The Dead Letter: An American Romance
by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor · English · Gutenberg #46708 · 543,425 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dead Letter: An American Romance
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Dead Letter: An American Romance
Author: Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
Release date: August 28, 2014 [eBook #46708]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46708
Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Sonya Schermann and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD LETTER: AN AMERICAN ROMANCE ***
[Illustration:
Page 183.
THE PORTRAIT.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
DEAD LETTER:
AN AMERICAN ROMANCE.
BY SEELEY REGESTER.
NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND COMPANY,
_118 WILLIAM STREET_.
1867.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
BEADLE AND COMPANY.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS--PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER, 9
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS OF A NIGHT, 11
CHAPTER III.
THE FIGURE BENEATH THE TREES, 23
CHAPTER IV.
MORELAND VILLA, 34
CHAPTER V.
MR. BURTON, THE DETECTIVE, 49
CHAPTER VI.
TWO LINKS IN THE CHAIN, 72
CHAPTER VII.
ELEANOR, 86
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HAUNTED GRAVE, 94
CHAPTER IX.
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY, 114
CHAPTER X.
THE ANNIVERSARY, 132
CHAPTER XI.
THE LITTLE GUEST AND THE APPARITION, 154
CHAPTER XII.
THE NIGHT IN MORELAND VILLA, 176
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SHADOW ASSUMES SHAPE, 188
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER, 199
CHAPTER II.
OUR VISITS, 212
CHAPTER III.
THE CONFESSION, 228
CHAPTER IV.
EMBARKED FOR CALIFORNIA, 243
CHAPTER V.
ON THE TRAIL, 252
CHAPTER VI.
AT LAST--AT LAST, 261
CHAPTER VII.
NOW FOR HOME AGAIN, 278
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RIPE HOUR, 383
CHAPTER IX.
JOINING THE MISSING LINKS, 296
CHAPTER X.
THE NEW LIFE, 305
ILLUSTRATIONS.
BAFFLED, 64
ELEANOR, 90
"WELL, HOW DO YOU LIKE MY LOOKS?" 161
THE PORTRAIT--Frontispiece, 183
IN THE OAK, 223
"I NEVER ACCUSED YOU," 297
THE DEAD LETTER.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER.
I paused suddenly in my work. Over a year's experience in the Dead
Letter office had given a mechanical rapidity to my movements in
opening, noting and classifying the contents of the bundles before me;
and, so far from there being any thing exciting to the curiosity, or
interesting to the mind, in the employment, it was of the most
monotonous character.
Young ladies whose love letters have gone astray, evil men whose plans
have been confided in writing to their confederates, may feel but
little apprehension of the prying eyes of the Department; nothing
attracts it but objects of material value--sentiment is below par; it
gives attention only to such tangible interests as are represented by
bank-bills, gold-pieces, checks, jewelry, miniatures, et cetera.
Occasionally a grave clerk smiles sardonically at the ridiculous
character of some of the articles which come to light; sometimes,
perhaps, looks thoughtfully at a withered rosebud, or bunch of pressed
violets, a homely little pin-cushion, or a book-mark, wishing it had
reached its proper destination. I can not answer for other employees,
who may not have even this amount of heart and imagination to invest in
the dull business of a Government office; but when I was in the
Department I was guilty, at intervals, of such folly--yet I passed for
the coldest, most cynical man of them all.
The letter which I held in my paralyzed fingers when they so abruptly
ceased their dexterous movements, was contained in a closely-sealed
envelope, yellowed by time, and directed in a peculiar hand to "John
Owen, Peekskill, New York," and the date on the stamp was "October
18th, 1857"--making the letter two years old. I know not what magnetism
passed from it, putting me, as the spiritualists say, _en rapport_ with
it; I had not yet cut the lappet; and the only thing I could fix upon
as the cause of my attraction was, that at the date indicated on the
envelope, I had been a resident of Blankville, twenty miles from
Peekskill--and something about that date!
Yet this was no excuse for my agitation; I was not of an inquisitive
disposition; nor did "John Owen" belong to the circle of my
acquaintance. I sat there with such a strange expression upon my face,
that one of my fellows, remarking my mood, exclaimed jestingly:
"What is it, Redfield? A check for a hundred thousand?"
"I am sure I don't know; I haven't opened it," I answered, at random;
and with this I cut the wrapper, impelled by some strongly-defined,
irresistible influence to read the time-stained sheet inclosed. It ran
in this wise:
"DEAR SIR--It's too bad to disappoint you. Could not execute your
order, as everybody concerned will discover. What a charming
day!--good for taking a picture. That old friend I introduced you
to won't tell tales, and you had not better bother yourself to
visit him. The next time you find yourself in his arms, don't feel
in his left-hand pocket for the broken tooth-pick which I lent him.
He is welcome to it. If you're at the place of payment, I shan't be
there, not having fulfilled the order, and having given up my
emigration project, much against my will; so, govern yourself
accordingly. Sorry your prospects are so poor, and believe me, with
the greatest possible esteem,
"Your disappointed NEGOTIATOR."
To explain why this brief epistle, neither lucid nor interesting in
itself, should affect me as it did, I must go back to the time at which
it was written.
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS OF A NIGHT.
It was late in the afternoon of a cloudy, windy autumn day, that I left
the office of John Argyll, Esq., in his company, to take tea and spend
the evening in his family. I was a law-student in the office, and was
favored with more than ordinary kindness by him, on account of a
friendship that had existed between him and my deceased father. When
young men, they had started out in life together, in equal
circumstances; one had died early, just as fortune began to smile; the
other lived to continue in well-earned prosperity. Mr. Argyll had never
ceased to take an interest in the orphan son of his friend. He had
aided my mother in giving me a collegiate education, and had taken me
into his office to complete my law studies. Although I did not board at
his house, I was almost like a member of the family. There was always a
place for me at his table, with liberty to come and go when I pleased.
This being Saturday, I was expected to go home with him, and stay over
Sunday if I liked.
We quickened our steps as a few large drops were sprinkled over us out
of the darkening clouds.
"It will be a rainy night," said Mr. Argyll.
"It may clear away yet," I said, looking toward a rift in the west,
through which the declining sun was pouring a silver stream. He shook
his head doubtfully, and we hurried up the steps into the house, to
escape the threatened drenching.
Entering the parlors, we found no one but James, a nephew of Mr.
Argyll, a young man of about my own age, lounging upon a sofa.
"Where are the girls?"
"They haven't descended from the heavenly regions yet, uncle."
"Dressing themselves to death, I expect--it's Saturday evening, I
remember," smiled the indulgent father, passing on into the library.
I sat down by the west window, and looked out at the coming storm. I
did not like James Argyll much, nor he me; so that, as much as we were
thrown together, our intercourse continued constrained. On this
occasion, however, he seemed in excellent spirits, persisting in
talking on all kinds of indifferent subjects despite of my brief
replies. I was wondering when Eleanor would make her appearance.
At last she came. I heard her silk dress rustle down the stairs, and my
eyes were upon her when she entered the room. She was dressed with
unusual care, and her face wore a brilliant, expectant smile. The smile
was for neither of us. Perhaps James thought of it; I am sure I did,
with secret suffering--with a sharp pang which I was ashamed of, and
fought inwardly to conquer.
She spoke pleasantly to both of us, but with a preoccupied air not
flattering to our vanity. Too restless to sit, she paced up and down
the length of the parlors, seeming to radiate light as she walked, like
some superb jewel--so lustrous was her countenance and so fine her
costume. Little smiles would sparkle about her lips, little trills of
song break forth, as if she were unconscious of observers. She had a
right to be glad; she appeared to exult in her own beauty and happiness.
Presently she came to the window, and as she stood by my side, a burst
of glory streamed through the fast-closing clouds, enveloping her in a
golden atmosphere, tinting her black hair with purple, flushing her
clear cheeks and the pearls about her throat. The fragrance of the rose
she wore on her breast mingled with the light; for a moment I was
thrilled and overpowered; but the dark-blue eyes were not looking on
me--they were regarding the weather.
"How provoking that it should rain to-night," she said, and as the
slight cloud of vexation swept over her face, the blackness of night
closed over the gleam of sunset, so suddenly that we could hardly
discern each other.
"The rain will not keep Moreland away," I answered.
"Of course not--but I don't want him to get wet walking up from the
depot; and Billy has put up the carriage in view of the storm."
At that moment a wild gust of wind smote the house so that it shook,
and the rain came down with a roar that was deafening. Eleanor rung for
lights.
"Tell cook to be sure and have chocolate for supper--and cream for the
peaches," she said to the servant who came in to light the gas.
The girl smiled; she knew, in common with her mistress, who it was
preferred chocolate and liked cream with peaches; the love of a woman,
however sublime in some of its qualities, never fails in the tender
domestic instincts which delight in promoting the comfort and personal
tastes of its object.
"We need not have troubled ourselves to wear our new dresses," pouted
Mary, the younger sister, who had followed Eleanor down stairs "there
will be nobody here to-night."
Both James and myself objected to being dubbed nobody. The willful
young beauty said all the gay things she pleased, telling us she
certainly should not have worn her blue silks, nor puffed her hair for
us--
"--Nor for Henry Moreland either--he never looks at me after the first
minute. Engaged people are so stupid! I wish he and Eleanor would make
an end of it. If I'm ever going to be bridemaid, I want to be--"
"And a clear field afterward, Miss Molly," jested her cousin. "Come!
play that new polka for me."
"You couldn't hear it if I did. The rain is playing a polka this
evening, and the wind is dancing to it."
He laughed loudly--more loudly than the idle fancy warranted. "Let us
see if we can not make more noise than the storm," he said, going to
the piano and thumping out the most thunderous piece that he could
recall. I was not a musician, but it seemed to me there were more
discords than the law of harmony allowed; and Mary put her hands over
her ears, and ran away to the end of the room.
For the next half-hour the rain came down in wide sheets, flapping
against the windows, as the wind blew it hither and thither. James
continued at the piano, and Eleanor moved restlessly about, stealing
glances, now and then, at her tiny watch.
All at once there occurred one of those pauses which precede the fresh
outbreaking of a storm; as if startled by the sudden lull, James Argyll
paused in his playing; just then the shrill whistle of the locomotive
pierced the silence with more than usual power, as the evening train
swept around the curve of the hill not a quarter of a mile away, and
rushed on into the depot in the lower part of the village.
There is something unearthly in the scream of the "steam-eagle,"
especially when heard at night. He seems like a sentient thing, with a
will of his own, unbending and irresistible; and his cry is threatening
and defiant. This night it rose upon the storm prolonged and doleful.
I know not how it sounded to the others, but to me, whose imagination
was already wrought upon by the tempest and by the presence of the
woman I hopelessly loved, it came with an effect perfectly
overwhelming; it filled the air, even the perfumed, lighted air of the
parlor, full of a dismal wail. It threatened--I know not what. It
warned against some strange, unseen disaster. Then it sunk into a
hopeless cry, so full of mortal anguish, that I involuntarily put my
fingers to my ears. Perhaps James felt something of the same thing, for
he started from the piano-stool, walked twice or thrice across the
floor, then flung himself again upon the sofa, and for a long time sat
with his eyes shaded, neither speaking nor stirring.
Eleanor, with maiden artifice, took up a book, and composed herself to
pretend to read; she would not have her lover to know that she had been
so restless while awaiting his coming. Only Mary fluttered about like a
humming-bird, diving into the sweets of things, the music, the flowers,
whatever had honey in it; and teasing me in the intervals.
I have said that I loved Eleanor. I did, secretly, in silence and
regret, against my judgment and will, and because I could not help it.
I was quite certain that James loved her also, and I felt sorry for
him; sympathy was taught me by my own sufferings, though I had never
felt attracted toward his character. He seemed to me to be rather
sullen in temper, as well as selfish; and then again I reproached
myself for uncharitableness; it might have been his circumstances which
rendered him morose--he was dependent upon his uncle--and his
unhappiness which made him appear unamiable.
I loved, without a particle of hope. Eleanor was engaged to a young
gentleman in every way worthy of her: of fine demeanor, high social
position, and unblemished moral character. As much as her many admirers
may have envied Henry Moreland, they could not dislike him. To see the
young couple together was to feel that theirs would be one of those
"matches made in heaven"--in age, character, worldly circumstances,
beauty and cultivation, there was a rare correspondence.
Mr. Moreland was engaged with his father in a banking business in the
city of New York. They owned a summer villa in Blankville, and it had
been during his week of summer idleness here that he had made the
acquaintance of Eleanor Argyll.
At this season of the year his business kept him in the city; but he
was in the habit of coming out every Saturday afternoon and spending
Sabbath at the house of Mr. Argyll, the marriage which was to terminate
a betrothal of nearly two years being now not very far away. On her
nineteenth birthday, which came in December, Eleanor was to be married.
Another half-hour passed away and the expected guest did not arrive. He
usually reached the house in fifteen minutes after the arrival of the
train; I could see that his betrothed was playing nervously with her
watch-chain, though she kept her eyes fixed upon her book.
"Come, let us have tea; I am hungry," said Mr. Argyll, coming out of
the library. "I had a long ride after dinner. No use waiting,
Eleanor--he won't be here to-night"--he pinched her cheek to express
his sympathy for her disappointment--"a little shower didn't use to
keep beaux away when I was a boy."
"A _little_ rain, papa! I never heard such a torrent before; besides,
it was not the storm, of course, for he would have already taken the
cars before it commenced."
"To be sure! to be sure! defend your sweetheart, Ella--that's right!
But it may have been raining down there half the day--the storm comes
from that direction. James, are you asleep?"
"I'll soon see," cried Mary, pulling away the hand from her cousin's
face--"why, James, what is the matter?"
Her question caused us all to look at him; his face was of an ashy
paleness; his eyes burning like coals of fire.
"Nothing is the matter! I've been half asleep," he answered, laughing,
and springing to his feet. "Molly, shall I have the honor?"--she took
his offered arm, and we went in to tea.
The sight of the well-ordered table, at the head of which Eleanor
presided, the silver, the lights, the odor of the chocolate
overpowering the fainter fragrance of the tea, was enough to banish
thoughts of the tempest raging without, saving just enough
consciousness of it to enhance the enjoyment of the luxury within.
Even Eleanor could not be cold to the warmth and comfort of the hour;
the tears, which at first she could hardly keep out of her proud blue
eyes, went back to their sources; she made an effort to be gay, and
succeeded in being very charming. I think she still hoped he had been
delayed at the village; and that there would be a note for her at the
post-office, explaining his absence.
For once, the usually kind, considerate girl was selfish. Severe as was
the storm, she insisted upon sending a servant to the office; she could
not be kept in suspense until Monday.
She would hardly believe his statement, upon his return, that the mail
had been changed, and there was really no message whatever.
We went back to the parlor and passed a merry evening.
A touch of chagrin, a fear that we should suspect how deeply she was
disappointed, caused Eleanor to appear in unusually high spirits. She
sung whatever I asked of her; she played some delicious music; she
parried the wit of others with keener and brighter repartee; the roses
bloomed on her cheeks, the stars rose in her eyes. It was not an
altogether happy excitement; I knew that pride and loneliness were at
the bottom of it; but it made her brilliantly beautiful. I wondered
what Moreland would feel to see her so lovely--I almost regretted that
he was not there.
James, too, was in an exultant mood.
It was late when we retired. I was in a state of mental activity which
kept me awake for hours after. I never heard it rain as it did that
night--the water seemed to come down in solid masses--and,
occasionally, the wind shook the strong mansion as if it were a child.
I could not sleep. There was something awful in the storm. If I had had
a touch of superstition about me, I should have said that spirits were
abroad.
A healthy man, of a somewhat vivid imagination, but without
nervousness, unknowing bodily fear, I was still affected strangely. I
shuddered in my soft bed; the wild shriek of the locomotive lingered in
my ears; _something besides rain seemed beating at the windows_. Ah, my
God! I knew afterward what it was. It was a human soul, disembodied,
lingering about the place on earth most dear to it. The rest of the
household slept well, so far as I could judge, by its silence and deep
repose.
Toward morning I fell asleep; when I awoke the rain was over; the sun
shone brightly; the ground was covered with gay autumn leaves shaken
down by the wind and rain; the day promised well. I shook off the
impressions of the darkness, dressed myself quickly, for the
breakfast-bell rung, and descending, joined the family of my host at
the table. In the midst of our cheerful repast, the door-bell rung.
Eleanor started; the thought that her lover might have stayed at the
hotel adjoining the depot on account of the rain, must have crossed her
mind, for a rapid blush rose to her cheeks, and she involuntarily put
up a hand to the dark braids of her hair as if to give them a more
graceful touch. The servant came in, saying that a man at the door
wished to speak with Mr. Argyll and Mr. Redfield.
"He says it's important, and can't wait, sir."
We arose and went out into the hall, closing the door of the
breakfast-room behind us.
"I'm very sorry--I've got bad news--I hope you won't"--stammered the
messenger, a servant from the hotel.
"What is it?" demanded Mr. Argyll.
"The young gentleman that comes here--Moreland's his name, I
believe--was found dead on the road this morning."
"Dead!"
"They want you to come down to the inquest. They've got him in a room
of our house. They think it's a fit--there's no marks of any thing."
The father and I looked at each other; the lips of both were quivering;
we both thought of Eleanor.
"What shall I do?"
"I don't know, Mr. Argyll. I haven't had time to think."
"I can not--I can not--"
"Nor I--not just yet. Sarah, tell the young ladies we have gone out a
short time on business--and don't you breathe what you have heard.
Don't let any one in until we return--don't allow any one to see Miss
Eleanor. Be prudent."
Her frightened face did not promise much for her discretion.
Hastening to the hotel, already surrounded by many people, we found the
distressing message too true. Upon a lounge, in a private sitting-room,
lay the body of Henry Moreland! The coroner and a couple of physicians
had already arrived. It was their opinion that he had died from natural
causes, as there was not the least evidence of violence to be seen. The
face was as pleasant as in slumber; we could hardly believe him dead
until we touched the icy forehead, about which the thick ringlets of
brown hair clung, saturated with rain.
"What's this?" exclaimed one, as we began to relieve the corpse of its
wet garments, for the purpose of a further examination. It was a stab
in the back. Not a drop of blood--only a small triangular hole in the
cloak, through the other clothing, into the body. The investigation
soon revealed the nature of the death-wound; it had been given by a
fine, sharp dirk or stiletto. So firm and forcible had been the blow
that it had pierced the lung and struck the rib with sufficient force
to break the blade of the weapon, about three-quarters of an inch of
the point of which was found in the wound. Death must have been
instantaneous. The victim had fallen forward upon his face, bleeding
inwardly, which accounted for no blood having been at first perceived;
and as he had fallen, so he had lain through all the drenching storm of
that miserable night. When discovered by the first passer-by, after
daylight, he was lying on the path, by the side of the street, which
led up in the direction of Mr. Argyll's, his traveling-bag by his side,
his face to the ground. The bag was not touched, neither the watch and
money on his person, making it evident that robbery was not the object
of the murderer.
A stab in the back, in the double darkness of night and storm! What
enemy had Henry Moreland, to do this deed upon him?
It is useless now to repeat all the varying conjectures rising in our
minds, or which continued to engross the entire community for weeks
thereafter. It became at once the favorite theory of many that young
Moreland had perished by a stroke intended for some other person. In
the mean time, the news swept through the village like a whirlwind,
destroying the calmness of that Sabbath morning, tossing the minds of
people more fearfully than the material tempest had tossed the frail
leaves. Murder! and such a murder in such a place!--not twenty rods
from the busiest haunts of men, on a peaceful street--sudden, sure,
unprovoked! People looked behind them as they walked, hearing the
assassin's step in every rustle of the breeze. Murder!--the far-away,
frightful idea had suddenly assumed a real shape--it seemed to have
stalked through the town, entering each dwelling, standing by every
hearth-stone.
While the inquest was proceeding, Mr. Argyll and myself were thinking
more of Eleanor than of her murdered lover.
"This is wretched business, Richard," said the father. "I am so
unnerved I can do nothing. Will you telegraph to his parents for me?"
His parents--here was more misery. I had not thought of them. I wrote
out the dreadful message which it ought to have melted the wires with
pity to carry.
"And now you must go to Eleanor. She must not hear it from strangers;
and I can not--Richard!--you will tell her, will you not? I will follow
you home immediately; as soon as I have made arrangements to have poor
Henry brought to our house when the inquest is over."
He wrung my hand, looking at me so beseechingly, that, loth as I was, I
had no thought of refusing. I felt like one walking with frozen feet as
I passed out of the chamber of horror into the peaceful sunlight, along
the very path _he_ had last trodden, and over the spot where he had
fallen and had lain so many hours undiscovered, around which a crowd
was pressing, disturbed, excited, but not noisy. The sandy soil had
already filtered the rain, so as to be nearly dry; there was nothing to
give a clue to the murderer's footsteps, whither he went or whence he
came--what impress they might have made in the hard, gravelly walk had
been washed out by the storm. A few persons were searching carefully
for the weapon which had been the instrument of death, and which had
been broken in the wound, thinking it might have been cast away in the
vicinity.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIGURE BENEATH THE TREES.
As I came near the old Argyll mansion, it seemed to me never to have
looked so fair before. The place was the embodiment of calm prosperity.
Stately and spacious it rose from the lawn in the midst of great old
oaks whose trunks must have hardened through a century of growth, and
whose red leaves, slowly dropping, now flamed in the sunshine. Although
the growing village had stretched up to and encircled the grounds, it
had still the air of a country place, for the lawn was roomy and the
gardens were extensive. The house was built of stone, in a massive yet
graceful style; with such sunshiny windows and pleasant porticoes that
it had nothing of a somber look.
It is strange what opposite emotions will group themselves in the soul
at the same moment. The sight of those lordly trees called up the
exquisite picture of Tennyson's "Talking Oak":
"Oh, muffle round thy knees with fern,
And shadow Sumner-chace!
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!"
I wondered if Henry had not repeated them, as he walked with Eleanor
amid the golden light and flickering shadows beneath the branches of
these trees. I recalled how I once, in my madness, before I knew that
she was betrothed to another, had apostrophized the monarch of them
all, in the passionate words of Walter. Now, looking at this ancient
tree, I perceived with my eyes, though hardly with my mind, that it had
some fresh excoriations upon the bark. If I thought any thing at all
about it, I thought it the work of the storm, for numerous branches had
been torn from the trees throughout the grove, and the ground was
carpeted with fresh-fallen leaves.
Passing up the walk, I caught a glimpse of Eleanor at an upper window,
and heard her singing a hymn, softly to herself, as she moved about her
chamber. I stopped as if struck a blow. How could I force myself to
drop the pall over this glorious morning? Alas! of all the homes in
that village, perhaps this was the only one on which the shadow had not
yet fallen--this, over which it was to settle, to be lifted nevermore.
Of all the hearts as yet unstartled by the tragic event was that most
certain to be withered--that young heart, this moment so full of love
and bliss, caroling hymns out of the fullness of its gratitude to God
for its own delicious happiness.
Oh, I must--I must! I went in at an open window, from a portico into
the library. James was there, dressed for church, his prayer-book and
handkerchief on the table, and he looking over the last evening's
paper. The sight of him gave me a slight relief; his uncle and myself
had forgotten him in the midst of our distress. It was bad enough to
have to tell any one such news, but any delay in meeting Eleanor was
eagerly welcomed. He looked at me inquiringly--my manner was enough to
denote that something had gone wrong.
"What is it, Richard?"
"Horrible--most horrible!"
"For heaven's sake, _what_ is the matter?"
"Moreland has been murdered."
"Moreland! What? Where? Whom do they suspect?"
"And her father wishes me to tell Eleanor. You are her cousin, James;
will you not be the fittest person?" the hope crossing me that he would
undertake the delivery of the message.
"_I!_" he exclaimed, leaning against the case of books beside him. "I!
oh, no, not I. I'd be the last person! I'd look well telling her about
it, wouldn't I?" and he half laughed, though trembling from head to
foot.
If I thought his manner strange, I did not wonder at it--the dreadful
nature of the shock had unnerved all of us.
"Where is Mary?" I asked; "we had better tell her first, and have her
present. Indeed, I wish--"
I had turned toward the door, which opened into the hall, to search for
the younger sister, as I spoke; the words died on my lips. Eleanor was
standing there. She had been coming in to get a book, and had evidently
heard what had passed. She was as white as the morning dress she wore.
"Where is he?" Her voice sounded almost natural.
"At the Eagle Hotel," I answered, without reflection, glad that she
showed such self-command, and, since she did, glad also that the
terrible communication was over.
She turned and ran through the hall, down the avenue toward the gate.
In her thin slippers, her hair uncovered, fleet as a vision of the
wind, she fled. I sprung after her. It would not do to allow her to
shock herself with that sudden, awful sight. As she rushed out upon the
street I caught her by the arm.
"Let me go! I must go to him! Don't you see, he will need me?"
She made an effort to break away, looking down the street with strained
eyes. Poor child! as if, he being dead, she could do him any good! Her
stunned heart had as yet gone no further than that if Henry was hurt,
was murdered, he would need her by his side. She must go to him and
comfort him in his calamity. It was yet to teach her that this world
and the things of this world--even she, herself, were no more to him.
"Come back, Eleanor; they will bring him to you before long."
I had to lift her in my arms and carry her back to the house.
In the hall we met Mary, who had heard the story from James, and who
burst into tears and sobs as she saw her sister.
"They are keeping me away from him," said Eleanor, pitifully, looking
at her. I felt her form relax in my arms, saw that she had fainted;
James and I carried her to a sofa, while Mary ran distractedly for the
housekeeper.
There was noisy wailing now in the mansion; the servants all admired
and liked the young gentleman to whom their mistress was to be married;
and, as usual, they gave full scope to their powers of expressing
terror and sympathy. In the midst of cries and tears, the insensible
girl was conveyed to her chamber.
James and myself paced the long halls and porticoes, waiting to hear
tidings of her recovery. After a time the housekeeper came down,
informing us that Miss Argyll had come to her senses; leastwise, enough
to open her eyes and look about; but she wouldn't speak, and she looked
dreadful.
Just then Mr. Argyll came in. After being informed of what had
occurred, he went up to his daughter's room. With uttermost tenderness
he gave her the details of the murder, as they were known; his eyes
overrunning with tears to see that not a drop of moisture softened her
fixed, unnatural look.
Friends came in and went out with no notice from her.
"I wish they would all leave me but you, Mary," she said, after a time.
"Father, you will let me know when--"
"Yes--yes." He kissed her, and she was left with her sister for a
watcher.
Hours passed. Some of us went into the dining-room and drank of the
strong tea which the housekeeper had prepared, for we felt weak and
unnerved. The parents were expected in the evening train, there being
but one train running on Sunday. The shadow deepened over the house
from hour to hour.
It was late in the afternoon before the body could be removed from the
hotel where the coroner's inquest was held. I asked James to go with me
and attend upon its conveyance to Mr. Argyll's. He declined, upon the
plea of being too much unstrung to go out.
As the sad procession reached the garden in front of the mansion with
its burden, I observed, in the midst of several who had gathered about,
a woman, whose face, even in that time of preoccupation, arrested my
attention. It was that of a girl, young and handsome, though now thin
and deadly pale, with a wild look in her black eyes, which were fixed
upon the shrouded burden with more than awe and curiosity.
I know not yet why I remarked her so particularly; why her strange face
made such an impression on me. Once she started toward us, and then
shrunk back again. By her dress and general appearance she might have
been a shop-girl. I had never seen her before.
"That girl," said a gentleman by my side, "acts queerly. And, come to
think, she was on the train from New York yesterday afternoon. Not the
one poor Moreland came in; the one before. I was on board myself, and
noticed her particularly, as she sat facing me. She seemed to have some
trouble on her mind."
I seldom forget faces; and I never forgot hers.
"I will trace her out," was my mental resolve.
We passed on into the house, and deposited our charge in the back
parlor. I thought of Eleanor, as she had walked this room just
twenty-four hours ago, a brilliant vision of love and triumphant
beauty. Ay! twenty-four hours ago this clay before me was as
resplendent with life, as eager, as glowing with the hope of the soul
within it! Now, all the hours of time would never restore the tenant to
his tenement. Who had dared to take upon himself the responsibility of
unlawfully and with violence, ejecting this human soul from its house?
I shuddered as I asked myself the question. Somewhere must be lurking a
guilty creature, with a heart on fire from the flames of hell, with
which it had put itself in contact.
Then my heart stood still within me--all but the family had been
banished from the apartment--her father was leading in Eleanor. With a
slow step, clinging to his arm, she entered; but as her eyes fixed
themselves upon the rigid outlines lying there beneath the funeral
pall, she sprung forward, casting herself upon her lover's corpse.
Before, she had been silent; now began a murmur of woe so heart-rending
that we who listened wished ourselves deaf before our ears had heard
tones and sentences which could never be forgotten. It would be useless
for me, a man, with a man's language and thoughts, to attempt to repeat
what this broken-hearted woman said to her dead lover.
It was not her words so much as it was her pathetic tones.
She talked to him as if he were alive and could hear her. She was
resolved to make him hear and feel her love through the dark death
which was between them.
"Ah, Henry," she said, in a low, caressing tone, pressing back the
curls from his forehead with her hand, "your hair is wet still. To
think that you should lie out there all night--all night--on the
ground, in the rain, and I not know of it! I, to be sleeping in my warm
bed--actually sleeping, and you lying out in the storm, dead. That is
the strangest thing! that makes me wonder--to think I _could_! Tell me
that you forgive me for that, darling--for sleeping, you know, when you
were out there. I was thinking of you when I took the rose out of my
dress at night. I dreamed of you all night, but if I had known where
you were, I would have gone out barefooted, I would have stayed by you
and kept the rain from your face, from your dear, dear hair that I like
so much and hardly ever dare to touch. It was cruel of me to sleep so.
Would you guess, I was vexed at you last evening because you didn't
come? It was that made me so gay--not because I was happy. Vexed at you
for not coming, when you could not come because you were dead!" and she
laughed.
As that soft, dreadful laughter thrilled through the room, with a groan
Mr. Argyll arose and went out; he could bear no more. Disturbed with a
fear that her reason was shaken, I spoke with Mary, and we two tried to
lift her up, and persuade her out of the room.
"Oh, don't try to get me away from him again," she pleaded, with a
quivering smile, which made us sick. "Don't be troubled, Henry. I'm
_not_ going--I'm _not_! They are going to put my hand in yours and bury
me with you. It's so curious I should have been playing the piano and
wearing my new dress, and never guessing it! that you were so near
me--dead--murdered!"
The kisses; the light, gentle touches of his hands and forehead, as if
she might hurt him with the caresses which she could not withhold; the
intent look which continually watched him as if expecting an answer;
the miserable smile upon her white face--these were things which
haunted those who saw them through many a future slumber.
"You will not say you forgive me for singing last night. You don't say
a word to me--because you are dead--that's it--because you are
dead--murdered!"
The echo of her own last word recalled her wandering reason.
"My God! murdered!" she exclaimed, suddenly rising to her full hight,
with an awful air; "who do you suppose did it?"
Her cousin was standing near; her eyes fell upon him as she asked the
question. The look, the manner, were too much for his already
overwrought sensibility; he shrunk away, caught my arm, and sunk down,
insensible. I did not wonder. We all of us felt as if we could endure
no more.
Going to the family physician, who waited in another apartment, I
begged of him to use some influence to withdraw Miss Argyll from the
room, and quiet her feelings and memory, before her brain yielded to
the strain upon it. After giving us some directions what to do with
James, he went and talked with her, with so much wisdom and tact, that
the danger to her reason seemed passing; persuading her also into
taking the powder which he himself administered; but no argument could
induce her to leave the mute, unanswering clay.
The arrival of the relatives was the last scene in the tragedy of that
day. Unable to bear more of it, I went out in the darkness and walked
upon the lawn. My head was hot; the cool air felt grateful to me; I
leaned long upon the trunk of an oak, whose dark shadow shut out the
starlight from about me; thought was busy with recent events. Who was
the murderer? The question revolved in my brain, coming uppermost every
other moment, as certainly as the turning of a wheel brings a certain
point again and again to the top. My training, as a student of the law,
helped my mind to fix upon every slightest circumstance which might
hold a suspicion.
"Could that woman?"--but no, the hand of a woman could scarcely have
given that sure and powerful blow. It looked like the work of a
_practiced_ hand--or, if not, at least it had been deliberately given,
with malice aforethought. The assassin had premeditated the deed; had
watched his victim and awaited the hour. Thus far, there was absolutely
no clue whatever to the guilty party; bold as was the act, committed in
the early evening, in the haunts of a busy community, it had been most
fatally successful; and the doer had vanished as completely as if the
earth had opened and swallowed him up. No one, as yet, could form any
plausible conjecture, even as to the _motive_.
In the name of Eleanor Argyll--in the name of her whom I loved, whose
happiness I had that day seen in ruins, I vowed to use every endeavor
to discover and bring to punishment the murderer. I know not why this
purpose took such firm hold of me. The conviction of the guilty would
not restore the life which had been taken; the bloom to a heart
prematurely withered; it would afford no consolation to the bereaved.
Yet, if to discover, had been to call back Henry Moreland to the world
from which he had been so ruthlessly dismissed, I could hardly have
been more determined in the pursuit. In action only could I feel relief
from the oppression which weighed upon me. It could not give life to
the dead--but the voice of Justice called aloud, never to permit this
deed to sink into oblivion, until she had executed the divine vengeance
of the law upon the doer.
As I stood there in silence and darkness, pondering the matter, I heard
a light rustle of the dry leaves upon the ground, and felt, rather than
saw, a figure pass me. I might have thought it one of the servants were
it not for the evident caution of its movements. Presently, where the
shadows of the trees were less thick, I detected a person stealing
toward the house. As she crossed an open space, the starlight revealed
the form and garments of a female; the next moment she passed into the
obscurity of shadows again, where she remained some time, unsuspicious
of my proximity, like myself leaning against a tree, and watching the
mansion. Apparently satisfied that no one was about--the hour now
verging toward midnight--she approached with hovering steps, now
pausing, now drawing back, the west side of the mansion, from one of
the windows of which the solemn light of the death-candles shone. Under
this window she crouched down. I could not tell if her attitude were a
kneeling one. It must have been more than an hour that she remained
motionless in this place; I, equally quiet, watching the dark spot
where she was. For the instant that she had stood between me and the
window, her form was outlined against the light, when I saw that this
must be the young woman whose strange conduct at the gate had attracted
my attention. Of course I did not see her face; but the tall, slender
figure, the dark bonnet, and nervous movement, were the same. I
perplexed myself with vain conjectures.
I could not help connecting her with the murder, or with the victim, in
some manner, however vague.
At last she arose, lingered, went away, passing near me with that soft,
rustling step again. I was impelled to stretch out my hand and seize
her; her conduct was suspicious; she ought to be arrested and examined,
if only to clear herself of these circumstances. The idea that, by
following her, I might trace her to some haunt, where proofs were
secreted, or accomplices hidden, withheld my grasp.
Cautiously timing my step with hers, that the murmur of the leaves
might not betray me, I followed. As she passed out the gate, I stood
behind a tree, lest she should look back and discern me; then I passed
through, following along in the shadow of the fence.
She hurried on in the direction of the spot at which the murder had
been committed; but when nearly there, perceiving that some persons,
though long past midnight, still hovered about the fatal place, she
turned, and passed me. As soon as I dared, without alarming her, I also
turned, pursuing her through the long, quiet street, until it brought
her to a more crowded and poorer part of the village, where she went
down a side street, and disappeared in a tenement-house, the
entrance-hall to which was open. I ought to have gone at once for
officers, and searched the place; but I unwisely concluded to wait for
daylight.
As I came up the walk on my return, I met James Argyll in the avenue,
near the front portico.
"Oh, is it you?" he exclaimed, after I had spoken to him. "I thought it
was--was--"
"You are not superstitious, James?" for his hollow voice betrayed that
he was frightened.
"You did give me a confounded uneasy sensation as you came up," he
answered with a laugh.--How can people laugh under such
circumstances?--"Where have you been at this hour, Richard?"
"Walking in the cool air. The house smothered me."
"So it did me. I could not rest. I have just come out to get a breath
of air."
"It is almost morning," I said, and passed on into my chamber.
I knew who watched, without food, without rest, in the chamber of
death, by whose door my footsteps led; but ache as my heart might, I
had no words of comfort for sorrow like hers--so I passed on.
CHAPTER IV.
MORELAND VILLA.
Several minor circumstances prevented my going in search of the woman
who had excited my suspicions on the previous day, until about nine
o'clock of the morning, when I engaged an officer, and we two went
quietly, without communicating our plans to any one else, to the
tenement-house before spoken of.
Although Blankville was not a large village, there was in it, as in
nearly every town blessed with a railroad depot, a shabby quarter where
the rougher portion of its working people lived. The house stood in
this quarter--it was a three-story frame building, occupied by half a
dozen families, mostly those of Irish laborers, who found work in the
vicinity of the depot. I had seen the strange girl ascend to the second
floor, in the dim light of the previous night, so we went up and
knocked at the first door we came upon. It was opened by a
decent-appearing middle-aged woman, who held the knob in her hand while
she waited for us to make known our errand; we both stepped into her
apartment, before we spoke. A rapid glance revealed an innocent-looking
room with the ordinary furniture of such a place--a cooking-stove, bed,
table, etc.; but no other inmate. There was a cupboard, the door of
which stood open, showing its humble array of dishes and
eatables--there were no pantries, nor other places of concealment. I
was certain that I had seen the girl enter this room at the head of the
stairs, so I ventured:
"Is your daughter at home, ma'am?"
"Is it my niece you mean?"
I detected an Irish accent, though the woman spoke with but little
"brogue," and was evidently an old resident of our country--in a manner
_Americanized_.
"Oh, she is your niece? I suppose so--a tall girl with dark eyes and
hair."
"That's Leesy, herself. Was you wanting any work done?"
"Yes," answered the officer, quickly, taking the matter out of my
hands. "I wanted to get a set of shirts made up--six, with fine,
stitched bosoms." He had noticed a cheap sewing-machine standing near
the window, and a bundle of coarse muslin in a basket near by.
"It's sorry I am to disappoint you; but Leesy's not with me now, and I
hardly venture on the fine work. I make the shirts for the hands about
the railroad that hasn't wives of their own to do it--but for the fine
bussums"--doubtfully--"though, to be sure, the machine does the
stitches up beautiful--if it wasn't for the button-holes!"
"Where is Leesy? Doesn't she stop with you?"
"It's her I have here always when she's out of a place. She's an
orphan, poor girl, and it's not in the blood of a Sullivan to turn off
their own. I've brought her up from a little thing of five years
old--given her the education, too. She can read and write like the
ladies of the land."
"You didn't say where she was, Mrs. Sullivan."
"She's making the fine things in a fancy-store in New York--caps and
collars and sleeves and the beautiful tucked waists--she's _such_
taste, and the work is not so hard as plain-sewing--four dollars a week
she gets, and boarded for two and a half, in a nice, genteel place. She
expects to be illivated to the forewoman's place, at seven dollars the
week, before many months. She was here to stay over the Sunday with
me--she often does that; and she's gone back by the six o'clock train
this mornin'--and she'll be surely late at that by an hour. I tried to
coax her to stay the day, she seemed so poorly. She's not been herself
this long time--she seems goin' in a decline like--it's the stooping
over the needle, I think. She's so nervous-like, the news of the murder
yesterday almost killed her. 'Twas an awful deed that, wasn't it,
gintlemen? I couldn't sleep a wink last night for thinkin' of that poor
young man and the sweet lady he was to have married. Such a fine,
generous, polite young gintleman!"
"Did you know him?"
"Know him! as well as my own son if I had one!--not that ever I spoke
to him, but he's passed here often on his way to his father's house,
and to Mr. Argyll's; and Leesy sewed in their family these two summers
when they've been here, and was always twice paid. When she'd go away
he'd say, laughing in his beautiful way, 'And how much have you earned
a day, Miss Sullivan, sitting there all these long, hot hours?' and
she'd answer, 'Fifty cents a day, and thanks to your mother for the
good pay;' and he'd put his hand in his pocket and pull out a
ten-dollar gold-piece and say, 'Women aren't half paid for their work!
it's a shame! if you hain't earned a dollar a day, Miss Sullivan, you
hain't earned a cent. So don't be afraid to take it--it's your due.'
And that's what made Leesy think so much of him--he was so thoughtful
of the poor--God bless him! How could anybody have the heart to do it!"
I looked at the officer and found his eyes reading my face. One thought
had evidently flashed over both of us; but it was a suspicion which
wronged the immaculate memory of Henry Moreland, and I, for my part,
banished it as soon as it entered my mind. It was like him to pay
generously the labors of a sickly sewing-girl; it was not like him to
take any advantage of her ignorance or gratitude, which might result in
her taking such desperate revenge for her wrongs. The thought was an
insult to him and to the noble woman who was to have been his wife. I
blushed at the intrusive, unwelcome fancy; but the officer, not knowing
the deceased as I knew him, and, perhaps, having no such exalted idea
of manhood as mine, seemed to feel as if here might be a thread to
follow.
"Leesy thought much of him, you think, Mrs. Sullivan," taking a chair
unbidden, and putting on a friendly, gossiping air. "Everybody speaks
well of him. So she sewed in the family?"
"Six weeks every summer. They was always satisfied with her
sewing--she's the quickest and neatest hand with the needle! She'd make
them shirts of yours beautiful, if she was to home, sir."
"When did she go to New York to live?"
"Last winter, early. It's nearly a year now. There was something come
across her--she appeared homesick like, and strange. When she said she
meant to go to the city and get work, I was minded to let her go, for I
thought the change mebbe would do her good. But she's quite ailing and
coughs dreadful o' nights. I'm afraid she catched cold in that
rain-storm night afore last; she came up all the way from the depot in
it. She was wet to the skin when she got here and as white as a sheet.
She was so weak-like that when the neighbors came in with the news
yesterday, she gave a scream and dropped right down. I didn't wonder
she was took aback. I ain't got done trembling yet myself."
I remembered the gentleman who had first spoken to me about the girl
said that she had come in on the morning train Saturday; I could not
reconcile this with her coming up from the depot at dark; yet I wished
to put my question in such a way as not to arouse suspicion of my
motive.
"If she came in the six o'clock train she must have been on the same
train with Mr. Moreland."
"I believe she was in the seven o'clock cars--yes, she was. 'Twas
half-past seven when she got in--the rain was pouring down awful. She
didn't see him, for I asked her yesterday."
"In whose shop in New York is she employed?" inquired the officer.
"She's at No 3--Broadway," naming a store somewhere between Wall street
and Canal.
"Are you wanting her for any thing?" she asked, suddenly, looking up
sharply as if it just occurred to her that our inquiries were rather
pointed.
"Oh, no," replied my companion, rising; "I was a bit tired, and thought
I'd rest my feet before starting out again. I'll thank you for a glass
of water, Mrs. Sullivan. So you won't undertake the shirts?"
"If I thought I could do the button-holes--"
"Perhaps your niece could do them on her next visit, if you wanted the
job," I suggested.
"Why, so she could! and would be glad to do something for her old aunt.
It's bright you are to put me in mind of it. Shall I come for the work,
sir?"
"I'll send it round when I get it ready. I suppose your niece intends
to visit you next Saturday?"
"Well, ra'ly, I can't say. It's too expensive her coming every week;
but, she'll sure be here afore the whole six is complate. Good-mornin',
gintlemen--and they's heard nothin' of the murderer, I'll warrant?"
We responded that nothing had been learned, and descending to the
street, it was arranged, as we walked along, that the officer should go
to New York and put some detective there on the track of Leesy
Sullivan. I informed my companion of the discrepancy between her actual
arrival in town and her appearance at her aunt's. Either the woman had
purposely deceived us, or her niece had not gone home for a good many
hours after landing at Blankville. I went with him to the depot, where
we made a few inquiries which convinced us that she had arrived on
Saturday morning, and sat an hour or two in the ladies' room, and then
gone away up town.
There was sufficient to justify our looking further. I took from my own
pocket means to defray the expenses of the officer as well as to
interest the New York detective, adding that liberal rewards were about
to be offered, and waited until I saw him depart on his errand.
Then, turning to go to the office, my heart so sickened at the idea of
business and the ordinary routine of living in the midst of such
misery, that my footsteps shrunk away from their familiar paths! I
could do nothing, just then, for the aid or comfort of the afflicted.
The body was to be taken that afternoon to the city for interment, the
next day, in the family inclosure at Greenwood; until the hour for its
removal, there was nothing more that friendship could perform in the
service of the mourners. My usual prescription for mental ailments was
a long and vigorous walk; to-day I felt as if I could breathe only in
the wide sunshine, so cramped and chilled were my spirits.
The summer residence of the Morelands lay about a mile beyond the
Argyll mansion, out of the village proper, on a hillside, which sloped
down to the river. It was surrounded by fine grounds, and commanded one
of the loveliest views of the Hudson.
"A spirit in my feet
Led me, who knows how?"
in the direction of this now vacant and solitary place--solitary, I
believed, with the exception of the gardener and his wife, who lived in
a cottage back of the gardens, and who remained the year round, he to
attend to out-door matters, and she to give housekeeper's care to the
closed mansion.
The place had never looked more beautiful to me, not even in the bloom
of its June foliage and flowers, than it did as I approached it on this
occasion. The frosts had turned to every gorgeous color the tops of the
trees which stood out here and there; back of the house, and extending
down toward the southern gate, by which I entered, a grove of maples
and elms glowed in the autumn sunshine; the lawn in front sloped down
to the water's edge, which flowed by in a blue and lordly stream,
bearing on its broad bosom picturesque white ships. In the garden,
through which I was now walking, many brilliant flowers still lingered:
asters, gold, pink and purple; chrysanthemums; some dahlias which had
been covered from the frost; pansies lurking under their broad leaves.
It had been the intention of the young couple to make this their
permanent home after their marriage, going to the city only for a
couple of the winter months. The very next week, I had heard, Eleanor
expected to go down to help Henry in his selection of new furniture.
Here the mansion lay, bathed in the rich sunshine; the garden sparkled
with flowers as the river with ripples, so full, as it were, of
conscious, joyous _life_, while the master of all lay in a darkened
room awaiting his narrow coffin. Never had the uncertainty of human
purposes so impressed me as when I looked abroad over that stately
residence and thought of the prosperous future which had come to so
awful a standstill. I gathered a handful of pansies--they were
Eleanor's favorites. As I approached the house by the garden, I came
nearly upon the portico which extended across its western front before
I perceived that it was occupied. Sitting on its outer edge, with one
arm half wound around one of its pillars, and her bonnet in the grass
at her feet, I beheld the sewing-girl after whom I had dispatched an
officer to New York. She did not perceive me, and I had an opportunity
of studying the face of the woman who had fallen under my suspicion,
when she was unaware that my eye was upon it, and when her soul looked
out of it, unvailed, in the security of solitude. The impression which
she made upon me was that of despair. It was written on attitude and
expression. It was neither grief nor remorse--it was blank despair. It
must have been half an hour that I remained quiet, watching her. In all
that time she never stirred hand nor eyelid; her glance was upon the
greensward at her feet. When I turn to that page of my memory, I see
her, photographed, as it were, upon it--every fold of the dark dress,
which was some worsted substance, frayed, but neat; the black shawl,
bordered, drawn close about the slender shoulders, which had the
slight, habitual stoop of those who ply the needle for a living; the
jetty hair pushed back from her forehead, the marble whiteness and
rigidity of the face and mouth.
It was a face made to express passion. And, although the only passion
expressed now was that of despair, so intense that it grew like apathy,
I could easily see how the rounded chin and full lips could melt into
softer moods. The forehead was rather low, but fair, consorting with
the oval of the cheek and chin; the brows dark and rather heavy. I
remembered the wild black eyes which I had seen the previous day, and
could guess at their hidden fires.
This was a girl to attract interest at any time, and I mutely wondered
what had entangled the threads of her fate in the glittering web of a
higher fortune, which was now suddenly interwoven with the pall of
death. All her movements had been such as to confirm my desire to
ascertain her connection, if any, with the tragedy. It seemed to me
that if I could see her eyes, before she was conscious of observance, I
could tell whether there was guilt, or only sorrow, in her heart;
therefore I remained quiet, waiting. But I had mistaken my powers, or
the eyes overbore them. When she did lift them, as a steamer came
puffing around the base of the mountain which ran down into the river
at the east, and they suddenly encountered mine, where I stood not ten
feet from her, I saw only black, unfathomable depths, pouring out a
trouble so intense, that my own gaze dropped beneath their power.
She did not start, upon observing me, which, as I thought, a guilty
person, buried in self-accusing reveries, would have done--it seemed
only slowly to penetrate her consciousness that a stranger was
confronting her; when I raised my eyes, which had sunk beneath the
intensity of hers, she was moving rapidly away toward the western gate.
"Miss Sullivan, you have forgotten your bonnet."
With a woman's instinct she put up her hand to smooth her disordered
hair, came slowly back and took the bonnet which I extended toward her,
without speaking. I hesitated what move to make next. I wished to
address her--she was here, in my grasp, and I ought to satisfy myself,
as far as possible, about the suspicions which I had conceived. I might
do her an irreparable injury by making my feelings public, if she were
innocent of any aid or instigation of the crime which had been
committed, yet there were circumstances which could hardly pass
unchallenged. That unaccountable absence of hers on Saturday, from
three o'clock until an hour after the murder was committed; the
statement of her aunt that she was in the city, and my finding her in
this spot, in connection with the midnight visit to the window, and the
other things which I had observed, were sufficient to justify inquiry.
Yet, if I alarmed her prematurely I should have the less chance of
coming upon proofs, and her accomplices, if she had any, would be led
to take steps for greater safety. Anyhow, I would make her speak, and
find what there was in her voice.
"Your aunt told me that you had gone to New York," I said, stepping
along beside her, as she turned away.
"She thought so. Did you come here to see me, sir?" stopping short in
her walk, and looking at me as if she expected me to tell my business.
This again did not look like the trepidation of guilt.
"No. I came out for a walk. I suppose our thoughts have led us both in
the same direction. This place will have an interest to many,
hereafter."
"Interest! the interest of vulgar curiosity! It will give them
something to talk about. I hate it!" She spoke more to herself than to
me, while a ray of fire darted from those black orbs; the next instant
her face subsided into that passionate stillness again.
Her speech was not that of her station; I recalled what her aunt had
said about the education she had bestowed on her, and decided that the
girl's mind was one of those which reach out beyond their
circumstances--aspiring--ambitious--and that this aspiring nature may
have led her into her present unhappiness. That she was unhappy, if not
sinful, it took but a glance to assure me.
"So do I hate it. I do not like to have the grief of my friends
subjected to cold and curious eyes."
"Yet, it is a privilege to have the right to mourn. I tell you the
sorrow of that beautiful lady he was to have married is light compared
with trouble that some feel. There are those who envy her."
It was not her words, as much as her wild, half-choked voice, which
gave effect to them; she spoke, and grew silent, as if conscious that
the truth had been wrung from her in the ear of a stranger. We had
reached the gate, and she seemed anxious to escape through it; but I
held it in my hand, looking hard at her, as I said--"It may have been
the hand of envy which dashed the cup of fruition from her lips. Her
young life is withered never to bloom again. I can imagine but one
wretchedness in this world greater than hers--and that is the
wretchedness of the guilty person who has _murder_ written on his or
her soul."
A spasm contracted her face; she pushed at the gate which I still held.
"Ah, don't," she said; "let me pass."
I opened it and she darted through, fleeing along the road which led
out around the backward slope of the hill, like Io pursued by the
stinging fly. Her path was away from the village, so that I hardly
expected to see her again that day.
Within two minutes the gardener's wife came up the road to the gate.
She had been down to visit the corpse of her young master; her eyes
were red with weeping.
"How do you do, Mr. Redfield? These be miserable times, ain't they? My
very heart is sore in my breast; but I couldn't cry a tear in the room
where he was, a-lying there like life, for Miss Eleanor sot by him like
a statue. It made me cold all over to see her--I couldn't speak to save
me. The father and mother are just broke down, too."
"How is Miss Eleanor, this morning?"
"The Lord knows! She doesn't do any thing but sit there, as quiet as
can be. It's a bad symptom, to my thinking. 'Still waters run deep.'
They're a-dreading the hour when they'll have to remove the body from
the house--they're afraid her mind 'll go."
"No, no," I answered, inwardly shuddering; "Eleanor's reason is too
fine and powerful to be unstrung, even by a blow like this."
"Who was that went out the gate as I came around the bend? Was it that
girl, again?"
"Do you mean Leesy Sullivan?"
"Yes, sir. Do you know her? She acts mighty queer, to my thinkin'. She
was out here Saturday, sittin' in the summer-house, all alone, 'till
the rain began to fall--I guess she got a good soaking going home. I
didn't think much about her; it was Saturday, and I thought likely she
was taking a holiday, and there's many people like to come here, it's
so pleasant. But what's brought her here again to-day is more'n I can
guess. Do you know, sir?"
"I do not. I found her sitting on the portico looking at the river.
Maybe she comes out for a walk and stops here to rest. She probably
feels somewhat at home, she has sewed so much in the family. I don't
know her at all, myself; I never spoke to her until just now. Did you
get much acquainted with her, when she was in the house?"
"I never spoke to her above a dozen times. I wasn't at the house much,
and she was always at work. She seemed fast with her needle, and a girl
who minded her own business. I thought she was rather proud, for a
seamstress--she was handsome, and I reckon she knew it. She's getting
thinner; she had red spots on her cheeks, Saturday, that I didn't
like--looked consumptive."
"Did the family treat her with particular kindness?" It was as near as
I cared to put into words what I was thinking of.
"You know it's in the whole Moreland race to be generous and kind to
those under them. I've known Henry more than once, when the family was
going out for a drive, to insist upon Miss Sullivan's taking a seat in
the carriage--but never when he was going alone. I heard him tell his
mother that the poor girl looked tired, as if she needed a breath of
air and a bit of freedom, and the kind-hearted lady would laugh at her
son, but do as he said. It was just like him. But I'd stake my
everlasting futur' that he never took any advantage of her feelings, if
it's that you're thinking of, Mr. Redfield."
"So would I, Mrs. Scott. There is no one can have a higher respect for
the character of that noble young gentleman, than I. I would resent an
insult to his memory more quickly than if he had been my brother. But,
as you say, there is something queer in the actions of Miss Sullivan. I
know that I can trust your discretion, Mrs. Scott, for I have heard it
well spoken of; do not say any thing to others, not even to your
husband, but keep a watch on that person if she should come here any
more. Report to me what she does, and what spot she frequents."
"I will do so, sir. But I don't think any harm of her. She may have
been unfortunate enough to think too much of the kindness with which he
treated her. If so, I pity her--she could hardly help it, poor thing.
Henry Moreland was a young gentleman a good many people loved."
She put her handkerchief to her eyes in a fresh burst of tears. Wishing
her good-morning, I turned toward the village, hardly caring what I
should do next. Mrs. Scott was an American woman, and one to be
trusted; I felt that she would be the best detective I could place at
that spot.
When I reached the office, on my homeward route, I went in. Mr. Argyll
was there alone, his head leaning on his hand, his face anxious and
worn, his brow contracted in deep thought. As soon as I came in, he
sprung up, closed the outer door, and said to me, in a low voice,
"Richard, another strange thing has occurred."
I stared at him, afraid to ask what.
"I have been robbed of two thousand dollars."
"When and how?"
"That is what I do not know. Four days ago I drew that amount in bills
from the Park Bank. I placed it, in a roll, just as I received it, in
my library desk, at home. I locked the desk, and have carried the key
in my pocket. The desk has been locked, as usual, every time that I
have gone to it. How long the money has been gone, I can not say; I
never looked after it, since placing it there, until about an hour ago.
I wanted some cash for expenses this afternoon, and going for it, the
roll was gone."
"Haven't you mislaid it?"
"No. I have one drawer for my cash, and I placed it there. I remember
it plainly enough. It has been stolen"--and he sat down in his chair
with a heavy sigh. "That money was for my poor Eleanor. She was to
complete her wedding outfit this week, and the two thousand dollars was
for refurnishing the place out at the Grove. I don't care for the loss
so much--she doesn't need it now--but it's singular--at this time!"
He looked up at me, vague suspicions which he could not shape floating
in his brain.
"Who knew of your having the money?"
"No one, that I am aware of, except my nephew. He drew it for me when
he went down to the city last Wednesday."
"Could you identify the money?"
"Not all of it. I only remember that there was one five hundred dollar
bill in the package, a fresh issue of the Park Bank, of which,
possibly, they may have the number. The rest was city money of various
denominations and banks. I can think of but one thing which seems
probable. James must have been followed from the city by some
professional thief, who saw him obtain the money, and kept an eye upon
it, waiting for a suitable opportunity, until it was deposited in the
desk. The key is a common one, which could be easily duplicated, and we
are so careless in this quiet community that a thief might enter at
almost any hour of the night. Perhaps the same villain dogged poor
Henry in hopes of another harvest."
"You forget that there was no attempt to rob Henry."
"True--true. Yet the murderer may have been frightened away before he
had secured his prize."
"In which case, he would have returned, as the body remained
undiscovered all night."
"It may be so. I am dizzy with thinking it over and over."
"Try and not think any more, dear sir," I said, gently. "You are
feverish and ill now. I am going, this afternoon, with the friends to
the city, and I will put the police on the watch for the money. We will
get the number of the large bill, if possible, from the bank, and I
will have investigations made as to the passengers of Wednesday on the
train with James. Have you said any thing to him about your loss?"
"I have not seen him since I made the discovery. You may tell him if
you see him first; and do what you can, Richard, for I feel as weak as
a child."
CHAPTER V.
MR. BURTON, THE DETECTIVE.
When I came out of the office, I encountered James on the steps, for
the first time that day. I could not stop to make known the robbery to
him, and telling him that his uncle wished to see him a few minutes, I
hurried to my boarding-house, where I had barely time to take some
lunch in my room, while packing a small bag to be sent to the cars,
before hurrying back to Mr. Argyll's to attend the funeral escort to
the train. James and I were two of the eight pall-bearers, yet neither
of us could summon fortitude to enter the parlor where the body lay; I
believe that James had not yet looked upon the corpse. We stood
outside, on the steps of the piazza, only taking our share of the
burden after the coffin was brought out into the yard. While we stood
there, among many others, waiting, I chanced to observe his paleness
and restlessness; he tore his black gloves in putting them on; I saw
his fingers trembling. As for me, my whole being seemed to pause, as a
single, prolonged shriek rung out of the darkened mansion and floated
off on the sunshine up to the ear of God. They were taking the lover
away from his bride. The next moment the coffin appeared; I took my
place by its side, and we moved away toward the depot, passing over the
very spot where the corpse was found. James was a step in advance of
me, and as we came to the place, some strong inward recoil made him
pause, then step aside and walk around the ill-starred spot. I noticed
it, not only for the momentary confusion into which it threw the line,
but because I had never supposed him susceptible to superstitious or
imaginative influences.
A private car had been arranged for. James and I occupied one seat; the
swift motion of the train was opposed to the idea of death; it had an
exhilarating effect upon my companion, whose paleness passed away, and
who began to experience a reäction after his depression of feeling. He
talked to me incessantly upon trifling subjects which I do not now
recall, and in that low, yet sharp voice which is most easily
distinguished through the clatter of a moving train. The necessity for
attending to him--for making answers to irrelevant questions, when my
mind was preoccupied, annoyed me. My thoughts centered about the
coffin, and its inmate, taking his last ride under circumstances so
different from those under which he had set out, only two days ago, to
meet her whom his heart adored; whose hand he never clasped--whose lips
he never touched--the fruition of whose hopes was cut off
utterly--whose fate, henceforth, was among the mysterious paths of the
great eternity.
_I_ could not, for an instant, feel the least lightness of heart. My
nature was too sympathetic; the currents of my young blood flowed too
warmly, for me to feel otherwise than deeply affected by the
catastrophe. My eyes shed inward tears at the sight of the parents,
sitting in advance of us, their heads bowed beneath the stroke; and,
oh! my heart shed tears of blood at thought of Eleanor, left behind us
to the utter darkness of a night which had fallen while it was yet
morning.
Musing upon _her_, I wondered that her cousin James could throw off the
troubles of others as he did, interesting himself in passing trifles. I
have said that I never liked him much; but in this I was an exception
to the general rule. He was an almost universal favorite. At least, he
seldom failed to please and win those for whom he exerted himself to be
agreeable. His voice was soft and well modulated--such a voice as,
should one hear it from another apartment, would make him wish to see
the speaker; his manner was gracious and flattering. I had often
wondered why his evident passion for Eleanor had not secured her
interest in return, before she knew Henry Moreland, and had answered
myself that it was one of two reasons: either their cousinly
intercourse had invested him, to her, with the feelings of a brother or
relative, or her fine perceptions, being the superior woman which she
was, had unconsciously led her to a true estimate of his qualities.
This day I felt less affinity for him than ever before, as I gazed at
his dark, thin features, and met the light of eyes brilliant, unsteady
and cold. That intense selfishness which I had secretly attributed to
him, was now, to my perhaps too acute apprehension, painfully apparent.
In my secret heart, as I listened to his light remarks, and perceived
the rise of spirits which he hardly endeavored to check, I accused him
of gladness that a rival was out of the way, and that the chances were
again open for the hand of his beautiful and wealthy cousin. At first
he had been shocked, as we all were; but now that he had time to view
the occurrence with an eye to the future, I believed that he was
already calculating the results with regard to his own hopes and
wishes. I turned from him with a feeling of aversion.
After neglecting to reply to him until he was obliged to drop the
one-sided conversation, I recollected that I had not yet spoken to him
in regard to his uncle's loss; so I said to him quite suddenly,
"Mr. Argyll has been robbed of a sum of money."
An inexplicable expression flashed into his face and passed off; it
went as soon as it came.
"So he informed me, just before we started. He says that you will put
the police on the track of it--that possibly the five-hundred dollar
bill will be identified. It was taken from his desk, it appears."
"Yes; I wonder what will happen next."
"Ay! I wonder what will."
"Who knows what a narrow escape _you_ may have had," said I. "It is
well that you came here in broad daylight; else, like poor Henry, you
might have fallen a victim to a blow in the dark. Mr. Argyll thinks you
must have been followed from the city by some professional burglar."
"He thinks so?" he asked, while the shadow of a smile just showed a
second in the mirror of his eyes; it was as if there was a smile in his
heart, and a reflection from its invisible self fell athwart his eyes;
but he turned them away immediately.
"It's queer," he resumed; "horribly queer; don't you think so? I saw
that money in the desk Friday evening. Uncle asked me to hold the lamp
a moment, while he found some papers, and I noticed the roll of bills
lying in his cash-drawer, just as I had given them to him. It must have
been abstracted Saturday or Sunday--it's queer--confoundedly so! There
must be some great villain lurking in our midst!"--this last sentence
he uttered with an emphasis, looking me through with his black eyes.
There was suspicion in his gaze, and my own fell before it. Innocence
itself will blush if obliged to confront the insult of accusation. I
had had many wild, and doubtless many wrong and suspicious thoughts
about various persons, since the discovery of the murder; and this was
turning the tables on me rather suddenly. It never occurred to me that
among the dozens upon whom vague and flying suspicions might alight,
might be myself.
"There is an awful mystery somewhere," I stammered.
"Humph! yes, there is. My uncle Argyll is just the man to be wronged by
some one of his many friends and dependents. He is too confiding, too
unsuspecting of others--as I have told him. He has been duped
often--but this--this is too bad!"
I looked up again, and sharply, to see what he meant. If he intended
covertly to insinuate that _I_ was open to imputation as one of the
"friends or dependents" who could wrong a benefactor, I wished to
understand him. A friend, I knew, Mr. Argyll was to me; a friend to be
grateful for; but I was no dependent upon his bounty, as his nephew
was, and the hot blood rushed to my face, the fire to my eye, as I
answered back the cool gaze of James with a haughty stare.
"There is no love lost between us, Richard," he said, presently, "which
is principally your fault; but I am friendly to you; and as a friend, I
would suggest that you do not make yourself conspicuous in this affair.
If you should put yourself forward at all, being so young, and having,
apparently, so small an interest in the matter, you may bring
unpleasant remark upon yourself. Let us stand back and allow our elders
to do the work. As to that money, whether it has or has not any
connection with the--the other affair, time will perhaps show. Let the
police do what they can with it--my advice to you is to keep in the
background."
"Your course may be prudent, James," was my reply; "I do not ask your
approbation of mine. But to one thing I have made up my mind. So long
as I live, and the murderer of Henry Moreland is undiscovered, I will
never rest. In Eleanor's name, I consecrate myself to this calling. I
can face the whole world in her behalf, and fear nothing."
He turned away with a sneer, busying himself with the prospect from the
window. During the rest of the ride we said little; his words had given
me a curious sensation; I had sustained so many shocks to my feelings
within the last forty-eight hours, that this new one of finding myself
under the eye of suspicion, mingled in with the perplexing whirl of the
whole, until I almost began to doubt my own identity and that of
others. A vision of Leesy Sullivan, whose wild footsteps might still be
tracking hills and fields, hovered before me--and out of all this
distraction, my thoughts settled upon Eleanor. I prayed God earnestly
to be with her in this hour; either to strengthen her heart and brain
to bear her affliction without falling to ruins beneath the weight, or
to take her at once to Himself, where Henry awaited her in the mansions
of their eternal home.
The arrival of the train at Thirtieth street recalled me to my present
duties. Carriages were in waiting to convey the coffin and its escort
to the house of the parents, the funeral being arranged for the
following day. I saw the officer who had gone down from Blankville in
the morning, waiting in the depot to speak to me; but I did not need to
be told that he had not found the sewing-girl at her place of business.
I made an appointment to meet him in the evening at the Metropolitan,
and took my place in the sad procession to the house of the Morelands.
I was anxious to give notice of the robbery at the bank, and to
ascertain if they could identify any of the money, especially the large
bill, which, being new, I hoped they would have on record. Banking
hours were over, however, for the day, and it was only by intruding the
matter upon the notice of Mr. Moreland that I could get any thing
accomplished. This I decided to do; when he told me that, by going
directly to the bank, he thought I could gain access to the cashier;
and if not, he gave me his address, so that I might seek him at his
residence. Mr. Moreland also advised me to take with me some competent
detective, who should be witness to the statement of the cashier with
regard to the money paid to James Argyll, on his uncle's draft, and be
employed to put the rest of the force on the lookout for it, or any
portion of it which was identifiable. He gave me the name of an officer
with whom he had a chance acquaintance, and of whose abilities he had a
high opinion; telling me to make free use of his name and influence, if
he had any, with him, and the police.
"And please, Mr. Redfield--or James here, if you should be too
busy--make out an advertisement for the morning papers, offering a
reward of five thousand dollars for the detection and conviction of
the--the--murderer."
James was standing by us during the conversation; and I almost withdrew
my verdict upon his selfishness, as I marked how he shrunk when the eye
of the bereaved father rested upon him, and how vainly he endeavored to
appear calm at the affecting spectacle of the gray-haired gentleman
forcing his quivering lips to utter the word--"murderer." He trembled
much more than myself, as each of us wrung Mr. Moreland's hand, and
departed down the steps.
"It unmanned him," he said, stopping a moment on the pavement to wipe
the perspiration from his brow, though the day was not at all warm. "I
believe," he added, as he walked along, "that if the person who
resolves to commit a crime would reflect on all the consequences of
that act, it would remain undone for ever. But he does not. He sees an
object in the way of his wishes, and he thrusts it aside, reckless of
the ruin which will overwhelm surrounding things, until he sees the
wreck about him. Then it is too late for remorse--to the devil with it.
But I needn't philosophize before you, Richard, who have precociously
earned that privilege of wisdom"--with that disagreeable half-laugh of
his--"only I was thinking how the guilty party must have felt could he
have seen Henry's father as we saw him just now," and again I felt his
eye upon me. Certainly, there seemed no prospect of our friendship
increasing. I would rather have dispensed with his company, while I put
my full energies into the business before me; but it was quite natural
that he should expect to accompany me on an errand in which he must
have as deep an interest as myself. Coming out of the avenue upon
Broadway we took a stage, riding down as far as Grand street, when we
got out and walked to the office of the detective-police.
The chief was not in at the moment of our entrance; we were received by
a subordinate and questioned as to our visit. The morning papers had
heralded the melancholy and mysterious murder through the city;
hundreds of thousands of persons had already marveled over the boldness
and success, the silence and suddenness with which the deed had been
done, leaving not a clue by which to trace the perpetrator. It had been
the sensation of the day throughout New York and its environs. The
public mind was busy with conjectures as to the _motive_ for the crime.
And this was to be one of the sharp thorns pressed into the hearts of
the distressed friends of the murdered man. Suddenly, into the garish
light of day, beneath the pitiless gaze of a million curious eyes, was
dragged every word, or act, or circumstance of the life so abruptly
closed. It was necessary to the investigation of the affair, that the
most secret pages of his history should be read out--and it is not in
the nature of a daily paper to neglect such opportunities for turning
an honest penny. Here let me say that not one character in ten thousand
could have stood this trial by fire as did Henry Moreland's. No wronged
hireling, no open enemy, no secret intrigue, no gambling debts--not one
blot on the bright record of his amiable, Christian life.
To return to the detective-office. Our errand at once received
attention from the person in charge, who sent a messenger after the
chief. He also informed us that several of their best men had gone up
to Blankville that afternoon to confer with the authorities there. The
public welfare demanded, as well as the interest of private
individuals, that the guilty should be ferreted out, if possible. The
apparent impunity with which the crime had been committed was
startling, making every one feel it a personal matter to aid in
discouraging any more such practices; besides, the police knew that
their efforts would be well rewarded.
While we sat talking with the official, I noticed the only other inmate
of the room, who made a peculiar impression upon me for which I could
not account.
He was a large man, of middle age, with a florid face and sandy hair.
He was quietly dressed in the ordinary manner of the season, and with
nothing to mark him from a thousand other men of similar appearance,
unless it was the expression of his small, blue-gray eyes, whose
glance, when I happened to encounter it, seemed not to be looking at me
but into me. However, he turned it away, and occupied himself with
looking through the window at the passers-by. He appeared to be a
stranger, awaiting, like ourselves, the coming of the chief.
Desiring to secure the services of the particular detective whom Mr.
Moreland had recommended, I asked the subordinate in attendance, if he
could inform me where Mr. Burton was to be found.
"Burton? I don't know of any one of that name, I think--if I may except
my stage experience with Mr. Toodles," he added, with a smile, called
up by some passing vision of his last visit to the theater.
"Then there is no Mr. Burton belongs to your force?"
"Not that I am acquainted with. He may be one of us, for all that. We
don't pretend to know our own brothers here. You can ask Mr. Browne
when he comes in."
All this time the stranger by the window sat motionless, absorbed in
looking upon the throng of persons and vehicles in the street beneath;
and now I, having nothing else to do, regarded him. I felt a magnetism
emanate from him, as from a manufactory of vital forces; I felt,
instinctively, that he was possessed of an iron will and indomitable
courage; I was speculating, according to my dreamy habit, upon his
characteristics, when the chief appeared, and we, that is, James and
myself, laid our case before him--at the same time I mentioned that Mr.
Moreland had desired me to ask for Mr. Burton to be detailed to aid our
investigations.
"Ah! yes," said Mr. Browne, "there are not many outsiders who know that
person. He is my right hand, but I don't let the left know what he
doeth. Mr. Moreland had his services once, I remember, in tracking some
burglars who had entered his banking-house. Poor young Moreland! I've
seen him often! Shocking affair, truly. We mustn't rest till we know
more about it. I only hope we may be of service to his afflicted
father. Burton is just here, fortunately," and he beckoned to the very
stranger sitting in the window, who had overheard the inquiries made
for him without the slightest demonstration that such a being had any
existence as far as he was concerned, and who now slowly arose, and
approached us. We four went into an inner room, where we were
introduced to each other, and drawing up our chairs in a close circle,
we began, in low voices, the discussion of our business.
Mr. Browne was voluble when he heard that a robbery had been committed
in Mr. Argyll's house. He had no doubt, he said, that the two crimes
were connected, and it would be strange, indeed, if nothing could be
discovered relating to either of them. He hoped that the lesser crime
would be the means of betraying the greater. He trusted the rogue,
whoever he or she might be, had, in this imprudent act, done something
to betray himself. He had hopes of the five-hundred dollar bill.
Mr. Burton said very little, beyond asking two or three questions; but
he was a good listener. Much of the time he sat with his eyes fixed
upon James, who did a good deal of the talking. I could not, for the
life of me, tell whether James was conscious of those blue-gray eyes;
if he was, they did not much disturb him; he made his statements in a
calm and lucid manner, gazing into Mr. Burton's face with a clear and
open look. After a while, the latter began to grow uneasy; powerful as
was his physical and mental frame, I saw a trembling of both; he forced
himself to remain quiet in his chair--but to me he had the air of a
lion, who sees its prey but a little distance off, and who trembles
with restraint. The light in his eye narrowed down to one gleam of
concentrated fire--a steely, glittering point--he watched the rest of
us and said little. If I had been a guilty man I should have shrunk
from that observation, through the very walls, or out of a five-story
window, if there had been no other way; it struck me that it would have
been unbearable to any accusing conscience; but my own mind being
burdened with no weightier sins than a few boyish follies--saving the
selfishness and earthliness which make a part of all human natures--I
felt quite free, breathing easily, while I noticed, with interest, the
silent change going on in the detective.
More and more like a lion about to spring, he grew; but whether his
prey was near at hand and visible, or far away and visible only to his
mental gaze, I could not tell. I fairly jumped, when he at last rose
quickly to his feet; I expected to see him bound upon some guilty ghost
to us intangible, and shake it to pieces in an honest rage; but
whatever was the passion within him, he controlled it, saying only, a
little impatiently,
"Enough, gentlemen, we have talked enough! Browne, will you go with Mr.
Argyll to the bank, and see about that money? I do not wish to be known
there as belonging to your force. I will walk to his hotel with Mr.
Redfield, and you can meet us there at any hour you choose to appoint."
"It will take until tea-time to attend to the bank. Say about eight
o'clock, then, we will be at the--"
"Metropolitan," said I, and the quartette parted, half going up and
half going down town.
On our way to the hotel we fell into an easy conversation on topics
entirely removed from the one which absorbed the gravest thoughts of
both. Mr. Burton did more talking now than he had done at the office,
perhaps with the object of making me express myself freely; though if
so, he managed with so much tact that his wish was not apparent. He had
but poor success; the calamity of our house lay too heavily on me for
me to forget it in an instant; but I was constantly surprised at the
character of the man whose acquaintance I was making. He was
intelligent, even educated, a gentleman in language and manner--a quite
different person, in fact, from what I had expected in a member of the
detective-police.
Shut up in the private parlor which I obtained at the Metropolitan, the
subject of the murder was again broached and thoroughly discussed. Mr.
Burton won my confidence so inevitably that I felt no hesitation in
unvailing to him the domestic hearth of Mr. Argyll, whenever the habits
or circumstances of the family were consulted in their bearing upon the
mystery. And when he said to me, fixing his eye upon me, but speaking
gently,
"You, too, loved the young lady,"--I neither blushed nor grew angry.
That penetrating eye had read the secret of my heart, which had never
been spoken or written, yet I did not feel outraged that he had dared
to read it out to me. If he could find any matter against me in that
holiest truth of my existence, he was welcome to it.
"Be it so," I said; "that is with myself, and no one else."
"There are others who love her," he continued, "but there is a
difference in the quality of love. There is that which sanctifies, and
something, called by the same name, which is an excuse for infinite
perfidy. In my experience I have found the love of woman and the love
of money at the bottom of most mischief--the greed of gain is by far
the commonest and strongest; and when the two are combined, there is
motive enough for the darkest tragedy. But you spoke of a young woman,
of whom you have suspicions."
I told Mr. Burton that in this matter I trusted to his discretion; that
I had not brought it to notice before Mr. Browne, because I shrunk from
the danger of fixing a ruinous suspicion upon a person who might be
perfectly innocent; yet that circumstances were such as to demand
investigation, which I was sure he was the person to carry on. I then
gave him a careful account of every thing I had seen or learned about
the sewing-girl. He agreed with me that she ought to be placed under
secret surveillance. I told him that the officer from Blankville would
be in after tea, when we could consult together and dispose of the
discussion before the arrival of James and Mr. Browne--and I then rung
the bell, ordering a light supper in our room.
The Blankville official had nothing to report of Miss Sullivan, except
that she had not arrived either at her boarding-house or at the shop
where she was employed, and her character stood high at both places.
She had been represented to him as a "strictly proper" person, very
reserved, in poor health, with a sad appearance, and an excellent
workwoman--that no gentlemen were ever known to call to see her, and
that she never went out after returning to her boarding-house at the
close of work-hours. We then requested him to say nothing about her to
his brother officers, and to keep the matter from the newspapers, as we
should regret doing an irreparable injury to one who might be guiltless.
It seemed as if the Fates were in favor of the guilty. Mr. Browne,
punctually at eight o'clock, reported that there was none of the money
paid out to James Argyll at Mr. Argyll's order, which the bank would
identify--not even its own bill of five hundred dollars, which was a
recent issue. They had paid out such a bill on the draft, but the
number was not known to them.
"However," said Mr. Browne, "bills of that denomination are not common,
and we shall be on the lookout for them, wherever offered."
"But even should the robber be discovered, there is no proof that it
would establish any connection with the murder. It may have been a
coincidence," remarked James. "I have often noticed that one calamity
is sure to be followed by another. If there is a railroad disaster, a
powder-mill explosion, a steamer destroyed by fire, before the horror
of the first accident has done thrilling our nerves, we are pretty
certain to be startled by another catastrophe."
"I, too," said Mr. Burton, "have remarked the succession of
events--echoes, as it were, following the clap of thunder. And I have
usually found that, like the echoes, there was a natural cause for
them."
James moved uneasily in his chair, arose, pulled aside the curtain, and
looked out into the night. I had often noticed that he was somewhat
superstitious; perhaps he saw the eyes of Henry Moreland looking down
at him from the starry hights; he twitched the curtains together with a
shiver, and came back to us.
"It is not impossible," he said, keeping his face in the shadow, for he
did not like us to see how the night had affected him, "that some one
of the clerks in Mr. Moreland's banking-house--perhaps some trusted and
responsible person--was detected by Henry, in making false entries, or
some other dishonesty--and that to save himself the disgrace of
betrayal and dismissal, he has put the discoverer out of the way. The
whole business of the establishment ought to be thoroughly overhauled.
It appears that Henry went directly to the cars from the office; so
that if any trouble had arisen between him and one of the employees,
there would have been no opportunity for his consulting his father, who
was not at the place all that afternoon."
"Your suggestion is good," said Mr. Browne, "and must be attended to."
"The whereabouts of every one of the employees, down to the porter, at
the time of the murder, are already accounted for. They were all in the
city," said Mr. Burton, with precision.
Shortly after, the party separated for the night. An urgent invitation
came from Mr. Moreland for James and myself to stop at his house during
our stay in the city; but we thought it better not to disturb the quiet
of the house of mourning with the business which we wished to press
forward, and returned an answer to that effect. It was nearly ten
o'clock when James recollected that we had not been to the offices of
the daily journals with the advertisements which ought to appear in the
morning. It was the work of a few minutes for me to write one out,
which we then copied on three or four sheets of paper, and finding an
errand-boy below, we dispatched him with two of the copies to as many
journals, and ourselves hurried off with the others. I went to one
establishment and my companion to another, in order to hasten
proceedings, knowing that it was doubtful if we could get them inserted
at that late hour. Having succeeded to my satisfaction with my own
errand, I thought I would walk over to the next street and meet James,
whom, having a little further than I to go, I would probably meet,
returning. As I neared the building to which he had gone, and which was
brilliantly lighted up for its night-work, I saw James come out on the
pavement, look around him an instant, and then start off in a direction
opposite to that which would lead back to Broadway and his hotel. He
had not observed me, who chanced to be in shadow at the moment; and I,
without any particular motive which I could analyze, started after him,
thinking to overtake him and offer to join him in a walk. He went,
however, at so rapid a pace, that I still remained behind. Our course
lay through Nassau and Fulton streets, to the Brooklyn ferry. I
quickened my pace almost to a run, as James passed into the
ferry-house, for I saw that a boat was about to start; but I had a
vexatious delay in finding small change, so that I got through just in
time to see the boat move off, James himself having to take a flying
leap to reach it after it was under way. At that hour there was a boat
only every fifteen minutes; of course I gave up the pursuit; and
sitting down at the end of the bridge, I allowed the cool wind from the
bay and river to blow against my hot face, while I gazed out on the
dark waters, listening to their incessant moaning about the piers, and
watching where they glimmered beneath the lights of the opposite shore.
The blue and red lamps of the moving vessels, in my present mood, had a
weird and ghastly effect; the thousands of masts of the moored shipping
stood up naked against the sky, like a forest of blighted, skeleton
pines. Sadness, the deepest I had ever felt in my life, fell upon
me--sadness too deep for any expression. The shifting water, slipping
and sighing about the works of men which fretted it; the
unapproachable, glittering sky; the leafless forest, the wind fresh
from its ocean solitudes--these partially interpreted it, but not
wholly. Their soul, as far as the soul of Nature goes, was in unison
with mine; but in humanity lies a still deeper deep, rises a higher
hight. I was as much alone as if nearly a million fellow-creatures were
not so encircling me. I thought of the many tragedies over which these
waters had closed; of the secrets they had hidden; of the many lives
sucked under these ruthless bridges; of the dark creatures who haunted
these docks at evil hours--but most I thought of a distant chamber,
where a girl, who yesterday was as full of love and beauty as a morning
rose is full of dew and perfume--whose life ran over with light--whose
step was imperial with the happiness of youth--lay, worn and pallid,
upon her weary bed, breathing sighs of endless misery. I thought of the
funeral procession which to-morrow, at noon, should come by this road
and travel these waters, to that garden of repose, whose white
tombstones I knew, although I could not see them, gleamed now under the
"cold light of stars."
[Illustration:
BAFFLED.
Page 64.]
Thus I sat, wrapped in musings, until a policeman, who, it is likely,
had long had his eye upon me, wondering if I were a suspicious
character, called out--"Take care of your legs, young man!" and I
sprung to my feet, as the return boat came into her slip, drifting up
and bumping sullenly against the end of the bridge where my legs had
been dangling.
I waited until, among the not numerous passengers, I perceived James
hurrying by, when I slipped my hand into his arm quietly, saying,
"You led me quite a race--what in the world have you been across to
Brooklyn for?"
He jumped at my voice and touch; then grew angry, as people are apt to
do when they are startled or frightened, after the shock is over.
"What business is that of yours, sir? How dare you follow me? If you
have taken upon yourself the office of spy, let me know it."
"I beg your pardon," I answered, withdrawing from his arm, "I walked
over to the H---- office to meet you, and saw you walk off in this
direction. I had no particular object in following you, and perhaps
ought not to have done it."
"I spoke too hastily," he said, almost immediately. "Forget it,
Richard. You pounced upon me so unexpectedly, you gave me a nervous
shock--irritated my combativeness, I suppose. I thought, of course, you
had returned to the hotel, and feeling too restless to go back to my
little bedroom, there, I determined to try the effect of a ride across
the river. The bracing air has toned me up. I believe I can go back and
sleep"--offering his arm again, which I took, and we slowly retraced
our steps to the Metropolitan.
I will not pain the heart of my reader by forcing him to be one of the
mournful procession which followed Henry Moreland to his untimely
grave. At two o'clock of Tuesday, all was over. The victim was hidden
away from the face of the earth--smiling, as if asleep, dreaming of his
Eleanor, he was consigned to that darkness from whence he should never
awaken and find her--while the one who had brought him low walked
abroad under the sunlight of heaven. To give that guilty creature no
peace was the purpose of my heart.
James resolved to return to Blankville by the five o'clock train. He
looked sick, and said that he felt so--that the last trying scene had
"used him up;" and then, his uncle would surely want one of us to
assist him at home. To this I assented, intending myself to stay in the
city a day or two, until Mr. Burton was prepared to go out to
Blankville with me.
After such of the friends from the village as had come down to attend
the funeral, had started for home in the afternoon cars, I went to my
room to have another interview with the detective. In the mean time, I
had heard some of the particulars of Mr. Burton's history, which had
greatly increased the interest I already felt in him. He had chosen his
present occupation out of a consciousness of his fitness for it. He was
in independent circumstances, and accepted no salary for what was with
him a labor of love; seldom taking any of the liberal sums pressed upon
him by grateful parties who had benefited by his skill, except to cover
expenses to which long journeys, or other necessities of the case,
might have subjected him. He had been in the "profession" but a few
years. Formerly he had been a forwarding-merchant, universally esteemed
for integrity, and carrying about him that personal influence which men
of strong will and unusual discrimination exercise over those with whom
they come in contact. But that he had any extraordinary powers, of the
kind which had since been developed, he was as ignorant as others. An
accident, which revealed these to him, shaped the future course of his
life. One wild and windy night the fire-bells of New York rung a fierce
alarm; the flames of a large conflagration lighted the sky; the firemen
toiled manfully, as was their wont, but the air was bitter and the
pavements sleety, and the wintry wind "played such fantastic tricks
before high heaven" as made the angel of mercy almost despair. Before
the fire could be subdued, four large warehouses had been burned to the
ground, and in one of them a large quantity of uninsured merchandise
for which Mr. Burton was responsible.
The loss, to him, was serious. He barely escaped failure by drawing in
his business to the smallest compass, and, by the exercise of great
prudence, he managed to save a remnant of his fortune, with which, as
soon as he could turn it to advantage, he withdrew from his mercantile
career. His mind was bent on a new business, which unfitted him for any
other.
The fire was supposed to be purely accidental; the insurance companies,
usually cautious enough, had paid over their varying amounts of
insurance to those fortunate losers, who were not, like Mr. Burton,
unprepared. These losers were men of wealth, and the highest position
as business firms--high and mighty potentates, against whom to breathe
a breath of slander, was to overwhelm the audacious individual in the
ruins of his own presumption. Mr. Burton had an inward conviction that
these men were guilty of arson. He knew it. His mind perceived their
guilt. But he could make no allegation against them upon such
unsubstantial basis as this. He went to work, quietly and singly, to
gather up the threads in the cable of his proof; and when he had made
it strong enough to hang them twice over--for two lives, that of a
porter and a clerk, had been lost in the burning buildings--he
threatened them with exposure, unless they made good to him the loss
which he had sustained through their villainy. They laughed at him from
their stronghold of respectability. He brought the case into court.
Alas! for the pure, white statue of Justice which beautifies the
desecrated chambers of the law. Banded together, with inexhaustible
means of corruption at their command, the guilty were triumphant.
During this experience, Mr. Burton had got an inside view of life, in
the marts, on exchange, in the halls of justice, and in the high and
low places where men do congregate. It was as if, with the thread in
his hand, which he had picked out, he unraveled the whole web of human
iniquity. Burning with a sense of his individual wrongs, he could not
look calmly on and see others similarly exposed; he grew fascinated
with his labor of dragging the dangerous secrets of a community to the
light. The more he called into play the peculiar faculties of his mind,
which made him so successful a hunter on the paths of the guilty, the
more marvelous became their development. He was like an Indian on the
trail of his enemy--the bent grass, the broken twig, the evanescent
dew--which, to the uninitiated, were "trifles light as air," to him
were "proofs strong as Holy Writ."
In this work he was actuated by no pernicious motives. Upright and
humane, with a generous heart which pitied the innocent injured, his
conscience would allow him no rest if he permitted crime, which he
could see walking where others could not, to flourish unmolested in the
sunshine made for better uses. He attached himself to the secret
detective-police; only working up such cases as demanded the benefit of
his rare powers.
Thus much of Mr. Burton had the chief of police revealed to me, during
a brief interview in the morning; and this information, it may be
supposed, had not lessened the fascinations which he had for me. The
first thing he said, after the greetings of the day, when he came to my
room, was,
"I have ascertained that our sewing-girl has one visitor, who is a
constant one. There is a middle-aged woman, a nurse, who brings a
child, now about a year old, every Sunday to spend half the day with
her, when she does not go up to Blankville. On such occasions it is
brought in the evening, some time during the week. It passes, so says
the landlady, for the child of a cousin of Miss Sullivan's, who was
married to a worthless young fellow, who deserted her within three
months, and went off to the west; the mother died at its birth, leaving
it entirely unprovided for, and Miss Sullivan, to keep it out of the
charity-hospital, hired this woman to nurse it with her own baby, for
which she pays her twelve shillings a week. She was, according to her
story to the landlady, very much attached to her poor cousin, and could
not cast off the little one for her sake."
"All of which may be true--"
"Or false--as the case may turn."
"It certainly will not be difficult to ascertain if such a cousin
really married and died, as represented. The girl has not returned to
her work yet, I suppose?"
"She has not. Her absence gives the thing a bad look. Some connection
she undoubtedly has with the case; as for how deeply she was involved
in it, we will only know when we find out. Whoever the child's mother
may have been, it seems evident, from the tenor of the landlady's
story, that Miss Sullivan is much attached to it; it is safe to presume
that, sooner or later, she will return to look after it. In her anxiety
to reach the nest, she will fly into the trap. I have made arrangements
by which I shall be informed if she appears at any of her former
haunts, or at the house of the nurse. And now, I believe, I will go up
to Blankville with you for a single day. I wish to see the ground of
the tragedy, including Mr. Argyll's residence, the lawn, the library
from which the money was abstracted, etc. A clear picture of these,
carried in my mind, may be of use to me in unexpected ways. If we hear
nothing of her in the village, I will return to the city, and await her
reäppearance here, which will be sure to occur within a month."
"Why within a month?"
"Women risk themselves, always, where a little child demands it. When
the nurse finds the baby abandoned by its protector, and the wages
unpaid, she will throw the charge upon the authorities. To prevent
this, the girl will be back here to see after it. However, I hope we
shall not be a month getting at what we want. It will be curious if we
don't finish the whole of this melancholy business before that. And, by
the way, you and young Argyll had quite a hide-and-seek race the other
night!" and when I looked my astonishment at this remark, he only
laughed. "It's my profession, you know," was his only explanation.
CHAPTER VI.
TWO LINKS IN THE CHAIN.
We went up to Blankville that evening, arriving late. I confess that I
felt a thrill as of cold steel, and peered over my shoulder as we
walked up the hill from the depot; but my companion was guilty of no
such weakness. He kept as sharp a lookout as the light of a setting
moon would permit, but it was only with a view to making himself
familiar with the premises. We passed the Argyll mansion on our way to
my boarding-place; it was too late to call; the lights were
extinguished, except the faint one always left burning in the hall, and
in two or three of the chambers. A rush of emotion oppressed me, as I
drew near it; I would fain have laid my head against the pillars of the
gateway and wept--tears such as a man may shed without reproach, when
the woman he loves suffers. A growing anxiety possessed me to hear of
Eleanor, no report of her mental or physical condition having reached
me since that piercing shriek had announced the parting of her
heart-strings when the strain of final separation came. I would have
gone to the door a moment, to make inquiries, had I not inferred that a
knock at that late hour must startle the family into nervous
anticipations. The wan glimmer of the sinking moon struck under the
branches of the silent trees, which stood about the dark mass of the
stately mansion; not a breath stirred the crisp foliage. I heard a
leaf, which loosened itself and rustled downward to the sod.
"It is a fine old place," remarked my companion, pausing because my own
steps had come to a standstill.
I could not answer; he drew my arm into his, and we went on. Mr. Burton
was growing to me in the shape of a friend, instead of a
detective-officer.
That night I gave up my room to him, taking a hall-bedroom adjoining.
After breakfast we went forth into the village, making our first call
at the office. Mr. Argyll was there, looking thin and care-worn. He
said that he was glad to have me back, for he felt unfit for business,
and must let the mantle of labor drop upon my shoulders hereafter.
There had been an implied understanding, although it had never been
definitely agreed upon, that I was to become a partner in the law with
my teacher, when I had been admitted to practice. He had no one
associated with him in his large and lucrative business, and he was now
getting of an age to feel like retiring from at least the drudgery of
the profession. That he designed to offer me the place open for some
candidate, I had not doubted, for he had said as much many times. This
prospect was an unusually fair one for so young a person as myself; it
had urged me to patient study, to eager, ambitious effort. For I
rightly deemed that a respect for my habits of mental application and a
faith in my as yet undeveloped talents, had decided Mr. Argyll to offer
me the contemplated encouragement. This had been another reason for
James' dislike of me. He could not look favorably upon one who had, as
it were, supplanted him. Instead of seeing that the fault lay in
himself, and applying the remedy, he pursued the false course of
considering me as a rival and an interloper. He, also, was a student in
the office, and that he was a year behind me in his studies, and that,
if he ever became a partner, it would be as a third member of the firm,
was owing solely to his habitual indolence, which gave him a distaste
for the dry details of a lawyer's work. What he would have liked would
be to have his examination shirked over, to be admitted on the strength
of his uncle's reputation, and then to be employed only in making
brilliant oratorical efforts before the judge, jury and audience, after
some one else had performed all the hard labor of the case, and placed
his weapons ready at his hand.
If Mr. Argyll really intended to take the son of his old friend into
the firm, instead of his nephew, it was simply on the prudent
principles of business. I was to pass my examination on the first of
November; this remark, then, which he made, as I observed how weary and
unwell he looked, was not a surprise to me--it came only as a
confirmation of my expectations.
At that moment James entered the office. There was a cloud on his brow,
called up by his uncle's words; he hardly took time to shake hands with
me, before he said,
"How is it, uncle, if you are worried and overworked, that you do not
tell _me_? I should have been glad to help you. But it seems I am of no
possible account nowadays."
Mr. Argyll smiled at this outbreak, as he would at the vexation of a
child. A father could not be kinder to a son than he was to James; but
to depend upon him for solid aid or comfort would be to lean upon a
broken reed. The cloud upon the young man's face grew thunderous when
he perceived Mr. Burton; although, if I had not been looking straight
in his eyes, I should not have noticed it, for it passed instantly, and
he stepped forward with frank cordiality, extending his hand, and
saying,
"We did not know you were to come up. Indeed, we did not expect Richard
back so soon. Has any thing transpired?"
"We hope that something will transpire, very soon," answered the
detective. "You are very anxious, I see--and no wonder."
"No--no wonder! We are all of us perfectly absorbed--and, as for me, my
heart bleeds for my friends, Mr. Burton."
"And your friends' hearts bleed for you."
Mr. Burton had a peculiar voice, searching, though not loud; I was
talking with Mr. Argyll, and yet I heard this reply without listening
for it; I did not comprehend it, and indeed, I let it in at one ear and
out at the other, for I was asking about Eleanor.
"She is better than we hoped for," said the father, wiping the mist
from his eyes which gathered at the mention of her name, "but, alas,
Richard, that is not saying much. My girl never will be herself again.
My pretty Eleanor will never be my sunshine anymore. Not that her mind
is shaken--that remains only too acutely sensitive. But her heart is
broken. I can see that--broken, past mending. She has not left her bed
since Henry was carried away; the doctor assures me there is nothing
dangerous about her illness--only the natural weakness of the system
after intense suffering, the same as if she had endured great physical
pain. He says she will rally presently."
"If I could take her burden upon myself, I would ask no greater boon,"
I said.
My voice must have been very full of the feeling within me, for it made
Mr. Argyll give me a wondering look; I think it was the first time he
had a suspicion of the hopeless passion I had cherished for his
daughter.
"We must all bear our own troubles," he said. "Poor Richard, I fear you
have your own, like the rest of us."
When I again noticed what was passing between the other two, James was
telling Mr. Burton, with great animation, of some information which had
been lodged with the authorities of the village. I became absorbed in
it, of course.
A respectable citizen of a town some thirty or forty miles beyond, on
the railroad, hearing of the murder, had taken the trouble to come down
to Blankville and testify to some things which had fallen under his
observation on the night of the murder. He stated that he was a
passenger on the Saturday afternoon train from New York; that the seat
in front of his own, in the car, was occupied by a young gentleman,
who, by the description since given, he knew must be Henry Moreland;
that, as there were but few people in that car, he had given the more
attention to those near him; that he was particularly attracted by the
prepossessing appearance of the young gentleman, with whom he exchanged
a few remarks with regard to the storm, and who informed him that he
was going no further than Blankville.
"After we had been riding a while," said the witness--I do not give
James' words in telling it, but his own, as I afterward read them in
the sworn testimony--"I noticed a person who sat on the opposite side
of the car, facing us. His forehead was bent on his hand, and he was
looking out from under his fingers, at the young man in front of me. It
was his sinister expression which compelled me to notice him. His
small, glittering, black eyes were fixed upon my neighbor with a look
which made me shudder. I smiled at myself for my own sensation--said to
myself it was none of my business--that I was nervous--yet, in spite of
my attempts to be unconcerned, I was continually compelled to look
across at the individual of whose serpent-gaze the young gentleman
himself appeared totally unconscious. If he had once met those eyes, I
am certain he would have been on his guard--for I assert, without other
proof than what afterward transpired, that there was _murder_ in them,
and that that person was Henry Moreland's murderer. I can not prove
it--but my conviction is unalterable. I only wish, now, that I had
yielded to my impulse to shake my unknown neighbor, and say to
him--'See! there is an enemy! beware of him!' There was nothing but the
man's look to justify such a proceeding, and of course I curbed my
feelings.
"The man was a common-looking person, dressed in dark clothes; he wore
a low-crowned felt hat, slouched down on his forehead; I do not
remember about his hair, but his eyes were black, his complexion
sallow. I noticed a scar across the back of the hand which he held over
his eyes, as if it had sometime been cut across with a knife; also that
he had a large ring, with a red stone in it, on his little finger.
"When the cars stopped at Blankville, this person arose and followed
Henry Moreland from the car. I saw him step off the platform behind
him, which was the last I saw of either of them."
It may be imagined with what a thrill of fearful interest we listened
to this account, and the thousand conjectures to which it gave rise.
"It can not be difficult," I exclaimed, "to find other witnesses to
testify of this man."
We were assured by James that every effort had been made to get some
trace of him. No person answering to the description was a resident of
the village, and no one could be heard of as having been seen in the
vicinity. Not a solitary lounger about the depot, or the hotel close at
hand, could recall that he had seen such a stranger leave the cars; no
such person had stopped at the hotel; even the conductor of the train
could not be certain of such a passenger, though he had a dim
recollection of a rough fellow in the car with Mr. Moreland--he had not
observed where he left the train--thought his ticket was for Albany.
"But we do not despair of some evidence, yet," said Mr. Argyll.
"The New York police, not being able to do any thing further here, have
gone home," continued James. "If such a villain lurks in New York, he
will be found. That scar on the hand is a good point for identifying
him--don't you think so, sir?" to Mr. Burton.
"Well--yes! unless it was put on for the purpose. It may have been done
in red ocher, and washed off afterward. If the fellow was a practiced
hand, as the skill and precision of the blow would imply, he will be up
to all such tricks. If he had a real scar, he would have worn gloves on
such an errand."
"You think so?" and James drew a long breath, probably of
discouragement at this new statement of the case.
"I would like to go down to the depot, and along the docks for an
hour," continued Mr. Burton, "if there's nothing else to be done
immediately."
James politely insisted upon accompanying us.
"What the deuce did you bring another of those detectives up here for?"
he asked me, _sotto voce_, at the first opportunity. "We've had a
surfeit of them--they're regular bores! and this Burroughs or Burton,
or whatever his name is, is the most disagreeable of them all. A
conceited fellow--one of the kind I dislike, naturally."
"You mistake his character. He is intelligent and a gentleman."
"I wish you joy of his society," was the sneering reply.
Nevertheless, James favored us with his company during our morning's
tour. One sole fact the detective ascertained in the course of his two
hours' work. A fisherman had lost a small-boat during the storm of
Saturday night. He had left it, fastened to its accustomed moorings,
and, in the morning, found that the chain, which was old and rusty, had
parted one of its links, probably by the extreme violence with which
the wind had dashed the boat about. Mr. Burton had asked to see the
remnant of the chain. It was still attached to the post around which it
had been locked. An examination of the broken link showed that it was
partly rusted away; but there were also marks upon it, as if a knife or
chisel might have been used.
"I see my boy, Billy, a-tinkerin' with it," said the fisherman. "Like
as not he's been a-usin' of it to whittle on. That boy breaks more
knives'n his neck's wuth. He's goin' on nine, now, and he's had six
jack-knives in as many months."
Mr. Burton stood, holding the chain in his hand, and looking up and
down the river. His face glowed with a light which shone through from
some inward fire. I, who had begun to watch his varying expressions
with keen interest, saw that he was again becoming excited; but not in
the same way as on that first evening of our meeting, when he grew so
leonine.
He looked at the water and the sky, the fair shores and the dull dock,
as if these mute witnesses were telling to him a tale which he read
like a printed book. A few moments he stood thus in silence, his
countenance illuminated by that wonderful intelligence. Then, saying
that his researches were through with in this part of the village, we
returned, almost in silence, to the office; for when this man was
pondering the enigmas whose solution he was so certain to announce,
sooner or later, he grew absorbed and taciturn.
Mr. Argyll made us go home with him to dinner. I knew that I should not
see Eleanor; yet, even to be under the same roof with her, made me
tremble. Mary, who was constantly in attendance upon her sister, would
not appear at the table. She came down, for a moment, to greet me, and
to thank me for my poor efforts. The dear child had changed some, like
the rest of us. She could not look like any thing but the rosebud which
she was--a fresh and pure young creature of sixteen summers--a rosebud
drenched in dew--a little pale, with a quiver in her smile, and bright
tears beading her eye-lashes, ready, at any moment, to drop. It was
touching to see one naturally so joyous, subdued by the shadow which
had fallen over the house. Neither of us could say much; our lips
trembled when we spoke _her_ name; so, after a moment's holding my
hand, while the tears began to flow fast, Mary unclasped my fingers,
and went up stairs. I saw Mr. Burton hide those blue-gray eyes of his
in his handkerchief; my respect for him deepened as I felt that those
eyes, sharp and penetrating as they were, were not too cold to warm
with a sudden mist at the vision he had beheld.
"Ah!" murmured I to myself, "if he could see Eleanor!"
When dinner was over, Mr. Argyll went up to see his children, giving me
permission to show the house and grounds to the detective. James went
on the portico to smoke a cigar. Mr. Burton sat a short time in the
library, taking an impression of it on his mind, examined the lock of
the desk, and noticed the arrangement of the one window, which was a
large bay-window opening to the floor and projecting over the
flower-garden which lay behind the house and bordered the lawn to the
right. It was about three feet to the ground, and although quite
accessible, as a mode of entrance, to any one compelled to that
resource, the window was not ordinarily used as a mode of ingress or
egress. I had sometimes chased Mary, when she was not so old as now,
and sent her flying through the open casement into the mignonette and
violets beneath, and I after; but since we had both grown more sedate,
such pranks were rare.
We then went out upon the lawn. I took my companion to the tree beneath
which I had stood, when that dark figure had approached, and passed me,
to crouch beneath the window from which the death-candles shone. From
this spot, the bay-window was not visible, that being at the back of
the house and this on the side. Mr. Burton looked carefully about him,
walking all over the lawn, going up under the parlor windows, and
thence pursuing his way into the garden and around to the bay-window.
It was quite natural to search closely in this precinct for some mark
or footsteps, some crushed flowers, or broken branches, or scratches
upon the wall, left by the thief, if he or she had made his or her
entrance at this spot. Going over the ground thus, inch by inch, I
observed a bit of white lawn, soiled and weather-beaten, lying under a
rose-bush a few feet from the window. I picked it up. It was a woman's
handkerchief, of fine lawn, embroidered along the edge with a delicate
running vine, and a spray of flowers at the corner.
"One of the young ladies has dropped it, some time ago," I said, "or it
has blown across from the kitchen grass-plot, where the linen is put
out to dry."
Then I examined the discolored article more closely, and, involved in
the graceful twinings of the spray of flowers, I saw worked the
initials--"L. S."
"Leesy Sullivan," said my companion, taking it from my hand.
"It seems too dainty an article for her ownership," I said, at last,
for, at first, I had been quite stupefied.
"A woman's vanity will compass many things beyond her means. This thing
she has embroidered with her own needle--you remember, she is a
proficient in the art."
"Yes, I remember. She may have lost it Sunday night, during that visit
which I observed; and the wind has blown it over into this spot."
"You forget that there has been no rain since that night. This
handkerchief has been beaten into the grass and earth by a violent
rain. A thorn upon this bush has pulled it from her pocket as she
passed, and the rain has set its mark upon it, to be used as a
testimony against her."
"The evidence seems to conflict. She can not be a man and woman both."
"Why not?" was the quiet reply. "There may be a principal and an
accomplice. A woman is a safer accomplice for a man than one of his own
sex--and _vice versa_."
The face which I had seen, in its despair, the face of Leesy Sullivan,
rose in my memory, full of passion, marked in every soft yet impressive
lineament with slumbering power--"such a nature," I thought, "can be
maddened into crime, but it will not consort with villainy."
Mr. Burton put the handkerchief in the inside pocket of his coat, and
we returned into the house. He inquired the names of the servants, none
of whose initials corresponded with those we had found, nor could I
recall any lady visitors of the family to whom the handkerchief might
belong by virtue of its inscription. There was not the shadow of a
doubt but that it had been the property of the sewing-girl. Some
errand, secret and unlawful, had brought her to these grounds, and
under this window. We now considered it proper to show the handkerchief
to Mr. Argyll, and relate to him our grounds of suspicion against the
girl. Mary and James were admitted to the council. The former said that
she remembered Miss Sullivan; that she had been employed in the family,
for a few days at a time, on several different occasions, but none of
them recent. "We liked her sewing very much, and wanted to engage her
for the next six weeks," she added, with a sigh, "but on inquiring for
her, learned that she was now employed in New York."
"She must, then, have been perfectly familiar with the arrangement of
the house, and with the habits of the family; as for instance, at what
hour you dined. She might enter while the family were at table, since,
had she been surprised by the entrance of a servant, or other person,
she could affect to have called on an errand, and to be waiting for the
young ladies," remarked Mr. Burton.
The servants were then summoned, one at a time, and questioned as to
whether they had observed any suspicious persons whatever about the
house or grounds within a week. They were, of course, in a national
state of high excitement, and immediately upon a question being put to
them, answered every other imaginary case in the world but that,
blessed themselves, called on the Virgin Mary, gave an account of all
the beggars as called at the kitchen last year and the year afore,
cried abundantly, and gave no coherent information.
"Ah, sure!" said Norah, the cook, "there was the blackin'-and-bluin'
man come around last Wednesday, and I tuk a bottle of the blue for the
clothes. It's a poor mimiry I have, sure, since I came across the say.
Afore that I could recollect beyond any thing, and the praste used to
praise my rading. I think it was the tossin' an' rollin' ov the ship
upsot my brain. It was Saturday, it wur, and oh, Lordy, it is setting
me all of a trimble a-thinkin' of that day, and I see a little yeller
dog a-stickin' his nose into the kitching door, which was open about
half, and says I, there's vagabonds around sure, now, I knew by the
dog, and I wint and looked out, and sure as me name's Norah, there was
an old lame man wid a stick a-pretinding to look for rags an' bones in
the alley to the stable, which I niver allows such about, as it's
against the master's orthers, and I druv him off immajetly--and that, I
think, was Saturday two weeks now, but I won't be sure; and I don't
mind nobody else but the chany-woman, wid her basket, which I don't
think it could have been her as done any thin' bad, for she's been
round rig'ler, for a good while, and is a dacent-spoken body that I've
had some dalin's wid myself. I sowld her my old plaid gown for the
match-box of ebony that sits on the kitching-mantel now, and oh dear!
but my heart's dead broke, sure! Margaret and I daren't set in the
kitching of nights no more, unless Jim's there, an' I've woke up
scr'aming two nights now--och hone! and if I'd seed any thing, I'd a
told it long afore, which I wish I had, seein' you've axed me, sir. It
don't do no good a-cooking delicacies which nobody eats no longer--I
wish I had never come to Amyriky, to see poor Miss Eleanor so tuk
down!" and having relieved herself of the sympathy which she had been
aching to express, without the opportunity, she threw her apron over
her head, and sobbed after the manner of her people.
Margaret's testimony was no more to the point than Norah's. Mr. Burton
let each one go on after her own heart, putting up with the tedious
circumlocution, in the hope of some kernel of wheat in the bushel of
chaff.
After a deluge of tears and interjections, Maggie did finally come out
with a statement which arrested the attention of her listeners.
"I've never seen none gawking about as didn't belong here--not a living
sowl. The howly Virgin prevint that iver I should see what Jim did--it
wasn't a human being at all, but a wraith, and he seen it that very
night. He niver told us of it, till the Tuesday night, as we sot
talking about the funeral, and it frightened us so, we niver slept a
wink till morning. Poor Jim's worried with it, too; he pretinds he
isn't afraid of the livin' nor dead, but it's no shame to the best to
stand in awe of the sperits, and I see he's backward about going about
the place, alone, after dark, and no wonder! Sure, he saw a ghost!"
"What was it like?"
"Sure, you'd best call him, and let him describe it for hisself--it'll
make your blood run cold to think of sich things in a Christian family."
Jim was summoned. His story, weeded out, was this: On Saturday evening,
after tea, his mistress, Miss Eleanor, had asked him to go to the
post-office for the evening mail. It was very dark and rainy. He
lighted the lantern. As he went out the back gate, he stopped a minute
and lifted his lantern to take a look about the premises, to see if
there was any thing left out which ought to be taken in from the storm.
As he waved the light about, he saw something in the flower-garden,
about six feet from the bay-window. It had the appearance of a woman;
its face was white, its hair hung down on its shoulders; it stood quite
still in the rain, just as if the water was not coming down by
bucketfuls. It had very large, bright eyes, which shone when the candle
threw the light on them, as if they had been made of fire. He was so
frightened that he let his lantern fall, which did not happen to
extinguish the candle, but when he lifted it up again, the wraith had
vanished. He felt very queer about it, at the time; and next day, when
the bad news came, he knew it was a warning. They often had such in the
old country.
We did not undeceive Jim as to the character of the phantom. With the
assurance that it probably would not come again, since its mission had
been accomplished, and a caution not to make the girls in the kitchen
too nervous about it, we dismissed him.
CHAPTER VII.
ELEANOR.
One week, another--a third--a fourth, passed by. Our village was as if
it had never been shaken by a fierce agitation. Already the tragedy was
as if it had not been, except to the household whose fairest flower it
had blighted. People no longer looked over their shoulders as they
walked; the story now only served to enliven the history of the little
place, when it was told to a stranger.
Every thing that human energy could accomplish had been done to track
the murder to its origin; yet not one step had been gained since we
sat, that Wednesday afternoon, in the parlor, holding a council over
the handkerchief. Young and healthful as I was, I felt my spirits
breaking down under my constant, unavailing exertions. The time for my
examination came, which could not be unsuccessful, I had so long been
thoroughly prepared, but I had lost my keen interest in this era of my
life, while my ambition grew torpid. To excel in my profession had
become, for the time, quite the secondary object of my life; my brain
grew feverish with the harassment of restless projects--the recoil of
thwarted ideas. There was not one in the family group (always excepting
that unseen and cloistered sufferer) who betrayed the wear-and-tear of
our trouble so much as I. James remarked once that I was improved by
losing some of my boyish ruddiness--I was "toning down," he said. On
another occasion, with that Mephistophiles smile of his, he observed
that it must be that I was after the handsome rewards--the sum-total
would make a comfortable setting-out for a person just starting in the
world.
I do not think he wished to quarrel with me; he was always doubly
pleasant after any such waspish sting; he was naturally satirical, and
he could not always curb his inclination to be so at my expense.
In the mean time an impression grew upon me that he was watching
me--with what intent I had not yet decided.
In all this time I had not seen Eleanor. She had recovered from her
illness, so as to be about her room, but had not yet joined the family
at meals. I went frequently to the house; it had been a second home to
me ever since I left the haunts of my boyhood and the old red-brick
mansion, with the Grecian portico, whose massive pillars were almost
reflected in the waters of Seneca lake, so close to the shore did it
stand--and where my mother still resided, amidst the friends who had
known her in the days of her happiness--that is, of my father's life.
With the same freedom as of old, I went and came to and from Mr.
Argyll's. I was not apprehensive of intruding upon Eleanor, because she
never left her apartments; while Mary, gay young creature, troubled and
grieved as she was, could not stay always in the shadow. At her age,
the budding blooms of womanhood require sunshine. She was lonely, and
when she left her sister to the solitude which Eleanor preferred, she
wanted company, she said. James was gloomy, and would not try to amuse
her--not that she wanted to be amused, but every thing was so sad, and
she felt so timid, it was a relief to have any one to talk to, or even
to look at. I felt very sorry for her. It became a part of my duty to
bring her books, and sometimes to read them aloud, through the
lengthening evenings; at others to while away the time with a game of
chess. The piano was abandoned out of respect for the mourner in the
chamber above. Carols would rise to Mary's lips, as they rise from a
lark at sunrise, but she always broke them off, drowning them in sighs.
Her elastic spirit constantly asserted itself, while the tender
sympathy of a most warm, affectionate nature as constantly depressed
it. She could not speak of Eleanor without tears; and for this my heart
blessed her. She did not know of the choking in my own throat which
often prevented me from speaking, when I ought, perhaps, to be uttering
words of help or comfort.
James was always hovering about like a restless spirit. It had been one
of his indolent habits to spend a great deal of time with the young
ladies; and now he was forever in the house; but so uneasy, so
irritable--as Mary said--he was not an agreeable companion. He would
pick up a book in the library; in five minutes he would throw it down,
and walk twice or thrice up and down the hall, out upon the piazza,
back into the parlor, and stand looking out of the windows--then to the
library and take up another book. He had the air of one always
listening--always waiting. He had, too, a kind of haunted look, if my
reader can imagine what that is. I guessed that he was listening and
waiting for Eleanor--whom, like myself, he had not seen since the
Sunday so memorable; but the other look I did not seek to explain.
There had been a light fall of snow. It seemed as if winter had come in
November. But in a few hours this aspect vanished; the snow melted like
a dream; the zenith was a deep, molten blue, transfused with the pale
sunshine, which is only seen in Indian-summer; a tender mist circled
the horizon with a zone of purple. I could not stay in the office that
afternoon, so infinitely sad, so infinitely lovely. I put aside the
law-papers which I had been arranging for a case in which I was first
to appear before a jury and make my maiden argument. The air, soft as
that of summer and scented with the indescribable perfume of perishing
leaves, came to me through the open window, with a message calling me
abroad; I took up my hat, stepped out upon the pavement, and wandering
along the avenue in the direction of the house, went in upon the lawn.
I had thought to go out into the open country for a long walk; but my
heart drew me and held me here. The language of all beauty, and of
infinity itself, is love. The divine melancholy of music, the deep
tranquillity of summer noons, the softened splendor of autumn days,
haunting one with ineffable joy and sadness--what is the name of all
this varying demonstration of beauty, but love?
I walked beneath the trees, slowly, my feet nestling among the
thickly-strewn leaves, and pressing a faint aroma from the moist earth.
To and fro for a long time I rambled, thinking no tangible thoughts,
but my soul silently filling, all the time, like a fountain fed by
secret springs. To the back of the lawn, extending around and behind
the flower-garden, was a little ascent, covered by a grove of elms and
maples, in the midst of which was a summer-house which had been a
favorite resort of Eleanor's. Hither I finally bent my steps, and
seating myself, looked musingly upon the lovely prospect around and
beneath me. The rustic temple opened toward the river, which was
visible from here, rolling in its blue splendor across the exquisite
landscape. There is a fascination in water which will keep the eyes
fixed upon it through hours of reverie; I sat there, mindful of the
near mountains, the purple mist, the white ships, the busy village, but
gazing only at the blue ripples forever slipping away from the point of
my observation. My spirit exhaled like the mist and ascended in
aspiration. My grief aspired, and arose in passionate prayers to the
white throne of the eternal justice--it arose in tears, etherealized
and drawn up by the rays from the one great source and sun--the spirit
of Love. I prayed and wept for _her_. No thought of myself mingled with
these emotions.
Suddenly a slight chill fell upon me. I started to perceive that the
sun had set. A band of orange belted the west. As the sun dropped
behind the hills the moon came up in the east. It seemed as if her
silver light frosted what it touched; the air grew sharp; a thin, white
cloud spread itself over the river. I had sat there long enough, and I
was forcing myself to a consciousness of the fact, when I saw one
coming through the flower-garden and approaching the summer-house.
My blood paused in my veins when I saw that it was Eleanor. The sunset
yet lingered, and the cold moonlight shone full on her face. I
remembered how I had seen her, that last time but one, glowing and
flushing in triumphant beauty, attired with the most skilled coquetry
of a young, beloved woman, who is glad of her charms because another
prizes them.
Now she came along the lonesome path, between the withered flower-beds,
clothed in deepest black, walking with a feeble step, one small white
hand holding the sable shawl across her chest, a long crape vail thrown
over her head, from which her face looked out, white and still.
A pang like that of death transfixed me, as I gazed at her. Not one
rose left in the garden of her young life! The ruin through which she
walked was not so complete--but this garden would resurrect itself in
the months of another spring--while for her there was no spring on this
side of the grave.
[Illustration:
Page 90.
ELEANOR.]
Slowly she threaded her way, with bent gaze, through the garden, out
upon the hillside, and up to the little rustic temple in which she had
spent so many happy hours with him. When she had reached the grassy
platform in front of it, she raised her eyes and swept a glance around
upon the familiar scene. There were no tears in her blue eyes, and her
lips did not quiver. It was not until she had encircled the horizon
with that quiet, beamless look, that she perceived me. I rose to my
feet, my expression only doing reverence to her sorrow, for I had no
words.
She held out her hand, and as I took it, she said with gentleness--as
if her sweetness must excuse the absence of her former smiles,
"Are you well, Richard? You look thin. Be careful of yourself--is it
not too chilly for you to be sitting here at this hour?"
I pressed her hand, and turned away, vainly endeavoring to command my
voice. _I_ had changed!--but it was like Eleanor to put herself aside
and remember others.
"Nay, do not go," she said, as she saw that I was leaving her out of
fear of intruding upon her visit, "I shall remain here but a few
moments, and I will lean upon your arm back to the house. I am not
strong, and the walk up the hill has tired me. I wanted to see you,
Richard. I thought some of coming down-stairs a little while this
evening. I want to thank you."
The words were just whispered, and she turned immediately and looked
away at the river. I understood her well. She wanted to thank me for
the spirit which had prompted me in my earnest, though unsuccessful
efforts. And coming down to the family-group a little while in the
evening, that was for Mary's sake, and her poor father's. Her own light
had expired, but she did not wish to darken the hearthstone any more
than was unavoidable. She sunk down upon the seat I had vacated,
remaining motionless, looking upon the river and the sky. After a time,
with a long, tremulous sigh, she arose to go. A gleam from the west
fell upon a single violet which, protected from the frost by the
projecting roof, smiled up at us, near the door of the summer-house.
With a wild kind of passion breaking through her quiet, Eleanor
stooped, gathered it, pressed it to her lips, and burst into tears--it
was her favorite flower--Henry's favorite.
It was agony to see her cry, yet better, perhaps, than such marble
repose. She was too weak to bear this sudden shock alone; she leaned
upon my shoulder, every sob which shook her frame echoed by me. Yes! I
am not ashamed to confess it! When manhood is fresh and unsullied, its
tears are not wrung out in those single drops of mortal anguish which
the rock gives forth when time and the foot of the world have hardened
it. I could still remember when I had kissed my mother, and wept my
boyish troubles well upon her breast. I should have been harder than
the nether millstone, had I not wept tears with Eleanor then.
I mastered myself in order to assist her to regain composure, for I was
alarmed lest the violence of her emotion should break down the remnant
of her frail strength. She, too, struggled against the storm, soon
growing outwardly calm, and with the violet pressed to her bosom with
one hand, with the other she clung to my arm, and we returned to the
house, where they were already looking for Eleanor.
Under the full light of the hall-lamp we encountered James. It was his
first meeting with his cousin as well as mine. He gave her a quick,
penetrating look, held out his hand, his lips moved as if striving to
form a greeting. It was evident that the change was greater than he
expected; he dropped his hand, before her fingers had touched it, and
rushing past us through the open door, he closed it behind him,
remaining out until long after tea.
When he came in, Eleanor had retired to her chamber, and Mary brought
him the cup of tea which she had kept hot for him.
"You are a good girl, Mary," he said, drinking it hastily, as if to get
rid of it. "I hope nobody will ever make you look like _that_! I
thought broken hearts were easily mended--that girls usually had theirs
broken three or four times, and patched them up again--but I have
changed my mind."
That gloomy look, which Mary declared she dreaded, clouded his face
again. His countenance was most variable; nothing could excel it in
glitter and brilliant color when he was in his pleasing mood, but when
sullen or sad, it was sallow and lusterless. Thus it looked that
evening. But I must close this chapter now and here--it is consecrated
to that meeting with the object of my sorrow and adoration, and I will
not prolong it with the details of other events.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HAUNTED GRAVE.
When I returned to my boarding-house that same evening, I found a
telegram awaiting me from Mr. Burton, asking me to come down to the
city in the morning. I went down by the earliest train, and, soon
after, ringing the bell at the door of his private residence in
Twenty-third street, a servant ushered me into the library, where I
found the master of the house so absorbed in thought, as he sat before
the grate with his eyes bent upon the glowing coals, that he did not
observe my entrance until I spoke his name. Springing to his feet, he
shook me heartily by the hand; we had already become warm personal
friends.
"You are early," he said, "but so much the better. We will have the
more time for business."
"Have you heard any thing?" was my first question.
"Well, no. Don't hope that I have called you here to satisfy you with
any positive discoveries. The work goes on slowly. I was never so
baffled but once before; and then, as now, there was a woman in the
case. A cunning woman will elude the very Prince of Lies, himself, to
say nothing of honest men like us. She has been after the child."
"She has?"
"Yes. And has taken it away with her. And now I know no more of her
whereabouts than I did before. There! You must certainly feel like
trusting your case to some sharper person to work up"--he looked
mortified as he said it.
Before I go further I must explain to my reader just how far the
investigation into the acts and hiding-place of Leesy Sullivan had
proceeded. Of course we had called upon her aunt in Blankville, and
approached the question of the child with all due caution. She had
answered us frankly enough, at first--that Leesy had a cousin who lived
in New York, whom she was much attached to, and who was dead, poor
thing! But the moment we intruded the infant into the conversation, she
flew into a rage, asked if "we'd come there to insult a respectable
widdy, as wasn't responsible for what others did?" and wouldn't be
coaxed or threatened into any further speech on the subject, fairly
driving us out of the room and (I regret to add) down the stairs with
the broomstick. As we could not summon her into court and compel her to
answer, at that time, we were compelled to "let her alone." One thing,
however, became apparent at the interview--that there was shame or
blame, or at least a family quarrel, connected with the child.
After that, in New York, Mr. Burton ascertained that there had been a
cousin, who had died, but whether she had been married, and left a
babe, or not, was still a matter of some doubt.
He had spent over a week searching for Leesy Sullivan, in the vicinity
of Blankville, at every intermediate station between that and New York,
and throughout the city itself, assisted by scores of detectives, who
all of them had her photograph, taken from a likeness which Mr. Burton
had found in her deserted room at her boarding-place. This picture must
have been taken more than a year previous, as it looked younger and
happier; the face was soft and round, the eyes melting with warmth and
light, and the rich, dark hair dressed with evident care. Still, Leesy
bore resemblance enough to her former self, to make her photograph an
efficient aid. Yet not one trace of her had been chanced upon since I,
myself, had seen her fly away at the mention of the word which I had
purposely uttered, and disappear over the wooded hill. We had nearly
made up our minds that she had committed suicide; we had searched the
shore for miles in the vicinity of Moreland villa, and had fired guns
over the water; but if she had hidden herself in those cold depths, she
had done it most effectually.
The gardener's wife, at the villa, had kept vigilant watch, as I had
requested, but she had never any thing to report--the sewing-girl came
no more to haunt the piazza or the summer-house. Finally, Mr. Burton
had given over active measures, relying simply upon the presence of the
child in New York, to bring back the protectress into his nets, if
indeed she was still upon earth. He said rightly, that if she were
concealed and had any knowledge of the efforts made to discover her,
the surest means of hastening her reäppearance would be to apparently
relinquish all pursuit. He had a person hired to watch the premises of
the nurse constantly; a person who took a room next to hers in the
tenement-house where she resided, apparently employed in knitting
children's fancy woolen garments, but really for the purpose of giving
immediate notification should the guardian of the infant appear upon
the scene. In the mean time he was kept informed of the sentiments of
the nurse, who had avowed her intention of throwing the babe upon the
authorities, if its board was not paid at the end of the month. "Hard
enough," she avowed it was, "to get the praties for the mouths of her
own chilther; and the little girl was growing large now. The milk
wouldn't do at all, at all, but she must have her praties and her bit
bread wid the rest."
In answer to these complaints, the wool-knitter had professed such an
interest in the innocent little thing, that, sooner than allow it to go
to the alms-house, or to the orphan-asylum, or any other such place,
she would take it to her own room, and share her portion with it, when
the nurse's month was up, until it was certain that the aunt was not
coming to see after it, she said.
With this understanding between them, the two women got along finely
together; little Nora, just toddling about, was a pretty child, and her
aunt had not spared stitches in making up her clothes, which were of
good material, and ornamented with lavish tucks and embroidery. She was
often, for half a day at a time, in the room with the new tenant, when
her nurse was out upon errands, or at work; and the former sometimes
took her out in her arms for a breath of air upon the better streets.
Mr. Burton had seen little Nora several times; he thought she resembled
Miss Sullivan, though not strikingly. She had the same eyes, dark and
bright.
Two days before Mr. Burton telegraphed for me to come down to New York,
Mrs. Barber, the knitting detective, was playing with the child in her
own room. It was growing toward night, and the nurse was out getting
her Saturday afternoon supplies at Washington Market; she did not
expect her back for at least an hour. Little Nora was in fine spirits,
being delighted with a blue-and-white hood which her friend had
manufactured for her curly head. As they frolicked together, the door
opened, a young woman came in, caught the child to her breast, kissed
it, and cried. "An-nee--an-nee," lisped the baby--and Mrs. Barber,
slipping out, with the excuse that she would go for the nurse, who was
at a neighbor's, jumped into a car, and rode up to Twenty-third street.
In half an hour Mr. Burton was at the tenement-house; the nurse had not
yet returned from market, and the bird had flown, carrying the baby
with her. He was sufficiently annoyed at this _dénoûement_. In the
arrangements made, the fact of the nurse being away had not been
contemplated; there was no one to keep on the track of the fugitive
while the officer was notified. One of the children said that the lady
had left some money for mother; there was, lying on the table, a sum
which more than covered the arrears due, and a note of thanks. But the
baby, with its little cloak and its new blue hood, had vanished. Word
was dispatched to the various offices, and the night spent in looking
for the two; but there is no place like a great city for eluding
pursuit; and up to the hour of my arrival at Mr. Burton's he had
learned nothing.
All this had fretted the detective; I could see it, although he did not
say as much. He who had brought hundreds of accomplished rogues to
justice did not like to be foiled by a woman. Talking on the subject
with me, as we sat before the fire in his library, with closed doors,
he said the most terrible antagonist he had yet encountered had been a
woman--that her will was a match for his own, yet he had broken with
ease the spirits of the boldest men.
"However," he added, "Miss Sullivan is not a woman of that stamp. If
_she_ has committed a crime, she has done it in a moment of passion,
and remorse will kill her, though the vengeance of the law should never
overtake her. But she is subtle and elusive. It is not reason that
makes her cunning, but feeling. With man it would be reason; and as I
could follow the course of his argument, whichever path it took, I
should soon overtake it. But a woman, working from a passion, either of
hate or love, will sometimes come to such novel conclusions as to defy
the sharpest guesses of the intellect. I should like, above all things,
a quiet conversation with that girl. And I will have it, some day."
The determination with which he avowed himself, showed that he had no
idea of giving up the case. A few other of his observations I will
repeat:
He said that the blow which killed Henry Moreland was given by a
professional murderer, a man, without conscience or remorse, probably a
hireling. A woman may have tempted, persuaded, or paid him to do the
deed; if so, the guilt rested upon her in its awful weight; but no
woman's hand, quivering with passion, had driven that steady and
relentless blow. It was not given by the hand of jealousy--it was too
coldly calculated, too firmly executed--no passion, no thrill of
feeling about it.
"Then you think," said I, "that Leesy Sullivan robbed the family whose
happiness she was about to destroy, to pay some villain to commit the
murder?"
"It looks like it," he answered, his eye dropping evasively.
I felt that I was not fully in the detective's confidence; there was
something working powerfully in his mind, to which he gave me no clue;
but I had so much faith in him that I was not offended by his
reticence. Anxious as I was, eager, curious--if it suits to call such a
devouring fire of longing as I felt, curiosity--he must have known that
I perceived his reservations; if so, he had his own way of conducting
matters, from which he could not diverge for my passing benefit. Twelve
o'clock came, as we sat talking before the fire, which gave a genial
air to the room, though almost unnecessary, the "squaw winter" of the
previous morning being followed by another balmy and sunlit day. Mr.
Burton rung for lunch to be brought in where we were; and while we
sipped the strong coffee, and helped ourselves to the contents of the
tray, the servant being dismissed, my host made a proposition which had
evidently been on his mind all the morning.
I was already so familiar with his personal surroundings, as to know
that he was a widower, with two children; the eldest, a boy of fifteen,
away at school; the second, a girl of eleven, of delicate health, and
educated at home, so far as she studied at all, by a day-governess. I
had never seen this daughter--Lenore, he called her--but I could guess,
without particular shrewdness, that his heart was wrapped up in her. He
could not mention her name without a glow coming into his face; her
frail health appeared to be the anxiety of his life. I could hear her,
now, taking a singing-lesson in a distant apartment, and as her pure
voice rose clear and high, mounting and mounting with airy steps the
difficult scale, I listened delightedly, making a picture in my mind of
the graceful little creature such a voice should belong to.
Her father was listening, too, with a smile in his eye, half forgetful
of his coffee. Presently he said, in a low voice, speaking at first
with some reluctance,
"I sent for you to-day, more particularly to make you the confidential
witness of an experiment than any thing else. You hear my Lenore
singing now--has she not a sweet voice? I have told you how delicate
her health is. I discovered, by chance, some two or three years since,
that she had peculiar attributes. She is an excellent clairvoyant. When
I first discovered it, I made use of her rare faculty to assist me in
my more important labors; but I soon discovered that it told fearfully
upon her health. It seemed to drain the slender stream of vitality
nearly dry. Our physician told me that I must desist, entirely, all
experiments of the kind with her. He was peremptory about it, but he
had only need to caution me. I would sooner drop a year out of my
shortening future than to take one grain from that increasing strength
which I watch from day to day with deep solicitude. She is my only
girl, Mr. Redfield, and the image of her departed mother. You must not
wonder if I am foolish about my Lenore. For eighteen months I have not
exercised my power over her to place her in the trance state, or
whatever it is, in which, with the clue in her hand, she will unwind
the path to more perplexed labyrinths than those of the fair one's
bower. And I tell you, solemnly, that if, by so doing, she could point
out pots of gold, or the secrets of diamond mines, I would not risk her
slightest welfare, by again exhausting her recruiting energies.
Nevertheless, so deeply am I interested in the tragedy to which you
have called my attention--so certain am I that I am on the eve of the
solution of the mystery--and such an act of justice and righteousness
do I deem it that it should be exposed in its naked truth before those
who have suffered from the crime--that I have resolved to place Lenore
once more in the clairvoyant state, for the purpose of ascertaining the
hiding-place of Leesy Sullivan, and I have sent for you to witness the
result."
This announcement took away the remnant of my appetite. Mr. Burton rung
to have the tray removed, and to bid the servant tell Miss Lenore, as
soon as she had lunched, to come to the library. We had but a few
minutes to wait. Presently we heard a light step; her father cried,
"Come in!" in answer to her knock, and a lovely child entered, greeting
me with a mingled air of grace and timidity--a vision of sweetness and
beauty more perfect than I could have anticipated. Her golden hair
waved about her slender throat, in glistening tendrils. Seldom do we
see such hair, except upon the heads of infants--soft, lustrous, fine,
floating at will, and curled at the end in little shining rings. Her
eyes were a celestial blue--celestial, not only because of the pure
heavenliness of their color, but because you could not look into them
without thinking of angels. Her complexion was the most exquisite
possible, fair, with a flush as of sunset-light on the cheeks--too
transparent for perfect health, showing the wandering of the delicate
veins in the temples. Her blue dress, with its fluttering sash, and the
little jacket of white cashmere which shielded her neck and arms, were
all dainty, and in keeping with the wearer. She did not have the serene
air of a seraph, though she looked like one; nor the listless manner of
an invalid. She gave her father a most winning, childish smile, looking
full of joy to think he was at home, and had sent for her. She was so
every way charming that I held out my arms to kiss her, and she, with
the instinct of children, who perceive who their real lovers are, gave
me a willing yet shy embrace. Mr. Burton looked pleased as he saw how
satisfactory was the impression made by his Lenore.
Placing her in a chair before him, he put a photograph of Miss Sullivan
in her hand.
"Father wants to put his little girl to sleep again," he said, gently.
An expression of unwillingness just crossed her face; but she smiled,
instantly, looking up at him with the faith of affection which would
have placed her life in his keeping, and said, "Yes, papa," in assent.
He made a few passes over her; when I saw their effect, I did not
wonder that he shrunk from the experiment--my surprise was rather that
he could be induced to make it, under any circumstances. The lovely
face became distorted as with pain; the little hands twitched--so did
the lips and eyelids. I turned away, not having fortitude to witness
any thing so jarring to my sensibilities. When I looked again, her
countenance had recovered its tranquillity; the eyes were fast closed,
but she appeared to ponder upon the picture which she held.
"Do you see the person now?"
"Yes, papa."
"In what kind of a place is she?"
"She is in a small room; it has two windows. There is no carpet on the
floor. There is a bed and a table, a stove and some chairs. It is in
the upper story of a large brick house, I do not know in what place."
"What is she doing?"
"She is sitting near the back window; it looks out on the roofs of
other houses; she is holding a pretty little child on her lap."
"She must be in the city," remarked Mr. Burton, aside; "the large house
and the congregated roofs would imply it. Can you not tell me the name
of the street?"
"No, I can not see it. I was never in this place before. I can see
water, as I look out of the window. It appears like the bay; and I see
plenty of ships, but there is some green land across the water, besides
distant houses."
"It must be somewhere in the suburbs, or in Brooklyn. Are there no
signs on the shops, which you can read, as you look out?"
"No, papa."
"Well, go down the stairs, and out upon the street, and tell me the
number of the house."
"It is No. --," she said, after a few moments' silence.
"Go along until you come to a corner, and read me the name of the
street."
"Court street," she answered, presently.
"It is in Brooklyn," exclaimed the detective, triumphantly. "There is
nothing now to prevent us going straight to the spot. Lenore, go back
now, to the house; tell us on which floor is this room, and how
situated."
Again there was silence while she retraced her steps.
"It is on the fourth floor, the first door to the left, as you reach
the landing."
Lenore began to look weary and exhausted; the sweat broke out on her
brow, and she panted as if fatigued with climbing flights of stairs.
Her father, with a regretful air, wiped her forehead, kissing it
tenderly as he did so. A few more of those cabalistic touches, followed
by the same painful contortions of those beautiful features, and Lenore
was herself again. But she was pale and languid; she drooped against
her father's breast, as he held her in his arms, the color faded from
her cheeks, too listless to smile in answer to his caresses. Placing
her on the sofa, he took from a nook in his secretary a bottle of old
port, poured out a tiny glassful, and gave to her. The wine revived her
almost instantly; the smiles and bloom came back, though she still
seemed exceedingly weary.
"She will be like a person exhausted by a long journey, or great labor,
for several days," said Mr. Burton, as I watched the child. "It cost me
a pang to make such a demand upon her; I hope it will be the last
time--at least until she is older and stronger than now."
"I should think the application of electricity would restore some of
the vitality which has been taken from her," I suggested.
"I shall try it this evening," was his reply; "in the mean time, if we
intend to benefit by the sacrifice of my little Lenore, let us lose no
time. Something may occur to send the fugitive flying again. And now,
my dear little girl, you must lie down a while this afternoon, and be
careful of yourself. You shall dine with us to-night, if you are not
too tired, and we shall bring you some flowers--a bouquet from old
John's conservatory, sure."
Committing his darling to the housekeeper's charge, with many
instructions and warnings, and a lingering look which betrayed his
anxiety, Mr. Burton was soon ready, and we departed, taking a stage for
Fulton Ferry a little after one o'clock.
About an hour and a quarter brought us to the brick house on Court
street, far out toward the suburbs, which had the number indicated upon
it. No one questioned our coming, it being a tenement-house, and we
ascended a long succession of stairs, until we came to the fourth
floor, and stood before the door on the left-hand side. I trembled a
little with excitement. My companion, laying his hand firmly on the
knob, was arrested by finding the door locked. At this he knocked; but
there was no answer to his summons. Amid the assortment of keys which
he carried with him, he found one to fit the lock; in a moment the door
stood open, and we entered to meet--blank solitude!
The room had evidently been deserted but a short time, and by some one
expecting to return. There was a fire covered down in the stove, and
three or four potatoes in the oven to be baked for the humble supper.
There was no trunk, no chest, no clothing in the room, only the scant
furniture which Lenore had described, a few dishes in the cupboard, and
some cooking utensils, which had been rented, probably, with the room.
On the table were two things confirmatory of the occupants--a bowl,
containing the remains of a child's dinner of bread-and-milk, and a
piece of embroidery--a half-finished collar.
At Mr. Burton's request I went down to the shop on the first floor, and
inquired in what direction the young woman with the child had gone, and
how long she had been out.
"She went, maybe, half an hour ago; she took the little girl out for a
walk, I think. She told me she'd be back before supper, when she
stopped to pay for a bit of coal, and to have it carried up."
I returned with this information.
"I'm sorry, now, that we inquired," said the detective; "that fellow
will be sure to see her first, and tell her that she has had callers;
that will frighten her at once. I must go below, and keep my watch from
there."
"If you do not care for a second person to watch with you, I believe I
will go on to Greenwood. We are so near it, now, and I would like to
visit poor Henry's grave."
"I do not need you at all now; only, do not be absent too long. When I
meet this Leesy Sullivan, whom I have not yet seen, you remember, I
want a long talk with her. The last object I have is to frighten her; I
shall seek to soothe her instead. If I can once meet her face to face,
and voice to voice, I believe I can tame the antelope, or the lioness,
whichever she turns out to be. I do not think I shall have to coerce
her--not even if she is guilty. If she is guilty she will give herself
up. I may even take her home to dinner with us," he added, with a
smile. "Don't shudder, Mr. Redfield; we often dine in company with
murderers--sometimes when we have only our friends and neighbors with
us. I assure you I have often had that honor!"
His grim humor was melancholy to me--but who could wonder that a man of
Mr. Burton's peculiar experience should be touched with cynicism?
Besides, I felt that there was more in the inner meaning of his words
than appeared upon their outer surface. I left him, sitting in a
sheltered corner of the shop below, in a position where he could
command the street and the entrance-hall without being himself
observed, and making himself friendly with the busy little man behind
the counter, of whom he had already purchased a pint of chestnuts. It
would be as well that I should be out of the way. Miss Sullivan knew
me, and might take alarm at some distant glimpse of me, while Mr.
Burton's person must be unknown to her, unless she had been the better
detective of the two, and marked him when he was ignorant of her
vicinity.
Stepping into a passing car, in a few minutes I had gone from the city
of the living to the city of the dead. Beautiful and silent city! There
the costly and gleaming portals, raised at the entrance of those
mansions, tell us the name and age of the inhabitants, but the
inhabitants themselves we never behold. Knock as loud and long as we
may at those marble doors, cry, entreat, implore, they hold themselves
invisible. Nevermore are they "at home" to us. We, who once were never
kept waiting, must go from the threshold now, without a word of
welcome. City of the dead--to which that city of the living must soon
remove--who is there that can walk thy silent streets without a
prescience of the time when he, too, will take up his abode in thee for
ever? Strange city of solitude! where thousands whose homes are ranged
side by side, know not one the other, and give no greeting to the pale
new-comers.
With meditations like these, only far too solemn for words, I wandered
through the lovely place, where, still, summer seemed to linger, as if
loth to quit the graves she beautified. With Eleanor and Henry in my
heart, I turned in the direction of the family burial-plot, wishing
that Eleanor were with me on that glorious day, that she might first
behold his grave under such gentle auspices of light, foliage and
flowers--for I knew that she contemplated a pilgrimage to this spot, as
soon as her strength would warrant the attempt.
I approached the spot by a winding path; the soft plash of a fountain
sounded through a little thicket of evergreens, and I saw the gleam of
the wide basin into which it fell; a solitary bird poured forth a
mournful flood of lamentation from some high branch not far away. It
required but little aid of fancy to hear in that "melodious madness"
the cry of some broken heart, haunting, in the form of this bird, the
place of the loved one's sleep.
There were other wanderers than myself in the cemetery; a funeral train
was coming through the gate as I passed in, and I met another within a
few steps; but in the secluded path where I now walked I was alone.
With the slow steps of one who meditates sad things, I approached
Henry's grave. Gliding away by another devious path, I saw a female
figure.
"It is some other mourner, whom I have disturbed from her vigil by some
of these tombs," I thought--"or, perchance, one who was passing further
on before reaching the goal of her grief,"--and with this I dismissed
her from my mind, having had, at the best, only an indistinct glimpse
of the woman, and the momentary flutter of her garments as she passed
beyond a group of tall shrubs and was lost to view.
The next moment I knelt by the sod which covered that young and noble
form. Do not think me extravagant in my emotions. I was not so--only
overpowered, always, by intense sympathy with the sufferers by that
calamity. I had so mused upon Eleanor's sorrow that I had, as it were,
made it mine. I bowed my head, breathing a prayer for her, then leaning
against the trunk of a tree whose leaves no longer afforded shade to
the carefully-cultivated family inclosure, my eyes fell upon the grave.
There were beautiful flowers fading upon it, which some friendly hand
had laid there within a week or two. Ten or fifteen minutes I may have
passed in reverie; then, as I arose to depart, I took up a fading bud
or two and a sprig of myrtle, placing them in my vest-pocket to give
Eleanor on my return. As I stooped to gather them, I perceived the
imprint of a child's foot, here and there, all about the grave--a tiny
imprint, in the fresh mold, as of some toddling babe whose little feet
had hardly learned to steady themselves.
There were one or two marks of a woman's slender shoe; but it was the
infant feet which impressed me. It flashed upon me what female figure
it was which I had seen flitting away as I approached; now that I
recalled it, I even recognized the tall, slender form, with the slight
stoop of the shoulders, of which I had obtained but a half-glance. I
hastily pursued the path she had taken; but my haste was behind hers by
at least a quarter of an hour.
I realized that I would only lose time by looking for her in those
winding avenues, every one of which might be taking me from instead of
toward the fugitives; so I turned back to the gate and questioned the
keeper if he had seen a tall young woman with a little child pass out
in the last half-hour. He had seen several children and women go out in
that time; and as I could not tell how this particular one was dressed,
I could not arouse his recollection to any certainty on the point.
"She was probably carrying the child," I said; "she had a consumptive
look, and was sad-looking, though her face was doubtless hidden in her
vail."
"It's quite likely," he responded; "mostly the women that do come here
look sad, and many of them keep their vails down. However, it's my
impression there hasn't no child of that age been past here, lately. I
noticed one going in about two o'clock, and if it's _that_ one, she
hasn't come out yet."
So while Mr. Burton sat in the shop in Court street keeping watch, I
sat at the gates of Greenwood; but no Leesy Sullivan came forth; and
when the gates were closed for the night, I was obliged to go away
disappointed.
The girl began to grow some elusive phantom in my mind. I could almost
doubt that there was any such creature, with black, wild eyes and
hectic cheeks, whom I was pursuing; whom I chanced upon in strange
places, at unexpected times, but could never find when I sought
her--who seemed to blend herself in this unwarrantable way with the
tragedy which wrung some other hearts. What had she to do with Henry's
grave? A feeling of dislike, of mortal aversion, grew upon me--I could
not pity her any more--this dark spirit who, having perchance wrought
this irremediable woe, could not now sink into the depths where she
belonged, but must haunt and hover on the edges of my trouble, fretting
me to follow her, only to mock and elude.
Before leaving the cemetery I offered two policemen a hundred dollars
if they should succeed in detaining the woman and child whose
description I gave them, until word could be sent to the office of the
detective-police; and I left them, with another on guard at the gates,
perambulating the grounds, peering into vaults and ghostly places in
search of her. When I got out at the house on Court street, I found my
friend quite tired of eating chestnuts and talking to the little man
behind the counter.
"Well," said he, "the potatoes will be roasted to death before their
owner returns. We have been led another wild-goose chase."
"I have seen her," I answered.
"What?"
"And lost her. I believe she is a little snaky, she has such a slippery
way with her."
"Tut! tut! so has a frightened deer! But how did it happen?"
I told him, and he was quite downcast at the unlucky fortune which had
sent me to the cemetery at that particular time. It was evident that
she had seen me, and was afraid to return to this new retreat, for fear
she was again tracked.
"However," said he, "I'm confident we'll have her now before long. I
_must_ go home to-night to see my Lenore; I promised her, and she will
make herself sick sitting up."
"Go; and let me remain here. I will stay until it is perfectly apparent
that she does not expect to return."
"It will spoil the dinner. But, now that we have sacrificed so much, a
few hours more of inconvenience--"
"Will be willingly endured. I will get some bread and cheese and a
glass of beer of your friend, the penny-grocer, and remain at my post."
"You need not stay later than twelve; which will bring you home about
two, at the slow rate of midnight travel. I shall sit up for you. _Au
revoir._"
I changed my mind about supping at the grocer's as the twilight
deepened into night. The dim light of the hall and staircase, part of
them in total darkness, enabled me to steal up to the deserted room
unperceived by any one of the other inmates of the great building.
Here I put fresh coal on the fire, and by the faint glow which soon
came from the open front of the stove, I found a chair, and placing it
so that it would be in the shadow upon the opening of the door, I
seated myself to await the return of the occupants. The odor of
roasting potatoes, given forth at the increased heat, admonished me
that I had partaken of but a light lunch since an early and hasty
breakfast; drawing forth one from the oven, I made a frugal meal upon
it, and then ordered my soul to patience. I sat long in the twilight of
the room; I could hear the bells of the city chiming the passing hours;
the grocer and variety-storekeepers closing the shutters of their
shops; the shuffling feet of men coming home, to such homes as they had
in the dreary building, until nearly all the noises of the street and
house died away.
Gazing on the fire, I wondered where that strange woman was keeping
that little child through those unwholesome hours. Did she carry it in
her arms while she hovered, like a ghost, amid the awful quiet of
drooping willows and gleaming tombstones? Did she rock it to sleep on
her breast, in the fearful shadow of some vault, with a row of coffins
for company? Or was she again fleeing over deserted fields, crouching
in lonely places, fatigued, distressed, panting under the weight of the
innocent babe who slumbered on a guilty bosom, but driven still, on,
on, by the lash of a dreadful secret? I made wild pictures in the
sinking embers, as I mused; were I an artist I would reproduce them in
all their lurid light and somber shadow; but I am not. The close air of
the place, increased in drowsiness by the gas from the open doors of
the stove, the deep silence, and my own fatigue, after the varying
journeys and excitements of the day, at last overcame me; I remember
hearing the town clock strike eleven, and after that I must have
slumbered.
As I slept, I continued my waking dreams; I thought myself still gazing
in the smoldering fire; that the sewing-girl came in without noise, sat
down before it, and silently wept over the child who lay in her arms;
that Lenore came out of the golden embers, with wings tipped with
ineffable brightness, looking like an angel, and seemed to comfort the
mourner, and finally took her by the hand, and passing me, so that I
felt the motion of the air swept by her wings and garments, led her out
through the door, which closed with a slight noise.
At the noise made by the closing door, I awoke. As I gathered my
confused senses about me, I was not long in coming to the conclusion
that I had, indeed, heard a sound and felt the air from an open
door--some one had been in the room. I looked at my watch by a match
which I struck, for the fire had now entirely expired. It was one
o'clock. Vexed beyond words that I had slumbered, I rushed out into the
empty passages, where, standing silent, I listened for any footstep.
There was not the echo of a sound abroad. The halls were wrapped in
darkness. Quietly and swiftly I felt my way down to the street; not a
soul to be seen in any direction. Yet I felt positive that Leesy
Sullivan, creeping from her shelter, had returned to her room at that
midnight hour, had found me there, _sleeping_, and had fled.
Soon a car, which now ran only at intervals of half an hour, came
along, and I gave up my watch for the night, mortified at the result.
It was three o'clock when I reached Mr. Burton's door. He opened it
before I could ring the bell.
"No success? I was afraid of it. You see I have kept up for you; and
now, since the night is so far spent, if you are not too worn-out, I
wish you would come with me to a house not very far from here. I want
to show you how some of the fast young men of New York spend the hours
in which they ought to be in bed."
"I am wide awake, and full of curiosity; but how did you find your
little daughter?"
"Drooping a little, but persisting that she was not ill nor tired, and
delighted with the flowers."
"Then you did not forget the bouquet?"
"No, I never like to disappoint Lenore."
Locking the door behind us, we again descended to the deserted street.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.
"Come," said my cicerone, "we are already very late."
A rapid walk of a few minutes brought us to the entrance of a handsome
house, having the appearance of a private residence, and standing on a
fashionable street.
"Why," said I, inclined to draw back, as he ascended the steps, "you
surely would not think of disturbing the people here at this hour of
the night? There is not a light to be seen, even in the chambers."
Mr. Burton's low laugh made me blush at my own "greenness." His ring at
the bell was followed by a knock, which I was quick-witted enough, in
spite of my verdancy, to perceive had something significant about it.
The door immediately swung a little open, my friend said a few words
which had the effect to unclose the mysterious portals still wider, and
we entered a modest hall, which a single gas-burner, half-turned off,
dimly illuminated. The man-servant who admitted us was sable as ebony,
muscular, much above the medium size, dressed in a plain livery, and
with manners as polished as his own shining skin--an African leopard,
barring the spots, smooth and powerful.
"Is Bagley still here?" asked my companion.
"Yes, sir. In de library, jus' where you lef' him."
"Very well. You need not disturb him. I've brought my young friend in
to introduce him to the house, in view of further acquaintance."
The ebony man smiled respectfully, bowing for us to pass into the
parlor. I thought I saw in that quiet smile a lurking ray of
satisfaction--a gloating, as it were, over my prospective intimacy at
this respectable house. He had probably been usher to the maelstrom
long enough to know that those whose feet were once caught in the slow,
delightful waltz of the circling waters never withdrew them, after the
circle grew narrow and swift, and the rush of the whirlpool sounded up
from the bottomless pit.
We entered a suit of rooms in no manner differing from the parlors of a
private house. They were richly furnished and well lighted, close inner
blinds, hidden by heavy silk curtains, shutting in the light from the
observation of the street. There were three rooms in this suit; the two
first were now deserted, though the odor of wine, and scented hair and
handkerchiefs, showed that they had been recently occupied. In these
two the chandeliers were partially obscured, but the third room was
still brilliantly illuminated. We walked toward it. Magnificent
curtains of amber silk depended from the arch which separated it from
the parlors. Only one of these curtains was now drawn back, the others
trailing on the carpet, and closing the apartment from our observation.
Mr. Burton placed me in the shadow of the curtains, where I could
see--myself unseen. The room was furnished as a library, two of its
walls being covered with books; I particularly noticed a marble bust of
Shakspeare, very fine. A severe, yet liberal, taste marked the choice
and arrangement of every thing. A painting of Tasso reading his poems
to the Princess, hung between the two back windows.
It was a well-arranged library, certainly; yet the four occupants were
engrossed in a study more fascinating than that of any of the books by
which they were surrounded. If Mephistophiles could have stepped from
his binding of blue and gold, and made the acquaintance of the company,
he would have been quite charmed. Two couples sat at two tables playing
cards. All the other visitors to the establishment had gone away, some
of them to theft or suicide, perhaps, save those four, who still
lingered, wrapped up in the dread enchantment of the hour. The two at
the table I first glanced at, were both strangers to me; at the second,
I could not see the face of one of the players, whose back was toward
me; but the face of the other was directly in front of me, and under
the full light of the chandelier. This person was James Argyll. My
astonishment was profound. That I had never fraternized with him, I
considered partly my own fault--there are persons so naturally
antagonistic as to make real friendship between them impossible--and I
had often blamed myself for our mutual coldness. But, with all my
dislike of some of his qualities--as, for instance, his indolent
acceptance of his uncle's bounty, which, in the eyes of a person of my
disposition, took away half his manliness--with all my unfriendly
aversion to him, I had never suspected him of absolutely bad habits.
I had to look twice to assure myself of his identity. And having
looked, I could not take away my eyes from the strange attraction of a
countenance transformed by the excitement of the gaming-table. His dark
complexion had blanched to a sallow paleness; cheeks and lips were of
the same color; his nose seemed to have sharpened, and was drawn in
about the face with a pinched look; his eyebrows were very slightly
contracted, but fixed, as if cut in marble, while underneath them the
lids were drawn together, so that only a line of the eye was visible--a
narrow line, letting out a single steady ray from the lurid world
within. The lids appeared as if the eyeballs had shrunken in the
intensity of their gaze.
Silently the cards were dealt and played. It was evidently the closing
game, upon which much depended--_how_ much, for James, I could only
guess by the increasing pallor and absorption of his countenance.
"I wish I could see his opponent's face," I whispered to my companion.
"You would see nothing but the face of the devil coolly amusing
himself. Bagley never gets excited. He has ruined a dozen young men
already."
The last card was thrown down; the two players arose simultaneously.
"Well, Bagley," said James, with a desperate laugh, "you will have to
wait for the money until I--"
"Marry the young lady," said the other; "that is the agreement, I
believe; but don't consent to a long engagement."
"I shall find some means to pay these last two debts before that happy
consummation, I hope. You shall hear from me within a month."
"We will make a little memorandum of them," said his opponent; and as
they went together to a writing-desk, Mr. Burton drew me away.
I could hardly breathe when we got into the street, I was so suffocated
with rage at hearing the reference made by those two men, under that
unholy roof, to the woman so revered and sacred in my thoughts. I was
certain that Miss Argyll was the young lady whose fortune was to pay
these "debts of honor," contracted in advance upon such security. If
his strong hand had not silently withheld me, I do not know but I
should have made a scene, which would have been as unwise as useless. I
was thankful, afterward, that I was prevented, though I chafed under
the restraint at the time. Neither of us spoke until we were in the
house of my host, where a fire in the library awaited us. Before this
we seated ourselves, neither of us feeling sleepy after our night's
adventures.
"How did you know that Argyll was at that house? I had no idea that he
intended coming to the city to-day," I said.
"He had no intention until he learned of your sudden departure. He came
down in the next train, to see what _you_ were about. He is uneasy
about you, Mr. Redfield, didn't you know it? As he could ascertain
nothing satisfactory about your doings, or mine, he had nothing better
on his hands, this evening, than to look up his friend Bagley."
"How do you know all this?"
The detective half smiled, his piercing eyes fixed reflectively on the
fire.
"I should be poorly able to support my pretensions, if I could not keep
the circle of my acquaintance under my observation. I was informed of
his arrival in town, upon my return from Brooklyn, and have known of
his whereabouts since. I could tell you what he had for supper, if it
would interest you."
The uneasy feeling which I had several times experienced in Mr.
Burton's society, came over me again. I spoke a little quickly:
"I wonder if you have your secret agents--spirits of the air, or
electricity, they might almost seem to be--hovering always on _my_
steps."
He laughed, but not unpleasantly, looking me through with those
steel-blue rays:
"Would it trouble you to fancy yourself under surveillance?"
"I never liked fetters, of any kind. I yield my choice of will and
action to nobody. However, if any one finds satisfaction in playing the
part of my shadow, I don't know that I shall suffer any restraint upon
that account."
"I don't think it would disturb you seriously," he said.
"No one likes to be watched, Mr. Burton."
"We are all watched by the pure and penetrating eye of the All-seeing
One, and if we are not fearful before Him, whom need we shrink from?"
I looked up to see whether it was the secret-police-agent who was
preaching to me, or whether my host, in his power of varying the outer
manifestations of his character, had not dropped the mystic star for
the robe of the minister; he was gazing into the fire with a sad,
absorbed expression, as if he saw before him a long procession of
mortal crimes, walking in the night of earth, but, in reality, under
the full brightness of infinite day. I had seen him before in these
solemn, almost prophetic moods, brought on him by the revelation of
some new sin, which seemed always in him to awaken regret, rather than
the exultation of a detective bent on the successful results of his
mission. So soft, so gentle he appeared then, I inwardly wondered that
he had the sternness to inflict disgrace and exposure upon the
"respectable" guilty--which class of criminals he was almost
exclusively employed with--but I had only to reflect upon the admirable
equipoise of his character, to realize that with him justice was what
he loved best. For those who prowled about society in the garb of lambs
and shepherd-dogs, seeking whom they might devour, and laying, perhaps,
the proofs of guilt at the doors of the innocent, he had no mercy of
the "let us alone" type. A little time we were silent; the dropping of
an ember from the grate startled us.
"Why do you think that James watches me? What does he watch me for?"
I asked this, going back to the surprise I had felt when he made the
remark.
"You will know soon enough."
It was useless for me to press the question, since he did not wish to
be explicit.
"I did not know," I continued, "I never dreamed, that James had bad
associates in the city. I know that his uncle and cousins do not
suspect it. It pains me more than I can express. What shall I do? I
have no influence over him. He dislikes me, and would take the most
brotherly remonstrance as an insult."
"I do not wish you, at present, to hint your discovery to him. As for
your not suspecting his habits, those habits themselves are recent. I
doubt if he had ever ventured a dollar on cards three months ago. He
had some gay, even dissolute companions in the city, of whom the worst
and most dangerous was Bagley. But he had not joined them in their
worst excesses--he was only idle and fond of pleasure--a moth
fluttering around the flames. Now he has scorched his wings. He has not
spent more than three or four nights as he spent this; and the only
money he has lost has been to the person you saw him with to-night.
Bagley is one of the vampires who fatten on the characters and purses
of young men like James Argyll."
"Then ought we not to make some earnest effort to save him before it is
too late? Oh, Mr. Burton, you who are wise and experienced--tell me
what to do."
"Why do you feel so much interest in him? You do not like him."
"I could not see the merest stranger go down toward destruction without
stretching forth my hand. There is no great friendship between us, it
is true; but James is nearly connected with the happiness and
reputation of the family I honor most on earth. For its sake, I would
make the utmost endeavor."
"For the interests of justice, then, it is well that I am not related
to the Argylls by the personal ties which
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/46708