That Affair Next Door (1897)
Anna Katharine Green  (Anna Katharine Rohlfs)


Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected
and footnotes have been moved to end of chapter.



CONTENTS.

_BOOK I._

MISS BUTTERWORTH'S WINDOW.


I.--A DISCOVERY
II.--QUESTIONS
III.--AMELIA DISCOVERS HERSELF
IV.--SILAS VAN BURNAM
V.--THIS IS NO ONE I KNOW
VI.--NEW FACTS
VII.--MR. GRYCE DISCOVERS MISS AMELIA
VIII.--THE MISSES VAN BURNAM
IX.--DEVELOPMENTS
X.--IMPORTANT EVIDENCE
XI.--THE ORDER CLERK
XII.--THE KEYS
XIII.--HOWARD VAN BURNAM
XIV.--A SERIOUS ADMISSION
XV.--A RELUCTANT WITNESS


_BOOK II._

THE WINDINGS OF A LABYRINTH.

XVI.--COGITATIONS
XVII.--BUTTERWORTH VERSUS GRYCE
XVIII.--THE LITTLE PINCUSHION
XIX.--A DECIDED STEP FORWARD
XX.--MISS BUTTERWORTH'S THEORY
XXI.--A SHREWD CONJECTURE
XXII.--A BLANK CARD
XXIII.--RUTH OLIVER
XXIV.--A HOUSE OF CARDS
XXV.--"THE RINGS! WHERE ARE THE RINGS?"
XXVI.--A TILT WITH MR. GRYCE
XXVII.--FOUND
XXVIII.--TAKEN ABACK


_BOOK III._

THE GIRL IN GRAY.

XXIX.--AMELIA BECOMES PEREMPTORY
XXX.--THE MATTER AS STATED BY MR. GRYCE
XXXI.--SOME FINE WORK
XXXII.--ICONOCLASM
XXXIII.--"KNOWN, KNOWN, ALL KNOWN"
XXXIV.--EXACTLY HALF-PAST THREE
XXXV.--A RUSE


_BOOK IV._

THE END OF A GREAT MYSTERY.

XXXVI.--THE RESULT
XXXVII.--"TWO WEEKS!"
XXXVIII.--A WHITE SATIN GOWN
XXXIX.--THE WATCHFUL EYE
XL.--AS THE CLOCK STRUCK
XLI.--SECRET HISTORY
XLII.--WITH MISS BUTTERWORTH'S COMPLIMENTS




_BOOK I._

MISS BUTTERWORTH'S WINDOW.




I.

A DISCOVERY.


I am not an inquisitive woman, but when, in the middle of a certain warm
night in September, I heard a carriage draw up at the adjoining house
and stop, I could not resist the temptation of leaving my bed and taking
a peep through the curtains of my window.

First: because the house was empty, or supposed to be so, the family
still being, as I had every reason to believe, in Europe; and secondly:
because, not being inquisitive, I often miss in my lonely and single
life much that it would be both interesting and profitable for me to
know.

Luckily I made no such mistake this evening. I rose and looked out, and
though I was far from realizing it at the time, took, by so doing, my
first step in a course of inquiry which has ended----

But it is too soon to speak of the end. Rather let me tell you what I
saw when I parted the curtains of my window in Gramercy Park, on the
night of September 17, 1895.

Not much at first glance, only a common hack drawn up at the neighboring
curbstone. The lamp which is supposed to light our part of the block is
some rods away on the opposite side of the street, so that I obtained
but a shadowy glimpse of a young man and woman standing below me on the
pavement. I could see, however, that the woman--and not the man--was
putting money into the driver's hand. The next moment they were on the
stoop of this long-closed house, and the coach rolled off.

It was dark, as I have said, and I did not recognize the young
people,--at least their figures were not familiar to me; but when, in
another instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after a
rather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took it
for granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam's eldest son Franklin,
and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its most
punctilious member, should bring a guest at so late an hour into a house
devoid of everything necessary to make the least exacting visitor
comfortable, was a mystery that I retired to bed to meditate upon.

I did not succeed in solving it, however, and after some ten minutes had
elapsed, I was settling myself again to sleep when I was re-aroused by a
fresh sound from the quarter mentioned. The door I had so lately heard
shut, opened again, and though I had to rush for it, I succeeded in
getting to my window in time to catch a glimpse of the departing figure
of the young man hurrying away towards Broadway. The young woman was not
with him, and as I realized that he had left her behind him in the
great, empty house, without apparent light and certainly without any
companion, I began to question if this was like Franklin Van Burnam. Was
it not more in keeping with the recklessness of his more easy-natured
and less reliable brother, Howard, who, some two or three years back,
had married a young wife of no very satisfactory antecedents, and who,
as I had heard, had been ostracized by the family in consequence?

Whichever of the two it was, he had certainly shown but little
consideration for his companion, and thus thinking, I fell off to sleep
just as the clock struck the half hour after midnight.

Next morning as soon as modesty would permit me to approach the window,
I surveyed the neighboring house minutely. Not a blind was open, nor a
shutter displaced. As I am an early riser, this did not disturb me at
the time, but when after breakfast I looked again and still failed to
detect any evidences of life in the great barren front beside me, I
began to feel uneasy. But I did nothing till noon, when going into my
rear garden and observing that the back windows of the Van Burnam house
were as closely shuttered as the front, I became so anxious that I
stopped the next policeman I saw going by, and telling him my
suspicions, urged him to ring the bell.

No answer followed the summons.

"There is no one here," said he.

"Ring again!" I begged.

And he rang again but with no better result.

"Don't you see that the house is shut up?" he grumbled. "We have had
orders to watch the place, but none to take the watch off."

"There is a young woman inside," I insisted. "The more I think over last
night's occurrence, the more I am convinced that the matter should be
looked into."

He shrugged his shoulders and was moving away when we both observed a
common-looking woman standing in front looking at us. She had a bundle
in her hand, and her face, unnaturally ruddy though it was, had a scared
look which was all the more remarkable from the fact that it was one of
those wooden-like countenances which under ordinary circumstances are
capable of but little expression. She was not a stranger to me; that is,
I had seen her before in or about the house in which we were at that
moment so interested; and not stopping to put any curb on my excitement,
I rushed down to the pavement and accosted her.

"Who are you?" I asked. "Do you work for the Van Burnams, and do you
know who the lady was who came here last night?"

The poor woman, either startled by my sudden address or by my manner
which may have been a little sharp, gave a quick bound backward, and was
only deterred by the near presence of the policeman from attempting
flight. As it was, she stood her ground, though the fiery flush, which
made her face so noticeable, deepened till her cheeks and brow were
scarlet.

"I am the scrub-woman," she protested. "I have come to open the windows
and air the house,"--ignoring my last question.

"Is the family coming home?" the policeman asked.

"I don't know; I think so," was her weak reply.

"Have you the keys?" I now demanded, seeing her fumbling in her pocket.

She did not answer; a sly look displaced the anxious one she had
hitherto displayed, and she turned away.

"I don't see what business it is of the neighbors," she muttered,
throwing me a dissatisfied scowl over her shoulder.

"If you've got the keys, we will go in and see that things are all
right," said the policeman, stopping her with a light touch.

She trembled; I saw that she trembled, and naturally became excited.
Something was wrong in the Van Burnam mansion, and I was going to be
present at its discovery. But her next words cut my hopes short.

"I have no objection to _your_ going in," she said to the policeman,
"but I will not give up my keys to _her_. What right has she in our
house any way." And I thought I heard her murmur something about a
meddlesome old maid.

The look which I received from the policeman convinced me that my ears
had not played me false.

"The lady's right," he declared; and pushing by me quite
disrespectfully, he led the way to the basement door, into which he and
the so-called cleaner presently disappeared.

I waited in front. I felt it to be my duty to do so. The various
passers-by stopped an instant to stare at me before proceeding on their
way, but I did not flinch from my post. Not till I had heard that the
young woman whom I had seen enter these doors at midnight was well, and
that her delay in opening the windows was entirely due to fashionable
laziness, would I feel justified in returning to my own home and its
affairs. But it took patience and some courage to remain there. Several
minutes elapsed before I perceived the shutters in the third story open,
and a still longer time before a window on the second floor flew up and
the policeman looked out, only to meet my inquiring gaze and rapidly
disappear again.

Meantime three or four persons had stopped on the walk near me, the
nucleus of a crowd which would not be long in collecting, and I was
beginning to feel I was paying dearly for my virtuous resolution, when
the front door burst violently open and we caught sight of the trembling
form and shocked face of the scrub-woman.

"She's dead!" she cried, "she's dead! Murder!" and would have said more
had not the policeman pulled her back, with a growl which sounded very
much like a suppressed oath.

He would have shut the door upon me had I not been quicker than
lightning. As it was, I got in before it slammed, and happily too; for
just at that moment the house-cleaner, who had grown paler every
instant, fell in a heap in the entry, and the policeman, who was not the
man I would want about me in any trouble, seemed somewhat embarrassed by
this new emergency, and let me lift the poor thing up and drag her
farther into the hall.

She had fainted, and should have had something done for her, but anxious
though I always am to be of help where help is needed, I had no sooner
got within range of the parlor door with my burden, than I beheld a
sight so terrifying that I involuntarily let the poor woman slip from my
arms to the floor.

In the darkness of a dim corner (for the room had no light save that
which came through the doorway where I stood) lay the form of a woman
under a fallen piece of furniture. Her skirts and distended arms alone
were visible; but no one who saw the rigid outlines of her limbs could
doubt for a moment that she was dead.

At a sight so dreadful, and, in spite of all my apprehensions, so
unexpected, I felt a sensation of sickness which in another moment might
have ended in my fainting also, if I had not realized that it would
never do for me to lose my wits in the presence of a man who had none
too many of his own. So I shook off my momentary weakness, and turning
to the policeman, who was hesitating between the unconscious figure of
the woman outside the door and the dead form of the one within I cried
sharply:

"Come, man, to business! The woman inside there is dead, but this one is
living. Fetch me a pitcher of water from below if you can, and then go
for whatever assistance you need. I'll wait here and bring this woman
to. She is a strong one, and it won't take long."

"You'll stay here alone with that----" he began.

But I stopped him with a look of disdain.

"Of course I will stay here; why not? Is there anything in the dead to
be afraid of? Save me from the living, and I undertake to save myself
from the dead."

But his face had grown very suspicious.

"You go for the water," he cried. "And see here! Just call out for some
one to telephone to Police Headquarters for the Coroner and a
detective. I don't quit this room till one or the other of them comes."

Smiling at a caution so very ill-timed, but abiding by my invariable
rule of never arguing with a man unless I see some way of getting the
better of him, I did what he bade me, though I hated dreadfully to leave
the spot and its woful mystery, even for so short a time as was
required.

"Run up to the second story," he called out, as I passed by the
prostrate figure of the cleaner. "Tell them what you want from the
window, or we will have the whole street in here."

So I ran up-stairs,--I had always wished to visit this house, but had
never been encouraged to do so by the Misses Van Burnam,--and making my
way into the front room, the door of which stood wide open, I rushed to
the window and hailed the crowd, which by this time extended far out
beyond the curbstone.

"An officer!" I called out, "a police officer! An accident has occurred
and the man in charge here wants the Coroner and a detective from Police
Headquarters."

"Who's hurt?" "Is it a man?" "Is it a woman?" shouted up one or two; and
"Let us in!" shouted others; but the sight of a boy rushing off to meet
an advancing policeman satisfied me that help would soon be forthcoming,
so I drew in my head and looked about me for the next necessity--water.

I was in a lady's bed-chamber, probably that of the eldest Miss Van
Burnam; but it was a bed-chamber which had not been occupied for some
months, and naturally it lacked the very articles which would have been
of assistance to me in the present emergency. No _eau de Cologne_ on
the bureau, no camphor on the mantel-shelf. But there was water in the
pipes (something I had hardly hoped for), and a mug on the wash-stand;
so I filled the mug and ran with it to the door, stumbling, as I did so,
over some small object which I presently perceived to be a little round
pin-cushion. Picking it up, for I hate anything like disorder, I placed
it on a table near by, and continued on my way.

The woman was still lying at the foot of the stairs. I dashed the water
in her face and she immediately came to.

Sitting up, she was about to open her lips when she checked herself; a
fact which struck me as odd, though I did not allow my surprise to
become apparent.

Meantime I stole a glance into the parlor. The officer was standing
where I had left him, looking down on the prostrate figure before him.

There was no sign of feeling in his heavy countenance, and he had not
opened a shutter, nor, so far as I could see, disarranged an object in
the room.

The mysterious character of the whole affair fascinated me in spite of
myself, and leaving the now fully aroused woman in the hall, I was
half-way across the parlor floor when the latter stopped me with a
shrill cry:

"Don't leave me! I have never seen anything before so horrible. The poor
dear! The poor dear! Why don't he take those dreadful things off her?"

She alluded not only to the piece of furniture which had fallen upon the
prostrate woman, and which can best be described as a cabinet with
closets below and shelves above, but to the various articles of
_bric-à-brac_ which had tumbled from the shelves, and which now lay in
broken pieces about her.

"He will do so; they will do so very soon," I replied. "He is waiting
for some one with more authority than himself; for the Coroner, if you
know what that means."

"But what if she's alive! Those things will crush her. Let us take them
off. I'll help. I'm not too weak to help."

"Do you know who this person is?" I asked, for her voice had more
feeling in it than I thought natural to the occasion, dreadful as it
was.

"I?" she repeated, her weak eyelids quivering for a moment as she tried
to sustain my scrutiny. "How should I know? I came in with the policeman
and haven't been any nearer than I now be. What makes you think I know
anything about her? I'm only the scrub-woman, and don't even know the
names of the family."

"I thought you seemed so very anxious," I explained, suspicious of her
suspiciousness, which was of so sly and emphatic a character that it
changed her whole bearing from one of fear to one of cunning in a
moment.

"And who wouldn't feel the like of that for a poor creature lying
crushed under a heap of broken crockery!"

Crockery! those Japanese vases worth hundreds of dollars! that ormulu
clock and those Dresden figures which must have been more than a couple
of centuries old!

"It's a poor sense of duty that keeps a man standing dumb and staring
like that, when with a lift of his hand he could show us the like of
her pretty face, and if it's dead she be or alive."

As this burst of indignation was natural enough and not altogether
uncalled for from the standpoint of humanity, I gave the woman a nod of
approval, and wished I were a man myself that I might lift the heavy
cabinet or whatever it was that lay upon the poor creature before us.
But not being a man, and not judging it wise to irritate the one
representative of that sex then present, I made no remark, but only took
a few steps farther into the room, followed, as it afterwards appeared,
by the scrub-woman.

The Van Burnam parlors are separated by an open arch. It was to the
right of this arch and in the corner opposite the doorway that the dead
woman lay. Using my eyes, now that I was somewhat accustomed to the
semi-darkness enveloping us, I noticed two or three facts which had
hitherto escaped me. One was, that she lay on her back with her feet
pointing towards the hall door, and another, that nowhere in the room,
save in her immediate vicinity, were there to be seen any signs of
struggle or disorder. All was as set and proper as in my own parlor when
it has been undisturbed for any length of time by guests; and though I
could not see far into the rooms beyond, they were to all appearance in
an equally orderly condition.

Meanwhile the cleaner was trying to account for the overturned cabinet.

"Poor dear! poor dear! she must have pulled it over on herself! But
however did she get into the house? And what was she doing in this great
empty place?"

The policeman, to whom these remarks had evidently been addressed,
growled out some unintelligible reply, and in her perplexity the woman
turned towards me.

But what could I say to her? I had my own private knowledge of the
matter, but she was not one to confide in, so I stoically shook my head.
Doubly disappointed, the poor thing shrank back, after looking first at
the policeman and then at me in an odd, appealing way, difficult to
understand. Then her eyes fell again on the dead girl at her feet, and
being nearer now than before, she evidently saw something that startled
her, for she sank on her knees with a little cry and began examining the
girl's skirts.

"What are you looking at there?" growled the policeman. "Get up, can't
you! No one but the Coroner has right to lay hand on anything here."

"I'm doing no harm," the woman protested, in an odd, shaking voice. "I
only wanted to see what the poor thing had on. Some blue stuff, isn't
it?" she asked me.

"Blue serge," I answered; "store-made, but very good; must have come
from Altman's or Stern's."

"I--I'm not used to sights like this," stammered the scrub-woman,
stumbling awkwardly to her feet, and looking as if her few remaining
wits had followed the rest on an endless vacation. "I--I think I shall
have to go home." But she did not move.

"The poor dear's young, isn't she?" she presently insinuated, with an
odd catch in her voice that gave to the question an air of hesitation
and doubt.

"I think she is younger than either you or myself," I deigned to reply.
"Her narrow pointed shoes show she has not reached the years of
discretion."

"Yes, yes, so they do!" ejaculated the cleaner, eagerly--too eagerly
for perfect ingenuousness. "That's why I said 'Poor dear!' and spoke of
her pretty face. I am sorry for young folks when they get into trouble,
aint you? You and me might lie here and no one be much the worse for it,
but a sweet lady like this----"

This was not very flattering to me, but I was prevented from rebuking
her by a prolonged shout from the stoop without, as a rush was made
against the front door, followed by a shrill peal of the bell.

"Man from Headquarters," stolidly announced the policeman. "Open the
door, ma'am; or step back into the further hall if you want me to do
it."

Such rudeness was uncalled for; but considering myself too important a
witness to show feeling, I swallowed my indignation and proceeded with
all my native dignity to the front door.




II.

QUESTIONS.


As I did so, I could catch the murmur of the crowd outside as it seethed
forward at the first intimation of the door being opened; but my
attention was not so distracted by it, loud as it sounded after the
quiet of the shut-up house, that I failed to notice that the door had
not been locked by the gentleman leaving the night before, and that,
consequently, only the night latch was on. With a turn of the knob it
opened, showing me the mob of shouting boys and the forms of two
gentlemen awaiting admittance on the door-step. I frowned at the mob and
smiled on the gentlemen, one of whom was portly and easy-going in
appearance, and the other spare, with a touch of severity in his aspect.
But for some reason these gentlemen did not seem to appreciate the honor
I had done them, for they both gave me a displeased glance, which was so
odd and unsympathetic in its character that I bridled a little, though I
soon returned to my natural manner. Did they realize at the first glance
that I was destined to prove a thorn in the sides of every one connected
with this matter, for days to come?

"Are you the woman who called from the window?" asked the larger of the
two, whose business here I found it difficult at first to determine.

"I am," was my perfectly self-possessed reply. "I live next door and my
presence here is due to the anxious interest I always take in my
neighbors. I had reason to think that all was not as it should be in
this house, and I was right. Look in the parlor, sirs."

They were already as far as the threshold of that room and needed no
further encouragement to enter. The heavier man went first and the other
followed, and you may be sure I was not far behind. The sight meeting
our eyes was ghastly enough, as you know; but these men were evidently
accustomed to ghastly sights, for they showed but little emotion.

"I thought this house was empty," observed the second gentleman, who was
evidently a doctor.

"So it was till last night," I put in; and was about to tell my story,
when I felt my skirts jerked.

Turning, I found that this warning had come from the cleaner who stood
close beside me.

"What do you want?" I asked, not understanding her and having nothing to
conceal.

"I?" she faltered, with a frightened air. "Nothing, ma'am, nothing."

"Then don't interrupt me," I harshly admonished her, annoyed at an
interference that tended to throw suspicion upon my candor. "This woman
came here to scrub and clean," I now explained; "it was by means of the
key she carried that we were enabled to get into the house. I never
spoke to her till a half hour ago."

At which, with a display of subtlety I was far from expecting in one of
her appearance, she let her emotions take a fresh direction, and
pointing towards the dead woman, she impetuously cried:

"But the poor child there! Ain't you going to take those things off of
her? It's wicked to leave her under all that stuff. Suppose there was
life in her!"

"Oh! there's no hope of that," muttered the doctor, lifting one of the
hands, and letting it fall again.

"Still--" he cast a side look at his companion, who gave him a meaning
nod--"it might be well enough to lift this cabinet sufficiently for me
to lay my hand on her heart."

They accordingly did this; and the doctor, leaning down, placed his hand
over the poor bruised breast.

"No life," he murmured. "She has been dead some hours. Do you think we
had better release the head?" he went on, glancing up at the portly man
at his side.

But the latter, who was rapidly growing serious, made a slight protest
with his finger, and turning to me, inquired, with sudden authority:

"What did you mean when you said that the house had been empty till last
night?"

"Just what I said, sir. It was empty till about midnight, when two
persons----" Again I felt my dress twitched, this time very cautiously.
What did the woman want? Not daring to give her a look, for these men
were only too ready to detect harm in everything I did, I gently drew my
skirt away and took a step aside, going on as if no interruption had
occurred. "Did I say persons? I should have said a man and a woman drove
up to the house and entered. I saw them from my window."

"You did?" murmured my interlocutor, whom I had by this time decided to
be a detective. "And this is the woman, I suppose?" he proceeded,
pointing to the poor creature lying before us.

"Why, yes, of course. Who else can she be? I did not see the lady's face
last night, but she was young and light on her feet, and ran up the
stoop gaily."

"And the man? Where is the man? I don't see him here."

"I am not surprised at that. He went very soon after he came, not ten
minutes after, I should say. That is what alarmed me and caused me to
have the house investigated. It did not seem natural or like any of the
Van Burnams to leave a woman to spend the night in so large a house
alone."

"You know the Van Burnams?"

"Not well. But that don't signify. I know what report says of them; they
are gentlemen."

"But Mr. Van Burnam is in Europe."

"He has two sons."

"Living here?"

"No; the unmarried one spends his nights at Long Branch, and the other
is with his wife somewhere in Connecticut."

"How did the young couple you saw get in last night? Was there any one
here to admit them?"

"No; the gentleman had a key."

"Ah, he had a key."

The tone in which this was said recurred to me afterwards, but at the
moment I was much more impressed by a peculiar sound I heard behind me,
something between a gasp and a click in the throat, which came I knew
from the scrub-woman, and which, odd and contradictory as it may appear,
struck me as an expression of satisfaction, though what there was in my
admission to give satisfaction to this poor creature I could not
conjecture. Moving so as to get a glimpse of her face, I went on with
the grim self-possession natural to my character:

"And when he came out he walked briskly away. The carriage had not
waited for him."

"Ah!" again muttered the gentleman, picking up one of the broken pieces
of china which lay haphazard about the floor, while I studied the
cleaner's face, which, to my amazement, gave evidences of a confusion of
emotions most unaccountable to me.

Mr. Gryce may have noticed this too, for he immediately addressed her,
though he continued to look at the broken piece of china in his hand.

"And how come you to be cleaning the house?" he asked. "Is the family
coming home?"

"They are, sir," she answered, hiding her emotion with great skill the
moment she perceived attention directed to herself, and speaking with a
sudden volubility that made us all stare. "They are expected any day. I
didn't know it till yesterday--was it yesterday? No, the day
before--when young Mr. Franklin--he is the oldest son, sir, and a very
nice man, a _very_ nice man--sent me word by letter that I was to get
the house ready. It isn't the first time I have done it for them, sir,
and as soon as I could get the basement key from the agent, I came here,
and worked all day yesterday, washing up the floors and dusting. I
should have been at them again this morning if my husband hadn't been
sick. But I had to go to the infirmary for medicine, and it was noon
when I got here, and then I found this lady standing outside with a
policeman, a very nice lady, a very _nice_ lady indeed, sir, I pay my
respects to her"--and she actually dropped me a curtsey like a peasant
woman in a play--"and they took my key from me, and the policeman opens
the door, and he and me go upstairs and into all the rooms, and when we
come to this one----"

She was getting so excited as to be hardly intelligible. Stopping
herself with a jerk, she fumbled nervously with her apron, while I asked
myself how she could have been at work in this house the day before
without my knowing it. Suddenly I remembered that I was ill in the
morning and busy in the afternoon at the Orphan Asylum, and somewhat
relieved at finding so excellent an excuse for my ignorance, I looked up
to see if the detective had noticed anything odd in this woman's
behavior. Presumably he had, but having more experience than myself with
the susceptibility of ignorant persons in the presence of danger and
distress, he attached less importance to it than I did, for which I was
secretly glad, without exactly knowing my reasons for being so.

"You will be wanted as a witness by the Coroner's jury," he now remarked
to her, looking as if he were addressing the piece of china he was
turning over in his hand. "Now, no nonsense!" he protested, as she
commenced to tremble and plead. "You were the first one to see this dead
woman, and you must be on hand to say so. As I cannot tell you when the
inquest will be held, you had better stay around till the Coroner comes.
He'll be here soon. You, and this other woman too."

By other woman he meant _me_, Miss Butterworth, of Colonial ancestry and
no inconsiderable importance in the social world. But though I did not
relish this careless association of myself with this poor scrub-woman,
I was careful to show no displeasure, for I reasoned that as witnesses
we were equal before the law, and that it was solely in this light he
regarded us.

There was something in the manner of both these gentlemen which
convinced me that while my presence was considered desirable in the
house, it was not especially wanted in the room. I was therefore moving
reluctantly away, when I felt a slight but peremptory touch on the arm,
and turning, saw the detective at my side, still studying his piece of
china.

He was, as I have said, of portly build and benevolent aspect; a
fatherly-looking man, and not at all the person one would be likely to
associate with the police. Yet he could take the lead very naturally,
and when he spoke, I felt bound to answer him.

"Will you be so good, madam, as to relate over again, what you saw from
your window last night? I am likely to have charge of this matter, and
would be pleased to hear all you may have to say concerning it."

"My name is Butterworth," I politely intimated.

"And my name is Gryce."

"A detective?"

"The same."

"You must think this matter very serious," I ventured.

"Death by violence is always serious."

"You must regard this death as something more than an accident, I mean."

His smile seemed to say: "You will not know to-day how I regard it."

"And you will not know to-day what I think of it either," was my inward
rejoinder, but I said nothing aloud, for the man was seventy-five if he
was a day, and I have been taught respect for age, and have practised
the same for fifty years and more.

I must have shown what was passing in my mind, and he must have seen it
reflected on the polished surface of the porcelain he was contemplating,
for his lips showed the shadow of a smile sufficiently sarcastic for me
to see that he was far from being as easy-natured as his countenance
indicated.

"Come, come," said he, "there is the Coroner now. Say what you have to
say, like the straightforward, honest woman you appear."

"I don't like compliments," I snapped out. Indeed, they have always been
obnoxious to me. As if there was any merit in being honest and
straightforward, or any distinction in being told so!

"I am Miss Butterworth, and not in the habit of being spoken to as if I
were a simple countrywoman," I objected. "But I will repeat what I saw
last night, as it is no secret, and the telling of it won't hurt me and
may help you."

Accordingly I went over the whole story, and was much more loquacious
than I had intended to be, his manner was so insinuating and his
inquiries so pertinent. But one topic we both failed to broach, and that
was the peculiar manner of the scrub-woman. Perhaps it had not struck
him as peculiar and perhaps it should not have struck me so, but in the
silence which was preserved on the subject I felt I had acquired an
advantage over him, which might lead to consequences of no small
importance. Would I have felt thus or congratulated myself quite so much
upon my fancied superiority, if I had known he was the man who managed
the Leavenworth case, and who in his early years had experienced that
very wonderful adventure on the staircase of the Heart's Delight?
Perhaps I would; for though I have had no adventures, I feel capable of
them, and as for any peculiar acumen he may have shown in his long and
eventful career, why that is a quality which others may share with him,
as I hope to be able to prove before finishing these pages.




III.

AMELIA DISCOVERS HERSELF.


There is a small room at the extremity of the Van Burnam mansion. In
this I took refuge after my interview with Mr. Gryce. As I picked out
the chair which best suited me and settled myself for a comfortable
communion with my own thoughts, I was astonished to find how much I was
enjoying myself, notwithstanding the thousand and one duties awaiting me
on the other side of the party-wall.

Even this very solitude was welcome, for it gave me an opportunity to
consider matters. I had not known up to this very hour that I had any
special gifts. My father, who was a shrewd man of the old New England
type, said more times than I am years old (which was not saying it as
often as some may think) that Araminta (the name I was christened by,
and the name you will find in the Bible record, though I sign myself
Amelia, and insist upon being addressed as Amelia, being, as I hope, a
sensible woman and not the piece of antiquated sentimentality suggested
by the former cognomen)--that Araminta would live to make her mark;
though in what capacity he never informed me, being, as I have observed,
a shrewd man, and thus not likely to thoughtlessly commit himself.

I now know he was right; my pretensions dating from the moment I found
that this affair, at first glance so simple, and at the next so
complicated, had aroused in me a fever of investigation which no
reasoning could allay. Though I had other and more personal matters on
my mind, my thoughts would rest nowhere but on the details of this
tragedy; and having, as I thought, noticed some few facts in connection
with it, from which conclusions might be drawn, I amused myself with
jotting them down on the back of a disputed grocer's bill I happened to
find in my pocket.

Valueless as explaining this tragedy, being founded upon insufficient
evidence, they may be interesting as showing the workings of my mind
even at this early stage of the matter. They were drawn up under three
heads.

First, was the death of this young woman an accident?

Second, was it a suicide?

Third, was it a murder?

Under the first head I wrote:

_My reasons for not thinking it an accident._

1. If it had been an accident and she had pulled the cabinet over upon
herself, she would have been found with her feet pointing towards the
wall where the cabinet had stood.

(But her feet were towards the door and her head under the cabinet.)

2. The decent, even precise, arrangement of the clothing about her feet,
which precludes any theory involving accident.

Under the second:

_Reason for not thinking it suicide._

She could not have been found in the position observed without having
lain down on the floor while living and then pulled the shelves down
upon herself.

(A theory obviously too improbable to be considered.)

Under the third:

_Reason for not thinking it murder._

She would need to have been held down on the floor while the cabinet was
being pulled over on her; something which the quiet aspect of the hands
and feet made appear impossible.

To this I added:

_Reasons for accepting the theory of murder._

1. The fact that she did not go into the house alone; that a man entered
with her, remained ten minutes, and then came out again and disappeared
up the street with every appearance of haste and an anxious desire to
leave the spot.

2. The front door, which he had unlocked on entering, was not locked by
him on his departure, the catch doing the locking. Yet, though he could
have re-entered so easily, he had shown no disposition to return.

3. The arrangement of the skirts, which show the touch of a careful hand
after death.

Nothing clear, you see. I was doubtful of all; and yet my suspicions
tended most toward murder.

I had eaten my luncheon before interfering in this matter, which was
fortunate for me, as it was three o'clock before I was summoned to meet
the Coroner, of whose arrival I had been conscious some time before.

He was in the front parlor where the dead girl lay, and as I took my way
thither I felt the same sensations of faintness which had so nearly
overcome me on the previous occasion. But I mastered them, and was
quite myself before I crossed the threshold.

There were several gentlemen present, but of them all I only noticed
two, one of whom I took to be the Coroner, while the other was my late
interlocutor, Mr. Gryce. From the animation observable in the latter, I
gathered that the case was growing in interest from the detective
standpoint.

"Ah, and is this the witness?" asked the Coroner, as I stepped into the
room.

"I am Miss Butterworth," was my calm reply. "_Amelia_ Butterworth.
Living next door and present at the discovery of this poor murdered
body."

"Murdered," he repeated. "Why do you say murdered?"

For reply I drew from my pocket the bill on which I had scribbled my
conclusions in regard to this matter.

"Read this," said I.

Evidently astonished, he took the paper from my hand, and, after some
curious glances in my direction, condescended to do as I requested. The
result was an odd but grudging look of admiration directed towards
myself and a quick passing over of the paper to the detective.

The latter, who had exchanged his bit of broken china for a very much
used and tooth-marked lead-pencil, frowned with a whimsical air at the
latter before he put it in his pocket. Then he read my hurried scrawl.

"Two Richmonds in the field!" commented the Coroner, with a sly chuckle.
"I am afraid I shall have to yield to their allied forces. Miss
Butterworth, the cabinet is about to be raised; do you feel as if you
could endure the sight?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How do you know?" questioned the Coroner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And I repeat it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You are Miss Butterworth?" he inquired.

"I am, sir."

"And I am a reporter from the New York _World_. Will you allow me----"

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

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

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

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

"Do you mean Howard?" I asked.

"Is he the elder one?"

"No."

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

"How can they expect him then so soon?"

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

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

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

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

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

"You do not care to stay any longer?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm afraid so," he muttered.

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




IV.

SILAS VAN BURNAM.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Wait, with a yelling crowd screaming murder in my ear, and Isabella on
one side of me calling for salts, and Caroline on the opposite seat
getting that blue look about the mouth we have learned to dread so in a
hot day like this? No, sir, when there is anything wrong going on I want
to know it, and evidently there is something wrong going on here. What
is it? Some of Howard's----"

But the son, seizing me by the hand and drawing me forward, put a quick
stop to the old gentleman's sentence. "Miss Butterworth, father! Our
next-door neighbor, you know."

"Ah! hum! ha! Miss Butterworth. How do you do, ma'am? What the ---- is
she doing here?" he grumbled, not so low but that I heard both the
profanity and the none too complimentary allusion to myself.

"If you will come into the parlor, I will tell you," urged the son. "But
what have you done with Isabella and Caroline? Left them in the carriage
with that hooting mob about them?"

"I told the coachman to drive on. They are probably half-way around the
block by this time."

"Then come in here. But don't allow yourself to be too much affected by
what you will see. A sad accident has occurred here, and you must expect
the sight of blood."

"Blood! Oh, I can stand that, if Howard----"

The rest was lost in the sound of the closing door.

And now, you will say, I ought to have gone. And you are right, but
would you have gone yourself, especially as the hall was full of people
who did not belong there?

If you would, then condemn me for lingering just a few minutes longer.

The voices in the parlor were loud, but they presently subsided; and
when the owner of the house came out again, he had a subdued look which
was as great a contrast to his angry aspect on entering, as was the
change I had observed in his son. He was so absorbed indeed that he did
not notice me, though I stood directly in his way.

"Don't let Howard come," he was saying in a thick, low voice to his son.
"Keep Howard away till we are sure----"

I am confident that his son pressed his arm at this point, for he
stopped short and looked about him in a blind and dazed way.

"Oh!" he ejaculated, in a tone of great displeasure. "This is the woman
who saw----"

"Miss Butterworth, father," the anxious voice of his son broke in.
"Don't try to talk; such a sight is enough to unnerve any man."

"Yes, yes," blustered the old gentleman, evidently taking some hint from
the other's tone or manner. "But where are the girls? They will be dead
with terror, if we don't relieve their minds. They got the idea it was
their brother Howard who was hurt; and so did I, but it's only some
wandering waif--some----"

It seemed as if he was not to be allowed to finish any of his sentences,
for Franklin interrupted him at this point to ask him what he was going
to do with the girls. Certainly he could not bring them in here.

"No," answered the father, but in the dreamy, inconsequential way of
one whose thoughts were elsewhere. "I suppose I shall have to take them
to some hotel."

Ah, an idea! I flushed as I realized the opportunity which had come to
me and had to wait a moment not to speak with too much eagerness.

"Let me play the part of a neighbor," I prayed, "and accommodate the
young ladies for the night. My house is near and quiet."

"But the trouble it will involve," protested Mr. Franklin.

"Is just what I need to allay my excitement," I responded. "I shall be
glad to offer them rooms for the night. If they are equally glad to
accept them----"

"They must be!" the old gentleman declared. "I can't go running round
with them hunting up rooms to-night. Miss Butterworth is very good; go
find the girls, Franklin; let me have them off my mind, at least."

The young man bowed. I bowed, and was slipping at last from my place by
the stairs when, for the third time, I felt my dress twitched.

"Are you going to keep to that story?" a voice whispered in my ear.
"About the young man and woman coming in the night, you know."

"Keep to it!" I whispered back, recognizing the scrub-woman, who had
sidled up to me from some unknown quarter in the semi-darkness. "Why,
it's true. Why shouldn't I keep to it."

A chuckle, difficult to describe but full of meaning, shook the arm of
the woman as she pressed close to my side.

"Oh, you are a good one," she said. "I didn't know they made 'em so
good!" And with another chuckle full of satisfaction and an odd sort of
admiration I had certainly not earned, she slid away again into the
darkness.

Certainly there was something in this woman's attitude towards this
affair which merited attention.




V.

"THIS IS NO ONE I KNOW."


I welcomed the Misses Van Burnam with just enough good-will to show that
I had not been influenced by any unworthy motives in asking them to my
house.

I gave them my guest-chamber, but I invited them to sit in my front room
as long as there was anything interesting going on in the street. I knew
they would like to look out, and as this chamber boasts of a bay with
two windows, we could all be accommodated. From where I sat I could now
and then hear what they said, and I considered this but just, for if the
young woman who had suffered so untimely an end was in any way connected
with them, it was certainly best that the fact should not lie concealed;
and one of them, that is Isabella, is such a chatterbox.

Mr. Van Burnam and his son had returned next door, and so far as we
could observe from our vantage-point, preparations were being made for
the body's removal. As the crowd below, driven away by the policemen one
minute, only to collect again in another, swayed and grumbled in a
continual expectation that was as continually disappointed, I heard
Caroline's voice rise in two or three short sentences.

"They can't find Howard, or he would have been here before now. Did you
see her that time when we were coming out of Clark's? Fanny Preston did,
and said she was pretty."

"No, I didn't get a glimpse----" A shout from the street below.

"I can't believe it," were the next words I heard, "but Franklin is
awfully afraid----"

"Hush! or the ogress----" I am sure I heard her say ogress; but what
followed was drowned in another loud murmur, and I caught nothing
further till these sentences were uttered by the trembling and
over-excited Caroline: "If it is she, pa will never be the same man
again. To have her die in our house! O, there's Howard now!"

The interruption came quick and sharp, and it was followed by a double
cry and an anxious rustle, as the two girls sprang to their feet in
their anxiety to attract their brother's attention or possibly to convey
him some warning.

But I did not give much heed to them. My eyes were on the carriage in
which Howard had arrived, and which, owing to the ambulance in front,
had stopped on the other side of the way. I was anxious to see him
descend that I might judge if his figure recalled that of the man I had
seen cross the pavement the night before. But he did not descend. Just
as his hand was on the carriage door, a half dozen men appeared on the
adjoining stoop carrying a burden which they hastened to deposit in the
ambulance. He sank back when he saw it, and when his face became visible
again, it was so white it seemed to be the only face in the street,
though fifty people stood about staring at the house, at the ambulance,
and at him.

Franklin Van Burnam had evidently come to the door with the rest; for
Howard no sooner showed his face the second time than we saw the former
dash down the steps and try to part the crowd in a vain attempt to reach
his brother's side. Mr. Gryce was more successful. He had no difficulty
in winning his way across the street, and presently I perceived him
standing near the carriage exchanging a few words with its occupant. A
moment later he drew back, and addressing the driver, jumped into the
carriage with Howard, and was speedily driven off. The ambulance
followed and some of the crowd, and as soon as a hack could be obtained,
Mr. Van Burnam and his son took the same road, leaving us three women in
a state of suspense, which as far as one of us was concerned, ended in a
nervous attack that was not unlike heart failure. I allude, of course,
to Caroline, and it took Isabella and myself a good half hour to bring
her back to a normal condition, and when this was done, Isabella thought
it incumbent upon her to go off into hysterics, which, being but a weak
simulation of the other's state, I met with severity and cured with a
frown. When both were in trim again I allowed myself one remark.

"One would think," said I, "that you knew the young woman who has fallen
victim to her folly next door."

At which Isabella violently shook her head and Caroline observed:

"It is the excitement which has been too much for me. I am never strong,
and this is such a dreadful home-welcoming. When will father and
Franklin come back? It was very unkind of them to go off without one
word of encouragement."

"They probably did not consider the fate of this unknown woman a matter
of any importance to you."

The Van Burnam girls were unlike in appearance and character, but they
showed an equal embarrassment at this, casting down their eyes and
behaving so strangely that I was driven to wonder, without any show of
hysterics I am happy to say, what would be the upshot of this matter,
and how far I would become involved in it before the truth came to
light.

At dinner they displayed what I should call their best society manner.
Seeing this, I assumed my society manner also. It is formed on a
different pattern from theirs, but is fully as impressive, I judge.

A most formal meal was the result. My best china was in use, but I had
added nothing to my usual course of viands. Indeed, I had abstracted
something. An _entrée_, upon which my cook prides herself, was omitted.
Was I going to allow these proud young misses to think I had exerted
myself to please them? No; rather would I have them consider me
niggardly and an enemy to good living; so the _entrée_ was, as the
French say, suppressed.

In the evening their father came in. He was looking very dejected, and
half his bluster was gone. He held a telegram crushed in his hand, and
he talked very rapidly. But he confided none of his secrets to me, and I
was obliged to say good-night to these young ladies without knowing much
more about the matter engrossing us than when I left their house in the
afternoon.

But others were not as ignorant as myself. A dramatic and highly
exciting scene had taken place that evening at the undertaker's to which
the unknown's body had been removed, and as I have more than once heard
it minutely described, I will endeavor to transcribe it here with all
the impartiality of an outsider.

When Mr. Gryce entered the carriage in which Howard sat, he noted first,
that the young man was frightened; and secondly, that he made no effort
to hide it. He had heard almost nothing from the detective. He knew that
there had been a hue and cry for him ever since noon, and that he was
wanted to identify a young woman who had been found dead in his father's
house, but beyond these facts he had been told little, and yet he seemed
to have no curiosity nor did he venture to express any surprise. He
merely accepted the situation and was troubled by it, showing no
inclination to talk till very near the end of his destination, when he
suddenly pulled himself together and ventured this question:

"How did she--the young woman as you call her--kill herself?"

The detective, who in his long career among criminals and suspected
persons, had seen many men and encountered many conditions, roused at
this query with much of his old spirit. Turning from the man rather than
toward him, he allowed himself a slight shrug of the shoulders as he
calmly replied:

"She was found under a heavy piece of furniture; the cabinet with the
vases on it, which you must remember stood at the left of the
mantel-piece. It had crushed her head and breast. Quite a remarkable
means of death, don't you think? There has been but one occurrence like
it in my long experience."

"I don't believe what you tell me," was the young man's astonishing
reply. "You are trying to frighten me or to make game of me. No lady
would make use of any such means of death as that."

"I did not say she was a lady," returned Mr. Gryce, scoring one in his
mind against his unwary companion.

A quiver passed down the young man's side where he came in contact with
the detective.

"No," he muttered; "but I gathered from what you said, she was no common
person; or why," he flashed out in sudden heat, "do you require me to go
with you to see her? Have I the name of associating with any persons of
the sex who are not ladies?"

"Pardon me," said Mr. Gryce, in grim delight at the prospect he saw
slowly unfolding before him of one of those complicated affairs in which
minds like his unconsciously revel; "I meant no insinuations. We have
requested you, as we have requested your father and brother, to
accompany us to the undertaker's, because the identification of the
corpse is a most important point, and every formality likely to insure
it must be observed."

"And did not they--my father and brother, I mean--recognize her?"

"It would be difficult for any one to recognize her who was not well
acquainted with her."

A horrified look crossed the features of Howard Van Burnam, which, if a
part of his acting, showed him to have genius for his _rôle_. His head
sank back on the cushions of the carriage, and for a moment he closed
his eyes. When he opened them again, the carriage had stopped, and Mr.
Gryce, who had not noticed his emotion, of course, was looking out of
the window with his hand on the handle of the door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A _key_? Franklin, I----"

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

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

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

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

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

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

The young man was caught unawares.

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

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

"And the hair?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




VI.

NEW FACTS.


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

Advancing very calmly, he addressed himself to the father:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And so you absolutely refuse to acknowledge her."

"Most certainly."

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Gryce turned to his father and brother.

"Does it interest _you_?" he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

"The heart?" put in Franklin.

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

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

The detective ignored _him_.

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

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

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

And still Howard showed no interest.

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

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

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

Mr. Gryce bowed.

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

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

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

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




VII.

MR. GRYCE DISCOVERS MISS AMELIA.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, or I should tell you myself."

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

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

He shrugged his shoulders.

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

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

"It is my very good fortune to have made your acquaintance, Miss
Butterworth. You and I ought to be able to work out this case in a way
that will be satisfactory to all parties."

He meant it for sarcasm, but I took it quite seriously, that is to all
appearance. I am as sly as he, and though not quite as old--now _I_ am
sarcastic--have some of his wits, if but little of his experience.

"Then let us to work," said I. "You have your theories about this
murder, and I have mine; let us see how they compare."

If the image he had under his eye had not been made of bronze, I am sure
it would have become petrified by the look he now gave it. What to me
seemed but the natural proposition of an energetic woman with a special
genius for his particular calling, evidently struck him as audacity of
the grossest kind. But he confined his display of astonishment to the
figure he was eying, and returned me nothing but this most gentlemanly
retort:

"I am sure I am obliged to you, madam, and possibly I may be willing to
consider your very thoughtful proposition later, but now I am busy, very
busy, and if you will await my presence in your house for a half
hour----"

"Why not let me wait here," I interposed. "The atmosphere of the place
may sharpen my faculties. I already feel that another sharp look into
that parlor would lead to the forming of some valuable theory."

"You--" Well, he did not say what I was, or rather, what the image he
was apostrophizing, was. But he must have meant to utter a compliment of
no common order.

The prim courtesy I made in acknowledgment of his good intention
satisfied him that I had understood him fully; and changing his whole
manner to one more in accordance with business, he observed after a
moment's reflection:

"You came to a conclusion this afternoon, Miss Butterworth, for which I
should like some explanation. In investigating the hat which had been
drawn from under the murdered girl's remains, you made the remark that
it had been worn but once. I had already come to the same conclusion,
but by other means, doubtless. Will you tell me what it was that gave
point to your assertion?"

"There was but one prick of a hat-pin in it," I observed. "If you have
been in the habit of looking into young women's hats, you will
appreciate the force of my remark."

"The deuce!" was his certainly uncalled for exclamation. "Women's eyes
for women's matters! I am greatly indebted to you, ma'am. You have
solved a very important problem for us. A hat-pin! humph!" he muttered
to himself. "The devil in a man is not easily balked; even such an
innocent article as that can be made to serve, when all other means are
lacking."

It is perhaps a proof that Mr. Gryce is getting old, that he allowed
these words to escape him. But having once given vent to them, he made
no effort to retract them, but proceeded to take me into his confidence
so far as to explain:

"The woman who was killed in that room owed her death to the stab of a
thin, long pin. We had not thought of a hat-pin, but upon your
mentioning it, I am ready to accept it as the instrument of death. There
was no pin to be seen in the hat when you looked at it?"

"None. I examined it most carefully."

He shook his head and seemed to be meditating. As I had plenty of time I
waited, expecting him to speak again. My patience seemed to impress him.
Alternately raising and lowering his hands like one in the act of
weighing something, he soon addressed me again, this time in a tone of
banter:

"This pin--if pin it was--was found broken in the wound. We have been
searching for the end that was left in the murderer's hand, and we have
not found it. It is not on the floors of the parlors nor in this
hallway. What do you think the ingenious user of such an instrument
would do with it?"

This was said, I am now sure, out of a spirit of sarcasm. He was amusing
himself with me, but I did not realize it then. I was too full of my
subject.

"He would not have carried it away," I reasoned shortly, "at least not
far. He did not throw it aside on reaching the street, for I watched his
movements so closely that I would have observed him had he done this. It
is in the house then, and presumably in the parlor, even if you do not
find it on the floor."

"Would you like to look for it?" he impressively asked. I had no means
of knowing at that time that when he was impressive he was his least
candid and trustworthy self.

"Would I," I repeated; and being spare in figure and much more active in
my movements that one would suppose from my age and dignified
deportment, I ducked under his arms and was in Mr. Van Burnam's parlor
before he had recovered from his surprise.

That a man like him could look foolish I would not have you for a moment
suppose. But he did not look very well satisfied, and I had a chance to
throw more than one glance around me before he found his tongue again.

"An unfair advantage, ma'am; an unfair advantage! I am old and I am
rheumatic; you are young and sound as a nut. I acknowledge my folly in
endeavoring to compete with you and must make the best of the situation.
And now, madam, where is that pin?"

It was lightly said, but for all that I saw that my opportunity had
come. If I could find this instrument of murder, what might I not expect
from his gratitude. Nerving myself for the task thus set me, I peered
hither and thither, taking in every article in the room before I made a
step forward. There had been some attempt to rectify its disorder. The
broken pieces of china had been lifted and laid carefully away on
newspapers upon the shelves from which they had fallen. The cabinet
stood upright in its place, and the clock which had tumbled face upward,
had been placed upon the mantel-shelf in the same position. The carpet
was therefore free, save for the stains which told such a woful story of
past tragedy and crime.

"You have moved the tables and searched behind the sofas," I suggested.

"Not an inch of the floor has escaped our attention, madam."

My eyes fell on the register, which my skirts half covered. It was
closed; I stooped and opened it. A square box of tin was visible below,
at the bottom of which I perceived the round head of a broken hat-pin.

Never in my life had I felt as I did at that minute. Rising up, I
pointed at the register and let some of my triumph become apparent; but
not all, for I was by no means sure at that moment, nor am I by any
means sure now, that he had not made the discovery before I did and was
simply testing my pretensions.

However that may be, he came forward quickly and after some little
effort drew out the broken pin and examined it curiously.

"I should say that this is what we want," he declared, and from that
moment on showed me a suitable deference.

"I account for its being there in this way," I argued. "The room was
dark; for whether he lighted it or not to commit his crime, he
certainly did not leave it lighted long. Coming out, his foot came in
contact with the iron of the register and he was struck by a sudden
thought. He had not dared to leave the head of the pin lying on the
floor, for he hoped that he had covered up his crime by pulling the
heavy cabinet over upon his victim; nor did he wish to carry away such a
memento of his cruel deed. So he dropped it down the register, where he
doubtless expected it would fall into the furnace pipes out of sight.
But the tin box retained it. Is not that plausible, sir?"

"I could not have reasoned better myself, madam. We shall have you on
the force, yet."

But at the familiarity shown by this suggestion, I bridled angrily. "I
am Miss Butterworth," was my sharp retort, "and any interest I may take
in this matter is due to my sense of justice."

Seeing that he had offended me, the astute detective turned the
conversation back to business.

"By the way," said he, "your woman's knowledge can help me out at
another point. If you are not afraid to remain in this room alone for a
moment, I will bring an article in regard to which I should like your
opinion."

I assured him I was not in the least bit afraid, at which he made me
another of his anomalous bows and passed into the adjoining parlor. He
did not stop there. Opening the sliding-doors communicating with the
dining-room beyond, he disappeared in the latter room, shutting the
doors behind him. Being now alone for a moment on the scene of crime, I
crossed over to the mantel-shelf, and lifted the clock that lay there.

Why I did this I scarcely know. I am naturally very orderly (some people
call me precise) and it probably fretted me to see so valuable an
object out of its natural position. However that was, I lifted it up and
set it upright, when to my amazement it began to tick. Had the hands not
stood as they did when my eyes first fell on the clock lying face up on
the floor at the dead girl's side, I should have thought the works had
been started since that time by Mr. Gryce or some other officious
person. But they pointed now as then to a few minutes before five and
the only conclusion I could arrive at was, that the clock had been in
running order when it fell, startling as this fact appeared in a house
which had not been inhabited for months.

But if it had been in running order and was only stopped by its fall
upon the floor, why did the hands point at five instead of twelve which
was the hour at which the accident was supposed to have happened? Here
was matter for thought, and that I might be undisturbed in my use of it,
I hastened to lay the clock down again, even taking the precaution to
restore the hands to the exact position they had occupied before I had
started up the works. If Mr. Gryce did not know their secret, why so
much the worse for Mr. Gryce.

I was back in my old place by the register before the sliding-doors
unclosed again. I was conscious of a slight flush on my cheek, so I took
from my pocket that perplexing grocer-bill and was laboriously going
down its long line of figures, when Mr. Gryce reappeared.

He had to my surprise a woman's hat in his hand.

"Well!" thought I, "what does this mean!"

It was an elegant specimen of millinery, and was in the latest style. It
had ribbons and flowers and bird wings upon it, and presented, as it was
turned about by Mr. Gryce's deft hand, an appearance which some might
have called charming, but to me was simply grotesque and absurd.

"Is that a last spring's hat?" he inquired.

"I don't know, but I should say it had come fresh from the milliner's."

"I found it lying with a pair of gloves tucked inside it on an otherwise
empty shelf in the dining-room closet. It struck me as looking too new
for a discarded hat of either of the Misses Van Burnam. What do you
think?"

"Let me take it," said I.

"O, it's been worn," he smiled, "several times. And the hat-pin is in
it, too."

"There is something else I wish to see."

He handed it over.

"I think it belongs to one of them," I declared. "It was made by La Mole
of Fifth Avenue, whose prices are simply--wicked."

"But the young ladies have been gone--let me see--five months. Could
this have been bought before then?"

"Possibly, for this is an imported hat. But why should it have been left
lying about in that careless way? It cost twenty dollars, if not thirty,
and if for any reason its owner decided not to take it with her, why
didn't she pack it away properly? I have no patience with the modern
girl; she is made up of recklessness and extravagance."

"I hear that the young ladies are staying with you," was his suggestive
remark.

"They are."

"Then you can make some inquiries about this hat; also about the gloves,
which are an ordinary street pair."

"Of what color?"

"Gray; they are quite fresh, size six."

"Very well; I will ask the young ladies about them."

"This third room is used as a dining-room, and the closet where I found
them is one in which glass is kept. The presence of this hat there is a
mystery, but I presume the Misses Van Burnam can solve it. At all
events, it is very improbable that it has anything to do with the crime
which has been committed here."

"Very," I coincided.

"So improbable," he went on, "that on second thoughts I advise you not
to disturb the young ladies with questions concerning it unless further
reasons for doing so become apparent."

"Very well," I returned. But I was not deceived by his second thoughts.

As he was holding open the parlor door before me in a very significant
way, I tied my veil under my chin, and was about to leave when he
stopped me.

"I have another favor to ask," said he, and this time with his most
benignant smile. "Miss Butterworth, do you object to sitting up for a
few nights till twelve o'clock?"

"Not at all," I returned, "if there is any good reason for it."

"At twelve o'clock to-night a gentleman will enter this house. If you
will note him from your window I will be obliged."

"To see whether he is the same one I saw last night? Certainly I will
take a look, but----"

"To-morrow night," he went on, imperturbably, "the test will be
repeated, and I should like to have you take another look; without
prejudice, madam; remember, without prejudice."

"I have no prejudices----" I began.

"The test may not be concluded in two nights," he proceeded, without any
notice of my words. "So do not be in haste to spot your man, as the
vulgar expression is. And now good-night--we shall meet again
to-morrow."

"Wait!" I called peremptorily, for he was on the point of closing the
door. "I saw the man but faintly; it is an impression only that I
received. I would not wish a man to hang through any identification I
could make."

"No man hangs on simple identification. We shall have to prove the
crime, madam, but identification is important; even such as you can
make."

There was no more to be said; I uttered a calm good-night and hastened
away. By a judicious use of my opportunities I had become much less
ignorant on the all-important topic than when I entered the house.

It was half past eleven when I returned home, a late hour for me to
enter my respectable front door alone. But circumstances had warranted
my escapade, and it was with quite an easy conscience and a cheerful
sense of accomplishment that I went up to my room and prepared to sit
out the half hour before midnight.

I am a comfortable sort of person when alone, and found no difficulty in
passing this time profitably. Being very orderly, as you must have
remarked, I have everything at hand for making myself a cup of tea at
any time of day or night; so feeling some need of refreshment, I set out
the little table I reserve for such purposes and made the tea and sat
down to sip it.

While doing so, I turned over the subject occupying my mind, and
endeavored to reconcile the story told by the clock with my
preconceived theory of this murder; but no reconcilement was possible.
The woman had been killed at twelve, and the clock had fallen at five.
How could the two be made to agree, and which, since agreement was
impossible, should be made to give way, the theory or the testimony of
the clock? Both seemed incontrovertible, and yet one must be false.
Which?

I was inclined to think that the trouble lay with the clock; that I had
been deceived in my conclusions, and that it was not running at the time
of the crime. Mr. Gryce may have ordered it wound, and then have had it
laid on its back to prevent the hands from shifting past the point where
they had stood at the time of the crime's discovery. It was an
unexplainable act, but a possible one; while to suppose that it was
going when the shelves fell, stretched improbability to the utmost,
there having been, so far as we could learn, no one in the house for
months sufficiently dexterous to set so valuable a timepiece; for who
could imagine the scrub-woman engaging in a task requiring such delicate
manipulation.

No! some meddlesome official had amused himself by starting up the
works, and the clue I had thought so important would probably prove
valueless.

There was humiliation in the thought, and it was a relief to me to hear
an approaching carriage just as the clock on my mantel struck twelve.
Springing from my chair, I put out my light and flew to the window.

The coach drew up and stopped next door. I saw a gentleman descend and
step briskly across the pavement to the neighboring stoop. The figure he
presented was not that of the man I had seen enter the night before.




VIII.

THE MISSES VAN BURNAM.


Late as it was when I retired, I was up betimes in the morning--as soon,
in fact, as the papers were distributed. The _Tribune_ lay on the stoop.
Eagerly I seized it; eagerly I read it. From its headlines you may judge
what it had to say about this murder:

     A STARTLING DISCOVERY IN THE VAN BURNAM MANSION IN GRAMERCY
     PARK.

     A YOUNG GIRL FOUND THERE, LYING DEAD UNDER AN OVERTURNED
     CABINET.

     EVIDENCES THAT SHE WAS MURDERED BEFORE IT WAS PULLED DOWN UPON
     HER.

     THOUGHT BY SOME TO BE MRS. HOWARD VAN BURNAM.

     A FEARFUL CRIME INVOLVED IN AN IMPENETRABLE MYSTERY.

     WHAT MR. VAN BURNAM SAYS ABOUT IT: HE DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE
     WOMAN AS HIS WIFE.

So, so, it was his wife they were talking about. I had not expected
that. Well! well! no wonder the girls looked startled and concerned. And
I paused to recall what I had heard about Howard Van Burnam's marriage.

It had not been a fortunate one. His chosen bride was pretty enough, but
she had not been bred in the ways of fashionable society, and the other
members of the family had never recognized her. The father, especially,
had cut his son dead since his marriage, and had even gone so far as to
threaten to dissolve the partnership in which they were all involved.
Worse than this, there had been rumors of a disagreement between Howard
and his wife. They were not always on good terms, and opinions differed
as to which was most in fault. So much for what I knew of these two
mentioned parties.

Reading the article at length, I learned that Mrs. Van Burnam was
missing; that she had left Haddam for New York the day before her
husband, and had not since been heard from. Howard was confident,
however, that the publicity given to her disappearance by the papers
would bring immediate news of her.

The effect of the whole article was to raise grave doubts as to the
candor of Mr. Van Burnam's assertions, and I am told that in some of the
less scrupulous papers these doubts were not only expressed, but actual
surmises ventured upon as to the identity between the person whom I had
seen enter the house with the young girl. As for my own name, it was
blazoned forth in anything but a gratifying manner. I was spoken of in
one paper--a kind friend told me this--as the prying Miss Amelia. As if
my prying had not given the police their only clue to the identification
of the criminal.

The New York _World_ was the only paper that treated me with any
consideration. That young man with the small head and beady eyes was not
awed by me for nothing. He mentioned me as the clever Miss Butterworth
whose testimony is likely to be of so much value in this very
interesting case.

It was the _World_ I handed the Misses Van Burnam when they came
down-stairs to breakfast. It did justice to me and not too much
injustice to him. They read it together, their two heads plunged deeply
into the paper so that I could not watch their faces. But I could see
the sheet shake, and I noticed that their social veneer was not as yet
laid on so thickly that they could hide their real terror and heart-ache
when they finally confronted me again.

"Did you read--have you seen this horrible account?" quavered Caroline,
as she met my eye.

"Yes, and I now understand why you felt such anxiety yesterday. Did you
know your sister-in-law, and do you think she could have been beguiled
into your father's house in that way?"

It was Isabella who answered.

"We never have seen her and know little of her, but there is no telling
what such an uncultivated person as she might do. But that our good
brother Howard ever went in there with her is a lie, isn't it,
Caroline?--a base and malicious lie?"

"Of course it is, of course, of course. You don't think the man you saw
was Howard, do you, dear Miss Butterworth?"

_Dear?_ O dear!

"I am not acquainted with your brother," I returned. "I have never seen
him but a few times in my life. You know he has not been a very frequent
visitor at your father's house lately."

They looked at me wistfully, _so_ wistfully.

"Say it was not Howard," whispered Caroline, stealing up a little nearer
to my side.

"And we will never forget it," murmured Isabella, in what I am obliged
to say was not her society manner.

"I hope to be able to say it," was my short rejoinder, made difficult by
the prejudices I had formed. "When I see your brother, I may be able to
decide at a glance that the person I saw entering your house was not
he."

"Yes, oh, yes. Do you hear that, Isabella? Miss Butterworth will save
Howard yet. O you dear old soul. I could almost love you!"

This was not agreeable to me. I a dear old soul! A term to be applied to
a butter-woman not to a Butterworth. I drew back and their
sentimentalities came to an end. I hope their brother Howard is not the
guilty man the papers make him out to be, but if he is, the Misses Van
Burnam's fine phrase, _We could almost love you_, will not deter me from
being honest in the matter.

Mr. Gryce called early, and I was glad to be able to tell him that the
gentleman who visited him the night before did not recall the impression
made upon me by the other. He received the communication quietly, and
from his manner I judged that it was more or less expected. But who can
be a correct judge of a detective's manner, especially one so foxy and
imperturbable as this one? I longed to ask who his visitor was, but I
did not dare, or rather--to be candid in little things that you may
believe me in great--I was confident he would not tell me, so I would
not compromise my dignity by a useless question.

He went after a five minutes' stay, and I was about to turn my attention
to household affairs, when Franklin came in.

His sisters jumped like puppets to meet him.

"O," they cried, for once thinking and speaking alike, "have you found
her?"

His silence was so eloquent that he did not need to shake his head.

"But you will before the day is out?" protested Caroline.

"It is too early yet," added Isabella.

"I never thought I would be glad to see that woman under any
circumstances," continued the former, "but I believe now that if I saw
her coming up the street on Howard's arm, I should be happy enough to
rush out and--and----"

"Give her a hug," finished the more impetuous Isabella.

It was not what Caroline meant to say, but she accepted the emendation,
with just the slightest air of deprecation. They were both evidently
much attached to Howard, and ready in his trouble to forget and forgive
everything. I began to like them again.

"Have you read the horrid papers?" and "How is papa this morning?" and
"What shall we do to save Howard?" now flew in rapid questions from
their lips; and feeling that it was but natural they should have their
little say, I sat down in my most uncomfortable chair and waited for
these first ebullitions to exhaust themselves.

Instantly Mr. Van Burnam took them by the arm, and led them away to a
distant sofa.

"Are you happy here?" he asked, in what he meant for a very confidential
tone. But I can hear as readily as a deaf person anything which is not
meant for my ears.

"O she's kind enough," whispered Caroline, "but so stingy. Do take us
where we can get something to eat."

"She puts all her money into china! Such plates!--_and so little on
them!_"

At these expressions, uttered with all the emphasis a whisper will
allow, I just hugged myself in my quiet corner. The dear, giddy things!
But they should see, they should see.

"I fear"--it was Mr. Van Burnam who now spoke--"I shall have to take my
sisters from under your kind care to-day. Their father needs them, and
has, I believe, already engaged rooms for them at the Plaza."

"I am sorry," I replied, "but surely they will not leave till they have
had another meal with me. Postpone your departure, young ladies, till
after luncheon, and you will greatly oblige me. We may never meet so
agreeably again."

They fidgeted (which I had expected), and cast secret looks of almost
comic appeal at their brother, but he pretended not to see them, being
disposed for some reason to grant my request. Taking advantage of the
momentary hesitation that ensued, I made them all three my most
conciliatory bow, and said as I retreated behind the portière:

"I shall give my orders for luncheon now. Meanwhile, I hope the young
ladies will feel perfectly free in my house. All that I have is at their
command." And was gone before they could protest.

When I next saw them, they were upstairs in my front room. They were
seated together in the window and looked miserable enough to have a
little diversion. Going to my closet, I brought out a band-box. It
contained my best bonnet.

"Young ladies, what do you think of this?" I inquired, taking the bonnet
out and carefully placing it on my head.

I myself consider it a very becoming article of headgear, but their
eyebrows went up in a scarcely complimentary fashion.

"You don't like it?" I remarked. "Well, I think a great deal of young
girls' taste; I shall send it back to Madame More's to-morrow."

"I don't think much of Madame More," observed Isabella, "and after
Paris----"

"Do you like La Mole better?" I inquired, bobbing my head to and fro
before the mirror, the better to conceal my interest in the venture I
was making.

"I don't like any of them but D'Aubigny," returned Isabella. "She
charges twice what La Mole does----"

Twice! What are these girls' purses made of, or rather their father's!

"But she has the _chic_ we are accustomed to see in French millinery. I
shall _never_ go anywhere else."

"We were recommended to her in Paris," put in Caroline, more languidly.
Her interest was only half engaged by this frivolous topic.

"But did you never have one of La Mole's hats?" I pursued, taking down
a hand-mirror, ostensibly to get the effect of my bonnet in the back,
but really to hide my interest in their unconscious faces.

"Never!" retorted Isabella. "I would not patronize the thing."

"Nor you?" I urged, carelessly, turning towards Caroline.

"No; I have never been inside her shop."

"Then whose is----" I began and stopped. A detective doing the work I
was, would not give away the object of his questions so recklessly.

"Then who is," I corrected, "the best person after D'Aubigny? I never
can pay _her_ prices. I should think it wicked."

"O don't ask us," protested Isabella. "We have never made a study of the
best bonnet-maker. At present we wear hats."

And having thus thrown their youth in my face, they turned away to the
window again, not realizing that the middle-aged lady they regarded with
such disdain had just succeeded in making them dance to her music most
successfully.

The luncheon I ordered was elaborate, for I was determined that the
Misses Van Burnam should see that I knew how to serve a fine meal, and
that my plates were not always better than my viands.

I had invited in a couple of other guests so that I should not seem to
have put myself out for two young girls, and as they were quiet people
like myself, the meal passed most decorously. When it was finished, the
Misses Caroline and Isabella had lost some of their consequential airs,
and I really think the deference they have since showed me is due more
to the surprise they felt at the perfection of this dainty luncheon,
than to any considerate appreciation of my character and abilities.

They left at three o'clock, still without news of Mrs. Van Burnam; and
being positive by this time that the shadows were thickening about this
family, I saw them depart with some regret and a positive feeling of
commiseration. Had they been reared to a proper reverence for their
elders, how much more easy it would have been to see earnestness in
Caroline and affectionate impulses in Isabella.

The evening papers added but little to my knowledge. Great disclosures
were promised, but no hint given of their nature. The body at the Morgue
had not been identified by any of the hundreds who had viewed it, and
Howard still refused to acknowledge it as that of his wife. The morrow
was awaited with anxiety.

So much for the public press!

At twelve o'clock at night, I was again seated in my window. The house
next door had been lighted since ten, and I was in momentary expectation
of its nocturnal visitor. He came promptly at the hour set, alighted
from the carriage with a bound, shut the carriage-door with a slam, and
crossed the pavement with cheerful celerity. His figure was not so
positively like, nor yet so positively unlike, that of the supposed
murderer that I could definitely say, "This is he," or, "This is not
he," and I went to bed puzzled, and not a little burdened by a sense of
the responsibility imposed upon me in this matter.

And so passed the day between the murder and the inquest.




IX.

DEVELOPMENTS.


Mr. Gryce called about nine o'clock next morning.

"Well," said he, "what about the visitor who came to see me last night?"

"Like and unlike," I answered. "Nothing could induce me to say he is the
man we want, and yet I would not dare to swear he was not."

"You are in doubt, then, concerning him?"

"I am."

Mr. Gryce bowed, reminded me of the inquest, and left. Nothing was said
about the hat.

At ten o'clock I prepared to go to the place designated by him. I had
never attended an inquest in my life, and felt a little flurried in
consequence, but by the time I had tied the strings of my bonnet (the
despised bonnet, which, by the way, I did not return to More's), I had
conquered this weakness, and acquired a demeanor more in keeping with my
very important position as chief witness in a serious police
investigation.

I had sent for a carriage to take me, and I rode away from my house amid
the shouts of some half dozen boys collected on the curbstone. But I
did not allow myself to feel dashed by this publicity. On the contrary,
I held my head as erect as nature intended, and my back kept the line
my good health warrants. The path of duty has its thorny passages, but
it is for strong minds like mine to ignore them.

Promptly at ten o'clock I entered the room reserved for the inquest, and
was ushered to the seat appointed me. Though never a self-conscious
woman, I could not but be aware of the many eyes that followed me, and
endeavored so to demean myself that there should be no question as to my
respectable standing in the community. This I considered due to the
memory of my father, who was very much in my thoughts that day.

The Coroner was already in his seat when I entered, and though I did not
perceive the good face of Mr. Gryce anywhere in his vicinity, I had no
doubt he was within ear-shot. Of the other people I took small note,
save of the honest scrub-woman, of whose red face and anxious eyes under
a preposterous bonnet (which did _not come_ from La Mole's), I caught
vague glimpses as the crowd between us surged to and fro.

None of the Van Burnams were visible, but this did not necessarily mean
that they were absent. Indeed, I was very sure, from certain
indications, that more than one member of the family could be seen in
the small room connecting with the large one in which we witnesses sat
with the jury.

The policeman, Carroll, was the first man to talk. He told of my
stopping him on his beat and of his entrance into Mr. Van Burnam's house
with the scrub-woman. He gave the details of his discovery of the dead
woman's body on the parlor floor, and insisted that no one--here he
looked very hard at me--had been allowed to touch the body till relief
had come to him from Headquarters.

Mrs. Boppert, the scrub-woman, followed him; and if she was watched by
no one else in that room, she was watched by me. Her manner before the
Coroner was no more satisfactory, according to my notion, than it had
been in Mr. Van Burnam's parlor. She gave a very perceptible start when
they spoke her name, and looked quite scared when the Bible was held out
towards her. But she took the oath notwithstanding, and with her
testimony the inquiry began in earnest.

"What is your name?" asked the Coroner.

As this was something she could not help knowing, she uttered the
necessary words glibly, though in a way that showed she resented his
impertinence in asking her what he already knew.

"Where do you live? And what do you do for a living?" rapidly followed.

She replied that she was a scrub-woman and cleaned people's houses, and
having said this, she assumed a very dogged air, which I thought strange
enough to raise a question in the minds of those who watched her. But no
one else seemed to regard it as anything but the embarrassment of
ignorance.

"How long have you known the Van Burnam family?" the Coroner went on.

"Two years, sir, come next Christmas."

"Have you often done work for them?"

"I clean the house twice a year, fall and spring."

"Why were you at this house two days ago?"

"To scrub the kitchen floors, sir, and put the pantries in order."

"Had you received notice to do so?"

"Yes, sir, through Mr. Franklin Van Burnam."

"And was that the first day of your work there?"

"No, sir; I had been there all the day before."

"You don't speak loud enough," objected the Coroner; "remember that
every one in this room wants to hear you."

She looked up, and with a frightened air surveyed the crowd about her.
Publicity evidently made her most uncomfortable, and her voice sank
rather than rose.

"Where did you get the key of the house, and by what door did you
enter?"

"I went in at the basement, sir, and I got the key at Mr. Van Burnam's
agent in Dey Street. I had to go for it; sometimes they send it to me;
but not this time."

"And now relate your meeting with the policeman on Wednesday morning, in
front of Mr. Van Burnam's house."

She tried to tell her story, but she made awkward work of it, and they
had to ply her with questions to get at the smallest fact. But finally
she managed to repeat what we already knew, how she went with the
policeman into the house, and how they stumbled upon the dead woman in
the parlor.

Further than this they did not question her, and I, Amelia Butterworth,
had to sit in silence and see her go back to her seat, redder than
before, but with a strangely satisfied air that told me she had escaped
more easily than she had expected. And yet Mr. Gryce had been warned
that she knew more than appeared, and by one in whom he seemed to have
placed some confidence!

The doctor was called next. His testimony was most important, and
contained a surprise for me and more than one surprise for the others.
After a short preliminary examination, he was requested to state how
long the woman had been dead when he was called in to examine her.

"More than twelve and less than eighteen hours," was his quiet reply.

"Had the rigor mortis set in?"

"No; but it began very soon after."

"Did you examine the wounds made by the falling shelves and the vases
that tumbled with them?"

"I did."

"Will you describe them?"

He did so.

"And now"--there was a pause in the Coroner's question which roused us
all to its importance, "which of these many serious wounds was in your
opinion the cause of her death?"

The witness was accustomed to such scenes, and was perfectly at home in
them. Surveying the Coroner with a respectful air, he turned slowly
towards the jury and answered in a slow and impressive manner:

"I feel ready to declare, sirs, that none of them did. She was not
killed by the falling of the cabinet upon her."

"Not killed by the falling shelves! Why not? Were they not sufficiently
heavy, or did they not strike her in a vital place?"

"They were heavy enough, and they struck her in a way to kill her if she
had not been already dead when they fell upon her. As it was, they
simply bruised a body from which life had already departed."

As this was putting it very plainly, many of the crowd who had not been
acquainted with these facts previously, showed their interest in a very
unmistakable manner; but the Coroner, ignoring these symptoms of growing
excitement, hastened to say:

"This is a very serious statement you are making, doctor. If she did not
die from the wounds inflicted by the objects which fell upon her, from
what cause did she die? Can you say that her death was a natural one,
and that the falling of the shelves was merely an unhappy accident
following it?"

"No, sir; her death was not natural. She was killed, but not by the
falling cabinet."

"Killed, and not by the cabinet? How then? Was there any other wound
upon her which you regard as mortal?"

"Yes, sir. Suspecting that she had perished from other means than
appeared, I made a most rigid examination of her body, when I discovered
under the hair in the nape of the neck, a minute spot, which, upon
probing, I found to be the end of a small, thin point of steel. It had
been thrust by a careful hand into the most vulnerable part of the body,
and death must have ensued at once."

This was too much for certain excitable persons present, and a momentary
disturbance arose, which, however, was nothing to that in my own breast.

So! so! it was her neck that had been pierced, and not her heart. Mr.
Gryce had allowed us to think it was the latter, but it was not this
fact which stupefied me, but the skill and diabolical coolness of the
man who had inflicted this death-thrust.

After order had been restored, which I will say was very soon, the
Coroner, with an added gravity of tone, went on with his questions:

"Did you recognize this bit of steel as belonging to any instrument in
the medical profession?"

"No; it was of too untempered steel to have been manufactured for any
thrusting or cutting purposes. It was of the commonest kind, and had
broken short off in the wound. It was the end only that I found."

"Have you this end with you,--the point, I mean, which you found
imbedded at the base of the dead woman's brain?"

"I have, sir"; and he handed it over to the jury. As they passed it
along, the Coroner remarked:

"Later we will show you the remaining portion of this instrument of
death," which did not tend to allay the general excitement. Seeing this,
the Coroner humored the growing interest by pushing on his inquiries.

"Doctor," he asked, "are you prepared to say how long a time elapsed
between the infliction of this fatal wound and those which disfigured
her?"

"No, sir, not exactly; but some little time."

Some little time, when the murderer was in the house only ten minutes!
All looked their surprise, and, as if the Coroner had divined this
feeling of general curiosity, he leaned forward and emphatically
repeated:

"More than ten minutes?"

The doctor, who had every appearance of realizing the importance of his
reply, did not hesitate. Evidently his mind was quite made up.

"_Yes; more than ten minutes_."

This was the shock _I_ received from his testimony.

I remembered what the clock had revealed to me, but I did not move a
muscle of my face. I was learning self-control under these repeated
surprises.

"This is an unexpected statement," remarked the Coroner. "What reasons
have you to urge in explanation of it?"

"Very simple and very well known ones; at least, among the profession.
There was too little blood seen, for the wounds to have been inflicted
before death or within a few minutes after it. Had the woman been living
when they were made, or even had she been but a short time dead, the
floor would have been deluged with the blood gushing from so many and
such serious injuries. But the effusion was slight, so slight that I
noticed it at once, and came to the conclusions mentioned before I found
the mark of the stab that occasioned death."

"I see, I see! And was that the reason you called in two neighboring
physicians to view the body before it was removed from the house?"

"Yes, sir; in so important a matter, I wished to have my judgment
confirmed."

"And these physicians were----"

"Dr. Campbell, of 110 East ---- Street, and Dr. Jacobs, of ----
Lexington Avenue."

"Are these gentlemen here?" inquired the Coroner of an officer who stood
near.

"They are, sir."

"Very good; we will now proceed to ask one or two more questions of this
witness. You told us that even had the woman been but a few minutes dead
when she received these contusions, the floor would have been more or
less deluged by her blood. What reason have you for this statement?"

"This; that in a few minutes, let us say ten, since that number has been
used, the body has not had time to cool, nor have the blood-vessels had
sufficient opportunity to stiffen so as to prevent the free effusion of
blood."

"Is a body still warm at ten minutes after death?"

"It is."

"So that your conclusions are logical deductions from well-known facts?"

"Certainly, sir."

A pause of some duration followed.

When the Coroner again proceeded, it was to remark:

"The case is complicated by these discoveries; but we must not allow
ourselves to be daunted by them. Let me ask you, if you found any marks
upon this body which might aid in its identification?"

"One; a slight scar on the left ankle."

"What kind of a scar? Describe it."

"It was such as a burn might leave. In shape it was long and narrow, and
it ran up the limb from the ankle-bone."

"Was it on the right foot?"

"No; on the left."

"Did you call the attention of any one to this mark during or after your
examination?"

"Yes; I showed it to Mr. Gryce the detective, and to my two coadjutors;
and I spoke of it to Mr. Howard Van Burnam, son of the gentleman in
whose house the body was found."

It was the first time this young gentleman's name had been mentioned,
and it made my blood run cold to see how many side-long looks and
expressive shrugs it caused in the motley assemblage. But I had no time
for sentiment; the inquiry was growing too interesting.

"And why," asked the Coroner, "did you mention it to this young man in
preference to others?"

"Because Mr. Gryce requested me to. Because the family as well as the
young man himself had evinced some apprehension lest the deceased might
prove to be his missing wife, and this seemed a likely way to settle the
question."

"And did it? Did he acknowledge it to be a mark he remembered to have
seen on his wife?"

"He said she had such a scar, but he would not acknowledge the deceased
to be his wife."

"Did he see the scar?"

"No; he would not look at it."

"Did you invite him to?"

"I did; but he showed no curiosity."

Doubtless thinking that silence would best emphasize this fact, which
certainly was an astonishing one, the Coroner waited a minute. But there
was no silence. An indescribable murmur from a great many lips filled up
the gap. I felt a movement of pity for the proud family whose good name
was thus threatened in the person of this young gentleman.

"Doctor," continued the Coroner, as soon as the murmur had subsided,
"did you notice the color of the woman's hair?"

"It was a light brown."

"Did you sever a lock? Have you a sample of this hair here to show us?"

"I have, sir. At Mr. Gryce's suggestion I cut off two small locks. One I
gave him and the other I brought here."

"Let me see it."

The doctor passed it up, and in sight of every one present the Coroner
tied a string around it and attached a ticket to it.

"That is to prevent all mistake," explained this very methodical
functionary, laying the lock aside on the table in front of him. Then he
turned again to the witness.

"Doctor, we are indebted to you for your valuable testimony, and as you
are a busy man, we will now excuse you. Let Dr. Jacobs be called."

As this gentleman, as well as the witness who followed him, merely
corroborated the statements of the other, and made it an accepted fact
that the shelves had fallen upon the body of the girl some time after
the first wound had been inflicted, I will not attempt to repeat their
testimony. The question now agitating me was whether they would endeavor
to fix the time at which the shelves fell by the evidence furnished by
the clock.




X.

IMPORTANT EVIDENCE.


Evidently not; for the next words I heard were: "Miss Amelia
Butterworth!"

I had not expected to be called so soon, and was somewhat flustered by
the suddenness of the summons, for I am only human. But I rose with
suitable composure, and passed to the place indicated by the Coroner, in
my usual straightforward manner, heightened only by a sense of the
importance of my position, both as a witness and a woman whom the once
famous Mr. Gryce had taken more or less into his confidence.

My appearance seemed to awaken an interest for which I was not prepared.
I was just thinking how well my name had sounded uttered in the sonorous
tones of the Coroner, and how grateful I ought to be for the courage I
had displayed in substituting the genteel name of Amelia for the weak
and sentimental one of Araminta, when I became conscious that the eyes
directed towards me were filled with an expression not easy to
understand. I should not like to call it admiration and will not call it
amusement, and yet it seemed to be made up of both. While I was puzzling
myself over it, the first question came.

As my examination before the Coroner only brought out the facts already
related, I will not burden you with a detailed account of it. One
portion alone may be of interest. I was being questioned in regard to
the appearance of the couple I had seen entering the Van Burnam mansion,
when the Coroner asked if the young woman's step was light, or if it
betrayed hesitation.

I replied: "No hesitation; she moved quickly, almost gaily."

"And he?"

"Was more moderate; but there is no signification in that; he may have
been older."

"No theories, Miss Butterworth; it is facts we are after. Now, do you
know that he was older?"

"No, sir."

"Did you get any idea as to his age?"

"The impression he made was that of being a young man."

"And his height?"

"Was medium, and his figure slight and elegant. He moved as a gentleman
moves; of this I can speak with great positiveness."

"Do you think you could identify him, Miss Butterworth, if you should
see him?"

I hesitated, as I perceived that the whole swaying mass eagerly awaited
my reply. I even turned my head because I saw others doing so; but I
regretted this when I found that I, as well as others, was glancing
towards the door beyond which the Van Burnams were supposed to sit. To
cover up the false move I had made--for I had no wish as yet to centre
suspicion upon anybody--I turned my face quickly back to the crowd and
declared in as emphatic a tone as I could command:

"I have thought I could do so if I saw him under the same circumstances
as those in which my first impression was made. But lately I have begun
to doubt even that. I should never dare trust to my memory in this
regard."

The Coroner looked disappointed, and so did the people around me.

"It is a pity," remarked the Coroner, "that you did not see more
plainly. And, now, how did these persons gain an entrance into the
house?"

I answered in the most succinct way possible.

I told them how h