Читать книгу Behind Closed Doors - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 5

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The ride was comparatively a silent one. Mr. Gryce, never much of a talker except when he had an object in view, found sufficient occupation for himself in looking out of the window, while Dr. Cameron was in too perturbed a condition of mind to risk speech even if the confused nature of his thoughts had allowed it. He was suffering from the first real blow his pride had ever received; for he knew now that it was his pride that had been hurt and not his heart, his pride which was so great that at the very thought of humiliation, his whole future became clouded. He a betrayed lover! He an outraged bridegroom! It was an intolerable thought, and yet he could not escape from it. For now that he had turned his back upon that part of the city which had held his hopes, and was en route with a detective to an obscure hotel down-town, he knew as well as if he had already recognized her that he was going to see there Genevieve Gretorex. The utter sinking at his heart assured him of it. The thousand and one memories of his acquaintance with the cold and haughty woman who had accepted his attentions, but who had never loved him or seemed to ask his love, added their weight to his conviction. He could perceive now that her thoughts and interest had been elsewhere. He laughed to himself with an immeasurable bitterness as he remembered how he had characterized by such terms as noble self-control, dignified reserve, and lady-like hauteur, the chill, studied manner he now saw to be the expression of indifference if not actual distaste. And he had come to his very wedding-day without suspecting the truth; had bought his presents and fitted up his house for a bride that had actually left her home and resorted to the most miserable of subterfuges to escape him. It was enough to crush all gentleness out of him; to make of a once generous and amiable man, a cynic and a misanthrope. His working features showed his feelings; his clenched hand, his determination. If it was as he feared, and Miss Gretorex should be found by him in hiding, instead of in her father’s house dressing for a ceremony to which a thousand guests had been invited, he would flee the city, leave the country, and with it the derision of his enemies, and the no less unacceptable sympathy of his friends. In his imagination, he was already half across the ocean, when the carriage came to a standstill. Looking up, he saw they were before the hotel and the character of his thoughts changed.

“What time is it?” he asked, abruptly.

“Just five minutes to six.”

“Late! if fate should be so unexpectedly propitious as to prove your surmises wrong, and I should wish to get back to St. Nicholas Place by eight.”

“No,” said the detective. “It has taken us just eighty minutes to come down, and it will take us just eighty minutes to go back. That will give us ten minutes for what you want to do here and leave you a full half-hour in which to change your coat and don a white neck-tie; all that I see you need to do before taking your part in the anticipated ceremony.”

“You calculate without delays.”

“I see no cause for any.”

“You cannot always prevent them. I should not wish to be late if the bride is not,” he somewhat sarcastically suggested.

The detective did not seem to fear any such result.

As they were alighting from the carriage the physician’s thoughts seemed to take still another turn. He glanced at his companion, and though he did not meet his eye—something which very few could boast of ever doing—he seemed satisfied with his scrutiny, for he remarked:

“You have meant to show me a kindness, Mr. Gryce.”

The detective did not contradict him.

At the entrance of the hotel, Dr. Cameron again addressed him.

“You have promised she shall not see me.”

“I will keep my word.”

“Give as little cause for scandal as you can,” he said.

Mr. Gryce shrugged his shoulders.

“Trust me,” was his laconic rejoinder.

They went up-stairs, quietly passed down a hall or two and stopped in a dark passage.

“Wait,” enjoined the detective; and he stepped up to a girl that was loitering in the vicinity.

A few words settled his business and she came rapidly forward, stepped by the doctor and opened a door nearby with a key she took from her pocket.

“Room 153 happens to be a very convenient one for our purpose,” whispered Mr. Gryce, as the girl passed in and left them a minute alone. “It has its main door and it has this other and but little used one, opening into an alcove with curtains. The girl is gone to see if the lady wishes anything. She will leave the door ajar when she comes out.”

Dr. Cameron flushed scarlet and drew hastily back.

“It is a sneaking piece of business,” he objected.

“But it must be done,” quoth the other; then as the girl came out, added, “if she is the patient you seek, her parents will be only too grateful to you for your attention.”

Dr. Cameron frowned, subdued his natural feelings and followed in the wake of the detective, who had already stepped across the threshold.

The room or rather the alcove thus entered, was dim and for a moment he saw nothing but the bed that together with a wardrobe took up most of the space before him. But in another instant he had observed the thin streak of light made by the separation of the two heavy curtains that hung between him and the apartment beyond, and walking quickly up to it, he looked through.

A pathetic sight greeted him. Kneeling before a fire, whose leaping flames seemed neither to lend warmth to her icy cheek nor comfort to her miserable heart, he saw a woman, whose listless eyes fixed upon a paper that was consuming on the hearth, saw nothing beyond, seemingly in this world or the world to come. But apparent as was her misery, the doctor saw in that first glance but two things, her face and her form. Both were unmistakable. They were those of Genevieve Gretorex,

His look as he fell back revealed the truth. The detective who was close at his side took his arm without a word and turned towards the door. But Dr, Cameron, moved perhaps by some vague memory of the despair he had seen, turned round again to the curtain and allowed himself one other glance. His face softened as he looked and he involuntarily raised his hand to the curtain as if moved by some uncontrollable impulse to enter, when he felt his companion’s firm clasp close around his arm, and yielding to that kindly but inexorable will, he wheeled about and followed Mr. Gryce out of the room.

“So there is no mistake,” inquired the detective. The doctor shook his head.

Mr. Gryce softly closed and locked the door out of which they had come. Giving the key to the girl who was not far off, he remarked, “It is not the person we seek,” and quietly led the way towards the stairs. But here Dr. Cameron stopped him,

“What are you going to do?” asked he.

“Ride to St. Nicholas Place as fast as I can.”

“And what do you expect me to do?”

The detective opened out his hands French fashion. “I have no further control over your movements,” he observed.

Dr.Cameron still held him back.

“Mr. Gryce,” said he, “have you seen this young lady yourself?”

“Certainly, before I went for you to identify her.”

“You noticed how pale she was, then, how unhappy.”

“I did not think so.”

“She is the living picture of despair.”

Mr. Gryce’s hand that was sliding up and down the stair-rail suddenly stopped.

“Your emotions make you exaggerate,” he declared. “It is scarcely three hours since I saw her, and she struck me then as looking not only well but full of bloom and hopefulness.”

“Go and look for yourself,” suggested the doctor. “If I am any reader of countenances it is a wretched woman we leave in yonder,”

Mr. Gryce paused no longer. Gliding swiftly back, he procured the key once more, took a glance for himself and came out troubled.

“I don’t understand it,” his look seemed to say to the unconscious key as he handed it back for the second time to the obliging chambermaid.

The girl may have surprised that look, at all events she ventured upon a word or two that seemed to move the detective strangely. He gave the key another glance, asked a question or two and then hurried away to the office by another stair than that which was guarded by Dr. Cameron’s tall figure. He was gone five minutes and the doctor was beginning to lose control over his patience when the detective appeared below, and hastily beckoned to him. Dr. Cameron at once ran down. There was a change in the detective’s manner which he could not but notice.

“It is as I said?” remarked he.

Mr. Gryce laughed—he did sometimes—and hastened towards the street door. “We have no time to lose,” he affirmed.

“You have not, perhaps,” exclaimed his companion, energetically. “But my duty is here; Miss Gretorex looks as if she needed a friend, and if it is true that her mind is affected—”

“Hark,” cried the other, in his shortest, sharpest accents. “Five minutes ago I might perhaps have agreed with you, but since then I have heard something which changes my mind. Sir,” he asserted “since I saw the lady three hours ago, she has had a visitor, a gentleman. She received him in her room; they talked a full hour, and when he went out, he stepped up to the girl we saw up-stairs, and—summon up your courage, sir, if you love her—said that he was coming back again at nine o’clock; that he should bring a clergyman with him; that, in short, he expected to marry the lady this very evening in the room in which he had just left her, and wished it put in readiness for the purpose. He told the same story to the clerk downstairs, and—”

“His name, what was the villain’s name, or didn’t he leave any name? Quick! let me know my whole disgrace at once.”

“He left a card and the name on it is one you may know,” And the detective handed over to his companion a visiting-card on which was inscribed:

Dr. Julius Molesworth.

“Molesworth!” repeated the other in a tone of incredulous amazement. “Impossible! Someone has made use of his card.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. She could never have become entangled with him. He is a graduate of the Medical School and is all right in a professional way, but he is on the Health Board, and confines his practice to charity patients in the —Ward. She could never have even met him.”

“It is not always safe to say whom a woman may or may not meet.”

“She would never have been attracted to him if she had. Molesworth is one of the most eccentric of men.” And Dr. Cameron drew up his fine figure in a way that was sufficiently significant.

Mr. Gryce smiled and shook his head.

“Let us make ourselves sure of the matter,” said he. And leading the way back to the office, he asked a description of the owner of the card.

“A peculiar looking person,” answered the clerk. “Medium-sized, but with a face that means business. His hair is dark and he wears no beard. He has a pleasant smile but his frown makes you feel as if you wanted to stand from under. His clothes—”

But Dr. Cameron had already drawn the detective to the door. “Let us get away from here,” he cried.