Book + 

II + 

The Windings of a Labyrinth + 

XVI + 

Cogitations + 

My cook had prepared for me a most excellent dinner, thinking that I needed all the comfort possible after a day of such trying experiences. But I ate little of it; my thoughts were too busy, my mind too much exercised. What would be the verdict of the jury, and could this especial jury be relied upon to give a just verdict? + 

At seven I had left the table and was shut up in my own room. I could not rest till I had fathomed my own mind in regard to the events of the day. + 

The question⁠—the great question, of course, now⁠—was how much of Howard’s testimony was to be believed, and whether he was, notwithstanding his asseverations to the contrary, the murderer of his wife. To most persons the answer seemed easy. From the expression of such people as I had jostled in leaving the courtroom, I judged that his sentence had already been passed in the minds of most there present. But these hasty judgments did not influence me. I hope I look deeper than the surface, and my mind would not subscribe to his guilt, notwithstanding the bad impression made upon me by his falsehoods and contradictions. + 

Now why would not my mind subscribe to it? Had sentiment got the better of me, Amelia Butterworth, and was I no longer capable of looking a thing squarely in the face? Had the Van Burnams, of all people in the world, awakened my sympathies at the cost of my good sense, and was I disposed to see virtue in a man in whom every circumstance as it came to light revealed little but folly and weakness? The lies he had told⁠—for there is no other word to describe his contradictions⁠—would have been sufficient under most circumstances to condemn a man in my estimation. Why, then, did I secretly look for excuses to his conduct? + 

Probing the matter to the bottom, I reasoned in this way: The latter half of his evidence was a complete contradiction of the first, purposely so. In the first, he made himself out a cold-hearted egotist with not enough interest in his wife to make an effort to determine whether she and the murdered woman were identical; in the latter, he showed himself in the light of a man influenced to the point of folly by a woman to whom he had been utterly unyielding a few hours before. + 

Now, knowing human nature to be full of contradictions, I could not satisfy myself that I should be justified in accepting either half of his testimony as absolutely true. The man who is all firmness one minute may be all weakness the next, and in face of the calm assertions made by this one when driven to bay by the unexpected discoveries of the police, I dared not decide that his final assurances were altogether false, and that he was not the man I had seen enter the adjoining house with his wife. + 

Why, then, not carry the conclusion farther and admit, as reason and probability suggested, that he was also her murderer; that he had killed her during his first visit and drawn the shelves down upon her in the second? Would not this account for all the phenomena to be observed in connection with this otherwise unexplainable affair? Certainly, all but one⁠—one that was perhaps known to nobody but myself, and that was the testimony given by the clock. It said that the shelves fell at five, whereas, according to Mr. Stone’s evidence, it was four, or thereabouts, when Mr. Van Burnam left his father’s house. But the clock might not have been a reliable witness. It might have been set wrong, or it might not have been running at all at the time of the accident. No, it would not do for me to rely too much upon anything so doubtful, nor did I; yet I could not rid myself of the conviction that Howard spoke the truth when he declared in face of Coroner and jury that they could not connect him with this crime; and whether this conclusion sprang from sentimentality or intuition, I was resolved to stick to it for the present night at least. The morrow might show its futility, but the morrow had not come. + 

Meanwhile, with this theory accepted, what explanation could be given of the very peculiar facts surrounding this woman’s death? Could the supposition of suicide advanced by Howard before the Coroner be entertained for a moment, or that equally improbable suggestion of accident? + 

Going to my bureau drawer, I drew out the old grocer-bill which has already figured in these pages, and reread the notes I had scribbled on its back early in the history of this affair. They related, if you will remember, to this very question, and seemed even now to answer it in a more or less convincing way. Will you pardon me if I transcribe these notes again, as I cannot imagine my first deliberations on this subject to have made a deep enough impression for you to recall them without help from me. + 

The question raised in these notes was threefold, and the answers, as you will recollect, were transcribed before the cause of death had been determined by the discovery of the broken pin in the dead woman’s brain. + 

These are the queries: + 

First: was her death due to accident? + 

Second: was it effected by her own hand? + 

Third: was it a murder? + 

The replies given are in the form of reasons, as witness: + 

My reasons for not thinking it an accident. + 

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. + 

The precise arrangement of the clothing about her feet, which precluded any theory involving accident. + 

My reason for not thinking it a 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.) + 

My 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, a thing which the quiet aspect of the hands and feet make appear impossible. (Very good, but we know now that she was dead when the shelves fell over, so that my one excuse for not thinking it a murder is rendered null.) + 

My reasons for thinking it a murder. + 

—But I will not repeat these. My reasons for not thinking it an accident or a suicide remained as good as when they were written, and if her death had not been due to either of these causes, then it must have been due to some murderous hand. Was that hand the hand of her husband? I have already given it as my opinion that it was not. + 

Now, how to make that opinion good, and reconcile me again to myself; for I am not accustomed to have my instincts at war with my judgment. Is there any reason for my thinking as I do? Yes, the manliness of man. He only looked well when he was repelling the suspicion he saw in the surrounding faces. But that might have been assumed, just as his careless manner was assumed during the early part of the inquiry. I must have some stronger reason than this for my belief. The two hats? Well, he had explained how there came to be two hats on the scene of crime, but his explanation had not been very satisfactory. I had seen no hat in her hand when she crossed the pavement to her father’s house. But then she might have carried it under her cape without my seeing it⁠—perhaps. The discovery of two hats and of two pairs of gloves in Mr. Van Burnam’s parlors was a fact worth further investigation, and mentally I made a note of it, though at the moment I saw no prospect of engaging in this matter further than my duties as a witness required. + 

And now what other clue was offered me, save the one I have already mentioned as being given by the clock? None that I could seize upon; and feeling the weakness of the cause I had so obstinately embraced, I rose from my seat at the tea-table and began making such alterations in my toilet as would prepare me for the evening and my inevitable callers. + 

“Amelia,” said I to myself, as I encountered my anything but satisfied reflection in the glass, “can it be that you ought, after all, to have been called Araminta? Is a momentary display of spirit on the part of a young man of doubtful principles, enough to make you forget the dictates of good sense which have always governed you up to this time?” + 

The stern image which confronted me from the mirror made me no reply, and smitten with sudden disgust, I left the glass and went below to greet some friends who had just ridden up in their carriage. + 

They remained one hour, and they discussed one subject: Howard Van Burnam and his probable connection with the crime which had taken place next door. But though I talked some and listened more, as is proper for a woman in her own house, I said nothing and heard nothing which had not been already said and heard in numberless homes that night. Whatever thoughts I had which in any way differed from those generally expressed, I kept to myself⁠—whether guided by discretion or pride, I cannot say; probably by both, for I am not deficient in either quality. + 

Arrangements had already been made for the burial of Mrs. Van Burnam that night, and as the funeral ceremony was to take place next door, many of my guests came just to sit in my windows and watch the coming and going of the few people invited to the ceremony. + 

But I discouraged this. I have no patience with idle curiosity. Consequently by nine I was left alone to give the affair such real attention as it demanded; something which, of course, I could not have done with a half dozen gossiping friends leaning over my shoulder. + 

XVII + 

Butterworth Versus Gryce + 

The result of this attention can be best learned from the conversation I held with Mr. Gryce the next morning. + 

He came earlier than usual, but he found me up and stirring. + 

“Well,” he cried, accosting me with a smile as I entered the parlor where he was seated, “it is all right this time, is it not? No trouble in identifying the gentleman who entered your neighbor’s house last night at a quarter to twelve?” + 

Resolved to probe this man’s mind to the bottom, I put on my sternest air. + 

“I had not expected anyone to enter there so late last night,” said I. “Mr. Van Burnam declared so positively at the inquest that he was the person we have been endeavoring to identify, that I did not suppose you would consider it necessary to bring him to the house for me to see.” + 

“And so you were not in the window?” + 

“I did not say that; I am always where I have promised to be, Mr. Gryce.” + 

“Well, then?” he inquired sharply. + 

I was purposely slow in answering him⁠—I had all the longer time to search his face. But its calmness was impenetrable, and finally I declared: + 

“The man you brought with you last night⁠—you were the person who accompanied him, were you not⁠—was not the man I saw alight there four nights ago.” + 

He may have expected it; it may have been the very assertion he desired from me, but his manner showed displeasure, and the quick “How?” he uttered was sharp and peremptory. + 

“I do not ask who it was,” I went on, with a quiet wave of my hand that immediately restored him to himself, “for I know you will not tell me. But what I do hope to know is the name of the man who entered that same house at just ten minutes after nine. He was one of the funeral guests, and he arrived in a carriage that was immediately preceded by a coach from which four persons alighted, two ladies and two gentlemen.” + 

“I do not know the gentleman, ma’am,” was the detective’s half-surprised and half-amused retort. “I did not keep track of every guest that attended the funeral.” + 

“Then you didn’t do your work as well as I did mine,” was my rather dry reply. “For I noted everyone who went in; and that gentleman, whoever he was, was more like the person I have been trying to identify than anyone I have seen enter there during my four midnight vigils.” + 

Mr. Gryce smiled, uttered a short “Indeed!” and looked more than ever like a sphinx. I began quietly to hate him, under my calm exterior. + 

“Was Howard at his wife’s funeral?” I asked. + 

“He was, ma’am.” + 

“And did he come in a carriage?” + 

“He did, ma’am.” + 

“Alone?” + 

“He thought he was alone; yes, ma’am.” + 

“Then may it not have been he?” + 

“I can’t say, ma’am.” + 

Mr. Gryce was so obviously out of his element under this cross-examination that I could not suppress a smile even while I experienced a very lively indignation at his reticence. He may have seen me smile and he may not, for his eyes, as I have intimated, were always busy with some object entirely removed from the person he addressed; but at all events he rose, leaving me no alternative but to do the same. + 

“And so you didn’t recognize the gentleman I brought to the neighboring house just before twelve o’clock,” he quietly remarked, with a calm ignoring of my last question which was a trifle exasperating. + 

“No.” + 

“Then, ma’am,” he declared, with a quick change of manner, meant, I should judge, to put me in my proper place, “I do not think we can depend upon the accuracy of your memory;” and he made a motion as if to leave. + 

As I did not know whether his apparent disappointment was real or not, I let him move to the door without a reply. But once there I stopped him. + 

“Mr. Gryce,” said I, “I don’t know what you think about this matter, nor whether you even wish my opinion upon it. But I am going to express it, for all that. I do not believe that Howard killed his wife with a hatpin.” + 

“No?” retorted the old gentleman, peering into his hat, with an ironical smile which that inoffensive article of attire had certainly not merited. “And why, Miss Butterworth, why? You must have substantial reasons for any opinion you would form.” + 

“I have an intuition,” I responded, “backed by certain reasons. The intuition won’t impress you very deeply, but the reasons may not be without some weight, and I am going to confide them to you.” + 

“Do,” he entreated in a jocose manner which struck me as inappropriate, but which I was willing to overlook on account of his age and very fatherly manner. + 

“Well, then,” said I, “this is one. If the crime was a premeditated one, if he hated his wife and felt it for his interest to have her out of the way, a man of Mr. Van Burnam’s good sense would have chosen any other spot than his father’s house to kill her in, knowing that her identity could not be hidden if once she was associated with the Van Burnam name. If, on the contrary, he took her there in good faith, and her death was the unexpected result of a quarrel between them, then the means employed would have been simpler. An angry man does not stop to perform a delicate surgical operation when moved to the point of murder, but uses his hands or his fists, just as Mr. Van Burnam himself suggested.” + 

“Humph!” grunted the detective, staring very hard indeed into his hat. + 

“You must not think me this young man’s friend,” I went on, with a well meant desire to impress him with the impartiality of my attitude. “I never have spoken to him nor he to me, but I am the friend of justice, and I must declare that there was a note of surprise in the emotion he showed at sight of his wife’s hat, that was far too natural to be assumed.” + 

The detective failed to be impressed. I might have expected this, knowing his sex and the reliance such a man is apt to place upon his own powers. + 

“Acting, ma’am, acting!” was his laconic comment. “A very uncommon character, that of Mr. Howard Van Burnam. I do not think you do it full justice.” + 

“Perhaps not, but see that you don’t slight mine. I do not expect you to heed these suggestions any more than you did those I offered you in connection with Mrs. Boppert, the scrub-woman; but my conscience is eased by my communication, and that is much to a solitary woman like myself who is obliged to spend many a long hour alone with no other companion.” + 

“Something has been accomplished, then, by this delay,” he observed. Then, as if ashamed of this momentary display of irritation, he added in the genial tones more natural to him: “I don’t blame you for your good opinion of this interesting, but by no means reliable, young man, Miss Butterworth. A woman’s kind heart stands in the way of her proper judgment of criminals.” + 

“You will not find its instincts fail even if you do its judgment.” + 

His bow was as full of politeness as it was lacking in conviction. + 

“I hope you won’t let your instincts lead you into any unnecessary detective work,” he quietly suggested. + 

“That I cannot promise. If you arrest Howard Van Burnam for murder, I may be tempted to meddle with matters which don’t concern me.” + 

An amused smile broke through his simulated seriousness. + 

“Pray accept my congratulations, then, in advance, ma’am. My health has been such that I have long anticipated giving up my profession; but if I am to have such assistants as you in my work, I shall be inclined to remain in it some time longer.” + 

“When a man as busy as you stops to indulge in sarcasm, he is in more or less good spirits. Such a condition, I am told, only prevails with detectives when they have come to a positive conclusion concerning the case they are engaged upon.” + 

“I see you already understand the members of your future profession.” + 

“As much as is necessary at this juncture,” I retorted. Then seeing him about to repeat his bow, I added sharply: “You need not trouble yourself to show me too much politeness. If I meddle in this matter at all it will not be as your coadjutor, but as your rival.” + 

“My rival?” + 

“Yes, your rival; and rivals are never good friends until one of them is hopelessly defeated.” + 

“Miss Butterworth, I see myself already at your feet.” + 

And with this sally and a short chuckle which did more than anything he had said towards settling me in my half-formed determination to do as I had threatened, he opened the door and quietly disappeared. + 

XVIII + 

The Little Pincushion + 

The verdict rendered by the Coroner’s jury showed it to be a more discriminating set of men than I had calculated upon. It was murder inflicted by a hand unknown. + 

I was so gratified by this that I left the courtroom in quite an agitated frame of mind, so agitated, indeed, that I walked through one door instead of another, and thus came unexpectedly upon a group formed almost exclusively of the Van Burnam family. + 

Starting back, for I dislike anything that looks like intrusion, especially when no great end is to be gained by it, I was about to retrace my steps when I felt two soft arms about my neck. + 

“Oh, Miss Butterworth, isn’t it a mercy that this dreadful thing is over! I don’t know when I have ever felt anything so keenly.” + 

It was Isabella Van Burnam. + 

Startled, for the embraces bestowed on me are few, I gave a subdued sort of grunt, which nevertheless did not displease this young lady, for her arms tightened, and she murmured in my ear: “You dear old soul! I like you so much.” + 

“We are going to be very good neighbors,” cooed a still sweeter voice in my other ear. “Papa says we must call on you soon.” And Caroline’s demure face looked around into mine in a manner some would have thought exceedingly bewitching. + 

“Thank you, pretty poppets!” I returned, freeing myself as speedily as possible from embraces the sincerity of which I felt open to question. “My house is always open to you.” And with little ceremony, I walked steadily out and betook myself to the carriage awaiting me. + 

I looked upon this display of feeling as the mere gush of two overexcited young women, and was therefore somewhat astonished when I was interrupted in my afternoon nap by an announcement that the two Misses Van Burnam awaited me in the parlor. + 

Going down, I saw them standing there hand in hand and both as white as a sheet. + 

“O Miss Butterworth!” they cried, springing towards me, “Howard has been arrested, and we have no one to say a word of comfort to us.” + 

“Arrested!” I repeated, greatly surprised, for I had not expected it to happen so soon, if it happened at all. + 

“Yes, and father is just about prostrated. Franklin, too, but he keeps up, while father has shut himself into his room and won’t see anybody, not even us. O, I don’t know how we are to bear it! Such a disgrace, and such a wicked, wicked shame! For Howard never had anything to do with his wife’s death, had he, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“No,” I returned, taking my ground at once, and vigorously, for I really believed what I said. “He is innocent of her death, and I would like the chance of proving it.” + 

They evidently had not expected such an unqualified assertion from me, for they almost smothered me with kisses, and called me their only friend! and indeed showed so much real feeling this time that I neither pushed them away nor tried to withdraw myself from their embraces. + 

When their emotions were a little exhausted I led them to a sofa and sat down before them. They were motherless girls, and my heart, if hard, is not made of adamant or entirely unsusceptible to the calls of pity and friendship. + 

“Girls,” said I, “if you will be calm, I should like to ask you a few questions.” + 

“Ask us anything,” returned Isabella; “nobody has more right to our confidence than you.” + 

This was another of their exaggerated expressions, but I was so anxious to hear what they had to tell, I let it pass. So instead of rebuking them, I asked where their brother had been arrested, and found it had been at his rooms and in presence of themselves and Franklin. So I inquired further and learned that, so far as they knew, nothing had been discovered beyond what had come out at the inquest except that Howard’s trunks had been found packed, as if he had been making preparations for a journey when interrupted by the dreadful event which had put him into the hands of the police. As there was a certain significance in this, the girls seemed almost as much impressed by it as I was, but we did not discuss it long, for I suddenly changed my manner, and taking them both by the hand, asked if they could keep a secret. + 

“Secret?” they gasped. + 

“Yes, a secret. You are not the girls I should confide in ordinarily; but this trouble has sobered you.” + 

“O, we can do anything,” began Isabella; and “Only try us,” murmured Caroline. + 

But knowing the volubility of the one and the weakness of the other, I shook my head at their promises, and merely tried to impress them with the fact that their brother’s safety depended upon their discretion. At which they looked very determined for poppets, and squeezed my hands so tightly that I wished I had left off some of my rings before engaging in this interview. + 

When they were quiet again and ready to listen I told them my plans. They were surprised, of course, and wondered how I could do anything towards finding out the real murderer of their sister-in-law; but seeing how resolved I looked, changed their tone and avowed with much feeling their perfect confidence in me and in the success of anything I might undertake. + 

This was encouraging, and ignoring their momentary distrust, I proceeded to say: + 

“But for me to be successful in this matter, no one must know my interest in it. You must pay me no visits, give me no confidences, nor, if you can help it, mention my name before anyone, not even before your father and brother. So much for precautionary measures, my dears; and now for the active ones. I have no curiosity, as I think you must see, but I shall have to ask you a few questions which under other circumstances would savor more or less of impertinence. Had your sister-in-law any special admirers among the other sex?” + 

“Oh,” protested Caroline, shrinking back, while Isabella’s eyes grew round as a frightened child’s. “None that we ever heard of. She wasn’t that kind of a woman, was she, Belle? It wasn’t for any such reason papa didn’t like her.” + 

“No, no, that would have been too dreadful. It was her family we objected to, that’s all.” + 

“Well, well,” I apologized, tapping their hands reassuringly, “I only asked⁠—let me now say⁠—from curiosity, though I have not a particle of that quality, I assure you.” + 

“Did you think⁠—did you have any idea⁠—” faltered Caroline, “that⁠—” + 

“Never mind,” I interrupted. “You must let my words go in one ear and out of the other after you have answered them. I wish”⁠—here I assumed a brisk air⁠—“that I could go through your parlors again before every trace of the crime perpetrated there has been removed.” + 

“Why, you can,” replied Isabella. + 

“There is no one in them now,” added Caroline, “Franklin went out just before we left.” + 

At which I blandly rose, and following their leadership, soon found myself once again in the Van Burnam mansion. + 

My first glance upon reentering the parlors was naturally directed towards the spot where the tragedy had taken place. The cabinet had been replaced and the shelves set back upon it; but the latter were empty, and neither on them nor on the adjacent mantelpiece did I see the clock. This set me thinking, and I made up my mind to have another look at that clock. By dint of judicious questions I found that it had been carried into the third room, where we soon found it lying on a shelf of the same closet where the hat had been discovered by Mr. Gryce. Franklin had put it there, fearing that the sight of it might affect Howard, and from the fact that the hands stood as I had left them, I gathered that neither he nor any of the family had discovered that it was in running condition. + 

Assured of this, I astonished them by requesting to have it taken down and set up on the table, which they had no sooner done than it started to tick just as it had done under my hand a few nights before. + 

The girls, greatly startled, surveyed each other wonderingly. + 

“Why, it’s going!” cried Caroline. + 

“Who could have wound it!” marvelled Isabella. + 

“Hark!” I cried. The clock had begun to strike. + 

It gave forth five clear notes. + 

“Well, it’s a mystery!” Isabella exclaimed. Then seeing no astonishment in my face, she added: “Did you know about this, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“My dear girls,” I hastened to say, with all the impressiveness characteristic of me in my more serious moments. “I do not expect you to ask me for any information I do not volunteer. This is hard, I know; but some day I will be perfectly frank with you. Are you willing to accept my aid on these terms?” + 

“O yes,” they gasped, but they looked not a little disappointed. + 

“And now,” said I, “leave the clock where it is, and when your brother comes home, show it to him, and say that having the curiosity to examine it you were surprised to find it going, and that you had left it there for him to see. He will be surprised also, and as a consequence will question first you and then the police to find out who wound it. If they acknowledge having done it, you must notify me at once, for that’s what I want to know. Do you understand, Caroline? And, Isabella, do you feel that you can go through all this without dropping a word concerning me and my interest in this matter?” + 

Of course they answered yes, and of course it was with so much effusiveness that I was obliged to remind them that they must keep a check on their enthusiasm, and also to suggest that they should not come to my house or send me any notes, but simply a blank card, signifying: “No one knows who wound the clock.” + 

“How delightfully mysterious!” cried Isabella. And with this girlish exclamation our talk in regard to the clock closed. + 

The next object that attracted our attention was a paper-covered novel I discovered on a side-table in the same room. + 

“Whose is this?” I asked. + 

“Not mine.” + 

“Not mine.” + 

“Yet it was published this summer,” I remarked. + 

They stared at me astonished, and Isabella caught up the book. It was one of those summer publications intended mainly for railroad distribution, and while neither ragged nor soiled, bore evidence of having been read. + 

“Let me take it,” said I. + 

Isabella at once passed it into my hands. + 

“Does your brother smoke?” I asked. + 

“Which brother?” + 

“Either of them.” + 

“Franklin sometimes, but Howard, never. It disagrees with him, I believe.” + 

“There is a faint odor of tobacco about these pages. Can it have been brought here by Franklin?” + 

“O no, he never reads novels, not such novels as this, at all events. He loses a lot of pleasure, we think.” + 

I turned the pages over. The latter ones were so fresh I could almost put my finger on the spot where the reader had left off. Feeling like a bloodhound who has just run upon a trail, I returned the book to Caroline, with the injunction to put it away; adding, as I saw her air of hesitation: “If your brother Franklin misses it, it will show that he brought it here, and then I shall have no further interest in it.” Which seemed to satisfy her, for she put it away at once on a high shelf. + 

Perceiving nothing else in these rooms of a suggestive character, I led the way into the hall. There I had a new idea. + 

“Which of you was the first to go through the rooms upstairs?” I inquired. + 

“Both of us,” answered Isabella. “We came together. Why do you ask, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“I was wondering if you found everything in order there?” + 

“We did not notice anything wrong, did we, Caroline? Do you think that the⁠—the person who committed that awful crime went upstairs? I couldn’t sleep a wink if I thought so.” + 

“Nor I,” Caroline put in. “O, don’t say that he went upstairs, Miss Butterworth!” + 

“I do not know it,” I rejoined. + 

“But you asked⁠—” + 

“And I ask again. Wasn’t there some little thing out of its usual place? I was up in your front chamber after water for a minute, but I didn’t touch anything but the mug.” + 

“We missed the mug, but⁠—O Caroline, the pincushion! Do you suppose Miss Butterworth means the pincushion?” + 

I started. Did she refer to the one I had picked up from the floor and placed on a side-table? + 

“What about the pincushion?” I asked. + 

“O nothing, but we did not know what to make of its being on the table. You see, we had a little pincushion shaped like a tomato which always hung at the side of our bureau. It was tied to one of the brackets and was never taken off; Caroline having a fancy for it because it kept her favorite black pins out of the reach of the neighbor’s children when they came here. Well, this cushion, this sacred cushion which none of us dared touch, was found by us on a little table by the door, with the ribbon hanging from it by which it had been tied to the bureau. Someone had pulled it off, and very roughly too, for the ribbon was all ragged and torn. But there is nothing in a little thing like that to interest you, is there, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“No,” said I, not relating my part in the affair; “not if our neighbor’s children were the marauders.” + 

“But none of them came in for days before we left.” + 

“Are there pins in the cushion?” + 

“When we found it, do you mean? No.” + 

I did not remember seeing any, but one cannot always trust to one’s memory. + 

“But you had left pins in it?” + 

“Possibly, I don’t remember. Why should I remember such a thing as that?” + 

I thought to myself, “I would know whether I left pins on my pincushion or not,” but everyone is not as methodical as I am, more’s the pity. + 

“Have you anywhere about you a pin like those you keep on that cushion?” I inquired of Caroline. + 

She felt at her belt and neck and shook her head. + 

“I may have upstairs,” she replied. + 

“Then get me one.” But before she could start, I pulled her back. “Did either of you sleep in that room last night?” + 

“No, we were going to,” answered Isabella, “but afterwards Caroline took a freak to sleep in one of the rooms on the third floor. She said she wanted to get away from the parlors as far as possible.” + 

“Then I should like a peep at the one overhead.” + 

The wrenching of the pincushion from its place had given me an idea. + 

They looked at me wistfully as they turned to mount the stairs, but I did not enlighten them further. What would an idea be worth shared by them! + 

Their father undoubtedly lay in the back room, for they moved very softly around the head of the stairs, but once in front they let their tongues run loose again. I, who cared nothing for their babble when it contained no information, walked slowly about the room and finally stopped before the bed. + 

It had a fresh look, and I at once asked them if it had been lately made up. They assured me that it had not, saying that they always kept their beds spread during their absence, as they did so hate to enter a room disfigured by bare mattresses. + 

I could have read them a lecture on the niceties of housekeeping, but I refrained; instead of that I pointed to a little dent in the smooth surface of the bed nearest the door. + 

“Did either of you two make that?” I asked. + 

They shook their heads in amazement. + 

“What is there in that?” began Caroline; but I motioned her to bring me the little cushion, which she no sooner did than I laid it in the little dent, which it fitted to a nicety. + 

“You wonderful old thing!” exclaimed Caroline. “How ever did you think⁠—” + 

But I stopped her enthusiasm with a look. I may be wonderful, but I am not old, and it is time they knew it. + 

“Mr. Gryce is old,” said I; and lifting the cushion, I placed it on a perfectly smooth portion of the bed. “Now take it up,” said I, when, lo! a second dent similar to the first. + 

“You see where that cushion has lain before being placed on the table,” I remarked, and reminding Caroline of the pin I wanted, I took my leave and returned to my own house, leaving behind me two girls as much filled with astonishment as the giddiness of their pates would allow. + 

XIX + 

A Decided Step Forward + 

I felt that I had made an advance. It was a small one, no doubt, but it was an advance. It would not do to rest there, however, or to draw definite conclusions from what I had seen without further facts to guide me. Mrs. Boppert could supply these facts, or so I believed. Accordingly I decided to visit Mrs. Boppert. + 

Not knowing whether Mr. Gryce had thought it best to put a watch over my movements, but taking it for granted that it would be like him to do so, I made a couple of formal calls on the avenue before I started eastward. I had learned Mrs. Boppert’s address before leaving home, but I did not ride directly to the tenement where she lived. I chose, instead, to get out at a little fancy store I saw in the neighborhood. + 

It was a curious place. I never saw so many or such variety of things in one small spot in my life, but I did not waste any time upon this quaint interior, but stepped immediately up to the good woman I saw leaning over the counter. + 

“Do you know a Mrs. Boppert who lives at 803?” I asked. + 

The woman’s look was too quick and suspicious for denial; but she was about to attempt it, when I cut her short by saying: + 

“I wish to see Mrs. Boppert very much, but not in her own rooms. I will pay anyone well who will assist me to five minutes’ conversation with her in such a place, say, as that I see behind the glass door at the end of this very shop.” + 

The woman, startled by so unexpected a proposition, drew back a step, and was about to shake her head, when I laid on the counter before her (shall I say how much? Yes, for it was not thrown away) a five-dollar bill, which she no sooner saw than she gave a gasp of delight. + 

“Will you give me that?” she cried. + 

For answer I pushed it towards her, but before her fingers could clutch it, I resolutely said: + 

“Mrs. Boppert must not know there is anybody waiting here to see her, or she will not come. I have no ill-will towards her, and mean her only good, but she’s a timid sort of person, and⁠—” + 

“I know she’s timid,” broke in the good woman, eagerly. “And she’s had enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she’s grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out after sundown. But I think I can get her here; and if you mean her no harm, why, ma’am⁠—” Her fingers were on the bill, and charmed with the feel of it, she forgot to finish her sentence. + 

“Is there anyone in the room back there?” I asked, anxious to recall her to herself. + 

“No, ma’am, no one at all. I am a poor widder, and not used to such company as you; but if you will sit down, I will make myself look more fit and have Mrs. Boppert over here in a minute.” And calling to someone of the name of Susie to look after the shop, she led the way towards the glass door I have mentioned. + 

Relieved to find everything working so smoothly and determined to get the worth of my money out of Mrs. Boppert when I saw her, I followed the woman into the most crowded room I ever entered. The shop was nothing to it; there you could move without hitting anything; here you could not. There were tables against every wall, and chairs where there were no tables. Opposite me was a window-ledge filled with flowering plants, and at my right a grate and mantelpiece covered, that is the latter, with innumerable small articles which had evidently passed a long and forlorn probation on the shop shelves before being brought in here. While I was looking at them and marvelling at the small quantity of dust I found, the woman herself disappeared behind a stack of boxes, for which there was undoubtedly no room in the shop. Could she have gone for Mrs. Boppert already, or had she slipped into another room to hide the money which had come so unexpectedly into her hands? + 

I was not long left in doubt, for in another moment she returned with a flower-bedecked cap on her smooth gray head, that transformed her into a figure at once so complacent and so ridiculous that, had my nerves not been made of iron, I should certainly have betrayed my amusement. With it she had also put on her company manner, and what with the smiles she bestowed upon me and her perfect satisfaction with her own appearance, I had all I could do to hold my own and keep her to the matter in hand. Finally she managed to take in my anxiety and her own duty, and saying that Mrs. Boppert could never refuse a cup of tea, offered to send her an invitation to supper. As this struck me favorably, I nodded, at which she cocked her head on one side and insinuatingly whispered: + 

“And would you pay for the tea, ma’am?” + 

I uttered an indignant “No!” which seemed to surprise her. Immediately becoming humble again, she replied it was no matter, that she had tea enough and that the shop would supply cakes and crackers; to all of which I responded with a look which awed her so completely that she almost dropped the dishes with which she was endeavoring to set one of the tables. + 

“She does so hate to talk about the murder that it will be a perfect godsend to her to drop into good company like this with no prying neighbors about. Shall I set a chair for you, ma’am?” + 

I declined the honor, saying that I would remain seated where I was, adding, as I saw her about to go: + 

“Let her walk straight in, and she will be in the middle of the room before she sees me. That will suit her and me too; for after she has once seen me, she won’t be frightened. But you are not to listen at the door.” + 

This I said with great severity, for I saw the woman was becoming very curious, and having said it, I waved her peremptorily away. + 

She didn’t like it, but a thought of the five dollars comforted her. Casting one final look at the table, which was far from uninvitingly set, she slipped out and I was left to contemplate the dozen or so photographs that covered the walls. I found them so atrocious and their arrangement so distracting to my bump of order, which is of a pronounced character, that I finally shut my eyes on the whole scene, and in this attitude began to piece my thoughts together. But before I had proceeded far, steps were heard in the shop, and the next moment the door flew open and in popped Mrs. Boppert, with a face like a peony in full blossom. She stopped when she saw me and stared. + 

“Why, if it isn’t the lady⁠—” + 

“Hush! Shut the door. I have something very particular to say to you.” + 

“O,” she began, looking as if she wanted to back out. But I was too quick for her. I shut the door myself and, taking her by the arm, seated her in the corner. + 

“You don’t show much gratitude,” I remarked. + 

I did not know what she had to be grateful to me for, but she had so plainly intimated at our first interview that she regarded me as having done her some favor, that I was disposed to make what use of it I could, to gain her confidence. + 

“I know, ma’am, but if you could see how I’ve been harried, ma’am. It’s the murder, and nothing but the murder all the time; and it was to get away from the talk about it that I came here, ma’am, and now it’s you I see, and you’ll be talking about it too, or why be in such a place as this, ma’am?” + 

“And what if I do talk about it? You know I’m your friend, or I never would have done you that good turn the morning we came upon the poor girl’s body.” + 

“I know, ma’am, and grateful I am for it, too; but I’ve never understood it, ma’am. Was it to save me from being blamed by the wicked police, or was it a dream you had, and the gentleman had, for I’ve heard what he said at the inquest, and it’s muddled my head till I don’t know where I’m standing.” + 

What I had said and what the gentleman had said! What did the poor thing mean? As I did not dare to show my ignorance, I merely shook my head. + 

“Never mind what caused us to speak as we did, as long as we helped you. And we did help you? The police never found out what you had to do with this woman’s death, did they?” + 

“No, ma’am, O no, ma’am. When such a respectable lady as you said that you saw the young lady come into the house in the middle of the night, how was they to disbelieve it. They never asked me if I knew any different.” + 

“No,” said I, almost struck dumb by my success, but letting no hint of my complacency escape me. “And I did not mean they should. You are a decent woman, Mrs. Boppert, and should not be troubled.” + 

“Thank you, ma’am. But how did you know she had come to the house before I left. Did you see her?” + 

I hate a lie as I do poison, but I had to exercise all my Christian principles not to tell one then. + 

“No,” said I, “I didn’t see her, but I don’t always have to use my eyes to know what is going on in my neighbor’s houses.” Which is true enough, if it is somewhat humiliating to confess it. + 

“O ma’am, how smart you are, ma’am! I wish I had some smartness in me. But my husband had all that. He was a man⁠—O what’s that?” + 

“Nothing but the tea-caddy; I knocked it over with my elbow.” + 

“How I do jump at everything! I’m afraid of my own shadow ever since I saw that poor thing lying under that heap of crockery.” + 

“I don’t wonder.” + 

“She must have pulled those things over herself, don’t you think so, ma’am? No one went in there to murder her. But how came she to have those clothes on. She was dressed quite different when I let her in. I say it’s all a muddle, ma’am, and it will be a smart man as can explain it.” + 

“Or a smart woman,” I thought. + 

“Did I do wrong, ma’am? That’s what plagues me. She begged so hard to come in, I didn’t know how to shut the door on her. Besides her name was Van Burnam, or so she told me.” + 

Here was a coil. Subduing my surprise, I remarked: + 

“If she asked you to let her in, I do not see how you could refuse her. Was it in the morning or late in the afternoon she came?” + 

“Don’t you know, ma’am? I thought you knew all about it from the way you talked.” + 

Had I been indiscreet? Could she not bear questioning? Eying her with some severity, I declared in a less familiar tone than any I had yet used: + 

“Nobody knows more about it than I do, but I do not know just the hour at which this lady came to the house. But I do not ask you to tell me if you do not want to.” + 

“O ma’am,” she humbly remonstrated, “I am sure I am willing to tell you everything. It was in the afternoon while I was doing the front basement floor.” + 

“And she came to the basement door?” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“And asked to be let in?” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“Young Mrs. Van Burnam?” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“Dressed in a black and white plaid silk, and wearing a hat covered with flowers?” + 

“Yes, ma’am, or something like that. I know it was very bright and becoming.” + 

“And why did she come to the basement door⁠—a lady dressed like that?” + 

“Because she knew I couldn’t open the front door; that I hadn’t the key. O she talked beautiful, ma’am, and wasn’t proud with me a bit. She made me let her stay in the house, and when I said it would be dark after a while and that I hadn’t done nothing to the rooms upstairs, she laughed and said she didn’t care, that she wasn’t afraid of the dark and had just as lieve as not stay in the big house alone all night, for she had a book⁠—Did you say anything, ma’am?” + 

“No, no, go on, she had a book.” + 

“Which she could read till she got sleepy. I never thought anything would happen to her.” + 

“Of course not, why should you? And so you let her into the house and left her there when you went out of it? Well, I don’t wonder you were shocked to see her lying dead on the floor next morning.” + 

“Awful, ma’am. I was afraid they would blame me for what had happened. But I didn’t do nothing to make her die. I only let her stay in the house. Do you think they will do anything to me if they know it?” + 

“No,” said I, trying to understand this woman’s ignorant fears, “they don’t punish such things. More’s the pity!”⁠—this in confidence to myself. “How could you know that a piece of furniture would fall on her before morning. Did you lock her in when you left the house?” + 

“Yes, ma’am. She told me to.” + 

Then she was a prisoner. + 

Confounded by the mystery of the whole affair, I sat so still the woman looked up in wonder, and I saw I had better continue my questions. + 

“What reason did she give for wanting to stay in the house all night?” + 

“What reason, ma’am? I don’t know. Something about her having to be there when Mr. Van Burnam came home. I didn’t make it out, and I didn’t try to. I was too busy wondering what she would have to eat.” + 

“And what did she have?” + 

“I don’t know, ma’am. She said she had something, but I didn’t see it.” + 

“Perhaps you were blinded by the money she gave you. She gave you some, of course?” + 

“O, not much, ma’am, not much. And I wouldn’t have taken a cent if it had not seemed to make her so happy to give it. The pretty, pretty thing! A real lady, whatever they say about her!” + 

“And happy? You said she was happy, cheerful-looking, and pretty.” + 

“O yes, ma’am; she didn’t know what was going to happen. I even heard her sing after she went upstairs.” + 

I wished that my ears had been attending to their duty that day, and I might have heard her sing too. But the walls between my house and that of the Van Burnams are very thick, as I have had occasion to observe more than once. + 

“Then she went upstairs before you left?” + 

“To be sure, ma’am; what would she do in the kitchen?” + 

“And you didn’t see her again?” + 

“No, ma’am; but I heard her walking around.” + 

“In the parlors, you mean?” + 

“Yes, ma’am, in the parlors.” + 

“You did not go up yourself?” + 

“No, ma’am, I had enough to do below.” + 

“Didn’t you go up when you went away?” + 

“No, ma’am; I didn’t like to.” + 

“When did you go?” + 

“At five, ma’am; I always go at five.” + 

“How did you know it was five?” + 

“The kitchen clock told me; I wound it, ma’am and set it when the whistles blew at twelve.” + 

“Was that the only clock you wound?” + 

“Only clock? Do you think I’d be going around the house winding any others?” + 

Her face showed such surprise, and her eyes met mine so frankly, that I was convinced she spoke the truth. Gratified⁠—I don’t know why⁠—I bestowed upon her my first smile, which seemed to affect her, for her face softened, and she looked at me quite eagerly for a minute before she said: + 

“You don’t think so very bad of me, do you, ma’am?” + 

But I had been struck by a thought which made me for the moment oblivious to her question. She had wound the clock in the kitchen for her own uses, and why may not the lady above have wound the one in the parlor for hers? Filled with this startling idea, I remarked: + 

“The young lady wore a watch, of course?” + 

But the suggestion passed unheeded. Mrs. Boppert was as much absorbed in her own thoughts as I was. + 

“Did young Mrs. Van Burnam wear a watch?” I persisted. + 

Mrs. Boppert’s face remained a blank. + 

Provoked at her impassibility, I shook her with an angry hand, imperatively demanding: + 

“What are you thinking of? Why don’t you answer my questions?” + 

She was herself again in an instant. + 

“O ma’am, I beg your pardon. I was wondering if you meant the parlor clock.” + 

I calmed myself, looked severe to hide my more than eager interest, and sharply cried: + 

“Of course I mean the parlor clock. Did you wind it?” + 

“O no, no, no, I would as soon think of touching gold or silver. But the young lady did, I’m sure, ma’am, for I heard it strike when she was setting of it.” + 

Ah! If my nature had not been an undemonstrative one, and if I had not been bred to a strong sense of social distinctions, I might have betrayed my satisfaction at this announcement in a way that would have made this homely German woman start. As it was I sat stock-still, and even made her think I had not heard her. Venturing to rouse me a bit, she spoke again after a minute’s silence. + 

“She might have been lonely, you know, ma’am; and the ticking of a clock is such company.” + 

“Yes,” I answered with more than my accustomed vivacity, for she jumped as if I had struck her. “You have hit the nail on the head, Mrs. Boppert, and are a much smarter woman than I thought. But when did she wind the clock?” + 

“At five o’clock, ma’am; just before I left the house.” + 

“O, and did she know you were going?” + 

“I think so, ma’am, for I called up, just before I put on my bonnet, that it was five o’clock and that I was going.” + 

“O, you did. And did she answer back?” + 

“Yes, ma’am. I heard her step in the hall and then her voice. She asked if I was sure it was five, and I told her yes, because I had set the kitchen clock at twelve. She didn’t say any more, but just after that I heard the parlor clock begin to strike.” + 

O, thought I, what cannot be got out of the most stupid and unwilling witness by patience and a judicious use of questions. To know that this clock was started after five o’clock, that is, after the hour at which the hands pointed when it fell, and that it was set correctly in starting, and so would give indisputable testimony of the hour when the shelves fell, were points of the greatest importance. I was so pleased I gave the woman another smile. + 

Instantly she cried: + 

“But you won’t say anything about it, will you, ma’am? They might make me pay for all the things that were broke.” + 

My smile this time was not one of encouragement simply. But it might have been anything for all effect it had on her. The intricacies of the affair had disturbed her poor brain again, and all her powers of mind were given up to lament. + 

“O,” she bemoaned, “I wish I had never seen her! My head wouldn’t ache so with the muddle of it. Why, ma’am, her husband said he came to the house at midnight with his wife! How could he when she was inside of it all the time. But then perhaps he said that, just as you did, to save me blame. But why should a gentleman like him do that?” + 

“It isn’t worth while for you to bother your head about it,” I expostulated. “It is enough that my head aches over it.” + 

I don’t suppose she understood me or tried to. Her wits had been sorely tried and my rather severe questioning had not tended to clear them. At all events she went on in another moment as if I had not spoken: + 

“But what became of her pretty dress? I was never so astonished in my life as when I saw that dark skirt on her.” + 

“She might have left her fine gown upstairs,” I ventured, not wishing to go into the niceties of evidence with this woman. + 

“So she might, so she might, and that may have been her petticoat we saw.” But in another moment she saw the impossibility of this, for she added: “But I saw her petticoat, and it was a brown silk one. She showed it when she lifted her skirt to get at her purse. I don’t understand it, ma’am.” + 

As her face by this time was almost purple, I thought it a mercy to close the interview; so I uttered some few words of a soothing and encouraging nature, and then seeing that something more tangible was necessary to restore her to any proper condition of spirits, I took out my pocketbook and bestowed on her some of my loose silver. + 

This was something she could understand. She brightened immediately, and before she was well through her expressions of delight, I had quitted the room and in a few minutes later the shop. + 

I hope the two women had their cup of tea after that. + 

XX + 

Miss Butterworth’s Theory + 

I was so excited when I entered my carriage that I rode all the way home with my bonnet askew and never knew it. When I reached my room and saw myself in the glass, I was shocked, and stole a glance at Lena, who was setting out my little tea-table, to see if she noticed what a ridiculous figure I cut. But she is discretion itself, and for a girl with two undeniable dimples in her cheeks, smiles seldom⁠—at least when I am looking at her. She was not smiling now, and though, for the reason given above, this was not as comforting as it may appear, I chose not to worry myself any longer about such a trifle when I had matters of so much importance on my mind. + 

Taking off my bonnet, whose rakish appearance had given me such a shock, I sat down, and for half an hour neither moved nor spoke. I was thinking. A theory which had faintly suggested itself to me at the inquest was taking on body with these later developments. Two hats had been found on the scene of the tragedy, and two pairs of gloves, and now I had learned that there had been two women there, the one whom Mrs. Boppert had locked into the house on leaving it, and the one whom I had seen enter at midnight with Mr. Van Burnam. Which of the two had perished? We had been led to think, and Mr. Van Burnam had himself acknowledged, that it was his wife; but his wife had been dressed quite differently from the murdered woman, and was, as I soon began to see, much more likely to have been the assassin than the victim. Would you like to know my reasons for this extraordinary statement? If so, they are these: + 

I had always seen a woman’s hand in this work, but having no reason to believe in the presence of any other woman on the scene of crime than the victim, I had put this suspicion aside as untenable. But now that I had found the second woman, I returned to it. + 

But how connect her with the murder? It seemed easy enough to do so if this other woman was her rival. We have heard of no rival, but she may have known of one, and this knowledge may have been at the bottom of her disagreement with her husband and the half-crazy determination she evinced to win his family over to her side. Let us say, then, that the second woman was Mrs. Van Burnam’s rival. That he brought her there not knowing that his wife had effected an entrance into the house; brought her there after an afternoon spent at the Hotel D⁠⸺, during which he had furnished her with a new outfit of less pronounced type, perhaps, than that she had previously worn. The use of the two carriages and the care they took to throw suspicion off their track, may have been part of a scheme of future elopement, for I had no idea they meant to remain in Mr. Van Burnam’s house. For what purpose, then, did they go there? To meet Mrs. Van Burnam and kill her, that their way might be clearer for flight? No; I had rather think that they went to the house without a thought of whom they would encounter, and that only after they had entered the parlors did he realize that the two women he least wished to see together had been brought by his folly face to face. + 

The presence in the third room of Mrs. Van Burnam’s hat, gloves, and novel seemed to argue that she had spent the evening in reading by the dining-room table, but whether this was so or not, the stopping of a carriage in front and the opening of the door by an accustomed hand undoubtedly assured her that either the old gentleman or some other member of the family had unexpectedly arrived. She was, therefore, in or near the parlor-door when they entered, and the shock of meeting her hated rival in company with her husband, under the very roof where she had hoped to lay the foundations of her future happiness, must have been great, if not maddening. Accusations, recriminations even, did not satisfy her. She wanted to kill; but she had no weapon. Suddenly her eyes fell on the hatpin which her more self-possessed rival had drawn from her hat, possibly before their encounter, and she conceived a plan which seemed to promise her the very revenge she sought. How she carried it out; by what means she was enabled to approach her victim and inflict with such certainty the fatal stab which laid her enemy at her feet, can be left to the imagination. But that she, a woman, and not Howard, a man, drove this woman’s weapon into the stranger’s spine, I will yet prove, or lose all faith in my own intuitions. + 

But if this theory is true, how about the shelves that fell at daybreak, and how about her escape from the house without detection? A little thought will explain all that. The man, horrified, no doubt, at the result of his imprudence, and execrating the crime to which it had led, left the house almost immediately. But the woman remained there, possibly because she had fainted, possibly because he would have nothing to do with her; and coming to herself, saw her victim’s face staring up at her with an accusing beauty she found it impossible to meet. What should she do to escape it? Where should she go? She hated it so she could have trampled on it, but she restrained her passions till daybreak, when in one wild burst of fury and hatred she drew down the cabinet upon it, and then fled the scene of horror she had herself caused. This was at five, or, to be exact, three minutes before that hour, as shown by the clock she had carelessly set in her lighter moments. + 

She escaped by the front door, which her husband had mercifully forborne to lock; and she had not been discovered by the police, because her appearance did not tally with the description which had been given them. How did I know this? Remember the discoveries I had made in Miss Van Burnam’s room, and allow them to assist you in understanding my conclusions. + 

Someone had gone into that room; someone who wanted pins; and keeping this fact before my eyes, I saw through the motive and actions of the escaping woman. She had on a dress separated at the waist, and finding, perhaps, a spot of blood on the skirt, she conceived the plan of covering it with her petticoat, which was also of silk and undoubtedly as well made as many women’s dresses. But the skirt of the gown was longer than the petticoat and she was obliged to pin it up. Having no pins herself, and finding none on the parlor floor, she went upstairs to get some. The door at the head of the stairs was locked, but the front room was open, so she entered there. Groping her way to the bureau, for the place was very dark, she found a pincushion hanging from a bracket. Feeling it to be full of pins, and knowing that she could see nothing where she was, she tore it away and carried it towards the door. Here there was some light from the skylight over the stairs, so setting the cushion down on the bed, she pinned up the skirt of her gown. + 

When this was done she started away, brushing the cushion off the bed in her excitement, and fearing to be traced by her many-colored hat, or having no courage remaining for facing again the horror in the parlor, she slid out without one and went, God knows whither, in her terror and remorse. + 

So much for my theory; now for the facts standing in the way of its complete acceptance. They were two: the scar on the ankle of the dead girl, which was a peculiarity of Louise Van Burnam, and the mark of the rings on her fingers. But who had identified the scar? Her husband. No one else. And if the other woman had, by some strange freak of chance, a scar also on her left foot, then the otherwise unaccountable apathy he had shown at being told of this distinctive mark, as well as his temerity in afterwards taking it as a basis for his false identification, becomes equally consistent and natural; and as for the marks of the rings, it would be strange if such a woman did not wear rings and plenty of them. + 

Howard’s conduct under examination and the contradiction between his first assertions and those that followed, all become clear in the light of this new theory. He had seen his wife kill a defenceless woman before his eyes, and whether influenced by his old affection for her or by his pride in her good name, he could not but be anxious to conceal her guilt even at the cost of his own truthfulness. As long then as circumstances permitted, he preserved his indifferent attitude, and denied that the dead woman was his wife. But when driven to the wall by the indisputable proof which was brought forth of his wife having been in the place of murder, he saw, or thought he did, that a continued denial on his part of Louise Van Burnam being the victim might lead sooner or later to the suspicion of her being the murderer, and influenced by this fear, took the sudden resolution of profiting by all the points which the two women had in common by acknowledging, what everybody had expected him to acknowledge from the first, that the woman at the Morgue was his wife. This would exonerate her, rid him of any apprehension he may have entertained of her ever returning to be a disgrace to him, and would (and perhaps this thought influenced him most, for who can understand such men or the passions that sway them) insure the object of his late devotion a decent burial in a Christian cemetery. To be sure, the risk he ran was great, but the emergency was great, and he may not have stopped to count the cost. At all events, the fact is certain that he perjured himself when he said that it was his wife he brought to the house from the Hotel D⁠⸺, and if he perjured himself in this regard, he probably perjured himself in others, and his testimony is not at all to be relied upon. + 

Convinced though I was in my own mind that I had struck a truth which would bear the closest investigation, I was not satisfied to act upon it till I had put it to the test. The means I took to do this were daring, and quite in keeping with the whole desperate affair. They promised, however, a result important enough to make Mr. Gryce blush for the disdain with which he had met my threats of interference. + 

XXI + 

A Shrewd Conjecture + 

The test of which I speak was as follows: + 

I would advertise for a person dressed as I believed Mrs. Van Burnam to have been when she left the scene of crime. If I received news of such a person, I might safely consider my theory established. + 

I accordingly wrote the following advertisement: + 

Information wanted of a woman who applied for lodgings on the morning of the eighteenth inst., dressed in a brown silk skirt and a black and white plaid blouse of fashionable cut. She was without a hat, or if a person so dressed wore a hat, then it was bought early in the morning at some store, in which case let shopkeepers take notice. The person answering this description is eagerly sought for by her relatives, and to anyone giving positive information of the same, a liberal reward will be paid. Please address, T. W. Alvord, ⸺ Liberty Street. + 

I purposely did not mention her personal appearance, for fear of attracting the attention of the police. + 

This done, I wrote the following letter: + 

Dear Miss Ferguson: + 

One clever woman recognizes another. I am clever and am not ashamed to own it. You are clever and should not be ashamed to be told so. I was a witness at the inquest in which you so notably distinguished yourself, and I said then, “There is a woman after my own heart!” But a truce to compliments! What I want and ask of you to procure for me is a photograph of Mrs. Van Burnam. I am a friend of the family, and consider them to be in more trouble than they deserve. If I had her picture I would show it to the Misses Van Burnam, who feel great remorse at their treatment of her, and who want to see how she looked. Cannot you find one in their rooms? The one in Mr. Howard’s room here has been confiscated by the police. + 

Hoping that you will feel disposed to oblige me in this⁠—and I assure you that my motives in making this request are most excellent⁠—I remain, + 

This was my grocer, with whom I left word the next morning to deliver this package in the next bushel of potatoes he sent me. + 

My smart little maid, Lena, carried these two communications to the east side, where she posted the letter herself and entrusted the advertisement to a lover of hers who carried it to the Herald office. While she was gone I tried to rest by exercising my mind in other directions. But I could not. I kept going over Howard’s testimony in the light of my own theory, and remarking how the difficulty he experienced in maintaining the position he had taken, forced him into inconsistencies and far-fetched explanations. With his wife for a companion at the Hotel D⁠⸺, his conduct both there and on the road to his father’s house was that of a much weaker man than his words and appearance led one to believe; but if, on the contrary, he had with him a woman with whom he was about to elope (and what did the packing up of all his effects mean, if not that?), all the precautions they took seemed reasonable. + 

Later, my mind fixed itself on one point. If it was his wife who was with him, as he said, then the bundle they dropped at the old woman’s feet contained the much-talked of plaid silk. If it was not, then it was a gown of some different material. Now, could this bundle be found? If it could, then why had not Mr. Gryce produced it? The sight of Mrs. Van Burnam’s plaid silk spread out on the Coroner’s table would have had a great effect in clinching the suspicion against her husband. But no plaid silk had been found (because it was not dropped in the bundle, but worn away on the murderess’s back), and no old woman. I thought I knew the reason of this too. There was no old woman to be found, and the bundle they carried had been got rid of some other way. What way? I would take a walk down that same block and see, and I would take it at the midnight hour too, for only so could I judge of the possibilities there offered for concealing or destroying such an article. + 

Having made this decision, I cast about to see how I could carry it into effect. I am not a coward, but I have a respectability to maintain, and what errand could Miss Butterworth be supposed to have in the streets at twelve o’clock at night! Fortunately, I remembered that my cook had complained of toothache when I gave her my orders for breakfast, and going down at once into the kitchen, where she sat with her cheek propped up in her hand waiting for Lena, I said with an asperity which admitted of no reply: + 

“You have a dreadful tooth, Sarah, and you must have something done for it at once. When Lena comes home, send her to me. I am going to the drugstore for some drops, and I want Lena to accompany me.” + 

She looked astounded, of course, but I would not let her answer me. “Don’t speak a word,” I cried, “it will only make your toothache worse; and don’t look as if some hobgoblin had jumped up on the kitchen table. I guess I know my duty, and just what kind of a breakfast I will have in the morning, if you sit up all night groaning with the toothache.” And I was out of the room before she had more than begun to say that it was not so bad, and that I needn’t trouble, and all that, which was true enough, no doubt, but not what I wanted to hear at that moment. + 

When Lena came in, I saw by the brightness of her face that she had accomplished her double errand. I therefore signified to her that I was satisfied, and asked if she was too tired to go out again, saying quite peremptorily that Sarah was ill, and that I was going to the drugstore for some medicine, and did not wish to go alone. + 

Lena’s round-eyed wonder was amusing; but she is very discreet, as I have said before, and she ventured nothing save a meek, “It’s very late, Miss Butterworth,” which was an unnecessary remark, as she soon saw. + 

I do not like to obtrude my aristocratic tendencies too much into this narrative, but when I found myself in the streets alone with Lena, I could not help feeling some secret qualms lest my conduct savored of impropriety. But the thought that I was working in the cause of truth and justice came to sustain me, and before I had gone two blocks, I felt as much at home under the midnight skies as if I were walking home from church on a Sunday afternoon. + 

There is a certain drugstore on Third Avenue where I like to deal, and towards this I ostensibly directed my steps. But I took pains to go by the way of Lexington Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, and upon reaching the block where this mysterious couple were seen, gave all my attention to the possible hiding-places it offered. + 

Lena, who had followed me like my shadow, and who was evidently too dumbfounded at my freak to speak, drew up to my side as we were halfway down it and seized me tremblingly by the arm. + 

“Two men are coming,” said she. + 

“I am not afraid of men,” was my sharp rejoinder. But I told a most abominable lie; for I am afraid of them in such places and under such circumstances, though not under ordinary conditions, and never where the tongue is likely to be the only weapon employed. + 

The couple who were approaching us now seemed to be in a merry mood. But when they saw us keep to our own side of the way, they stopped their chaffing and allowed us to go by, with just a mocking word or two. + 

“Sarah ought to be very much obliged to you,” whispered Lena. + 

At the corner of Third Avenue I paused. I had seen nothing so far but bare stoops and dark areaways. Nothing to suggest a place for the disposal of such cumbersome articles as these persons had made way with. Had the avenue anything better to offer? I stopped under the gas-lamp at the corner to consider, notwithstanding Lena’s gentle pull towards the drugstore. Looking to left and right and over the muddy crossings, I sought for inspiration. An almost obstinate belief in my own theory led me to insist in my own mind that they had encountered no old woman, and consequently had not dropped their bundles in the open street. I even entered into an argument about it, standing there with the cable cars whistling by me and Lena tugging away at my arm. “If,” said I to myself, “the woman with him had been his wife and the whole thing nothing more than a foolish escapade, they might have done this; but she was not his wife, and the game they were playing was serious, if they did laugh over it, and so their disposal of these telltale articles would be serious and such as would protect their secret. Where, then, could they have thrust them?” + 

My eyes, as I muttered this, were on the one shop in my line of vision that was still open and lighted. It was the den of a Chinese laundryman, and through the windows in front I could see him still at work, ironing. + 

“Ah!” thought I, and made such a start across the street that Lena gasped in dismay and almost fell to the ground in her frightened attempt to follow me. + 

“Not that way!” she called. “Miss Butterworth, you are going wrong.” + 

But I kept right on, and only stopped when I reached the laundry. + 

“I have an errand here,” I explained. “Wait in the doorway, Lena, and don’t act as if you thought me crazy, for I was never saner in my life.” + 

I don’t think this reassured her much, lunatics not being supposed to be very good judges of their own mental condition, but she was so accustomed to obey, that she drew back as I opened the door before me and entered. The surprise on the face of the poor Chinaman when he turned and saw before him a lady of years and no ordinary appearance, daunted me for an instant. But another look only showed me that his very surprise was inoffensive, and gathering courage from the unexpectedness of my own position, I inquired with all the politeness I could show one of his abominable nationality: + 

“Didn’t a gentleman and a heavily veiled lady leave a package with you a few days ago at about the same hour of night as this?” + 

“Some lalee clo’ washee? Yes, ma’am. No done. She tellee me no callee for one week.” + 

“Then that’s all right; the lady has died very suddenly, and the gentleman gone away; you will have to keep the clothes a long time.” + 

“Me wantee money, no wantee clo’!” + 

“I’ll pay you for them; I don’t care about them being ironed.” + 

“Givee tickee, givee clo’! No givee tickee, no givee clo’!” + 

This was a poser! But as I did not want the clothes so much as a look at them, I soon got the better of this difficulty. + 

“I don’t want them tonight,” said I. “I only wanted to make sure you had them. What night were these people here?” + 

“Tuesday night, velly late; nicee man, nicee lalee. She wantee talk. Nicee man he pullee she; I no hear if muchee stasch. All washee, see!” he went on, dragging a basket out of the corner, “him no ilon.” + 

I was in such a quiver; so struck with amazement at my own perspicacity in surmising that here was a place where a bundle of underclothing could be lost indefinitely, that I just stared while he turned over the clothes in the basket. For by means of the quality of the articles he was preparing to show me, the question which had been agitating me for hours could be definitely decided. If they proved to be fine and of foreign manufacture, then Howard’s story was true and all my finespun theories must fall to the ground. But if, on the contrary, they were such as are usually worn by American women, then my own idea as to the identity of the woman who left them here was established, and I could safely consider her as the victim and Louise Van Burnam as the murderess, unless further facts came to prove that he was the guilty one, after all. + 

The sight of Lena’s eyes staring at me with great anxiety through the panes of the door distracted my attention for a moment, and when I looked again, he was holding up two or three garments before me. The articles thus revealed told their story in a moment. They were far from fine, and had even less embroidery on them than I expected. + 

“Are there any marks on them?” I asked. + 

He showed me two letters stamped in indelible ink on the band of a skirt. I did not have my glasses with me, but the ink was black, and I read O. R. “The minx’s initials,” thought I. + 

When I left the place my complacency was such that Lena did not know what to make of me. She has since informed me that I looked as if I wanted to shout Hurrah! but I cannot believe I so far forgot myself as that. But pleased as I was, I had only discovered how one bundle had been disposed of. The dress and outside fixings still had to be accounted for, and I was the woman to do it. + 

We had mechanically moved in the direction of the drugstore and were near the curbstone when I reached this point in my meditations. It had rained a little while before, and a small stream was running down the gutter and emptying itself into the sewer opening. The sight of it sharpened my wits. + 

If I wanted to get rid of anything of a damaging character, I would drop it at the mouth of one of these holes and gently thrust it into the sewer with my foot, thought I. And never doubting that I had found an explanation of the disappearance of the second bundle, I walked on, deciding that if I had the police at my command I would have the sewer searched at those four corners. + 

We rode home after visiting the drugstore. I was not going to subject Lena or myself to another midnight walk through Twenty-seventh Street. + 

XXII + 

A Blank Card + 

The next day at noon Lena brought me up a card on her tray. It was a perfectly blank one. + 

“Miss Van Burnam’s maid said you sent for this,” was her demure announcement. + 

“Miss Van Burnam’s maid is right,” said I, taking the card and with it a fresh installment of courage. + 

Nothing happened for two days, then there came word from the kitchen that a bushel of potatoes had arrived. Going down to see them, I drew from their midst a large square envelope, which I immediately carried to my room. It failed to contain a photograph; but there was a letter in it couched in these terms: + 

Dear Miss Butterworth: + 

The esteem which you are good enough to express for me is returned. I regret that I cannot oblige you. There are no photographs to be found in Mrs. Van Burnam’s rooms. Perhaps this fact may be accounted for by the curiosity shown in those apartments by a very spruce new boarder we have had from New York. His taste for that particular quarter of the house was such that I could not keep him away from it except by lock and key. If there was a picture there of Mrs. Van Burnam, he took it, for he departed very suddenly one night. I am glad he took nothing more with him. The talks he had with my servant-girl have almost led to my dismissing her. + 

Praying your pardon for the disappointment I am forced to give you, I remain, + 

So! so! balked by an emissary of Mr. Gryce. Well, well, we would do without the photograph! Mr. Gryce might need it, but not Amelia Butterworth. + 

This was on a Thursday, and on the evening of Saturday the long-desired clue was given me. It came in the shape of a letter brought me by Mr. Alvord. + 

Our interview was not an agreeable one. Mr. Alvord is a clever man and an adroit one, or I should not persist in employing him as my lawyer; but he never understood me. At this time, and with this letter in his hand, he understood me less than ever, which naturally called out my powers of self-assertion and led to some lively conversation between us. But that is neither here nor there. He had brought me an answer to my advertisement and I was presently engrossed by it. It was an uneducated woman’s epistle and its chirography and spelling were dreadful; so I will just mention its contents, which were highly interesting in themselves, as I think you will acknowledge. + 

She, that is, the writer, whose name, as nearly as I could make out, was Bertha Desberger, knew such a person as I described, and could give me news of her if I would come to her house in West Ninth Street at four o’clock Sunday afternoon. + 

If I would! I think my face must have shown my satisfaction, for Mr. Alvord, who was watching me, sarcastically remarked: + 

“You don’t seem to find any difficulties in that communication. Now, what do you think of this one?” + 

He held out another letter which had been directed to him, and which he had opened. Its contents called up a shade of color to my cheek, for I did not want to go through the annoyance of explaining myself again: + 

Dear Sir: + 

From a strange advertisement which has lately appeared in the Herald, I gather that information is wanted of a young woman who on the morning of the eighteenth inst. entered my store without any bonnet on her head, and saying she had met with an accident, bought a hat which she immediately put on. She was pale as a girl could be and looked so ill that I asked her if she was well enough to be out alone; but she gave me no reply and left the store as soon as possible. That is all I can tell you about her. + 

With this was enclosed his card: + 

Phineas Cox, + 

Millinery, + 

Trimmed and Untrimmed Hats, + 

⸺ Sixth Avenue. + 

“Now, what does this mean?” asked Mr. Alvord. “The morning of the eighteenth was the morning when the murder was discovered in which you have shown such interest.” + 

“It means,” I retorted with some spirit, for simple dignity was thrown away on this man, “that I made a mistake in choosing your office as a medium for my business communications.” + 

This was to the point and he said no more, though he eyed the letter in my hand very curiously, and seemed more than tempted to renew the hostilities with which we had opened our interview. + 

Had it not been Saturday, and late in the day at that, I would have visited Mr. Cox’s store before I slept, but as it was I felt obliged to wait till Monday. Meanwhile I had before me the still more important interview with Mrs. Desberger. + 

As I had no reason to think that my visiting any number in Ninth Street would arouse suspicion in the police, I rode there quite boldly the next day, and with Lena at my side, entered the house of Mrs. Bertha Desberger. + 

For this trip I had dressed myself plainly, and drawn over my eyes⁠—and the puffs which I still think it becoming in a woman of my age to wear⁠—a dotted veil, thick enough to conceal my features, without robbing me of that aspect of benignity necessary to the success of my mission. Lena wore her usual neat gray dress, and looked the picture of all the virtues. + 

A large brass doorplate, well rubbed, was the first sign vouchsafed us of the respectability of the house we were about to enter; and the parlor, when we were ushered into it, fully carried out the promise thus held forth on the doorstep. It was respectable, but in wretched taste as regards colors. I, who have the nicest taste in such matters, looked about me in dismay as I encountered the greens and blues, the crimsons and the purples which everywhere surrounded me. + 

But I was not on a visit to a temple of art, and resolutely shutting my eyes to the offending splendor about me⁠—worsted splendor, you understand⁠—I waited with subdued expectation for the lady of the house. + 

She came in presently, bedecked in a flowered gown that was an epitome of the blaze of colors everywhere surrounding us; but her face was a good one, and I saw that I had neither guile nor overmuch shrewdness to contend with. + 

She had seen the coach at the door, and she was all smiles and flutter. + 

“You have come for the poor girl who stopped here a few days ago,” she began, glancing from my face to Lena’s with an equally inquiring air, which in itself would have shown her utter ignorance of social distinctions if I had not bidden Lena to keep at my side and hold her head up as if she had business there as well as myself. + 

“Yes,” returned I, “we have. Lena here, has lost a relative (which was true), and knowing no other way of finding her, I suggested the insertion of an advertisement in the paper. You read the description given, of course. Has the person answering it been in this house?” + 

“Yes; she came on the morning of the eighteenth. I remember it because that was the very day my cook left, and I have not got another one yet.” She sighed and went on. “I took a great interest in that unhappy young woman⁠—Was she your sister?” This, somewhat doubtfully, to Lena, who perhaps had too few colors on to suit her. + 

“No,” answered Lena, “she wasn’t my sister, but⁠—” + 

I immediately took the words out of her mouth. + 

“At what time did she come here, and how long did she stay? We want to find her very much. Did she give you any name, or tell where she was going?” + 

“She said her name was Oliver.” (I thought of the O. R. on the clothes at the laundry.) “But I knew this wasn’t so; and if she had not looked so very modest, I might have hesitated to take her in. But, lor! I can’t resist a girl in trouble, and she was in trouble, if ever a girl was. And then she had money⁠—Do you know what her trouble was?” This again to Lena, and with an air at once suspicious and curious. But Lena has a good face, too, and her frank eyes at once disarmed the weak and good-natured woman before us. + 

“I thought”⁠—she went on before Lena could answer⁠—“that whatever it was, you had nothing to do with it, nor this lady either.” + 

“No,” answered Lena, seeing that I wished her to do the talking. “And we don’t know” (which was true enough so far as Lena went) “just what her trouble was. Didn’t she tell you?” + 

“She told nothing. When she came she said she wanted to stay with me a little while. I sometimes take boarders⁠—” She had twenty in the house at that minute, if she had one. Did she think I couldn’t see the length of her dining-room table through the crack of the parlor door? “ ‘I can pay,’ she said, which I had not doubted, for her blouse was a very expensive one; though I thought her skirt looked queer, and her hat⁠—Did I say she had a hat on? You seemed to doubt that fact in your advertisement. Goodness me! if she had had no hat on, she wouldn’t have got as far as my parlor mat. But her blouse showed her to be a lady⁠—and then her face⁠—it was as white as your handkerchief there, madam, but so sweet⁠—I thought of the Madonna faces I had seen in Catholic churches.” + 

I started; inwardly commenting: “Madonna-like, that woman!” But a glance at the room about me reassured me. The owner of such hideous sofas and chairs and of the many pictures effacing or rather defacing the paper on the walls, could not be a judge of Madonna faces. + 

“You admire everything that is good and lovely,” I suggested, for Mrs. Desberger had paused at the movement I made. + 

“Yes, it is my nature to do so, ma’am. I love the beautiful,” and she cast a half-apologetic, half-proud look about her. “So I listened to the girl and let her sit down in my parlor. She had had nothing to eat that morning, and though she didn’t ask for it, I went to order her a cup of tea, for I knew she couldn’t get upstairs without it. Her eyes followed me when I went out of the room in a way that haunted me, and when I came back⁠—I shall never forget it, ma’am⁠—there she lay stretched out on the floor with her face on the ground and her hands thrown out. Wasn’t it horrible, ma’am? I don’t wonder you shudder.” + 

Did I shudder? If I did, it was because I was thinking of that other woman, the victim of this one, whom I had seen, with her face turned upward and her arms outstretched, in the gloom of Mr. Van Burnam’s half-closed parlor. + 

“She looked as if she was dead,” the good woman continued, “but just as I was about to call for help, her fingers moved and I rushed to lift her. She was neither dead nor had she fainted; she was simply dumb with misery. What could have happened to her? I have asked myself a hundred times.” + 

My mouth was shut very tight, but I shut it still tighter, for the temptation was great to cry: “She had just committed murder!” As it was, no sound whatever left my lips, and the good woman doubtless thought me no better than a stone, for she turned with a shrug to Lena, repeating still more wistfully than before: + 

“Don’t you know what her trouble was?” + 

But, of course, poor Lena had nothing to say, and the woman went on with a sigh: + 

“Well, I suppose I shall never know what had used that poor creature up so completely. But whatever it was, it gave me enough trouble, though I do not want to complain of it, for why are we here, if not to help and comfort the miserable. It was an hour, ma’am; it was an hour, miss, before I could get that poor girl to speak; but when I did succeed, and had got her to drink the tea and eat a bit of toast, then I felt quite repaid by the look of gratitude she gave me and the way she clung to my sleeve when I tried to leave her for a minute. It was this sleeve, ma’am,” she explained, lifting a cluster of rainbow flounces and ribbons which but a minute before had looked little short of ridiculous in my eyes, but which in the light of the wearer’s kindheartedness had lost some of their offensive appearance. + 

“Poor Mary!” murmured Lena, with what I considered most admirable presence of mind. + 

“What name did you say?” cried Mrs. Desberger, eager enough to learn all she could of her late mysterious lodger. + 

“I had rather not tell her name,” protested Lena, with a timid air that admirably fitted her rather doll-like prettiness. “She didn’t tell you what it was, and I don’t think I ought to.” + 

Good for little Lena! And she did not even know for whom or what she was playing the role I had set her. + 

“I thought you said Mary. But I won’t be inquisitive with you. I wasn’t so with her. But where was I in my story? Oh, I got her so she could speak, and afterwards I helped her upstairs; but she didn’t stay there long. When I came back at lunch time⁠—I have to do my marketing no matter what happens⁠—I found her sitting before a table with her head on her hands. She had been weeping, but her face was quite composed now and almost hard. + 

“ ‘O you good woman!’ she cried as I came in. ‘I want to thank you.’ But I wouldn’t let her go on wasting words like that, and presently she was saying quite wildly: ‘I want to begin a new life. I want to act as if I had never had a yesterday. I have had trouble, overwhelming trouble, but I will get something out of existence yet. I will live, and in order to do so, I will work. Have you a paper, Mrs. Desberger, I want to look at the advertisements?’ I brought her a Herald and went to preside at my lunch table. When I saw her again she looked almost cheerful. ‘I have found just what I want,’ she cried, ‘a companion’s place. But I cannot apply in this dress,’ and she looked at the great puffs of her silk blouse as if they gave her the horrors, though why, I cannot imagine, for they were in the latest style and rich enough for a millionaire’s daughter, though as to colors I like brighter ones myself. ‘Would you’⁠—she was very timid about it⁠—‘buy me some things if I gave you the money?’ + 

“If there is one thing more than another that I like, it is to shop, so I expressed my willingness to oblige her, and that afternoon I set out with a nice little sum of money to buy her some clothes. I should have enjoyed it more if she had let me do my own choosing⁠—I saw the loveliest pink and green blouse⁠—but she was very set about what she wanted, and so I just got her some plain things which I think even you, ma’am, would have approved of. I brought them home myself, for she wanted to apply immediately for the place she had seen advertised, but, O dear, when I went up to her room⁠—” + 

“Was she gone?” burst in Lena. + 

“O no, but there was such a smudge in it, and⁠—and I could cry when I think of it⁠—there in the grate were the remains of her beautiful silk blouse, all smoking and ruined. She had tried to burn it, and she had succeeded too. I could not get a piece out as big as my hand.” + 

“But you got some of it!” blurted out Lena, guided by a look which I gave her. + 

“Yes, scraps, it was so handsome. I think I have a bit in my workbasket now.” + 

“O get it for me,” urged Lena. “I want it to remember her by.” + 

“My workbasket is here.” And going to a sort of étagère covered with a thousand knickknacks picked up at bargain counters, she opened a little cupboard and brought out a basket, from which she presently pulled a small square of silk. It was, as she said, of the richest weaving, and was, as I had not the least doubt, a portion of the dress worn by Mrs. Van Burnam from Haddam. + 

“Yes, it was hers,” said Lena, reading the expression of my face, and putting the scrap away very carefully in her pocket. + 

“Well, I would have given her five dollars for that blouse,” murmured Mrs. Desberger, regretfully. “But girls like her are so improvident.” + 

“And did she leave that day?” I asked, seeing that it was hard for this woman to tear her thoughts away from this coveted article. + 

“Yes, ma’am. It was late, and I had but little hopes of her getting the situation she was after. But she promised to come back if she didn’t; and as she did not come back I decided that she was more successful than I had anticipated.” + 

“And don’t you know where she went? Didn’t she confide in you at all?” + 

“No; but as there were but three advertisements for a lady-companion in the Herald that day, it will be easy to find her. Would you like to see those advertisements? I saved them out of curiosity.” + 

I assented, as you may believe, and she brought us the clippings at once. Two of them I read without emotion, but the third almost took my breath away. It was an advertisement for a lady-companion accustomed to the typewriter and of some taste in dressmaking, and the address given was that of Miss Althorpe. + 

If this woman, steeped in misery and darkened by crime, should be there! + 

As I shall not mention Mrs. Desberger again for some time, I will here say that at the first opportunity which presented itself I sent Lena to the shops with orders to buy and have sent to Mrs. Desberger the ugliest and most flaunting of silk blouses that could be found on Sixth Avenue; and as Lena’s dimples were more than usually pronounced on her return, I have no doubt she chose one to suit the taste and warm the body of the estimable woman, whose kindly nature had made such a favorable impression upon me. + 

XXIII + 

Ruth Oliver + 

From Mrs. Desberger’s I rode immediately to Miss Althorpe’s, for the purpose of satisfying myself at once as to the presence there of the unhappy fugitive I was tracing. + 

Six o’clock Sunday night is not a favorable hour for calling at a young lady’s house, especially when that lady has a lover who is in the habit of taking tea with the family. But I was in a mood to transgress all rules and even to forget the rights of lovers. Besides, much is forgiven a woman of my stamp, especially by a person of the good sense and amiability of Miss Althorpe. + 

That I was not mistaken in my calculations was evident from the greeting I received. Miss Althorpe came forward as graciously and with as little surprise in her manner as anyone could expect under the circumstances, and for a moment I was so touched by her beauty and the unaffected charm of her manners that I forgot my errand and only thought of the pleasure of meeting a lady who fairly comes up to the standard one has secretly set for one’s self. Of course she is much younger than I⁠—some say she is only twenty-three; but a lady is a lady at any age, and Ella Althorpe might be a model for a much older woman than myself. + 

The room in which we were seated was a large one, and though I could hear Mr. Stone’s voice in the adjoining apartment, I did not fear to broach the subject I had come to discuss. + 

“You may think this intrusion an odd one,” I began, “but I believe you advertised a few days ago for a young lady-companion. Have you been suited, Miss Althorpe?” + 

“O yes; I have a young person with me whom I like very much.” + 

“Ah, you are supplied! Is she anyone you know?” + 

“No, she is a stranger, and what is more, she brought no recommendations with her. But her appearance is so attractive and her desire for the place was so great, that I consented to try her. And she is very satisfactory, poor girl! very satisfactory indeed!” + 

Ah, here was an opportunity for questions. Without showing too much eagerness and yet with a proper show of interest, I smilingly remarked: + 

“No one can be called poor long who remains under your roof, Miss Althorpe. But perhaps she has lost friends; so many nice girls are thrown upon their own resources by the death of relatives?” + 

“She does not wear mourning; but she is in some great trouble for all that. But this cannot interest you, Miss Butterworth; have you some protégé whom you wished to recommend for the position?” + 

I heard her, but did not answer at once. In fact, I was thinking how to proceed. Should I take her into my confidence, or should I continue in the ambiguous manner in which I had begun. Seeing her smile, I became conscious of the awkward silence. + 

“Pardon me,” said I, resuming my best manner, “but there is something I want to say which may strike you as peculiar.” + 

“O no,” said she. + 

“I am interested in the girl you have befriended, and for very different reasons from those you suppose. I fear⁠—I have great reason to fear⁠—that she is not just the person you would like to harbor under your roof.” + 

“Indeed! Why, what do you know about her? Anything bad, Miss Butterworth?” + 

I shook my head, and prayed her first to tell me how the girl looked and under what circumstances she came to her; for I was desirous of making no mistake concerning her identity with the person of whom I was in search. + 

“She is a sweet-looking girl,” was the answer I received; “not beautiful, but interesting in expression and manner. She has brown hair,”⁠—I shuddered⁠—“brown eyes, and a mouth that would be lovely if it ever smiled. In fact, she is very attractive and so ladylike that I have desired to make a companion of her. But while attentive to all her duties, and manifestly grateful to me for the home I have given her, she shows so little desire for company or conversation that I have desisted for the last day or so from urging her to speak at all. But you asked me under what circumstances she came to me?” + 

“Yes, on what day, and at what time of day? Was she dressed well, or did her clothes look shabby?” + 

“She came on the very day I advertised; the eighteenth⁠—yes, it was the eighteenth of this month; and she was dressed, so far as I noticed, very neatly. Indeed, her clothes appeared to be new. They needed to have been, for she brought nothing with her save what was contained in a small handbag.” + 

“Also new?” I suggested. + 

“Very likely; I did not observe.” + 

“O Miss Althorpe!” I exclaimed, this time with considerable vehemence, “I fear, or rather I hope, she is the woman I want.” + 

“You want!” + 

“Yes, I; but I cannot tell you for what just yet. I must be sure, for I would not subject an innocent person to suspicion any more than you would.” + 

“Suspicion! She is not honest, then? That would worry me, Miss Butterworth, for the house is full now, as you know, of wedding presents, and⁠—But I cannot believe such a thing of her. It is some other fault she has, less despicable and degrading.” + 

“I do not say she has any faults; I only said I feared. What name does she go by?” + 

“Oliver; Ruth Oliver.” + 

Again I thought of the O. R. on the clothes at the laundry. + 

“I wish I could see her,” I ventured. “I would give anything for a peep at her face unobserved.” + 

“I don’t know how I can manage that; she is very shy, and never shows herself in the front of the house. She even dines in her own room, having begged for that privilege till after I was married and the household settled on a new basis. But you can go to her room with me. If she is all right, she can have no objection to a visitor; and if she is not, it would be well for me to know it at once.” + 

“Certainly,” said I, and rose to follow her, turning over in my mind how I should account to this young woman for my intrusion. I had just arrived at what I considered a sensible conclusion, when Miss Althorpe, leaning towards me, said with a whole-souled impetuosity for which I could not but admire her: + 

“The girl is very nervous, she looks and acts like a person who has had some frightful shock. Don’t alarm her, Miss Butterworth, and don’t accuse her of anything wrong too suddenly. Perhaps she is innocent, and perhaps if she is not innocent, she has been driven into evil by very great temptations. I am sorry for her, whether she is simply unhappy or deeply remorseful. For I never saw a sweeter face, or eyes with such boundless depths of misery in them.” + 

Just what Mrs. Desberger had said! Strange, but I began to feel a certain sort of sympathy for the wretched being I was hunting down. + 

“I will be careful,” said I. “I merely want to satisfy myself that she is the same girl I heard of last from a Mrs. Desberger.” + 

Miss Althorpe, who was now halfway up the rich staircase which makes her house one of the most remarkable in the city, turned and gave me a quick look over her shoulder. + 

“I don’t know Mrs. Desberger,” she remarked. + 

At which I smiled. Did she think Mrs. Desberger in society? + 

At the end of an upper passageway we paused. + 

“This is the door,” whispered Miss Althorpe. “Perhaps I had better go in first and see if she is at all prepared for company.” + 

I was glad to have her do so, for I felt as if I needed to prepare myself for encountering this young girl, over whom, in my mind, hung the dreadful suspicion of murder. + 

But the time between Miss Althorpe’s knock and her entrance, short as it was, was longer than that which elapsed between her going in and her hasty reappearance. + 

“You can have your wish,” said she. “She is lying on her bed asleep, and you can see her without being observed. But,” she entreated, with a passionate grip of my arm, which proclaimed her warm nature, “doesn’t it seem a little like taking advantage of her?” + 

“Circumstances justify it in this case,” I replied, admiring the consideration of my hostess, but not thinking it worth while to emulate it. And with very little ceremony I pushed open the door and entered the room of the so-called Ruth Oliver. + 

The hush and quiet which met me, though nothing more than I had reason to expect, gave me my first shock, and the young figure outstretched on a bed of dainty whiteness, my second. Everything about me was so peaceful, and the delicate blue and white of the room so expressive of innocence and repose, that my feet instinctively moved more softly over the polished floor and paused, when they did pause, before that dimly shrouded bed, with something like hesitation in their usually emphatic tread. + 

The face of that bed’s occupant, which I could now plainly see, may have had an influence in producing this effect. It was so rounded with health, and yet so haggard with trouble. Not knowing whether Miss Althorpe was behind me or not, but too intent upon the sleeping girl to care, I bent over the half-averted features and studied them carefully. + 

They were indeed Madonna-like, something which I had not expected, notwithstanding the assurances I had received to that effect, and while distorted with suffering, amply accounted for the interest shown in her by the good-hearted Mrs. Desberger and the cultured Miss Althorpe. + 

Resenting this beauty, which so poorly accommodated itself to the character of the woman who possessed it, I leaned nearer, searching for some defect in her loveliness, when I saw that the struggle and anguish visible in her expression were due to some dream she was having. + 

Moved, even against my will, by the touching sight of her trembling eyelids and working mouth, I was about to wake her when I was stopped by the gentle touch of Miss Althorpe on my shoulder. + 

“Is she the girl you are looking for?” + 

I gave one quick glance around the room, and my eyes lighted on the little blue pincushion on the satinwood bureau. + 

“Did you put those pins there?” I asked, pointing to a dozen or more black pins grouped in one corner. + 

“I did not, no; and I doubt if Crescenze did. Why?” + 

I drew a small black pin from my belt where I had securely fastened it, and carrying it over to the cushion, compared it with those I saw. They were identical. + 

“A small matter,” I inwardly decided, “but it points in the right direction”; then, in answer to Miss Althorpe, added aloud: “I fear she is. At least I have seen no reason yet for doubting it. But I must make sure. Will you allow me to wake her?” + 

“O it seems cruel! She is suffering enough already. See how she twists and turns!” + 

“It will be a mercy, it seems to me, to rouse her from dreams so full of pain and trouble.” + 

“Perhaps, but I will leave you alone to do it. What will you say to her? How account for your intrusion?” + 

“O I will find means, and they won’t be too cruel either. You had better stand back by the bureau and listen. I think I had rather not have the responsibility of doing this thing alone.” + 

Miss Althorpe, not understanding my hesitation, and only half comprehending my errand, gave me a doubtful look but retreated to the spot I had mentioned, and whether it was the rustle of her silk dress or whether the dream of the girl we were watching had reached its climax, a momentary stir took place in the outstretched form before me, and next moment she was flinging up her hands with a cry. + 

“O how can I touch her! She is dead, and I have never touched a dead body.” + 

I fell back breathing hard, and Miss Althorpe’s eyes, meeting mine, grew dark with horror. Indeed she was about to utter a cry herself, but I made an imperative motion, and she merely shrank farther away towards the door. + 

Meantime I had bent forward and laid my hand on the trembling figure before me. + 

“Miss Oliver,” I said, “rouse yourself, I pray. I have a message for you from Mrs. Desberger.” + 

She turned her head, looked at me like a person in a daze, then slowly moved and sat up. + 

“Who are you?” she asked, surveying me and the space about her with eyes which seemed to take in nothing till they lit upon Miss Althorpe’s figure standing in an attitude of mingled shame and sympathy by the half-open door. + 

“Oh, Miss Althorpe!” she entreated, “I pray you to excuse me. I did not know you wanted me. I have been asleep.” + 

“It is this lady who wants you,” answered Miss Althorpe. “She is a friend of mine and one in whom you can confide.” + 

“Confide!” This was a word to rouse her. She turned livid, and in her eyes as she looked my way both terror and surprise were visible. “Why should you think I had anything to confide? If I had, I should not pass by you, Miss Althorpe, for another.” + 

There were tears in her voice, and I had to remember the victim just laid away in Woodlawn, not to bestow much more compassion on this woman than she rightfully deserved. She had a magnetic voice and a magnetic presence, but that was no reason why I should forget what she had done. + 

“No one asks for your confidence,” I protested, “though it might not hurt you to accept a friend whenever you can get one. I merely wish, as I said before, to give you a message from Mrs. Desberger, under whose roof you stayed before coming here.” + 

“I am obliged to you,” she responded, rising to her feet, and trembling very much. “Mrs. Desberger is a kind woman; what does she want of me?” + 

So I was on the right track; she acknowledged Mrs. Desberger. + 

“Nothing but to return you this. It fell out of your pocket while you were dressing.” And I handed her the little red pincushion I had taken from the Van Burnams’ front room. + 

She looked at it, shrunk violently back, and with difficulty prevented herself from showing the full depth of her feelings. + 

“I don’t know anything about it. It is not mine, I don’t know it!” And her hair stirred on her forehead as she gazed at the small object lying in the palm of my hand, proving to me that she saw again before her all the horrors of the house from which it had been taken. + 

“Who are you?” she suddenly demanded, tearing her eyes from this simple little cushion and fixing them wildly on my face. “Mrs. Desberger never sent me this. I⁠—” + 

“You are right to stop there,” I interposed, and then paused, feeling that I had forced a situation which I hardly knew how to handle. + 

The instant’s pause she had given herself seemed to restore her self-possession. Leaving me, she moved towards Miss Althorpe. + 

“I don’t know who this lady is,” said she, “or what her errand here with me may mean. But I hope that it is nothing that will force me to leave this house which is my only refuge.” + 

Miss Althorpe, too greatly prejudiced in favor of this girl to hear this appeal unmoved, notwithstanding the show of guilt with which she had met my attack, smiled faintly as she answered: + 

“Nothing short of the best reasons would make me part from you now. If there are such reasons, you will spare me the pain of making use of them. I think I can so far trust you, Miss Oliver.” + 

No answer; the young girl looked as if she could not speak. + 

“Are there any reasons why I should not retain you in my house, Miss Oliver?” the gentle mistress of many millions went on. “If there are, you will not wish to stay, I know, when you consider how near my marriage day is, and how undisturbed my mind should be by any cares unattending my wedding.” + 

And still the girl was silent, though her lips moved slightly as if she would have spoken if she could. + 

“But perhaps you are only unfortunate,” suggested Miss Althorpe, with an almost angelic look of pity⁠—I don’t often see angels in women. “If that is so, God forbid that you should leave my protection or my house. What do you say, Miss Oliver?” + 

“That you are God’s messenger to me,” burst from the other, as if her tongue had been suddenly loosed. “That misfortune, and not wickedness, has driven me to your doors; and that there is no reason why I should leave you unless my secret sufferings make my presence unwelcome to you.” + 

Was this the talk of a frivolous woman caught unawares in the meshes of a fearful crime? If so, she was a more accomplished actress than we had been led to expect even from her own words to her disgusted husband. + 

“You look like one accustomed to tell the truth,” proceeded Miss Althorpe. “Do you not think you have made some mistake, Miss Butterworth?” she asked, approaching me with an ingenuous smile. + 

I had forgotten to caution her not to make use of my name, and when it fell from her lips I looked to see her unhappy companion recoil from me with a scream. + 

But strange to say she evinced no emotion, and seeing this, I became more distrustful of her than ever; for, for her to hear without apparent interest the name of the chief witness in the inquest which had been held over the remains of the woman with whose death she had been more or less intimately concerned, argued powers of duplicity such as are only associated with guilt or an extreme simplicity of character. And she was not simple, as the least glance from her deep eyes amply showed. + 

Recognizing, therefore, that open measures would not do with this woman, I changed my manner at once, and responding to Miss Althorpe, with a gracious smile, remarked with an air of sudden conviction: + 

“Perhaps I have made some mistake. Miss Oliver’s words sound very ingenuous, and I am disposed, if you are, to take her at her word. It is so easy to draw false conclusions in this world.” And I put back the pincushion into my pocket with an air of being through with the matter, which seemed to impose upon the young woman, for she smiled faintly, showing a row of splendid teeth as she did so. + 

“Let me apologize,” I went on, “if I have intruded upon Miss Oliver against her wishes.” And with one comprehensive look about the room which took in all that was visible of her simple wardrobe and humble belongings, I led the way out. Miss Althorpe immediately followed. + 

“This is a much more serious affair than I have led you to suppose,” I confided to her as soon as we were at a suitable distance from Miss Oliver’s door. “If she is the person I think her, she is amenable to law, and the police will have to be notified of her whereabouts.” + 

“She has stolen, then?” + 

“Her fault is a very grave one,” I returned. + 

Miss Althorpe, deeply troubled, looked about her as if for guidance. I, who could have given it to her, made no movement to attract her attention to myself, but waited calmly for her own decision in this matter. + 

“I wish you would let me consult Mr. Stone,” she ventured at last. “I think his judgment might help us.” + 

“I had rather take no one into our confidence⁠—especially no man. He would consider your welfare only and not hers.” + 

I did not consider myself obliged to acknowledge that the work upon which I was engaged could not be shared by one of the male sex without lessening my triumph over Mr. Gryce. + 

“Mr. Stone is very just,” she remarked, “but he might be biased in a matter of this kind. What way do you see out of the difficulty?” + 

“Only this. To settle at once and unmistakably, whether she is the person who carried certain articles from the house of a friend of mine. If she is, there will be some evidence of the fact visible in her room or on her person. She has not been out, I believe?” + 

“Not since she came into the house.” + 

“And has remained for the most part in her own apartment?” + 

“Always, except when I have summoned her to my assistance.” + 

“Then what I want to know I can learn there. But how can I make my investigations without offence?” + 

“What do you want to know, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“Whether she has in her keeping some half dozen rings of considerable value.” + 

“Oh! she could conceal rings so easily.” + 

“She does conceal them; I have no more doubt of it than I have of my standing here; but I must know it before I shall feel ready to call the attention of the police to her.” + 

“Yes, we should both know it. Poor girl! poor girl! to be suspected of a crime! How great must have been her temptation!” + 

“I can manage this matter, Miss Althorpe, if you will entrust it to me.” + 

“How, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“The girl is ill; let me take care of her.” + 

“Really ill?” + 

“Yes, or will be so before morning. There is fever in her veins; she has worried herself ill. Oh, I will be good to her.” + 

This in answer to a doubtful look from Miss Althorpe. + 

“This is a difficult problem you have set me,” that lady remarked after a moment’s thought. “But anything seems better than sending her away, or sending for the police. But do you suppose she will allow you in her room?” + 

“I think so; if her fever increases she will not notice much that goes on about her, and I think it will increase; I have seen enough of sickness to be something of a judge.” + 

“And you will search her while she is unconscious?” + 

“Don’t look so horrified, Miss Althorpe. I have promised you I will not worry her. She may need assistance in getting to bed. While I am giving it to her I can judge if there is anything concealed upon her person.” + 

“Yes, perhaps.” + 

“At all events, we shall know more than we do now. Shall I venture, Miss Althorpe?” + 

“I cannot say no,” was the hesitating answer; “you seem so very much in earnest.” + 

“And I am in earnest. I have reasons for being; consideration for you is one of them.” + 

“I do not doubt it. And now will you come down to supper, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“No,” I replied. “My duty is here. Only send word to Lena that she is to drive home and take care of my house in my absence. I shall want nothing, so do not worry about me. Join your lover now, dear; and do not bestow another thought upon this self-styled Miss Oliver or what I am about to do in her room.” + 

XXIV + 

A House of Cards + 

I did not return immediately to my patient. I waited till her supper came up. Then I took the tray, and assured by the face of the girl who brought it that Miss Althorpe had explained my presence in her house sufficiently for me to feel at my ease before her servants, I carried in the dainty repast she had provided and set it down on the table. + 

The poor woman was standing where we had left her; but her whole figure showed languor, and she more than leaned against the bedpost behind her. As I looked up from the tray and met her eyes, she shuddered and seemed to be endeavoring to understand who I was and what I was doing in her room. My premonitions in regard to her were well based. She was in a raging fever, and was already more than half oblivious to her surroundings. + 

Approaching her, I spoke as gently as I could, for her hapless condition appealed to me in spite of my well founded prejudices against her; and seeing she was growing incapable of response, I drew her up on the bed and began to undress her. + 

I half expected her to recoil at this, or at least to make some show of alarm, but she submitted to my ministrations almost gratefully, and neither shrank nor questioned me till I laid my hands upon her shoes. Then indeed she quivered, and drew her feet away with such an appearance of terror that I was forced to desist from my efforts or drive her into violent delirium. + 

This satisfied me that Louise Van Burnam lay before me. The scar concerning which so much had been said in the papers would be ever present in the thoughts of this woman as the telltale mark by which she might be known, and though at this moment she was on the borders of unconsciousness, the instinct of self-preservation still remained in sufficient force to prompt her to make this effort to protect herself from discovery. + 

I had told Miss Althorpe that my chief reason for intruding upon Miss Oliver, was to determine if she had in her possession certain rings supposed to have been taken from a friend of mine; and while this was in a measure true⁠—the rings being an important factor in the proof I was accumulating against her⁠—I was not so anxious to search for them at this time as to find the scar which would settle at once the question of her identity. + 

When she drew her foot away from me then, so violently, I saw that I needed to search no farther for the evidence required, and could give myself up to making her comfortable. So I bathed her temples, now throbbing with heat, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing her fall into a deep and uneasy slumber. Then I tried again to draw off her shoes, but the start she gave and the smothered cry which escaped her warned me that I must wait yet longer before satisfying my curiosity; so I desisted at once, and out of pure compassion left her to get what good she might from the lethargy into which she had fallen. + 

Being hungry, or at least feeling the necessity of some slight aliment to help me sustain the fatigues of the night, I sat down now at the table and partook of some of the dainties with which Miss Althorpe had kindly provided me. After which I made out a list of such articles as were necessary to my proper care of the patient who had so strangely fallen into my hands, and then, feeling that I had a right at last to indulge in pure curiosity, I turned my attention to the clothing I had taken from the self-styled Miss Oliver. + 

The dress was a simple gray one, and the skirts and underclothing all white. But the latter was of the finest texture, and convinced me, before I had given them more than a glance, that they were the property of Howard Van Burnam’s wife. For, besides the exquisite quality of the material, there were to be seen, on the edges of the bands and sleeves, the marks of stitches and clinging threads of lace, where the trimming had been torn off, and in one article especially, there were tucks such as you see come from the hands of French needlewomen only. + 

This, taken with what had gone before, was proof enough to satisfy me that I was on the right track, and after Crescenze had come and gone with the tray and all was quiet in this remote part of the house, I ventured to open a closet door at the foot of the bed. A brown silk skirt was hanging within, and in the pocket of that skirt I found a purse so gay and costly that all doubt vanished as to its being the property of Howard’s luxurious wife. + 

There were several bills in this purse, amounting to about fifteen dollars in money, but no change and no memoranda, which latter seemed a pity. Restoring the purse to its place and the skirt to its peg, I came softly back to the bedside and examined my patient still more carefully than I had done before. She was asleep and breathing heavily, but even with this disadvantage her face had its own attraction, an attraction which evidently had more or less influenced men, and which, for the reason perhaps that I have something masculine in my nature, I discovered to be more or less influencing me, notwithstanding my hatred of an intriguing character. + 

However, it was not her beauty I came to study, but her hair, her complexion, and her hands. The former was brown, the brown of that same lock I remembered to have seen in the jury’s hands at the inquest; and her skin, where fever had not flushed it, was white and smooth. So were her hands, and yet they were not a lady’s hands. That I noticed when I first saw her. The marks of the rings she no longer wore, were not enough to blind me to the fact that her fingers lacked the distinctive shape and nicety of Miss Althorpe’s, say, or even of the Misses Van Burnam; and though I do not object to this, for I like strong-looking, capable hands myself, they served to help me understand the face, which otherwise would have looked too spiritual for a woman of the peevish and self-satisfied character of Louise Van Burnam. On this innocent and appealing expression she had traded in her short and none too happy career. And as I noted it, I recalled a sentence in Miss Ferguson’s testimony, in which she alluded to Mrs. Van Burnam’s confidential remark to her husband upon the power she exercised over people when she raised her eyes in entreaty towards them. “Am I not pretty,” she had said, “when I am in distress and looking up in this way?” It was the suggestion of a scheming woman, but from what I had seen and was seeing of the woman before me, I could imagine the picture she would thus make, and I do not think she overrated its effects. + 

Withdrawing from her side once more, I made a tour of the room. Nothing escaped my eyes; nothing was too small to engage my attention. But while I failed to see anything calculated to shake my confidence in the conclusions I had come to, I saw but little to confirm them. This was not strange; for, apart from a few toilet articles and some knitting-work on a shelf, she appeared to have no belongings; everything else in sight being manifestly the property of Miss Althorpe. Even the bureau drawers were empty, and her bag, found under a small table, had not so much in it as a hairpin, though I searched it inside and out for her rings, which I was positive she had with her, even if she dared not wear them. + 

When every spot was exhausted I sat down and began to brood over what lay before this poor being, whose flight and the great efforts she made at concealment proved only too conclusively the fatal part she had played in the crime for which her husband had been arrested. I had reached her arraignment before a magistrate, and was already imagining her face with the appeal in it which such an occasion would call forth, when there came a low knock at the door, and Miss Althorpe reentered. + 

She had just said good night to her lover, and her face recalled to me a time when my own cheek was round and my eye was bright and⁠—Well! what is the use of dwelling on matters so long buried in oblivion! A maiden-woman, as independent as myself, need not envy any girl the doubtful blessing of a husband. I chose to be independent, and I am, and what more is there to be said about it? Pardon the digression. + 

“Is Miss Oliver any better?” asked Miss Althorpe; “and have you found⁠—” + 

I put up my finger in warning. Of all things, it was most necessary that the sick woman should not know my real reason for being there. + 

“She is asleep,” I answered quietly, “and I think I have found out what is the matter with her.” + 

Miss Althorpe seemed to understand. She cast a look of solicitude towards the bed and then turned towards me. + 

“I cannot rest,” said she, “and will sit with you for a little while, if you don’t mind.” + 

I felt the implied compliment keenly. + 

“You can do me no greater favor,” I returned. + 

She drew up an easy-chair. “That is for you,” she smiled, and sat down in a little low rocker at my side. + 

But she did not talk. Her thoughts seemed to have recurred to some very near and sweet memory, for she smiled softly to herself and looked so deeply happy that I could not resist saying: + 

“These are delightful days for you, Miss Althorpe.” + 

She sighed softly⁠—how much a sigh can reveal!⁠—and looked up at me brightly. I think she was glad I spoke. Even such reserved natures as hers have their moments of weakness, and she had no mother or sister to appeal to. + 

“Yes,” she replied, “I am very happy; happier than most girls are, I think, just before marriage. It is such a revelation to me⁠—this devotion and admiration from one I love. I have had so little of it in my life. My father⁠—” + 

She stopped; I knew why she stopped. I gave her a look of encouragement. + 

“People have always been anxious for my happiness, and have warned me against matrimony since I was old enough to know the difference between poverty and wealth. Before I was out of short dresses I was warned against fortune-seekers. It was not good advice; it has stood in the way of my happiness all my life, made me distrustful and unnaturally reserved. But now⁠—ah, Miss Butterworth, Mr. Stone is so estimable a man, so brilliant and so universally admired, that all my doubts of manly worth and disinterestedness have disappeared as if by magic. I trust him implicitly, and⁠—Do I talk too freely? Do you object to such confidences as these?” + 

“On the contrary,” I answered. I liked Miss Althorpe so much and agreed with her so thoroughly in her opinion of this man, that it was a real pleasure to me to hear her speak so unreservedly. + 

“We are not a foolish couple,” she went on, warming with the charm of her topic till she looked beautiful in the half light thrown upon her by the shaded lamp. “We are interested in people and things, and get half our delight from the perfect congeniality of our natures. Mr. Stone has given up his club and all his bachelor pursuits since he knew me, and⁠—” + 

O love, if at any time in my life I have despised thee, I did not despise thee then! The look with which she finished this sentence would have moved a cynic. + 

“Forgive me,” she prayed. “It is the first time I have poured out my heart to anyone of my own sex. It must sound strange to you, but it seemed natural while I was doing it, for you looked as if you could understand.” + 

This to me, to me, Amelia Butterworth, of whom men have said I had no more sentiment than a wooden image. I looked my appreciation, and she, blushing slightly, whispered in a delicious tone of mingled shyness and pride: + 

“Only two weeks now, and I shall have someone to stand between me and the world. You have never needed anyone, Miss Butterworth, for you do not fear the world, but it awes and troubles me, and my whole heart glows with the thought that I shall be no longer alone in my sorrows or my joys, my perplexities or my doubts. Am I to blame for anticipating this with so much happiness?” + 

I sighed. It was a less eloquent sigh than hers, but it was a distinct one and it had a distinct echo. Lifting my eyes, for I sat so as to face the bed, I was startled to observe my patient leaning towards us from her pillows, and staring upon us with eyes too hollow for tears but filled with unfathomable grief and yearning. + 

She had heard this talk of love, she, the forsaken and crime-stained one. I shuddered and laid my hand on Miss Althorpe’s. + 

But I did not seek to stop the conversation, for as our looks met, the sick woman fell back and lapsed, or seemed to lapse, into immediate insensibility again. + 

“Is Miss Oliver worse?” inquired Miss Althorpe. + 

I rose and went to the bedside, renewed the bandages on my patient’s head, and forced a drop or two of medicine between her half-shut lips. + 

“No,” I returned, “I think her fever is abating.” And it was, though the suffering on her face was yet heart-rendingly apparent. + 

“Is she asleep?” + 

“She seems to be.” + 

Miss Althorpe made an effort. + 

“I am not going to talk any more about myself.” Then as I came back and sat down by her side, she quietly asked: + 

“What do you think of the Van Burnam murder?” + 

Dismayed at the introduction of this topic, I was about to put my hand over her mouth, when I noticed that her words had made no evident impression upon my patient, who lay quietly and with a more composed expression than when I left her bedside. This assured me, as nothing else could have done, that she was really asleep, or in that lethargic state which closes the eyes and ears to what is going on. + 

“I think,” said I, “that the young man Howard stands in a very unfortunate position. Circumstances certainly do look very black against him.” + 

“It is dreadful, unprecedently dreadful. I do not know what to think of it all. The Van Burnams have borne so good a name, and Franklin especially is held in such high esteem. I don’t think anything more shocking has ever happened in this city, do you, Miss Butterworth? You saw it all, and should know. Poor, poor Mrs. Van Burnam!” + 

“She is to be pitied!” I remarked, my eyes fixed on the immovable face of my patient. + 

“When I heard that a young woman had been found dead in the Van Burnam mansion,” Miss Althorpe pursued with such evident interest in this new theme that I did not care to interrupt her unless driven to it by some token of consciousness on the part of my patient, “my thoughts flew instinctively to Howard’s wife. Though why, I cannot say, for I never had any reason to expect so tragic a termination to their marriage relations. And I cannot believe now that he killed her, can you, Miss Butterworth? Howard has too much of the gentleman in him to do a brutal thing, and there was brutality as well as adroitness in the perpetration of this crime. Have you thought of that, Miss Butterworth?” + 

“Yes,” I nodded, “I have looked at the crime on all sides.” + 

“Mr. Stone,” said she, “feels dreadfully over the part he was forced to play at the inquest. But he had no choice, the police would have his testimony.” + 

“That was right,” I declared. + 

“It has made us doubly anxious to have Howard free himself. But he does not seem able to do so. If his wife had only known⁠—” + 

Was there a quiver in the lids I was watching? I half raised my hand and then I let it drop again, convinced that I had been mistaken. Miss Althorpe at once continued: + 

“She was not a bad-hearted woman, only vain and frivolous. She had set her heart on ruling in the great leather-merchant’s house, and she did not know how to bear her disappointment. I have sympathy for her myself. When I saw her⁠—” + 

Saw her! I started, upsetting a small workbasket at my side which for once I did not stop to pick up. + 

“You have seen her!” I repeated, dropping my eyes from the patient to fix them in my unbounded astonishment on Miss Althorpe’s face. + 

“Yes, more than once. She was⁠—if she were living I would not repeat this⁠—a nursery governess in a family where I once visited. That was before her marriage; before she had met either Howard or Franklin Van Burnam.” + 

I was so overwhelmed, that for once I found difficulty in speaking. I glanced from her to the white form in the shrouded bed, and back again in ever-growing astonishment and dismay. + 

“You have seen her!” I at last reiterated in what I meant to be a whisper, but which fell little short of being a cry, “and you took in this girl?” + 

Her surprise at this burst was almost equal to mine. + 

“Yes, why not; what have they in common?” + 

I sank back, my house of cards was trembling to its foundations. + 

“Do they⁠—do they not look alike?” I gasped. “I thought⁠—I imagined⁠—” + 

“Louise Van Burnam look like that girl! O no, they were very different sort of women. What made you think there was any resemblance between them?” + 

I did not answer her; the structure I had reared with such care and circumspection had fallen about my ears and I lay gasping under the ruins. + 

XXV + 

“The Rings! Where Are the Rings?” + 

Had Mr. Gryce been present, I would have instantly triumphed over my disappointment, bottled up my chagrin, and been the inscrutable Amelia Butterworth before he could say, “Something has gone wrong with this woman!” But Mr. Gryce was not present, and though I did not betray the half I felt, I yet showed enough emotion for Miss Althorpe to remark: + 

“You seemed surprised by what I have told you. Has anyone said that these two women were alike?” + 

Having to speak, I became myself again in a trice, and nodded vigorously. + 

“Someone was so foolish,” I remarked. + 

Miss Althorpe looked thoughtful. While she was interested she was not so interested as to take the subject in fully. Her own concerns made her abstracted, and I was very glad of it. + 

“Louise Van Burnam had a sharp chin and a very cold blue eye. Yet her face was a fascinating one to some.” + 

“Well, it was a dreadful tragedy!” I observed, and tried to turn the subject aside, which fortunately I was able to do after a short effort. + 

Then I picked the basket up, and perceiving the sick woman’s lips faintly moving, I went over to her and found her murmuring to herself. + 

As Miss Althorpe had risen when I did, I did not dare to listen to these murmurs, but when my charming hostess had bidden me good night, with many injunctions not to tire myself, and to be sure and remember that a decanter and a plate of biscuits stood on a table outside, I hastened back to the bedside, and leaning over my patient, endeavored to catch the words as they fell from her lips. + 

As they were simple and but the echo of those running at that very moment through my own brain, I had no difficulty in distinguishing them. + 

“Van Burnam!” she was saying, “Van Burnam!” varied by a short “Howard!” and once by a doubtful “Franklin!” + 

“Ah,” thought I, with a sudden reaction, “she is the woman I seek, if she is not Louise Van Burnam.” And unheeding the start she gave, I pulled off the blanket I had spread over her, and willy-nilly drew off her left shoe and stocking. + 

Her bare ankle showed no scar, and covering it quickly up I took up her shoe. Immediately the trepidation she had shown at the approach of a stranger’s hand towards that article of clothing was explained. In the lining around the top were sewn bills of no ordinary amount, and as the other shoe was probably used as a like depository, she naturally felt concern at any approach which might lead to a discovery of her little fortune. + 

Amazed at a mystery possessing so many points of interest, I tucked the shoe in under the bedclothes and sat down to review the situation. + 

The mistake I had made was in concluding that because the fugitive whose traces I had followed had worn the clothes of Louise Van Burnam, she must necessarily be that unfortunate lady. Now I saw that the murdered woman was Howard’s wife after all, and this patient of mine her probable rival. + 

But this necessitated an entire change in my whole line of reasoning. If the rival and not the wife lay before me, then which of the two accompanied him to the scene of tragedy? He had said it was his wife; I had proven to myself that it was the rival; was he right, or was I right, or were neither of us right? + 

Not being able to decide, I fixed my mind upon another query. When did the two women exchange clothes, or rather, when did this woman procure the silk habiliments and elaborate adornments of her more opulent rival? Was it before either of them entered Mr. Van Burnam’s house? Or was it after their encounter there? + 

Running over in my mind certain little facts of which I had hitherto attempted no explanation, I grouped them together and sought amongst them for inspiration. + 

These are the facts: + 

One of the garments found on the murdered woman had been torn down the back. As it was a new one, it had evidently been subjected to some quick strain, not explainable by any appearance of struggle. + 

The shoes and stockings found on the victim were the only articles she wore which could not be traced back to Altman’s. In the redressing of the so-called Mrs. James Pope, these articles had not been changed. Could not that fact be explained by the presence of a considerable sum of money in her shoes? + 

The going out bareheaded of a fugitive, anxious to avoid observation, leaving hat and gloves behind her in a dining-room closet. + 

I had endeavored to explain this last anomalous action by her fear of being traced by so conspicuous an article as this hat; but it was not a satisfactory explanation to me then and much less so now. + 

And last, and most vital of all, the words which I had heard fall from this half-conscious girl: “O how can I touch her! She is dead, and I have never touched a dead body!” + 

Could inspiration fail me before such a list? Was it not evident that the change had been made after death, and by this seemingly sensitive girl’s own hands? + 

It was a horrible thought and led to others more horrible. For the very commission of such a revolting act argued a desire for concealment only to be explained by great guilt. She had been the offender and the wife the victim; and Howard⁠—Well, his actions continued to be a mystery, but I would not admit his guilt even now. On the contrary, I saw his innocence in a still stronger light. For if he had openly or even covertly connived at his wife’s death, would he have so immediately forsaken the accomplice of his guilt, to say nothing of leaving to her the dreadful task of concealing the crime? No, I would rather think that the tragedy took place after his departure, and that his action in denying his wife’s identity, as long as it was possible to do so, was to be explained by the fact of his ignorance in regard to his wife’s presence in the house where he had supposed himself to have simply left her rival. As the exchange made in the clothing worn by the two women could only have taken place later, and as he naturally judged the victim by her clothing, perhaps he was really deceived himself as to her identity. It was certainly not an improbable supposition, and accounted for much that was otherwise inexplicable in Mr. Van Burnam’s conduct. + 

But the rings? Why could I not find the rings? If my present reasoning were correct, this woman should have those evidences of guilt about her. But had I not searched for them in every available place without success? Annoyed at my failure to fix this one irrefutable proof of guilt upon her, I took up the knitting-work I saw in Miss Oliver’s basket, and began to ply the needles by way of relief to my thoughts. But I had no sooner got well under way than some movement on the part of my patient drew my attention again to the bed, and I was startled by beholding her sitting up again, but this time with a look of fear rather than of suffering on her features. + 

“Don’t!” she gasped, pointing with an unsteady hand at the work in my hand. “The click, click of the needles is more than I can stand. Put them down, pray; put them down!” + 

Her agitation was so great and her nervousness so apparent that I complied at once. However much I might be affected by her guilt, I was not willing to do the slightest thing to worry her nerves even at the expense of my own. As the needles fell from my hand, she sank back and a quick, short sigh escaped her lips. Then she was again quiet, and I allowed my thoughts to return to the old theme. The rings! the rings! Where were the rings, and was it impossible for me to find them? + 

XXVI + 

A Tilt with Mr. Gryce + 

At seven o’clock the next morning my patient was resting so quietly that I considered it safe to leave her for a short time. So I informed Miss Althorpe that I was obliged to go downtown on an important errand, and requested Crescenze to watch over the sick girl in my absence. As she agreed to this, I left the house as soon as breakfast was over and went immediately in search of Mr. Gryce. I wished to make sure that he knew nothing about the rings. + 

It was eleven o’clock before I succeeded in finding him. As I was certain that a direct question would bring no answer, I dissembled my real intention as much as my principles would allow, and accosted him with the eager look of one who has great news to impart. + 

“O, Mr. Gryce!” I impetuously cried, just as if I were really the weak woman he thought me, “I have found something; something in connection with the Van Burnam murder. You know I promised to busy myself about it if you arrested Howard Van Burnam.” + 

His smile was tantalizing in the extreme. “Found something?” he repeated. “And may I ask if you have been so good as to bring it with you?” + 

He was playing with me, this aged and reputable detective. I subdued my anger, subdued my indignation even, and smiling much in his own way, answered briefly: + 

“I never carry valuables on my person. A half-dozen expensive rings stand for too much money for me to run any undue risk with them.” + 

He was caressing his watch-chain as I spoke, and I noticed that he paused in this action for just an infinitesimal length of time as I said the word rings. Then he went on as before, but I knew I had caught his attention. + 

“Of what rings do you speak, madam? Of those missing from Mrs. Van Burnam’s hands?” + 

I took a leaf from his book, and allowed myself to indulge in a little banter. + 

“O, no,” I remonstrated, “not those rings, of course. The Queen of Siam’s rings, any rings but those in which we are specially interested.” + 

This meeting him on his own ground evidently puzzled him. + 

“You are facetious, madam. What am I to gather from such levity? That success has crowned your efforts, and that you have found a guiltier party than the one now in custody?” + 

“Possibly,” I returned, limiting my advance by his. “But it would be going too fast to mention that yet. What I want to know is whether you have found the rings belonging to Mrs. Van Burnam?” + 

My triumphant tone, the almost mocking accent I purposely gave to the word you, accomplished its purpose. He never dreamed I was playing with him; he thought I was bursting with pride; and casting me a sharp glance (the first, by the way, I had received from him), he inquired with perceptible interest: + 

“Have you?” + 

Instantly convinced that the whereabouts of these jewels was as little known to him as to me, I rose and prepared to leave. But seeing that he was not satisfied, and that he expected an answer, I assumed a mysterious air and quietly remarked: + 

“If you will come to my house tomorrow I will explain myself. I am not prepared to more than intimate my discoveries today.” + 

But he was not the man to let one off so easily. + 

“Excuse me,” said he, “but matters of this kind do not admit of delay. The grand jury sits within the week, and any evidence worth presenting them must be collected at once. I must ask you to be frank with me, Miss Butterworth.” + 

“And I will be, tomorrow.” + 

“Today,” he insisted, “today.” + 

Seeing that I should gain nothing by my present course, I reseated myself, bestowing upon him a decidedly ambiguous smile as I did so. + 

“You acknowledge then,” said I, “that the old maid can tell you something after all. I thought you regarded all my efforts in the light of a jest. What has made you change your mind?” + 

“Madam, I decline to bandy words. Have you found those rings, or have you not?” + 

“I have not,” said I, “but neither have you, and as that is what I wanted to make sure of, I will now take my leave without further ceremony.” + 

Mr. Gryce is not a profane man, but he allowed a word to slip from him which was not entirely one of blessing. He made amends for it next moment, however, by remarking: + 

“Madam, I once said, as you will doubtless remember, that the day would come when I should find myself at your feet. That day has arrived. And now is there any other little cherished fact known to the police which you would like to have imparted to you?” + 

I took his humiliation seriously. + 

“You are very good,” I rejoined, “but I will not trouble you for any facts⁠—those I am enabled to glean for myself; but what I should like you to tell me is this: Whether if you came upon those rings in the possession of a person known to have been on the scene of crime at the time of its perpetration, you would not consider them as an incontrovertible proof of guilt?” + 

“Undoubtedly,” said he, with a sudden alteration in his manner which warned me that I must muster up all my strength if I would keep my secret till I was quite ready to part with it. + 

“Then,” said I, with a resolute movement towards the door, “that’s the whole of my business for today. Good morning, Mr. Gryce; tomorrow I shall expect you.” + 

He made me stop though my foot had crossed the threshold; not by word or look but simply by his fatherly manner. + 

“Miss Butterworth,” he observed, “the suspicions which you have entertained from the first have within the last few days assumed a definite form. In what direction do they point?⁠—tell me.” + 

Some men and most women would have yielded to that imperative tell me! But there was no yielding in Amelia Butterworth. Instead of that I treated him to a touch of irony. + 

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that you think it worth while to consult me? I thought your eyes were too keen to seek assistance from mine. You are as confident as I am that Howard Van Burnam is innocent of the crime for which you have arrested him.” + 

A look that was dangerously insinuating crossed his face at this. He came forward rapidly and, joining me where I stood, said smilingly: + 

“Let us join forces, Miss Butterworth. You have from the first refused to consider the younger son of Silas Van Burnam as guilty. Your reasons then were slight and hardly worth communicating. Have you any better ones to advance now? It is not too late to mention them, if you have.” + 

“It will not be too late tomorrow,” I retorted. + 

Convinced that I was not to be moved from my position, he gave me one of his low bows. + 

“I forgot,” said he, “that it was as a rival and not as a coadjutor you meddled in this matter.” And he bowed again, this time with a sarcastic air I felt too self-satisfied to resent. + 

“Tomorrow, then?” said I. + 

“Tomorrow.” + 

At that I left him. + 

I did not return immediately to Miss Althorpe. I visited Cox’s millinery store, Mrs. Desberger’s house, and the offices of the various city railways. But I got no clue to the rings; and finally satisfied that Miss Oliver, as I must now call her, had not lost or disposed of them on her way from Gramercy Park to her present place of refuge, I returned to Miss Althorpe’s with even a greater determination than before to search that luxurious home till I found them. + 

But a decided surprise awaited me. As the door opened I caught a glimpse of the butler’s face, and noticing its embarrassed expression, I at once asked what had happened. + 

His answer showed a strange mixture of hesitation and bravado. + 

“Not much, ma’am; only Miss Althorpe is afraid you may not be pleased. Miss Oliver is gone, ma’am; she ran away while Crescenze was out of the room.” + 

XXVII + 

Found + 

I gave a low cry and rushed down the steps. + 

“Don’t go!” I called out to the driver. “I shall want you in ten minutes.” And hurrying back, I ran upstairs in a condition of mind such as I have no reason to be proud of. Happily Mr. Gryce was not there to see me. + 

“Gone? Miss Oliver gone?” I cried to the maid whom I found trembling in a corner of the hall. + 

“Yes, ma’am; it was my fault, ma’am. She was in bed so quiet, I thought I might step out for a minute, but when I came back her clothes were missing and she was gone. She must have slipped out at the front door while Dan was in the back hall. I don’t see how ever she had the strength to do it.” + 

Nor did I. But I did not stop to reason about it; there was too much to be done. Rushing on, I entered the room I had left in such high hopes a few hours before. Emptiness was before me, and I realized what it was to be baffled at the moment of success. But I did not waste an instant in inactivity. I searched the closets and pulled open the drawers; found her coat and hat gone, but not Mrs. Van Burnam’s brown skirt, though the purse had been taken out of the pocket. + 

“Is her bag here?” I asked. + 

Yes, it was in its old place under the table; and on the washstand and bureau were the simple toilet articles I had been told she had brought there. In what haste she must have fled to leave these necessities behind her! + 

But the greatest shock I received was the sight of the knitting-work, with which I had so inconsiderately meddled the evening before, lying in ravelled heaps on the table, as if torn to bits in a frenzy. This was a proof that the fever was yet on her; and as I contemplated this fact I took courage, thinking that one in her condition would not be allowed to run the streets long, but would be picked up and put in some hospital. + 

In this hope I began my search. Miss Althorpe, who came in just as I was about to leave the house, consented to telephone to Police Headquarters a description of the girl, with a request to be notified if such a person should be found in the streets or on the docks or at any of the station-houses that night. “Not,” I assured her, as we left the telephone and I prepared to say goodbye for the day, “that you need expect her to be brought back to this house, for I do not mean that she shall ever darken your doors again. So let me know if they find her, and I will relieve you of all further responsibility in the matter.” + 

Then I started out. + 

To name the streets I traversed or the places I visited that day, would take more space than I would like to devote to the subject. Dusk came, and I had failed in obtaining the least clue to her whereabouts; evening followed, and still no trace of the fugitive. What was I to do? Take Mr. Gryce into my confidence after all? That would be galling to my pride, but I began to fear I should have to submit to this humiliation when I happened to think of the Chinaman. To think of him once was to think of him twice, and to think of him twice was to be conscious of an irresistible desire to visit his place and find out if anyone but myself had been there to inquire after the lost one’s clothes. + 

Accompanied by Lena, I hurried away to Third Avenue. The laundry was near Twenty-seventh Street. As we approached I grew troubled and unaccountably expectant. When we reached it I understood my excitement and instantly became calm. For there stood Miss Oliver, gazing like one under a spell through the lighted windowpanes into the narrow shop where the owner bent over his ironing. She had evidently stood there some time, for a small group of half-grown lads were watching her with every symptom of being about to break into a mischievous display of curiosity. Her hands, which were without gloves, were pressed against the glass, and her whole attitude showed an intensity of fatigue which would have laid her on the ground had she not been sustained by an equal intensity of purpose. + 

Sending Lena for a carriage, I approached the poor creature and drew her forcibly from the window. + 

“Do you want anything here?” I asked. “I will go in with you if you do.” + 

She surveyed me with strange apathy, and yet with a certain sort of relief too. Then she slowly shook her head. + 

“I don’t know anything about it. My head swims and everything looks queer, but someone or something sent me to this place.” + 

“Come in,” I urged, “come in for a minute.” And half supporting her, half dragging her, I managed to get her across the threshold and into the Chinaman’s shop. + 

Immediately a dozen faces were pressed where hers had been. + 

The Chinaman, a stolid being, turned as he heard the little bell tinkle which announced a customer. + 

“Is this the lady who left the clothes here a few nights ago?” I asked. + 

He stopped and stared, recognizing me slowly, and remembering by degrees what had passed between us at our last interview. + 

“You tellee me lalee die; how him lalee when lalee die?” + 

“The lady is not dead; I made a mistake. Is this the lady?” + 

“Lalee talk; I no see face, I hear speak.” + 

“Have you seen this man before?” I inquired of my nearly insensible companion. + 

“I think so in a dream,” she murmured, trying to recall her poor wandering wits back from some region into which they had strayed. + 

“Him lalee!” cried the Chinaman, overjoyed at the prospect of getting his money. “Pletty speak, I knowee him. Lalee want clo?” + 

“Not tonight. The lady is sick; see, she can hardly stand.” And overjoyed at this seeming evidence that the police had failed to get wind of my interest in this place, I slipped a coin into the Chinaman’s hand, and drew Miss Oliver away towards the carriage I now saw drawing up before the shop. + 

Lena’s eyes when she came up to help me were a sight to see. They seemed to ask who this girl was and what I was going to do with her. I answered the look by a very brief and evidently wholly unexpected explanation. + 

“This is your cousin who ran away,” I remarked. “Don’t you recognize her?” + 

Lena gave me up then and there; but she accepted my explanation, and even lied in her desire to carry out my whim. + 

“Yes, ma’am,” said she, “and glad I am to see her again.” And with a deft push here and a gentle pull there, she succeeded in getting the sick woman into the carriage. + 

The crowd, which had considerably increased by this time, was beginning to flock about us with shouts of no little derision. Escaping it as best I could, I took my seat by the poor girl’s side, and bade Lena give the order for home. When we left the curbstone behind, I felt that the last page in my adventures as an amateur detective had closed. + 

But I counted without my cost. Miss Oliver, who was in an advanced stage of fever, lay like a dead weight on my shoulder during the drive down the avenue, but when we entered the Park and drew near my house, she began to show such signs of violent agitation that it was with difficulty that the united efforts of Lena and myself could prevent her from throwing herself out of the carriage door which she had somehow managed to open. + 

As the carriage stopped she grew worse, and though she made no further efforts to leave it, I found her present impulses even harder to contend with than the former. For now she would not be pushed out or dragged out, but crouched back moaning and struggling, her eyes fixed on the stoop, which is not unlike that of the adjoining house; till with a sudden realization that the cause of her terror lay in her fear of reentering the scene of her late terrifying experiences, I bade the coachman drive on, and reluctantly, I own, carried her back to the house she had left in the morning. + 

And this is how I came to spend a second night in Miss Althorpe’s hospitable mansion. + 

XXVIII + 

Taken Aback + 

One incident more and this portion of my story is at an end. My poor patient, sicker than she had been the night before, left me but little leisure for thought or action disconnected with my care for her. But towards morning she grew quieter, and finding in an open drawer those tangled threads of yarn of which I have spoken, I began to rewind them, out of a natural desire to see everything neat and orderly about me. I had nearly finished my task when I heard a strange noise from the bed. It was a sort of gurgling cry which I found hard to interpret, but which only stopped when I laid my work down again. Manifestly this sick girl had very nervous fancies. + 

When I went down to breakfast the next morning, I was in that complacent state of mind natural to a woman who feels that her abilities have asserted themselves and that she would soon receive a recognition of the same at the hands of the one person for whose commendation she had chiefly been working. The identification of Miss Oliver by the Chinaman was the last link in the chain connecting her with the Mrs. James Pope who had accompanied Mr. Van Burnam to his father’s house in Gramercy Park, and though I would fain have had the murdered woman’s rings to show, I was contented enough with the discoveries I had made to wish for the hour which would bring me face to face with the detective. + 

But a surprise awaited me at the breakfast table in the shape of a communication from that gentleman. It had just been brought from my house by Lena, and it ran thus: + 

Dear Miss Butterworth: + 

Pardon our interference. We have found the rings which you think so conclusive an evidence of guilt against the person secreting them; and, with your permission [this was basely underlined], Mr. Franklin Van Burnam will be in custody today. + 

I will wait upon you at ten. + 

Franklin Van Burnam! Was I dreaming? Franklin Van Burnam accused of this crime and in custody! What did it mean? I had found no evidence against Franklin Van Burnam. + 