But the small wise head of Violet Strange continued its slow shake of decided refusal.
"I"m sorry," she protested, "but it"s quite out of my province. I"m too young to meddle with so serious a matter."
"Not when you can save a bereaved woman the only possible compensation left her by untoward fate?"
"Let the police try their hand at that."
"They have had no success with the case."
"Or you?"
"Nor I either."
"And you expect--"
"Yes, Miss Strange. I expect you to find the missing bullet which will settle the fact that murder and not suicide ended George Hammond"s life.
If you cannot, then a long litigation awaits this poor widow, ending, as such litigation usually does, in favour of the stronger party. There"s the alternative. If you once saw her--"
"But that"s what I"m not willing to do. If I once saw her I should yield to her importunities and attempt the seemingly impossible. My instincts bid me say no. Give me something easier."
"Easier things are not so remunerative. There"s money in this affair, if the insurance company is forced to pay up. I can offer you--"
"What?"
There was eagerness in the tone despite her effort at nonchalance. The other smiled imperceptibly, and briefly named the sum.
It was larger than she had expected. This her visitor saw by the way her eyelids fell and the peculiar stillness which, for an instant, held her vivacity in check.
"And you think I can earn that?"
Her eyes were fixed on his in an eagerness as honest as it was unrestrained.
He could hardly conceal his amazement, her desire was so evident and the cause of it so difficult to understand. He knew she wanted money--that was her avowed reason for entering into this uncongenial work. But to want it so much! He glanced at her person; it was simply clad but very expensively--how expensively it was his business to know. Then he took in the room in which they sat. Simplicity again, but the simplicity of high art--the drawing-room of one rich enough to indulge in the final luxury of a highly cultivated taste, viz.: unostentatious elegance and the subjection of each carefully chosen ornament to the general effect.
What did this favoured child of fortune lack that she could be reached by such a plea, when her whole being revolted from the nature of the task he offered her? It was a question not new to him; but one he had never heard answered and was not likely to hear answered now. But the fact remained that the consent he had thought dependent upon sympathetic interest could be reached much more readily by the promise of large emolument,--and he owned to a feeling of secret disappointment even while he recognized the value of the discovery.
But his satisfaction in the latter, if satisfaction it were, was of very short duration. Almost immediately he observed a change in her. The sparkle which had shone in the eye whose depths he had never been able to penetrate, had dissipated itself in something like a tear and she spoke up in that vigorous tone no one but himself had ever heard, as she said:
"No. The sum is a good one and I could use it; but I will not waste my energy on a case I do not believe in. The man shot himself. He was a speculator, and probably had good reason for his act. Even his wife acknowledges that he has lately had more losses than gains."
"See her. She has something to tell you which never got into the papers."
"You say that? You know that?"
"On my honour, Miss Strange."
Violet pondered; then suddenly succ.u.mbed.
"Let her come, then. Prompt to the hour. I will receive her at three.
Later I have a tea and two party calls to make."
Her visitor rose to leave. He had been able to subdue all evidence of his extreme gratification, and now took on a formal air. In dismissing a guest, Miss Strange was invariably the society belle and that only. This he had come to recognize.
The case (well known at the time) was, in the fewest possible words, as follows:
On a sultry night in September, a young couple living in one of the large apartment houses in the extreme upper portion of Manhattan were so annoyed by the incessant crying of a child in the adjoining suite, that they got up, he to smoke, and she to sit in the window for a possible breath of cool air. They were congratulating themselves upon the wisdom they had shown in thus giving up all thought of sleep--for the child"s crying had not ceased--when (it may have been two o"clock and it may have been a little later) there came from somewhere near, the sharp and somewhat peculiar detonation of a pistol-shot.
He thought it came from above; she, from the rear, and they were staring at each other in the helpless wonder of the moment, when they were struck by the silence. The baby had ceased to cry. All was as still in the adjoining apartment as in their own--too still--much too still.
Their mutual stare turned to one of horror. "It came from there!"
whispered the wife. "Some accident has occurred to Mr. or Mrs.
Hammond--we ought to go--"
Her words--very tremulous ones--were broken by a shout from below. They were standing in their window and had evidently been seen by a pa.s.sing policeman. "Anything wrong up there?" they heard him cry. Mr. Saunders immediately looked out. "Nothing wrong here," he called down. (They were but two stories from the pavement.) "But I"m not so sure about the rear apartment. We thought we heard a shot. Hadn"t you better come up, officer? My wife is nervous about it. I"ll meet you at the stair-head and show you the way."
The officer nodded and stepped in. The young couple hastily donned some wraps, and, by the time he appeared on their floor, they were ready to accompany him.
Meanwhile, no disturbance was apparent anywhere else in the house, until the policeman rang the bell of the Hammond apartment. Then, voices began to be heard, and doors to open above and below, but not the one before which the policeman stood.
Another ring, and this time an insistent one;--and still no response.
The officer"s hand was rising for the third time when there came a sound of fluttering from behind the panels against which he had laid his ear, and finally a choked voice uttering unintelligible words. Then a hand began to struggle with the lock, and the door, slowly opening, disclosed a woman clad in a hastily donned wrapper and giving every evidence of extreme fright.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing only the compa.s.sionate faces of her neighbours. "You heard it, too! a pistol-shot from there--there--my husband"s room. I have not dared to go--I--I--O, have mercy and see if anything is wrong! It is so still--so still, and only a moment ago the baby was crying. Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Saunders, why is it so still?"
She had fallen into her neighbour"s arms. The hand with which she had pointed out a certain door had sunk to her side and she appeared to be on the verge of collapse.
The officer eyed her sternly, while noting her appearance, which was that of a woman hastily risen from bed.
"Where were you?" he asked. "Not with your husband and child, or you would know what had happened there."
"I was sleeping down the hall," she managed to gasp out. "I"m not well--I--Oh, why do you all stand still and do nothing? My baby"s in there. Go! go!" and, with sudden energy, she sprang upright, her eyes wide open and burning, her small well featured face white as the linen she sought to hide.
The officer demurred no longer. In another instant he was trying the door at which she was again pointing.
It was locked.
Glancing back at the woman, now cowering almost to the floor, he pounded at the door and asked the man inside to open.
No answer came back.
With a sharp turn he glanced again at the wife.
"You say that your husband is in this room?"
She nodded, gasping faintly, "And the child!"
He turned back, listened, then beckoned to Mr. Saunders. "We shall have to break our way in," said he. "Put your shoulder well to the door.
Now!"