the statesman inquired, after a moment of
apparently great discomfiture.

“Just twenty-four hours, this time. He was here once before, when he rented the
house and made all his plans.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Grey rose precipitately. His manner had changed.

“I must see him. What you tell me makes it all the more necessary for me to see
him. How can you bring it about?”

“Without his seeing you?” Sweetwater asked.

“Yes, yes; certainly without his seeing me. Couldn’t you rap him up at his own
door, and hold him in talk a minute, while I looked on from the carriage or
whatever vehicle we can get to carry us there? The least glimpse of his face
would satisfy me. That is, to-night.”

“I’ll try,” said Sweetwater, not very sanguine as to the probable result of
this effort.

Returning to the stables, he ordered the team. With the last ray of the sun
they set out, the reins in Sweetwater’s hands.

They headed for the coast-road.




XVIII.
THE CLOSED DOOR


The road was once the highway, but the tide having played so many tricks with
its numberless bridges a new one had been built farther up the cliff, carrying
with it the life and business of the small town. Many old landmarks still
remained—shops, warehouses and even a few scattered dwellings. But most
of these were deserted, and those that were still in use showed such neglect
that it was very evident the whole region would soon be given up to the
encroaching sea and such interests as are inseparable from it.

The hour was that mysterious one of late twilight, when outlines lose their
distinctness and sea and shore melt into one mass of uniform gray. There was no
wind and the waves came in with a soft plash, but so near to the level of the
road that it was evident, even to these strangers, that the tide was at its
height and would presently begin to ebb.

Soon they had passed the last forsaken dwelling, and the town proper lay behind
them. Sand and a few rocks were all that lay between them now and the open
stretch of the ocean, which, at this point, approached the land in a small bay,
well-guarded on either side by embracing rocky heads. This was what made the
harbor at C—.

It was very still. They passed one team and only one. Sweetwater looked very
sharply at this team and at its driver, but saw nothing to arouse suspicion.
They were now a half-mile from C—, and, seemingly, in a perfectly
desolate region.

“A manufactory here!” exclaimed Mr. Grey. It was the first word he had uttered
since starting.

“Not far from here,” was Sweetwater’s equally laconic reply; and, the road
taking a turn almost at the moment of his speaking, he leaned forward and
pointed out a building standing on the right-hand side of the road, with its
feet in the water. “That’s it.” said he. “They described it well enough for me
to know it when I see it. Looks like a robber’s hole at this time of night,” he
laughed; “but what can you expect from a manufactory of patent medicine?”

Mr. Grey was silent. He was looking very earnestly at the building.

“It is larger than I expected,” he remarked at last.

Sweetwater himself was surprised, but as they advanced and their point of view
changed they found it to be really an insignificant structure, and Mr.
Wellgood’s portion of it more insignificant still.

In reality it was a collection of three stores under one roof: two of them were
shut up and evidently unoccupied, the third showed a lighted window. This was
the manufactory. It occupied the middle place and presented a tolerably decent
appearance. It showed, besides the lighted lamp I have mentioned, such signs of
life as a few packing-boxes tumbled out on the small platform in front, and a
whinnying horse attached to an empty buggy, tied to a post on the opposite side
of the road.

“I’m glad to see the lamp,” muttered Sweetwater. “Now, what shall we do? Is it
light enough for you to see his face, if I can manage to bring him to the
door?”

Mr. Grey seemed startled.

“It’s darker than I thought,” said he. “But call the man and if I can not see
him plainly, I’ll shout to the horse to stand, which you will take as a signal
to bring this Wellgood nearer. But do not be surprised if I ride off before he
reaches the buggy. I’ll come back again and take you up farther down the road.”

“All right, sir,” answered Sweetwater, with a side glance at the speaker’s
inscrutable features. “It’s a go!” And leaping to the ground he advanced to the
manufactory door and knocked loudly.

No one appeared.

He tried the latch; it lifted, but the door did not open; it was fastened from
within.

“Strange!” he muttered, casting a glance at the waiting horse and buggy, then
at the lighted window, which was on the second floor directly over his head.
“Guess I’ll sing out.”

Here he shouted the man’s name. “Wellgood! I say, Wellgood!”

No response to this either.

“Looks bad!” he acknowledged to himself; and, taking a step back, he looked up
at the window.

It was closed, but there was neither shade nor curtain to obstruct the view.

“Do you see anything?” he inquired of Mr. Grey, who sat with his eye at the
small window in the buggy top.

“Nothing.”

“No movement in the room above? No shadow at the window?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, it’s confounded strange!” And he went back, still calling Wellgood.

The tied-up horse whinnied, and the waves gave a soft splash and that was
all,—if I except Sweetwater’s muttered oath.

Coming back, he looked again at the window, then, with a gesture toward Mr.
Grey, turned the corner of the building and began to edge himself along its
side in an endeavor to reach the rear and see what it offered. But he came to a
sudden standstill. He found himself on the edge of the bank before he had taken
twenty steps. Yet the building projected on, and he saw why it had looked so
large from a certain point of the approach. Its rear was built out on piles,
making its depth even greater than the united width of the three stores. At low
tide this might be accessible from below, but just now the water was almost on
a level with the top of the piles, making all approach impossible save by boat.

Disgusted with his failure, Sweetwater returned to the front, and, finding the
situation unchanged, took a new resolve. After measuring with his eye the
height of the first story, he coolly walked over to the strange horse, and,
slipping his bridle, brought it back and cast it over a projection of the door;
by its aid he succeeded in climbing up to the window, which was the sole eye to
the interior.

Mr. Grey sat far back in his buggy, watching every movement.

There were no shades at the window, as I have before said, and, once
Sweetwater’s eye had reached the level of the sill, he could see the interior
without the least difficulty. There was nobody there. The lamp burned on a
great table littered with papers, but the rude cane-chair before it was empty,
and so was the room. He could see into every corner of it and there was not
even a hiding-place where anybody could remain concealed. Sweetwater was still
looking, when the lamp, which had been burning with considerable smoke, flared
up and went out. Sweetwater uttered an ejaculation, and, finding himself face
to face with utter darkness, slid from his perch to the ground.

Approaching Mr. Grey for the second time, he said:

“I can not understand it. The fellow is either lying low, or he’s gone out,
leaving his lamp to go out, too. But whose is the horse—just excuse me
while I tie him up again. It looks like the one he was driving to-day. It is
the one. Well, he won’t leave him here all night. Shall we lie low and wait for
him to come and unhitch this animal? Or do you prefer to return to the hotel?”

Mr. Grey was slow in answering. Finally he said:

“The man may suspect our intention. You can never tell anything about such
fellows as he. He may have caught some unexpected glimpse of me or simply heard
that I was in town. If he’s the man I think him, he has reasons for avoiding me
which I can very well understand. Let us go back,—not to the hotel, I
must see this adventure through tonight,—but far enough for him to think
we have given up all idea of routing him out to-night. Perhaps that is all he
is waiting for. You can steal back—”

“Excuse me,” said Sweetwater, “but I know a better dodge than that. We’ll
circumvent him. We passed a boat-house on our way down here. I’ll just drive
you up, procure a boat, and bring you back here by water. I don’t believe that
he will expect that, and if he is in the house we shall see him or his light.”

“Meanwhile he can escape by the road.”

“Escape? Do you think he is planning to escape?”

The detective spoke with becoming surprise and Mr. Grey answered without
apparent suspicion.

“It is possible if he suspects my presence in the neighborhood.”

“Do you want to stop him?”

“I want to see him.”

“Oh, I remember. Well, sir, we will drive on,—that is, after a moment.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Oh, nothing. You said you wanted to see the man before he escaped.”

“Yes, but—”

“And that he might escape by the road.”

“Yes—”

“Well, I was just making that a little bit impracticable. A small pebble in the
keyhole and—why, see now, his horse is walking off! Gee! I must have
fastened him badly. I shouldn’t wonder if he trotted all the way to town. But
it can’t be helped. I can not be supposed to race after him. Are you ready now,
sir? I’ll give another shout, then I’ll get in.” And once more the lonely
region about echoed with the cry: “Wellgood! I say, Wellgood!”

There was no answer, and the young detective, masking for the nonce as Mr.
Grey’s confidential servant, jumped into the buggy, and turned the horse’s head
toward C—.




XIX.
THE FACE


The moon was well up when the small boat in which our young detective was
seated with Mr. Grey appeared in the bay approaching the so-called manufactory
of Wellgood. The looked-for light on the waterside was not there. All was dark
except where the windows reflected the light of the moon.

This was a decided disappointment to Sweetwater, if not to Mr. Grey. He had
expected to detect signs of life in this quarter, and this additional proof of
Wellgood’s absence from home made it look as if they had come out on a fool’s
errand and might much better have stuck to the road.

“No promise there,” came in a mutter from his lips. “Shall I row in, sir, and
try to make a landing?”

“You may row nearer. I should like a closer view. I don’t think we shall
attract any attention. There are more boats than ours on the water.”

Sweetwater was startled. Looking round, he saw a launch, or some such small
steamer, riding at anchor not far from the mouth of the bay. But that was not
all. Between it and them was a rowboat like their own, resting quietly in the
wake of the moon.

“I don’t like so much company,” he muttered. “Something’s brewing; something in
which we may not want to take a part.”

“Very likely,” answered Mr. Grey grimly. “But we must not be deterred—not
till I have seen—” the rest Sweetwater did not hear. Mr. Grey seemed to
remember himself. “Row nearer,” he now bade. “Get under the shadow of the rocks
if you can. If the boat is for him, he will show himself. Yet I hardly see how
he can board from that bank.”

It did not look feasible. Nevertheless, they waited and watched with much
patience for several long minutes. The boat behind them did not advance, nor
was any movement discernible in the direction of the manufactory. Another short
period, then suddenly a light flashed from a window high up in the central
gable, sparkled for an instant and was gone. Sweetwater took it for a signal
and, with a slight motion of the wrist, began to work his way in toward shore
till they lay almost at the edge of the piles.

“Hark!”

It was Sweetwater who spoke.

Both listened, Mr. Grey with his head turned toward the launch and Sweetwater
with his eye on the cavernous space, sharply outlined by the piles, which the
falling tide now disclosed under each contiguous building. Goods had been
directly shipped from these stores in the old days. This he had learned in the
village. How shipped he had not been able to understand from his previous
survey of the building. But he thought he could see now. At low tide, or
better, at half-tide, access could be got to the floor of the extension and, if
this floor held a trap, the mystery would be explainable. So would be the
hovering boat—the signal-light and—yes! this sound overheard of
steps on a rattling planking.

“I hear nothing,” whispered Mr. Grey from the other end. “The boat is still
there, but not a man has dipped an oar.”

“They will soon,” returned Sweetwater as a smothered sound of clanking iron
reached his ears from the hollow spaces before him. “Duck your head, sir; I’m
going to row in under this portion of the house.”

Mr. Grey would have protested and with very good reason. There was scarcely a
space of three feet between them and the boards overhead. But Sweetwater had so
immediately suited action to word that he had no choice.

They were now in utter darkness, and Mr. Grey’s thoughts must have been
peculiar as he crouched over the stern, hardly knowing what to expect or
whether this sudden launch into darkness was for the purpose of flight or
pursuit. But enlightenment came soon. The sound of a man’s tread in the
building above was every moment becoming more perceptible, and while wondering,
possibly, at his position, Mr. Grey naturally turned his head as nearly as he
could in the direction of these sounds, and was staring with blank eyes into
the darkness, when Sweetwater, leaning toward him, whispered:

“Look up! There’s a trap. In a minute he’ll open it. Mark him, but don’t
breathe a word, and I’ll get you out of this all right.”

Mr. Grey attempted some answer, but it was lost in the prolonged creak of
slowly-moving hinges somewhere over their heads. Spaces, which had looked dark,
suddenly looked darker; hearing was satisfied, but not the eye. A man’s breath
panting with exertion testified to a near-by presence; but that man was working
without a light in a room with shuttered windows, and Mr. Grey probably felt
that he knew very little more than before, when suddenly, most unexpectedly, to
him at least, a face started out of that overhead darkness; a face so white,
with every feature made so startlingly distinct by the strong light Sweetwater
had thrown upon it, that it seemed the only thing in the world to the two men
beneath. In another moment it had vanished, or rather the light which had
revealed it.

“What’s that? Are you there?” came down from above in hoarse and none too
encouraging tones.

There was none to answer; Sweetwater, with a quick pull on the oars, had
already shot the boat out of its dangerous harbor.




XX.
MOONLIGHT—AND A CLUE


“Are you satisfied? Have you got what you wanted?” asked Sweetwater, when they
were well away from the shore and the voice they had heard calling at intervals
from the chasm they had left.

“Yes. You’re a good fellow. It could not have been better managed.” Then, after
a pause too prolonged and thoughtful to please Sweetwater, who was burning with
curiosity if not with some deeper feeling: “What was that light you burned? A
match?”

Sweetwater did not answer. He dared not. How speak of the electric torch he as
a detective carried in his pocket? That would be to give himself away. He
therefore let this question slip by and put in one of his own.

“Are you ready to go back now, sir? Are we all done here?” This with his ear
turned and his eye bent forward; for the adventure they had interrupted was not
at an end, whether their part in it was or not.

Mr. Grey hesitated, his glances following those of Sweetwater.

“Let us wait,” said he, in a tone which surprised Sweetwater. “If he is
meditating an escape, I must speak to him before he reaches the launch. At all
hazards,” he added after another moment’s thought.

“All right, sir—How do you propose—”

His words were interrupted by a shrill whistle from the direction of the bank.
Promptly, and as if awaiting this signal, the two men in the rowboat before
them dipped their oars and pulled for the shore, taking the direction of the
manufactory.

Sweetwater said nothing, but held himself in readiness.

Mr. Grey was equally silent, but the lines of his face seemed to deepen in the
moonlight as the boat, gliding rapidly through the water, passed them within a
dozen boat-lengths and slipped into the opening under the manufactory building.

“Now row!” he cried. “Make for the launch. We’ll intercept them on their
return.”

Sweetwater, glowing with anticipation, bent to his work. The boat beneath them
gave a bound and in a few minutes they were far out on the waters of the bay.

“They’re coming!” he whispered eagerly, as he saw Mr. Grey looking anxiously
back. “How much farther shall I go?”

“Just within hailing distance of the launch,” was Mr. Grey’s reply.

Sweetwater, gaging the distance with a glance, stopped at the proper point and
rested on his oars. But his thoughts did not rest. He realized that he was
about to witness an interview whose importance he easily recognized. How much
of it would he hear? What would be the upshot and what was his full duty in the
case? He knew that this man Wellgood was wanted by the New York police, but he
was possessed with no authority to arrest him, even if he had the power.

“Something more than I bargained for,” he inwardly commented. “But I wanted
excitement, and now I have got it. If only I can keep my head level, I may get
something out of this, if not all I could wish.”

Meantime the second boat was very nearly on them. He could mark the three
figures and pick out Wellgood’s head from among the rest. It had a resolute
air; the face on which, to his evident discomfiture, the moon shone, wore a
look which convinced the detective that this was no patent-medicine
manufacturer, nor even a caterer’s assistant, but a man of nerve and resources,
the same, indeed, whom he had encountered in Mr. Fairbrother’s house, with such
disastrous, almost fatal, results to himself.

The discovery, though an unexpected one, did not lessen his sense of the
extreme helplessness of his own position. He could witness, but he could not
act; follow Mr. Grey’s orders, but indulge in none of his own. The detective
must continue to be lost in the valet, though it came hard and woke a sense of
shame in his ambitious breast.

Meanwhile Wellgood had seen them and ordered his men to cease rowing.

“Give way, there,” he shouted. “We’re for the launch and in a hurry.”

“There’s some one here who wants to speak to you, Mr. Wellgood,” Sweetwater
called out, as respectfully as he could. “Shall I mention your name?” he asked
of Mr. Grey.

“No, I will do that myself.” And raising his voice, he accosted the other with
these words: “I am the man, Percival Grey, of Darlington Manor, England. I
should like to say a word to you before you embark.”

A change, quick as lightning and almost as dangerous, passed over the face
Sweetwater was watching with such painful anxiety; but as the other added
nothing to his words and seemed to be merely waiting, he shrugged his shoulders
and muttered an order to his rowers to proceed.

In another moment the sterns of the two small craft swung together, but in such
a way that, by dint of a little skilful manipulation on the part of Wellgood’s
men, the latter’s back was toward the moon.

Mr. Grey leaned toward Wellgood, and his face fell into shadow also.

“Bah!” thought the detective, “I should have managed that myself. But if I can
not see I shall at least hear.”

But he deceived himself in this. The two men spoke in such low whispers that
only their intensity was manifest. Not a word came to Sweetwater’s ears.

“Bah!” he thought again, “this is bad.”

But he had to swallow his disappointment, and more. For presently the two men,
so different in culture, station and appearance, came, as it seemed, to an
understanding, and Wellgood, taking his hand from his breast, fumbled in one of
his pockets and drew out something which he handed to Mr. Grey.

This made Sweetwater start and peer with still greater anxiety at every
movement, when to his surprise both bent forward, each over his own knee, doing
something so mysterious he could get no clue to its nature till they again
stretched forth their hands to each other and he caught the gleam of paper and
realized that they were exchanging memoranda or notes.

These must have been important, for each made an immediate endeavor to read his
slip by turning it toward the moon’s rays. That both were satisfied was shown
by their after movements. Wellgood put his slip into his pocket, and without
further word to Mr. Grey motioned his men to row away. They did so with a will,
leaving a line of silver in their wake. Mr. Grey, on the contrary, gave no
orders. He still held his slip and seemed to be dreaming. But his eye was on
the shore, and he did not even turn when sounds from the launch denoted that
she was under way.

Sweetwater; looking at this morsel of paper with greedy eyes, dipped his oars
and began pulling softly toward that portion of the beach where a small and
twinkling light defined the boat-house. He hoped Mr. Grey would speak, hoped
that in some way, by some means, he might obtain a clue to his patron’s
thoughts. But the English gentleman sat like an image and did not move till a
slight but sudden breeze, blowing in-shore, seized the paper in his hand and
carried it away, past Sweetwater, who vainly sought to catch it as it went
fluttering by, into the water ahead, where it shone for a moment, then softly
disappeared.

Sweetwater uttered a cry, so did Mr. Grey.

“Is it anything you wanted?” called out the former, leaning over the bow of the
boat and making a dive at the paper with his oar.

“Yes; but if it’s gone, it’s gone,” returned the other with some feeling.
“Careless of me, very careless,—but I was thinking of—”

He stopped; he was greatly agitated, but he did not encourage Sweetwater in any
further attempts to recover the lost memorandum. Indeed, such an effort would
have been fruitless; the paper was gone, and there was nothing left for them
but to continue their way. As they did so it would have been hard to tell in
which breast chagrin mounted higher. Sweetwater had lost a clue in a thousand,
and Mr. Grey—well, no one knew what he had lost. He said nothing and
plainly showed by his changed manner that he was in haste to land now and be
done with this doubtful adventure.

When they reached the boat-house Mr. Grey left Sweetwater to pay for the boat
and started at once for the hotel.

The man in charge had the bow of the boat in hand, preparatory to pulling it up
on the boards. As Sweetwater turned toward him he caught sight of the side of
the boat, shining brightly in the moonlight. He gave a start and, with a
muttered ejaculation, darted forward and picked off a small piece of paper from
the dripping keel. It separated in his hand and a part of it escaped him, but
the rest he managed to keep by secreting it in his palm, where it still clung,
wet and possibly illegible, when he came upon Mr. Grey again in the hotel
office.

“Here’s your pay,” said that gentleman, giving him a bill. “I am very glad I
met you. You have served me remarkably well.”

There was an anxiety in his face and a hurry in his movements which struck
Sweetwater.

“Does this mean that you are through with me?” asked Sweetwater. “That you have
no further call for my services?”

“Quite so,” said the gentleman. “I’m going to take the train to-night. I find
that I still have time.”

Sweetwater began to look alive.

Uttering hasty thanks, he rushed away to his own room and, turning on the gas,
peeled off the morsel of paper which had begun to dry on his hand. If it should
prove to be the blank end! If the written part were the one which had floated
off! Such disappointments had fallen to his lot! He was not unused to them.

But he was destined to better luck this time. The written end had indeed
disappeared, but there was one word left, which he had no sooner read than he
gave a low cry and prepared to leave for New York on the same train as Mr.
Grey.

The word was—diamond.




XXI.
GRIZEL! GRIZEL!


I indulged in some very serious thoughts after Mr. Grey’s departure. A fact was
borne in upon me to which I had hitherto closed my prejudiced eyes, but which I
could no longer ignore, whatever confusion it brought or however it caused me
to change my mind on a subject which had formed one of the strongest bases to
the argument by which I had sought to save Mr. Durand. Miss Grey cherished no
such distrust of her father as I, in my ignorance of their relations, had
imputed to her in the early hours of my ministrations. This you have already
seen in my account of their parting. Whatever his dread, fear or remorse, there
was no evidence that she felt toward him anything but love and confidence: but
love and confidence from her to him were in direct contradiction to the doubts
I had believed her to have expressed in the half-written note handed to Mrs.
Fairbrother in the alcove. Had I been wrong, then, in attributing this scrawl
to her? It began to look so. Though forbidden to allow her to speak on the one
tabooed subject, I had wit enough to know that nothing would keep her from it,
if the fate of Mrs. Fairbrother occupied any real place in her thoughts.

Yet when the opportunity was given me one morning of settling this fact beyond
all doubt, I own that my main feeling was one of dread. I feared to see this
article in my creed destroyed, lest I should lose confidence in the whole. Yet
conscience bade me face the matter boldly, for had I not boasted to myself that
my one desire was the truth?

I allude to the disposition which Miss Grey showed on the morning of the third
day to do a little surreptitious writing. You remember that a specimen of her
handwriting had been asked for by the inspector, and once had been earnestly
desired by myself. Now I seemed likely to have it, if I did not open my eyes
too widely to the meaning of her seemingly chance requests. A little pencil
dangled at the end of my watch-chain. Would I let her see it, let her hold it
in her hand for a minute? it was so like one she used to have. Of course I took
it off, of course I let her retain it a little while in her hand. But the
pencil was not enough. A few minutes later she asked for a book to look
at—I sometimes let her look at pictures. But the book bothered
her—she would look at it later; would I give her something to mark the
place—that postal over there. I gave her the postal. She put it in the
book and I, who understood her thoroughly, wondered what excuse she would now
find for sending me into the other room. She found one very soon, and with a
heavily-beating heart I left her with that pencil and postal. A soft laugh from
her lips drew me back. She was holding up the postal.

“See! I have written a line to him! Oh, you good, good nurse, to let me! You
needn’t look so alarmed. It hasn’t hurt me one bit.”

I knew that it had not; knew that such an exertion was likely to be more
beneficial than hurtful to her, or I should have found some excuse for
deterring her. I endeavored to make my face more natural. As she seemed to want
me to take the postal in my hand I drew near and took it.

“The address looks very shaky,” she laughed. “I think you will have to put it
in an envelope.”

I looked at it,—I could not help it,—her eye was on me, and I could
not even prepare my mind for the shock of seeing it like or totally unlike the
writing of the warning. It was totally unlike; so distinctly unlike that it was
no longer possible to attribute those lines to her which, according to Mr.
Durand’s story, had caused Mrs. Fairbrother to take off her diamond.

“Why, why!” she cried. “You actually look pale. Are you afraid the doctor will
scold us? It hasn’t hurt me nearly so much as lying here and knowing what he
would give for one word from me.”

“You are right, and I am foolish,” I answered with all the spirit left in me.
“I should be glad—I am glad that you have written these words. I will
copy the address on an envelope and send it out in the first mail.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, giving me back my pencil with a sly smile. “Now I
can sleep. I must have roses in my cheeks when papa comes home.”

And she bade fair to have ruddier roses than myself, for conscience was working
havoc in my breast. The theory I had built up with such care, the theory I had
persisted in urging upon the inspector in spite of his rebuke, was slowly
crumbling to pieces in my mind with the falling of one of its main pillars.
With the warning unaccounted for in the manner I have stated, there was a
weakness in my argument which nothing could make good. How could I tell the
inspector, if ever I should be so happy or so miserable as to meet his eye
again? Humiliated to the dust, I could see no worth now in any of the arguments
I had advanced. I flew from one extreme to the other, and was imputing perfect
probity to Mr. Grey and an honorable if mysterious reason for all his acts,
when the door opened and he came in. Instantly my last doubt vanished. I had
not expected him to return so soon.

He was glad to be back; that I could see, but there was no other gladness in
him. I had looked for some change in his manner and appearance,—that is,
if he returned at all,—but the one I saw was not a cheerful one, even
after he had approached his daughter’s bedside and found her greatly improved.
She noticed this and scrutinized him strangely. He dropped his eyes and turned
to leave the room, but was stopped by her loving cry; he came back and leaned
over her.

“What is it, father? You are fatigued, worried—”

“No, no, quite well,” he hastily assured her. “But you! are you as well as you
seem?”

“Indeed, yes. I am gaining every day. See! see! I shall soon be able to sit up.
Yesterday I read a few words.”

He started, with a side glance at me which took in a table near by on which a
little book was lying.

“Oh, a book?”

“Yes, and—and Arthur’s letters.”

The father flushed, lifted himself, patted her arm tenderly and hastened into
another room.

Miss Grey’s eyes followed him longingly, and I heard her give utterance to a
soft sigh. A few hours before, this would have conveyed to my suspicious mind
deep and mysterious meanings; but I was seeing everything now in a different
light, and I found myself no longer inclined either to exaggerate or to
misinterpret these little marks of filial solicitude. Trying to rejoice over
the present condition of my mind, I was searching in the hidden depths of my
nature for the patience of which I stood in such need, when every thought and
feeling were again thrown into confusion by the receipt of another
communication from the inspector, in which he stated that something had
occurred to bring the authorities round to my way of thinking and that the test
with the stiletto was to be made at once.

Could the irony of fate go further! I dropped the letter half read, querying if
it were my duty to let the inspector know of the flaw I had discovered in my
own theory, before I proceeded with the attempt I had suggested when I believed
in its complete soundness. I had not settled the question when I took the
letter up again. Re-reading its opening sentence, I was caught by the word
“something.” It was a very indefinite one, yet was capable of covering a large
field. It must cover a large field, or it could not have produced such a change
in the minds of these men, conservative from principle and in this instance
from discretion. I would be satisfied with that word something and quit further
thinking. I was weary of it. The inspector was now taking the initiative, and I
was satisfied to be his simple instrument and no more. Arrived at this
conclusion, however, I read the rest of the letter. The test was to go on, but
under different conditions. It was no longer to be made at my own discretion
and in the up-stairs room; it was to be made at luncheon hour and in Mr. Grey’s
private dining-room, where, if by any chance Mr. Grey found himself outraged by
the placing of this notorious weapon beside his plate, the blame could be laid
on the waiter, who, mistaking his directions, had placed it on Mr. Grey’s table
when it was meant for Inspector Dalzell’s, who was lunching in the adjoining
room. It was I, however, who was to do the placing. With what precautions and
under what circumstances will presently appear.

Fortunately, the hour set was very near. Otherwise I do not know how I could
have endured the continued strain of gazing on my patient’s sweet face, looking
up at me from her pillow, with a shadow over its beauty which had not been
there before her father’s return.

And that father! I could hear him pacing the library floor with a restlessness
that struck me as being strangely akin to my own inward anguish of impatience
and doubt. What was he dreading? What was it I had seen darkening his face and
disturbing his manner, when from time to time he pushed open the communicating
door and cast an anxious glance our way, only to withdraw again without
uttering a word. Did he realize that a crisis was approaching, that danger
menaced him, and from me? No, not the latter, for his glance never strayed to
me, but rested solely on his daughter. I was, therefore, not connected with the
disturbance in his thoughts. As far as that was concerned I could proceed
fearlessly; I had not him to dread, only the event. That I did dread, as any
one must who saw Miss Grey’s face during these painful moments and heard that
restless tramp in the room beyond.

At last the hour struck,—the hour at which Mr. Grey always descended to
lunch. He was punctuality itself, and under ordinary circumstances I could
depend upon his leaving the room within five minutes of the stroke of one. But
would he be as prompt to-day? Was he in the mood for luncheon? Would he go down
stairs at all? Yes, for the tramp, tramp stopped; I heard him approaching his
daughter’s door for a last look in and managed to escape just in time to
procure what I wanted and reach the room below before he came.

My opportunity was short, but I had time to see two things: first, that the
location of his seat had been changed so that his back was to the door leading
into the adjoining room; secondly, that this door was ajar. The usual waiter
was in the room and showed no surprise at my appearance, I having been careful
to have it understood that hereafter Miss Grey’s appetite was to be encouraged
by having her soup served from her father’s table by her father’s own hands,
and that I should be there to receive it.

“Mr. Grey is coming,” said I, approaching the waiter and handing him the
stiletto loosely wrapped in tissue paper. “Will you be kind enough to place
this at his plate, just as it is? A man gave it to me for Mr. Grey; said we
were to place it there.”

The waiter, suspecting nothing, did as he was bidden, and I had hardly time to
catch up the tray laden with dishes, which I saw awaiting me on a side-table,
when Mr. Grey came in and was ushered to his seat.

The soup was not there, but I advanced with my tray and stood waiting; not too
near, lest the violent beating of my heart should betray me. As I did so the
waiter disappeared and the door behind us opened. Though Mr. Grey’s eye had
fallen on the package, and I saw him start, I darted one glance at the room
thus disclosed, and saw that it held two tables. At one, the inspector and some
one I did not know sat eating; at the other a man alone, whose back was to us
all, and who seemingly was entirely disconnected with the interests of this
tragic moment. All this I saw in an instant,—the next my eyes were fixed
on Mr. Grey’s face.

He had reached out his hand to the package and his features showed an emotion I
hardly understood.

“What’s this?” he murmured, feeling it with wonder, I should almost say anger.
Suddenly he pulled off the wrapper, and my heart stood still in expectancy. If
he quailed—and how could he help doing so if guilty—what a doubt
would be removed from my own breast, what an impediment from police action! But
he did not quail; he simply uttered an exclamation of intense anger, and laid
the weapon back on the table without even taking the precaution of covering it
up. I think he muttered an oath, but there was no fear in it, not a particle.

My disappointment was so great, my humiliation so unbounded, that, forgetting
myself in my dismay, I staggered back and let the tray with all its contents
slip from my hands. The crash that followed stopped Mr. Grey in the act of
rising. But it did something more. It awoke a cry from the adjoining room which
I shall never forget. While we both started and turned to see from whom this
grievous sound had sprung, a man came stumbling toward us with his hands before
his eyes and this name wild on his lips:

“Grizel! Grizel!”

Mrs. Fairbrother’s name! and the man—




XXII.
GUILT


Was he Wellgood? Sears? Who? A lover of the woman certainly; that was borne in
on us by the passion of his cry:

“Grizel! Grizel!”

But how here? and why such fury in Mr. Grey’s face and such amazement in that
of the inspector?

This question was not to be answered offhand. Mr. Grey, advancing, laid a
finger on the man’s shoulder. “Come,” said he, “we will have our conversation
in another room.”

The man, who, in dress and appearance looked oddly out of place in those
gorgeous rooms, shook off the stupor into which he had fallen and started to
follow the Englishman. A waiter crossed their track with the soup for our
table. Mr. Grey motioned him aside.

“Take that back,” said he. “I have some business to transact with this
gentleman before I eat. I’ll ring when I want you.”

Then they entered where I was. As the door closed I caught sight of the
inspector’s face turned earnestly toward me. In his eyes I read my duty, and
girded up my heart, as it were, to meet—what? In that moment it was
impossible to tell.

The next enlightened me. With a total ignoring of my presence, due probably to
his great excitement, Mr. Grey turned on his companion the moment he had closed
the door and, seizing him by the collar, cried:

“Fairbrother, you villain, why have you called on your wife like this? Are you
murderer as well as thief?”

Fairbrother! this man? Then who was he who was being nursed back to life on the
mountains beyond Santa Fe? Sears? Anything seemed possible in that moment.

Meanwhile, dropping his hand from the other’s throat as suddenly as he had
seized it, Mr. Grey caught up the stiletto from the table where he had flung
it, crying: “Do you recognize this?”

Ah, then I saw guilt!

In a silence worse than any cry, this so-called husband of the murdered woman,
the man on whom no suspicion had fallen, the man whom all had thought a
thousand miles away at the time of the deed, stared at the weapon thrust under
his eyes, while over his face passed all those expressions of fear, abhorrence
and detected guilt which, fool that I was, I had expected to see reflected in
response to the same test in Mr. Grey’s equable countenance.

The surprise and wonder of it held me chained to the spot. I was in a state of
stupefaction, so that I scarcely noted the broken fragments at my feet. But the
intruder noticed them. Wrenching his gaze from the stiletto which Mr. Grey
continued to hold out, he pointed to the broken cup and saucer, muttering:

“That is what startled me into this betrayal—the noise of breaking china.
I can not bear it since—”

He stopped, bit his lip and looked around him with an air of sudden bravado.

“Since you dropped the cups at your wife’s feet in Mr. Ramsdell’s alcove,”
finished Mr. Grey with admirable self-possession.

“I see that explanations from myself are not in order,” was the grim retort,
launched with the bitterest sarcasm. Then as the full weight of his position
crushed in on him, his face assumed an aspect startling to my unaccustomed
eyes, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket he drew forth a small box which
he placed in Mr. Grey’s hands.

“The Great Mogul,” he declared simply.

It was the first time I had heard this diamond so named.

Without a word that gentleman opened the box, took one look at the contents,
assumed a satisfied air, and carefully deposited the recovered gem in his own
pocket. As his eyes returned to the man before him, all the passion of the
latter burst forth.

“It was not for that I killed her!” cried he. “It was because she defied me and
flaunted her disobedience in my very face. I would do it again, yet—”

Here his voice broke and it was in a different tone and with a total change of
manner he added: “You stand appalled at my depravity. You have not lived my
life.” Then quickly and with a touch of sullenness: “You suspected me because
of the stiletto. It was a mistake, using that stiletto. Otherwise, the plan was
good. I doubt if you know now how I found my way into the alcove, possibly
under your very eyes; certainly, under the eyes of many who knew me.”

“I do not. It is enough that you entered it; that you confess your guilt.”

Here Mr. Grey stretched his hand toward the electric button.

“No, it is not enough.” The tone was fierce, authoritative. “Do not ring the
bell, not yet. I have a fancy to tell you how I managed that little affair.”

Glancing about, he caught up from a near-by table a small brass tray. Emptying
it of its contents, he turned on us with drawn-down features and an obsequious
air so opposed to his natural manner that it was as if another man stood before
us.

“Pardon my black tie,” he muttered, holding out the tray toward Mr. Grey.

Wellgood!

The room turned with me. It was he, then, the great financier, the
multimillionaire, the husband of the magnificent Grizel, who had entered Mr.
Ramsdell’s house as a waiter!

Mr. Grey did not show surprise, but he made a gesture, when instantly the tray
was thrown aside and the man resumed his ordinary aspect.

“I see you understand me,” he cried. “I who have played host at many a ball,
passed myself off that night as one of the waiters. I came and went and no one
noticed me. It is such a natural sight to see a waiter passing ices that my
going in and out of the alcove did not attract the least attention. I never
look at waiters when I attend balls. I never look higher than their trays. No
one looked at me higher than my tray. I held the stiletto under the tray and
when I struck her she threw up her hands and they hit the tray and the cups
fell. I have never been able to bear the sound of breaking china since. I loved
her—”

A gasp and he recovered himself.

“That is neither here nor there,” he muttered. “You summoned me under threat to
present myself at your door to-day. I have done so. I meant to restore you your
diamond, simply. It has become worthless to me. But fate exacted more. Surprise
forced my secret from me. That young lady with her damnable awkwardness has put
my head in a noose. But do not think to hold it there. I did not risk this
interview without precautions, I assure you, and when I leave this hotel it
will be as a free man.”

With one of his rapid changes, wonderful and inexplicable to me at the moment,
he turned toward me with a bow, saying courteously enough:

“We will excuse the young lady.”

Next moment the barrel of a pistol gleamed in his hand.

The moment was critical. Mr. Grey stood directly in the line of fire, and the
audacious man who thus held him at his mercy was scarcely a foot from the door
leading into the hall. Marking the desperation of his look and the steadiness
of his finger on the trigger, I expected to see Mr. Grey recoil and the man
escape. But Mr. Grey held his own, though he made no move, and did not venture
to speak. Nerved by his courage, I summoned up all my own. This man must not
escape, nor must Mr. Grey suffer. The pistol directed against him must be
diverted to myself. Such amends were due one whose good name I had so deeply if
secretly insulted. I had but to scream, to call out for the inspector, but a
remembrance of the necessity we were now under of preserving our secret, of
keeping from Mr. Grey the fact that he had been under surveillance, was even at
that moment surrounded by the police, deterred me, and I threw myself toward
the bell instead, crying out that I would raise the house if he moved, and laid
my finger on the button.

The pistol swerved my way. The face above it smiled. I watched that smile.
Before it broadened to its full extent, I pressed the button.

Fairbrother stared, dropped his pistol, and burst forth with these two words:

“Brave girl!”

The tone I can never convey.

Then he made for the door.

As he laid his hand on the knob, he called back:

“I have been in worse straits than this!”

But he never had; when he opened the door, he found himself face to face with
the inspector.




XXIII.
THE GREAT MOGUL


Later, it was all explained. Mr. Grey, looking like another man, came into the
room where I was endeavoring to soothe his startled daughter and devour in
secret my own joy. Taking the sweet girl in his arms, he said, with a calm
ignoring of my presence, at which I secretly smiled:

“This is the happiest moment of my existence, Helen. I feel as if I had
recovered you from the brink of the grave.”

“Me? Why, I have never been so ill as that.”

“I know; but I have felt as if you were doomed ever since I heard, or thought I
heard, in this city, and under no ordinary circumstances, the peculiar cry
which haunts our house on the eve of any great misfortune. I shall not
apologize for my fears; you know that I have good cause for them, but to-day,
only to-day, I have heard from the lips of the most arrant knave I have ever
known, that this cry sprang from himself with intent to deceive me. He knew my
weakness; knew the cry; he was in Darlington Manor when Cecilia died; and,
wishing to startle me into dropping something which I held, made use of his
ventriloquial powers (he had been a mountebank once, poor wretch!) and with
such effect, that I have not been a happy man since, in spite of your daily
improvement and continued promise of recovery. But I am happy now, relieved and
joyful; and this miserable being,—would you like to hear his story? Are
you strong enough for anything so tragic? He is a thief and a murderer, but he
has feelings, and his life has been a curious one, and strangely interwoven
with ours. Do you care to hear about it? He is the man who stole our diamond.”

My patient uttered a little cry.

“Oh, tell me,” she entreated, excited, but not unhealthfully; while I was in an
anguish of curiosity I could with difficulty conceal.

Mr. Grey turned with courtesy toward me and asked if a few family details would
bore me. I smiled and assured him to the contrary. At which he settled himself
in the chair he liked best and began a tale which I will permit myself to
present to you complete and from other points of view than his own.

Some five years before, one of the great diamonds of the world was offered for
sale in an Eastern market. Mr. Grey, who stopped at no expense in the
gratification of his taste in this direction, immediately sent his agent to
Egypt to examine this stone. If the agent discovered it to be all that was
claimed for it, and within the reach of a wealthy commoner’s purse, he was to
buy it. Upon inspection, it was found to be all that was claimed, with one
exception. In the center of one of the facets was a flaw, but, as this was
considered to mark the diamond, and rather add to than detract from its value
as a traditional stone with many historical associations, it was finally
purchased by Mr. Grey and placed among his treasures in his manor-house in
Kent. Never a suspicious man, he took delight in exhibiting this acquisition to
such of his friends and acquaintances as were likely to feel any interest in
it, and it was not an uncommon thing for him to allow it to pass from hand to
hand while he pottered over his other treasures and displayed this and that to
such as had no eyes for the diamond.

It was after one such occasion that he found, on taking the stone in his hand
to replace it in the safe he had had built for it in one of his cabinets, that
it did not strike his eye with its usual force and brilliancy, and, on
examining it closely, he discovered the absence of the telltale flaw. Struck
with dismay, he submitted it to a still more rigid inspection, when he found
that what he held was not even a diamond, but a worthless bit of glass, which
had been substituted by some cunning knave for his invaluable gem.

For the moment his humiliation almost equaled his sense of loss; he had been so
often warned of the danger he ran in letting so priceless an object pass around
under all eyes but his own. His wife and friends had prophesied some such loss
as this, not once, but many times, and he had always laughed at their fears,
saying that he knew his friends, and there was not a scamp amongst them. But
now he saw it proved that even the intuition of a man well-versed in human
nature is not always infallible, and, ashamed of his past laxness and more
ashamed yet of the doubts which this experience called up in regard to all his
friends, he shut up the false stone with his usual care and buried his loss in
his own bosom, till he could sift his impressions and recall with some degree
of probability the circumstances under which this exchange could have been
made.

It had not been made that evening. Of this he was positive. The only persons
present on this occasion were friends of such standing and repute that
suspicion in their regard was simply monstrous. When and to whom, then, had he
shown the diamond last? Alas, it had been a long month since he had shown the
jewel. Cecilia, his youngest daughter, had died in the interim; therefore his
mind had not been on jewels. A month! time for his precious diamond to have
been carried back to the East! Time for it to have been recut! Surely it was
lost to him for ever, unless he could immediately locate the person who had
robbed him of it.

But this promised difficulties. He could not remember just what persons he had
entertained on that especial day in his little hall of cabinets, and, when he
did succeed in getting a list of them from his butler, he was by no means sure
that it included the full number of his guests. His own memory was execrable,
and, in short, he had but few facts to offer to the discreet agent sent up from
Scotland Yard one morning to hear his complaint and act secretly in his
interests. He could give him carte blanche to carry on his inquiries in the
diamond market, but little else. And while this seemed to satisfy the agent, it
did not lead to any gratifying result to himself, and he had thoroughly made up
his mind to swallow his loss and say nothing about it, when one day a young
cousin of his, living in great style in an adjoining county, informed him that
in some mysterious way he had lost from his collection of arms a unique and
highly-prized stiletto of Italian workmanship.

Startled by this coincidence, Mr. Grey ventured upon a question or two, which
led to his cousin’s confiding to him the fact that this article had disappeared
after a large supper given by him to a number of friends and gentlemen from
London. This piece of knowledge, still further coinciding with his own
experience, caused Mr. Grey to ask for a list of his guests, in the hope of
finding among them one who had been in his own house.

His cousin, quite unsuspicious of the motives underlying this request, hastened
to write out this list, and together they pored over the names, crossing out
such as were absolutely above suspicion. When they had reached the end of the
list, but two names remained uncrossed. One was that of a rattle-pated youth
who had come in the wake of a highly reputed connection of theirs, and the
other that of an American tourist who gave all the evidences of great wealth
and had presented letters to leading men in London which had insured him
attentions not usually accorded to foreigners. This man’s name was Fairbrother,
and, the moment Mr. Grey heard it, he recalled the fact that an American with a
peculiar name, but with a reputation for wealth, had been among his guests on
the suspected evening.

Hiding the effect produced upon him by this discovery, he placed his finger on
this name and begged his cousin to look up its owner’s antecedents and present
reputation in America; but, not content with this, he sent his own agent over
to New York—whither, as he soon learned, this gentleman had returned. The
result was an apparent vindication of the suspected American. He was found to
be a well-known citizen of the great metropolis, moving in the highest circles
and with a reputation for wealth won by an extraordinary business instinct.

To be sure, he had not always enjoyed these distinctions. Like many another
self-made man, he had risen from a menial position in a Western mining camp, to
be the owner of a mine himself, and so up through the various gradations of a
successful life to a position among the foremost business men of New York. In
all these changes he had maintained a name for honest, if not generous,
dealing. He lived in great style, had married and was known to have but one
extravagant fancy. This was for the unique and curious in art,—a taste
which, if report spoke true, cost him many thousands each year.

This last was the only clause in the report which pointed in any way toward
this man being the possible abstractor of the Great Mogul, as Mr. Grey’s famous
diamond was called, and the latter was too just a man and too much of a fancier
in this line himself to let a fact of this kind weigh against the favorable
nature of the rest. So he recalled his agent, double-locked his cabinets and
continued to confine his display of valuables to articles which did not suggest
jewels. Thus three years passed, when one day he heard mention made of a
wonderful diamond which had been seen in New York. From its description he
gathered that it must be the one surreptitiously abstracted from his cabinet,
and when, after some careful inquiries, he learned that the name of its
possessor was Fairbrother, he awoke to his old suspicions and determined to
probe this matter to the bottom. But secretly. He still had too much
consideration to attack a man in high position without full proof.

Knowing of no one he could trust with so delicate an inquiry as this had now
become, he decided to undertake it himself, and for this purpose embraced the
first opportunity to cross the water. He took his daughter with him because he
had resolved never to let his one remaining child out of his sight. But she
knew nothing of his plans or reason for travel. No one did. Indeed, only his
lawyer and the police were aware of the loss of his diamond.

His first surprise on landing was to learn that Mr. Fairbrother, of whose
marriage he had heard, had quarreled with his wife and that, in the separation
which had occurred, the diamond had fallen to her share and was consequently in
her possession at the present moment.

This changed matters, and Mr. Grey’s only thought now was to surprise her with
the diamond on her person and by one glance assure himself that it was indeed
the Great Mogul. Since Mrs. Fairbrother was reported to be a beautiful woman
and a great society belle, he saw no reason why he should not meet her
publicly, and that very soon. He therefore accepted invitations and attended
theaters and balls, though his daughter had suffered from her voyage and was
not able to accompany him. But alas! he soon learned that Mrs. Fairbrother was
never seen with her diamond and, one evening after an introduction at the
opera, that she never talked about it. So there he was, balked on the very
threshold of his enterprise, and, recognizing the fact, was preparing to take
his now seriously ailing daughter south, when he received an invitation to a
ball of such a select character that he decided to remain for it, in the hope
that Mrs. Fairbrother would be tempted to put on all her splendor for so
magnificent a function and thus gratify him with a sight of his own diamond.
During the days that intervened he saw her several times and very soon decided
that, in spite of her reticence in regard to this gem, she was not sufficiently
in her husband’s confidence to know the secret of its real ownership. This
encouraged him to attempt piquing her into wearing the diamond on this
occasion. He talked of precious stones and finally of his own, declaring that
he had a connoisseur’s eye for a fine diamond, but had seen none as yet in
America to compete with a specimen or two he had in his own cabinets. Her eye
flashed at this and, though she said nothing, he felt sure that her presence at
Mr. Ramsdell’s house would be enlivened by her great jewel.

So much for Mr. Grey’s attitude in this matter up to the night of the ball. It
is interesting enough, but that of Abner Fairbrother is more interesting still
and much more serious.

His was indeed the hand which had abstracted the diamond from Mr. Grey’s
collection. Under ordinary conditions he was an honest man. He prized his good
name and would not willingly risk it, but he had little real conscience, and
once his passions were aroused nothing short of the object desired would
content him. At once forceful and subtle, he had at his command infinite
resources which his wandering and eventful life had heightened almost to the
point of genius. He saw this stone, and at once felt an inordinate desire to
possess it. He had coveted other men’s treasures before, but not as he coveted
this. What had been longing in other cases was mania in this. There was a woman
in America whom he loved. She was beautiful and she was splendor-loving. To see
her with this glory on her breast would be worth almost any risk which his
imagination could picture at the moment. Before the diamond had left his hand
he had made up his mind to have it for his own. He knew that it could not be
bought, so he set about obtaining it by an act he did not hesitate to
acknowledge to himself as criminal. But he did not act without precautions.
Having a keen eye and a proper sense or size and color, he carried away from
his first view of it a true image of the stone, and when he was next admitted
to Mr. Grey’s cabinet room he had provided the means for deceiving the owner
whose character he had sounded.

He might have failed in his daring attempt if he had not been favored by a
circumstance no one could have foreseen. A daughter of the house, Cecilia by
name, lay critically ill at the time, and Mr. Grey’s attention was more or less
distracted. Still the probabilities are that he would have noticed something
amiss with the stone when he came to restore it to its place, if, just as he
took it in his hand, there had not risen in the air outside a weird and wailing
cry which at once seized upon the imagination of the dozen gentlemen present,
and so nearly prostrated their host that he thrust the box he held unopened
into the safe and fell upon his knees, a totally unnerved man, crying:

“The banshee! the banshee! My daughter will die!”

Another hand than his locked the safe and dropped the key into the distracted
father’s pocket.

Thus a superhuman daring conjoined with a special intervention of fate had made
the enterprise a successful one; and Fairbrother, believing more than ever in
his star, carried this invaluable jewel back with him to New York. The
stiletto—well, the taking of that was a folly, for which he had never
ceased to blush. He had not stolen it; he would not steal so inconsiderable an
object. He had merely put it in his pocket when he saw it forgotten, passed
over, given to him, as it were. That the risk, contrary to that involved in the
taking of the diamond, was far in excess of the gratification obtained, he
realized almost immediately, but, having made the break, and acquired the
curio, he spared himself all further thought or the consequences, and presently
resumed his old life in New York, none the worse, to all appearances, for these
escapades from virtue and his usual course of fair and open dealing.

But he was soon the worse from jealousy of the wife which his new possession
had possibly won for him. She had answered all his expectations as mistress of
his home and the exponent of his wealth; and for a year, nay, for two, he had
been perfectly happy. Indeed, he had been more than that; he had been
triumphant, especially on that memorable evening when, after a cautious delay
of months, he had dared to pin that unapproachable sparkler to her breast and
present her thus bedecked to the smart set—her whom his talents, and
especially his far-reaching business talents, had made his own.

Recalling the old days of barter and sale across the pine counter in Colorado,
he felt that his star rode high, and for a time was satisfied with his wife’s
magnificence and the prestige she gave his establishment. But pride is not all,
even to a man of his daring ambition. Gradually he began to realize, first,
that she was indifferent to him, next, that she despised him, and, lastly, that
she hated him. She had dozens at her feet, any of whom was more agreeable to
her than her own husband; and, though he could not put his finger on any
definite fault, he soon wearied of a beauty that only glowed for others, and
made up his mind to part with her rather than let his heart be eaten out by
unappeasable longing for what his own good sense told him would never be his.

Yet, being naturally generous, he was satisfied with a separation, and, finding
it impossible to think of her as other than extravagantly fed, waited on and
clothed, he allowed her a good share of his fortune with the one proviso, that
she should not disgrace him. But the diamond she stole, or rather carried off
in her naturally high-handed manner with the rest of her jewels. He had never
given it to her. She knew the value he set on it, but not how he came by it,
and would have worn it quite freely if he had not very soon given her to
understand that the pleasure of doing so ceased when she left his house. As she
could not be seen with it without occasioning public remark, she was forced,
though much against her will, to heed his wishes, and enjoy its brilliancy in
private. But once, when he was out of town, she dared to appear with this
fortune on her breast, and again while on a visit West,—and her husband
heard of it.

Mr. Fairbrother had had the jewel set to suit him, not in Florence, as Sears
had said, but by a skilful workman he had picked up in great poverty in a
remote corner of Williamsburg. Always in dread of some complication, he had
provided himself with a second facsimile in paste, this time of an astonishing
brightness, and this facsimile he had had set precisely like the true stone.
Then he gave the workman a thousand dollars and sent him back to Switzerland.
This imitation in paste he showed nobody, but he kept it always in his pocket;
why, he hardly knew. Meantime, he had one confidant, not of his crime, but of
his sentiments toward his wife, and the determination he had secretly made to
proceed to extremities if she continued to disobey him.

This was a man of his own age or older, who had known him in his early days,
and had followed all his fortunes. He had been the master of Fairbrother then,
but he was his servant now, and as devoted to his interests as if they were his
own,—which, in a way, they were. For eighteen years he had stood at the
latter’s right hand, satisfied to look no further, but, for the last three, his
glances had strayed a foot or two beyond his master, and taken in his master’s
wife.

The feelings which this man had for Mrs. Fairbrother were peculiar. She was a
mere adjunct to her great lord, but she was a very gorgeous one, and, while he
could not imagine himself doing anything to thwart him whose bread he ate, and
to whose rise he had himself contributed, yet if he could remain true to him
without injuring he; he would account himself happy. The day came when he had
to decide between them, and, against all chances, against his own preconceived
notion of what he would do under these circumstances, he chose to consider her.

This day came when, in the midst of growing complacency and an intense interest
in some new scheme which demanded all his powers, Abner Fairbrother learned
from the papers that Mr. Grey, of English Parliamentary fame, had arrived in
New York on an indefinite visit. As no cause was assigned for the visit beyond
a natural desire on the part of this eminent statesman to see this great
country, Mr. Fairbrother’s fears reached a sudden climax, and he saw himself
ruined and for ever disgraced if the diamond now so unhappily out of his hands
should fall under the eyes of its owner, whose seeming quiet under its loss had
not for a moment deceived him. Waiting only long enough to make sure that the
distinguished foreigner was likely to accept social attentions, and so in all
probability would be brought in contact with Mrs. Fairbrother, he sent her by
his devoted servant a peremptory message, in which he demanded back his
diamond; and, upon her refusing to heed this, followed it up by another, in
which he expressly stated that if she took it out of the safe deposit in which
he had been told she was wise enough to keep it, or wore it so much as once
during the next three months, she would pay for her presumption with her life.

This was no idle threat, though she chose to regard it as such, laughing in the
old servant’s face and declaring that she would run the risk if the notion
seized her. But the notion did not seem to seize her at once, and her husband
was beginning to take heart, when he heard of the great ball about to be given
by the Ramsdells and realized that if she were going to be tempted to wear the
diamond at all, it would be at this brilliant function given in honor of the
one man he had most cause to fear in the whole world.

Sears, seeing the emotion he was under, watched him closely. They had both been
on the point of starting for New Mexico to visit a mine in which Mr.
Fairbrother was interested, and he waited with inconceivable anxiety to see if
his master would change his plans. It was while he was in this condition of
mind that he was seen to shake his fist at Mrs. Fairbrother’s passing figure; a
menace naturally interpreted as directed against her, but which, if we know the
man, was rather the expression of his anger against the husband who could
rebuke and threaten so beautiful a creature. Meanwhile, Mr. Fairbrother’s
preparations went on and, three weeks before the ball, they started. Mr.
Fairbrother had business in Chicago and business in Denver. It was two weeks
and more before he reached La Junta. Sears counted the days. At La Junta they
had a long conversation; or rather Mr. Fairbrother talked and Sears listened.
The sum of what he said was this: He had made up his mind to have back his
diamond. He was going to New York to get it. He was going alone, and as he
wished no one to know that he had gone or that his plans had been in any way
interrupted, the other was to continue on to El Moro, and, passing himself off
as Fairbrother, hire a room at the hotel and shut himself up in it for ten days
on any plea his ingenuity might suggest. If at the end of that time Fairbrother
should rejoin him, well and good. They would go on together to Santa Fe. But if
for any reason the former should delay his return, then Sears was to exercise
his own judgment as to the length of time he should retain his borrowed
personality; also as to the advisability of pushing on to the mine and entering
on the work there, as had been planned between them.

Sears knew what all this meant. He understood what was in his master’s mind, as
well as if he had been taken into his full confidence, and openly accepted his
part of the business with seeming alacrity, even to the point of supplying
Fairbrother with suitable references as to the ability of one James Wellgood to
fill a waiter’s place at fashionable functions. It was not the first he had
given him. Seventeen years before he had written the same, minus the last
phrase. That was when he was the master and Fairbrother the man. But he did not
mean to play the part laid out for him, for all his apparent acquiescence. He
began by following the other’s instructions. He exchanged clothes with him and
other necessaries, and took the train for La Junta at or near the time that
Fairbrother started east. But once at El Moro—once registered there as
Abner Fairbrother from New York—he took a different course from the one
laid out for him,—a course which finally brought him into his master’s
wake and landed him at the same hour in New York.

This is what he did. Instead of shutting himself up in his room he expressed an
immediate desire to visit some neighboring mines, and, procuring a good horse,
started off at the first available moment. He rode north, lost himself in the
mountains, and wandered till he found a guide intelligent enough to lend
himself to his plans. To this guide he confided his horse for the few days he
intended to be gone, paying him well and promising him additional money if,
during his absence, he succeeded in circulating the report that he, Abner
Fairbrother, had gone deep into the mountains, bound for such and such a camp.

Having thus provided an alibi, not only for himself, but for his master, too,
in case he should need it, he took the direct road to the nearest railway
station, and started on his long ride east. He did not expect to overtake the
man he had been personating, but fortune was kinder than is usual in such
cases, and, owing to a delay caused by some accident to a freight train, he
arrived in Chicago within a couple of hours of Mr. Fairbrother, and started out
of that city on the same train. But not on the same car. Sears had caught a
glimpse of Fairbrother on the platform, and was careful to keep out of his
sight. This was easy enough. He bought a compartment in the sleeper and stayed
in it till they arrived at the Grand Central Station. Then he hastened out and,
fortune favoring him with another glimpse of the man in whose movements he was
so interested, followed him into the streets.

Fairbrother had shaved off his beard before leaving El Moro. Sears had shaved
his off on the train. Both were changed, the former the more, owing to a
peculiarity of his mouth which up till now he had always thought best to cover.
Sears, therefore, walked behind him without fear, and was almost at his heels
when this owner of one of New York’s most notable mansions, entered, with a
spruce air, the doors of a prominent caterer.

Understanding the plot now, and having everything to fear for his mistress, he
walked the streets for some hours in a state of great indecision. Then he went
up to her apartment. But he had no sooner come within sight of it than a sense
of disloyalty struck him and he slunk away, only to come sidling back when it
was too late and she had started for the ball.

Trembling with apprehension, but still strangely divided in his impulses,
wishing to serve master and mistress both, without disloyalty to the one or
injury to the other, he hesitated and argued with himself, till his fears for
the latter drove him to Mr. Ramsdell’s house.

The night was a stormy one. The heaviest snow of the season was falling with a
high gale blowing down the Sound. As he approached the house, which, as we
know, is one of the modern ones in the Riverside district, he felt his heart
fail him. But as he came nearer and got the full effect of glancing lights,
seductive music, and the cheery bustle of crowding carriages, he saw in his
mind’s eye such a picture of his beautiful mistress, threatened, unknown to
herself, in a quarter she little realized, that he lost all sense of what had
hitherto deterred him. Making then and there his great choice, he looked about
for the entrance, with the full intention of seeing and warning her.

But this, he presently perceived, was totally impracticable. He could neither
go to her nor expect her to come to him; meanwhile, time was passing, and if
his master was there—The thought made his head dizzy, and, situated as he
was, among the carriages, he might have been run over in his confusion if his
eyes had not suddenly fallen on a lighted window, the shade of which had been
inadvertently left up.

Within this window, which was only a few feet above his head, stood the glowing
image of a woman clad in pink and sparkling with jewels. Her face was turned
from him, but he recognized her splendor as that of the one woman who could
never be too gorgeous for his taste; and, alive to this unexpected opportunity,
he made for this window with the intention of shouting up to her and so
attracting her attention.

But this proved futile, and, driven at last to the end of his resources, he
tore out a slip of paper from his note-book and, in the dark and with the
blinding snow in his eyes, wrote the few broken sentences which he thought
would best warn her, without compromising his master. The means he took to
reach her with this note I have already related. As soon as he saw it in her
hands he fled the place and took the first train west. He was in a pitiable
condition, when, three days later, he reached the small station from which he
had originally set out. The haste, the exposure, the horror of the crime he had
failed to avert, had undermined his hitherto excellent constitution, and the
symptoms of a serious illness were beginning to make themselves manifest. But
he, like his indomitable master, possessed a great fund of energy and
willpower. He saw that if he was to save Abner Fairbrother (and now that Mrs.
Fairbrother was dead, his old master was all the world to him) he must make
Fairbrother’s alibi good by carrying on the deception as planned by the latter,
and getting as soon as possible to his camp in the New Mexico mountains. He
knew that he would have strength to do this and he went about it without
sparing himself.

Making his way into the mountains, he found the guide and his horse at the
place agreed upon and, paying the guide enough for his services to insure a
quiet tongue, rode back toward El Moro where he was met and sent on to Santa Fe
as already related.

Such is the real explanation of the well-nigh unintelligible scrawl found in
Mrs. Fairbrother’s hand after her death. As to the one which left Miss Grey’s
bedside for this same house, it was, alike in the writing and sending, the
loving freak of a very sick but tender-hearted girl. She had noted the look
with which Mr. Grey had left her, and, in her delirious state, thought that a
line in her own hand would convince him of her good condition and make it
possible for him to enjoy the evening. She was, however, too much afraid of her
nurse to write it openly, and though we never found that scrawl, it was
doubtless not very different in appearance from the one with which I had
confounded it. The man to whom it was intrusted stopped for too many warming
drinks on his way for it ever to reach Mr. Ramsdell’s house. He did not even
return home that night, and when he did put in an appearance the next morning,
he was dismissed.

This takes me back to the ball and Mrs. Fairbrother. She had never had much
fear of her husband till she received his old servant’s note in the peculiar
manner already mentioned. This, coming through the night and the wet and with
all the marks of hurry upon it, did impress her greatly and led her to take the
first means which offered of ridding herself of her dangerous ornament. The
story of this we know.

Meanwhile, a burning heart and a scheming brain were keeping up their deadly
work a few paces off under the impassive aspect and active movements of the
caterer’s newly-hired waiter. Abner Fairbrother, whose real character no one
had ever been able to sound, unless it was the man who had known him in his
days of struggle, was one of those dangerous men who can conceal under a still
brow and a noiseless manner the most violent passions and the most desperate
resolves. He was angry with his wife, who was deliberately jeopardizing his
good name, and he had come there to kill her if he found her flaunting the
diamond in Mr. Grey’s eyes; and though no one could have detected any change in
his look and manner as he passed through the room where these two were
standing, the doom of that fair woman was struck when he saw the eager scrutiny
and indescribable air of recognition with which this long-defrauded gentleman
eyed his own diamond.

He had meant to attack her openly, seize the diamond, fling it at Mr. Grey’s
feet, and then kill himself. That had been his plan. But when he found, after a
round or two among the guests, that nobody looked at him, and nobody recognized
the well-known millionaire in the automaton-like figure with the
formally-arranged whiskers and sleekly-combed hair, colder purposes intervened,
and he asked himself if it would not be possible to come upon her alone, strike
his blow, possess himself of the diamond, and make for parts unknown before his
identity could be discovered. He loved life even without the charm cast over it
by this woman. Its struggles and its hard-bought luxuries fascinated him. If
Mr. Grey suspected him, why, Mr. Grey was English, and he a resourceful
American. If it came to an issue, the subtle American would win if Mr. Grey
were not able to point to the flaw which marked this diamond as his own. And
this, Fairbrother had provided against, and would succeed in if he could hold
his passions in check and be ready with all his wit when matters reached a
climax.

Such were the thoughts and such the plans of the quiet, attentive man who, with
his tray laden with coffee and ices, came and went an unnoticed unit among
twenty other units similarly quiet and similarly attentive. He waited on lady
after lady, and when, on the reissuing of Mr. Durand from the alcove, he passed
in there with his tray and his two cups of coffee, nobody heeded and nobody
remembered.

It was all over in a minute, and he came out, still unnoted, and went to the
supper-room for more cups of coffee. But that minute had set its seal on his
heart for ever. She was sitting there alone with her side to the entrance, so
that he had to pass around in order to face her. Her elegance and a certain air
she had of remoteness from the scene of which she was the glowing center when
she smiled, awed him and made his hand loosen a little on the slender stiletto
he held close against the bottom of the tray. But such resolution does not
easily yield, and his fingers soon tightened again, this time with a deadly
grip.

He had expected to meet the flash of the diamond as he bent over her, and
dreaded doing so for fear it would attract his eye from her face and so cost
him the sight of that startled recognition which would give the desired point
to his revenge. But the tray, as he held it, shielded her breast from view, and
when he lowered it to strike his blow, he thought of nothing but aiming so
truly as to need no second blow. He had had his experience in those old years
in a mining camp, and he did not fear failure in this. What he did fear was her
utterance of some cry,—possibly his name. But she was stunned with
horror, and did not shriek,—horror of him whose eyes she met with her
glassy and staring ones as he slowly drew forth the weapon.

Why he drew it forth instead of leaving it in her breast he could not say.
Possibly because it gave him his moment of gloating revenge. When in another
instant, her hands flew up, and the tray tipped, and the china fell, the
revulsion came, and his eyes opened to two facts: the instrument of death was
still in his grasp, and the diamond, on whose possession he counted, was gone
from his wife’s breast.

It was a horrible moment. Voices could be heard approaching the
alcove,—laughing voices that in an instant would take on the note of
horror. And the music,—ah! how low it had sunk, as if to give place to
the dying murmur he now heard issuing from her lips. But he was a man of iron.
Thrusting the stiletto into the first place that offered, he drew the curtains
over the staring windows, then slid out with his tray, calm, speckless and
attentive as ever, dead to thought, dead to feeling, but aware, quite aware in
the secret depths of his being that something besides his wife had been killed
that night, and that sleep and peace of mind and all pleasure in the past were
gone for ever.

It was not he I saw enter the alcove and come out with news of the crime. He
left this role to one whose antecedents could better bear investigation. His
part was to play, with just the proper display of horror and curiosity, the
ordinary menial brought face to face with a crime in high life. He could do
this. He could even sustain his share in the gossip, and for this purpose kept
near the other waiters. The absence of the diamond was all that troubled him.
That brought him at times to the point of vertigo. Had Mr. Grey recognized and
claimed it? If so, he, Abner Fairbrother, must remain James Wellgood, the
waiter, indefinitely. This would require more belief in his star than ever he
had had yet. But as the moments passed, and no contradiction was given to the
universally-received impression that the same hand which had struck the blow
had taken the diamond, even this cause of anxiety left his breast and he faced
people with more and more courage till the moment when he suddenly heard that
the diamond had been found in the possession of a man perfectly strange to him,
and saw the inspector pass it over into the hands of Mr. Grey.

Instantly he realized that the crisis of his fate was on him. If Mr. Grey were
given time to identify this stone, he, Abner Fairbrother, was lost and the
diamond as well. Could he prevent this? There was but one way, and that way he
took. Making use of his ventriloquial powers—he had spent a year on the
public stage in those early days, playing just such tricks as these—he
raised the one cry which he knew would startle Mr. Grey more than any other in
the world, and when the diamond fell from his hand, as he knew it would, he
rushed forward and, in the act of picking it up, made that exchange which not
only baffled the suspicions of the statesman, but restored to him the diamond,
for whose possession he was now ready to barter half his remaining days.

Meanwhile Mr. Grey had had his own anxieties. During this whole long evening,
he had been sustained by the conviction that the diamond of which he had caught
but one passing glimpse was the Great Mogul of his once famous collection. So
sure was he of this, that at one moment he found himself tempted to enter the
alcove, demand a closer sight of the diamond and settle the question then and
there. He even went so far as to take in his hands the two cups of coffee which
should serve as his excuse for this intrusion, but his naturally chivalrous
instincts again intervened, and he set the cups down again—this I did not
see—and turned his steps toward the library with the intention of writing
her a note instead. But though he found paper and pen to hand, he could find no
words for so daring a request, and he came back into the hall, only to hear
that the woman he had contemplated addressing had just been murdered and her
great jewel stolen.

The shock was too much, and as there was no leaving the house then, he
retreated again to the library where he devoured his anxieties in silence till
hope revived again at sight of the diamond in the inspector’s hand, only to
vanish under the machinations of one he did not even recognize when he took the
false jewel from his hand.

The American had outwitted the Englishman and the triumph of evil was complete.

Or so it seemed. But if the Englishman is slow, he is sure. Thrown off the
track for the time being, Mr. Grey had only to see a picture of the stiletto in
the papers, to feel again that, despite all appearances, Fairbrother was really
not only at the bottom of the thefts from which his cousin and himself had
suffered, but of this frightful murder as well. He made no open move—he
was a stranger in a strange land and much disturbed, besides, by his fears for
his daughter—but he started a secret inquiry through his old valet, whom
he ran across in the street, and whose peculiar adaptability for this kind of
work he well knew.

The aim of these inquiries was to determine if the person, whom two physicians
and three assistants were endeavoring to nurse back to health on the top of a
wild plateau in a remote district of New Mexico, was the man he had once
entertained at his own board in England, and the adventures thus incurred would
make a story in itself. But the result seemed to justify them. Word came after
innumerable delays, very trying to Mr. Grey, that he was not the same, though
he bore the name of Fairbrother, and was considered by every one around there
to be Fairbrother. Mr. Grey, ignorant of the relations between the millionaire
master and his man which sometimes led to the latter’s personifying the former,
was confident of his own mistake and bitterly ashamed of his own suspicions.

But a second message set him right. A deception was being practised down in New
Mexico, and this was how his spy had found it out. Certain letters which went
into the sick tent were sent away again, and always to one address. He had
learned the address. It was that of James Wellgood, C—, Maine. If Mr.
Grey would look up this Wellgood he would doubtless learn something of the man
he was so interested in.

This gave Mr. Grey personally something to do, for he would trust no second
party with a message involving the honor of a possibly innocent man. As the
place was accessible by railroad and his duty clear, he took the journey
involved and succeeded in getting a glimpse in the manner we know of the man
James Wellgood. This time he recognized Fairbrother and, satisfied from the
circumstances of the moment that he would be making no mistake in accusing him
of having taken the Great Mogul, he intercepted him in his flight, as you have
already read, and demanded the immediate return of his great diamond.

And Fairbrother? We shall have to go back a little to bring his history up to
this critical instant.

When he realized the trend of public opinion; when he saw a perfectly innocent
man committed to the Tombs for his crime, he was first astonished and then
amused at what he continued to regard as the triumph of his star. But he did
not start for El Moro, wise as he felt it would be to do so. Something of the
fascination usual with criminals kept him near the scene of his
crime,—that, and an anxiety to see how Sears would conduct himself in the
Southwest. That Sears had followed him to New York, knew his crime, and was the
strongest witness against him, was as far from his thoughts as that he owed him
the warning which had all but balked him of his revenge. When therefore he read
in the papers that “Abner Fairbrother” had been found sick in his camp at Santa
Fe, he felt that nothing now stood in the way of his entering on the plans he
had framed for ultimate escape. On his departure from El Moro he had taken the
precaution of giving Sears the name of a certain small town on the coast of
Maine where his mail was to be sent in case of a great emergency. He had chosen
this town for two reasons. First, because he knew all about it, having had a
young man from there in his employ; secondly, because of its neighborhood to
the inlet where an old launch of his had been docked for the winter. Always
astute, always precautionary, he had given orders to have this launch floated
and provisioned, so that now he had only to send word to the captain, to have
at his command the best possible means of escape.

Meanwhile, he must make good his position in C—. He did it in the way we
know. Satisfied that the only danger he need fear was the discovery of the
fraud practised in New Mexico, he had confidence enough in Sears, even in his
present disabled state, to take his time and make himself solid with the people
of C—while waiting for the ice to disappear from the harbor. This
accomplished and cruising made possible, he took a flying trip to New York to
secure such papers and valuables as he wished to carry out of the country with
him. They were in safe deposit, but that safe deposit was in his strong room in
the center of his house in Eighty-sixth Street (a room which you will remember
in connection with Sweetwater’s adventure). To enter his own door with his own
latch-key, in the security and darkness of a stormy night, seemed to this
self-confident man a matter of no great risk. Nor did he find it so. He reached
his strong room, procured his securities and was leaving the house, without
having suffered an alarm, when some instinct of self-preservation suggested to
him the advisability of arming himself with a pistol. His own was in Maine, but
he remembered where Sears kept his; he had seen it often enough in that old
trunk he had brought with him from the Sierras. He accordingly went up stairs
to the steward’s room, found the pistol and became from that instant
invincible. But in restoring the articles he had pulled out he came across a
photograph of his wife and lost himself over it and went mad, as we have heard
the detective tell. That later, he should succeed in trapping this detective
and should leave the house without a qualm as to his fate shows what sort of
man he was in moments of extreme danger. I doubt, from what I have heard of him
since, if he ever gave two thoughts to the man after he had sprung the double
lock on him; which, considering his extreme ignorance of who his victim was or
what relation he bore to his own fate, was certainly remarkable.

Back again in C—, he made his final preparations for departure. He had
already communicated with the captain of the launch, who may or may not have
known his passenger’s real name. He says that he supposed him to be some agent
of Mr. Fairbrother’s; that among the first orders he received from that
gentleman was one to the effect that he was to follow the instructions of one
Wellgood as if they came from himself; that he had done so, and not till he had
Mr. Fairbrother on board had he known whom he was expected to carry into other
waters. However, there are many who do not believe the captain. Fairbrother had
a genius for rousing devotion in the men who worked for him, and probably this
man was another Sears.

To leave speculation, all was in train, then, and freedom but a quarter of a
mile away, when the boat he was in was stopped by another and he heard Mr.
Grey’s voice demanding the jewel.

The shock was severe and he had need of all the nerve which had hitherto made
his career so prosperous, to sustain the encounter with the calmness which
alone could carry off the situation. Declaring that the diamond was in New
York, he promised to restore it if the other would make the sacrifice worth
while by continuing to preserve his hitherto admirable silence concerning him:
Mr. Grey responded by granting him just twenty-four hours; and when Fairbrother
said the time was not long enough and allowed his hand to steal ominously to
his breast, he repeated still more decisively, “Twenty-four hours.”

The ex-miner honored bravery. Withdrawing his hand from his breast, he brought
out a note-book instead of a pistol and, in a tone fully as determined,
replied: “The diamond is in a place inaccessible to any one but myself. If you
will put your name to a promise not to betray me for the thirty-six hours I
ask, I will sign one to restore you the diamond before one-thirty o’clock on
Friday.”

“I will,” said Mr. Grey.

So the promises were written and duly exchanged. Mr. Grey returned to New York
and Fairbrother boarded his launch.

The diamond really was in New York, and to him it seemed more politic to use it
as a means of securing Mr. Grey’s permanent silence than to fly the country,
leaving a man behind him who knew his secret and could precipitate his doom
with a word. He would, therefore, go to New York, play his last great card and,
if he lost, be no worse off than he was now. He did not mean to lose.

But he had not calculated on any inherent weakness in himself,—had not
calculated on Providence. A dish tumbled and with it fell into chaos the fair
structure of his dreams. With the cry of “Grizel! Grizel!” he gave up his
secret, his hopes and his life. There was no retrieval possible after that. The
star of Abner Fairbrother had set.

Mr. Grey and his daughter learned very soon of my relations to Mr. Durand, but
through the precautions of the inspector and my own powers of self-control, no
suspicion has ever crossed their minds of the part I once played in the matter
of the stiletto.

This was amply proved by the invitation Mr. Durand and I have just received to
spend our honeymoon at Darlington Manor.