If her employer felt nettled by this show of indifference, he did not betray it save by the rapidity of his tones as, without further preamble and possibly without real excuse, he proceeded to lay before her the case in question. "Last Tuesday night a woman was murdered in this city; an old woman, in a lonely house where she has lived for years. Perhaps you remember this house? It occupies a not inconspicuous site in Seventeenth Street--a house of the olden time?"
"No, I do not remember."
The extreme carelessness of Miss Strange"s tone would have been fatal to her socially; but then, she would never have used it socially. This they both knew, yet he smiled with his customary indulgence.
"Then I will describe it."
She looked around for a chair and sank into it. He did the same.
"It has a fanlight over the front door."
She remained impa.s.sive.
"And two old-fashioned strips of parti-coloured gla.s.s on either side."
"And a knocker between its panels which may bring money some day."
"Oh, you do remember! I thought you would, Miss Strange."
"Yes. Fanlights over doors are becoming very rare in New York."
"Very well, then. That house was the scene of Tuesday"s tragedy. The woman who has lived there in solitude for years was foully murdered.
I have since heard that the people who knew her best have always antic.i.p.ated some such violent end for her. She never allowed maid or friend to remain with her after five in the afternoon; yet she had money--some think a great deal--always in the house."
"I am interested in the house, not in her."
"Yet, she was a character--as full of whims and crotchets as a nut is of meat. Her death was horrible. She fought--her dress was torn from her body in rags. This happened, you see, before her hour for retiring; some think as early as six in the afternoon. And"--here he made a rapid gesture to catch Violet"s wandering attention--"in spite of this struggle; in spite of the fact that she was dragged from room to room--that her person was searched--and everything in the house searched--that drawers were pulled out of bureaus--doors wrenched off of cupboards--china smashed upon the floor--whole shelves denuded and not a spot from cellar to garret left unransacked, no direct clue to the perpetrator has been found--nothing that gives any idea of his personality save his display of strength and great cupidity. The police have even deigned to consult me,--an unusual procedure--but I could find nothing, either. Evidences of fiendish purpose abound--of relentless search--but no clue to the man himself. It"s uncommon, isn"t it, not to have any clue?"
"I suppose so." Miss Strange hated murders and it was with difficulty she could be brought to discuss them. But she was not going to be let off; not this time.
"You see," he proceeded insistently, "it"s not only mortifying to the police but disappointing to the press, especially as few reporters believe in the No-thoroughfare business. They say, and we cannot but agree with them, that no such struggle could take place and no such repeated goings to and fro through the house without some vestige being left by which to connect this crime with its daring perpetrator."
Still she stared down at her hands--those little hands so white and fluttering, so seemingly helpless under the weight of their many rings, and yet so slyly capable.
"She must have queer neighbours," came at last, from Miss Strange"s reluctant lips. "Didn"t they hear or see anything of all this?"
"She has no neighbours--that is, after half-past five o"clock. There"s a printing establishment on one side of her, a deserted mansion on the other side, and nothing but warehouses back and front. There was no one to notice what took place in her small dwelling after the printing house was closed. She was the most courageous or the most foolish of women to remain there as she did. But nothing except death could budge her. She was born in the room where she died; was married in the one where she worked; saw husband, father, mother, and five sisters carried out in turn to their graves through the door with the fanlight over the top--and these memories held her."
"You are trying to interest me in the woman. Don"t."
"No, I"m not trying to interest you in her, only trying to explain her.
There was another reason for her remaining where she did so long after all residents had left the block. She had a business."
"Oh!"
"She embroidered monograms for fine ladies."
"She did? But you needn"t look at me like that. She never embroidered any for me."
"No? She did first-cla.s.s work. I saw some of it. Miss Strange, if I could get you into that house for ten minutes--not to see her but to pick up the loose intangible thread which I am sure is floating around in it somewhere--wouldn"t you go?"
Violet slowly rose--a movement which he followed to the letter.
"Must I express in words the limit I have set for myself in our affair?"
she asked. "When, for reasons I have never thought myself called upon to explain, I consented to help you a little now and then with some matter where a woman"s tact and knowledge of the social world might tell without offence to herself or others, I never thought it would be necessary for me to state that temptation must stop with such cases, or that I should not be asked to touch the sordid or the b.l.o.o.d.y. But it seems I was mistaken, and that I must stoop to be explicit. The woman who was killed on Tuesday might have interested me greatly as an embroiderer, but as a victim, not at all. What do you see in me, or miss in me, that you should drag me into an atmosphere of low-down crime?"
"Nothing, Miss Strange. You are by nature, as well as by breeding, very far removed from everything of the kind. But you will allow me to suggest that no crime is low-down which makes imperative demand upon the intellect and intuitive sense of its investigator. Only the most delicate touch can feel and hold the thread I"ve just spoken of, and you have the most delicate touch I know."
"Do not attempt to flatter me. I have no fancy for handling befouled spider webs. Besides, if I had--if such elusive filaments fascinated me--how could I, well-known in person and name, enter upon such a scene without prejudice to our mutual compact?"
"Miss Strange"--she had reseated herself, but so far he had failed to follow her example (an ignoring of the subtle hint that her interest might yet be caught, which seemed to annoy her a trifle), "I should not even have suggested such a possibility had I not seen a way of introducing you there without risk to your position or mine. Among the boxes piled upon Mrs. Doolittle"s table--boxes of finished work, most of them addressed and ready for delivery--was one on which could be seen the name of--shall I mention it?"
"Not mine? You don"t mean mine? That would be too odd--too ridiculously odd. I should not understand a coincidence of that kind; no, I should not, notwithstanding the fact that I have lately sent out such work to be done."
"Yet it was your name, very clearly and precisely written--your whole name, Miss Strange. I saw and read it myself."
"But I gave the order to Madame Pirot on Fifth Avenue. How came my things to be found in the house of this woman of whose horrible death we have been talking?"
"Did you suppose that Madame Pirot did such work with her own hands?--or even had it done in her own establishment? Mrs. Doolittle was universally employed. She worked for a dozen firms. You will find the biggest names on most of her packages. But on this one--I allude to the one addressed to you--there was more to be seen than the name. These words were written on it in another hand. Send without opening. This struck the police as suspicious; sufficiently so, at least, for them to desire your presence at the house as soon as you can make it convenient."
"To open the box?"
"Exactly."
The curl of Miss Strange"s disdainful lip was a sight to see.
"You wrote those words yourself," she coolly observed. "While someone"s back was turned, you whipped out your pencil and--"
"Resorted to a very pardonable subterfuge highly conducive to the public"s good. But never mind that. Will you go?"
Miss Strange became suddenly demure.
"I suppose I must," she grudgingly conceded. "However obtained, a summons from the police cannot be ignored even by Peter Strange"s daughter."
Another man might have displayed his triumph by smile or gesture; but this one had learned his role too well. He simply said:
"Very good. Shall it be at once? I have a taxi at the door."
But she failed to see the necessity of any such hurry. With sudden dignity she replied:
"That won"t do. If I go to this house it must be under suitable conditions. I shall have to ask my brother to accompany me."
"Your brother!"
"Oh, he"s safe. He--he knows."
"Your brother knows?" Her visitor, with less control than usual, betrayed very openly his uneasiness.
"He does and--approves. But that"s not what interests us now, only so far as it makes it possible for me to go with propriety to that dreadful house."