Читать книгу Behind Closed Doors - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Mr. Gryce had observed that he was getting old. He never felt older than he did that night when after the discovery of the mistake he had made, he turned humiliated from the presence of Mrs. Gretorex and the man whom he had caused to suffer such a succession of serious and wholly unnecessary emotions.

He was unused to making mistakes. He had always been so wary, so exact, so sure of his premises, that he could look back upon few cases where his conclusions had been really at fault, and on none before where the outcome of his efforts left him in what some of his young and possibly envious rivals might call, a ridiculous position.

“It is a new sensation,” he muttered, as he passed down the elegant staircase on his way out. “Well, a new sensation is something. I have heard some men say they would give a good deal to experience one. But as for me, give me the old ones; they are certainly more satisfactory.” And with a bitter smile he prepared to thread his way through the brilliant throng that circulated between the staircase and the side door by which he had entered and by which he was expecting to go out.

But before he had worked his way half through, he paused, stepped aside and took up his station against the wall in a position that gave him a good view of the scene, without attracting too much attention to himself. “Since I am at a swell wedding I might as well see the bride,” he continued to himself, turning his gaze however in any other direction than that by which she was expected to descend. “If she looks more like her photograph than the other girl does, well and good, I am an old fool and it is about time for me to take down my sign and shut up shop. But if on the contrary, she looks less like it; if her expression varies or she is fairer or larger than one would suppose from the picture they gave me, then I can lay the fault on the photographer and regain some portion at least of my self-esteem.” And unmindful of the curious glances which now and then found him out, he retained his place through the weary minutes of waiting that now ensued, amusing himself as usual in gathering together such odds and ends of talk as floated by him and stowing them away in the store-house of his brain, which already held so many secrets even of some of those who passed him by in gay apparel without a thought that the grave, quiet, rather benignant-looking man who was so occupied with the device on Mr. Gretorex’s great hall clock, was he who held in his keeping their fortune and possibly their good name.

At length, with a sigh of relief that ran through the length of those vast parlors, the strains of the Wedding March were heard, and Mr. Gryce, whose interest in the afore-mentioned device now became absolutely absorbing, shifted his portly figure a step or so, while the throng at his side pressed back and a path was made for Mr. and Mrs. Gretorex, and then, after what seemed a long and unnecessary interval, for the bride and groom, who, contrary to the usual arrangement, descended together. They passed near, very near that great hall clock, so near that the bride’s veil brushed the homely habiliments of the man who stood there; but she did not notice this nor to all appearance did he, for his eyes never left the clock though a careful observer might have perceived that his lips pressed a little closer together after she went by and that he did not wait for her to pass over the threshold of the parlor door before taking his departure.

But no one thought of him. All eyes were on the bride, and little did any one think, least of all she whom it most concerned, that the faint, half-suppressed click which they had just heard denoted the withdrawal of one whose powers of observation were more to be dreaded than were those of the whole vast crowd he had left behind him. If she had—But our interest is not at present with the bride, pale and troubled as she is, but with this man who but a short time ago entered the house with feelings of almost beneficent concern for its inmates, only to leave it now, with a sore and humiliated heart.

For in the one glimpse he caught of the bride—and he saw her though he did not appear to do so—he had discerned nothing to relieve his dissatisfaction with himself. If the other girl was like the picture, this pale, haughty self-contained woman was the picture itself. There was no mistaking this, much as his pride would have been gratified to have found it otherwise. Details that were lacking in the other girl’s countenance were here, and an expression which made him acknowledge to himself that he would henceforth trust no man’s eyes, not even his own, in this delicate matter of identification, the least shade of a look making sometimes all the difference between one person and another. He went out of the house feeling as I have said very old, and he even was conscious of a twinge or two of rheumatism as he stepped down the icy steps and prepared to take his way round the house to the street. For this reason perhaps, and also because the walk was more or less slippery, he went very slowly, so that he was just at the corner of the house when that startling scream was heard, which as we know so seriously disturbed the minds of those who were witnessing the ceremony, A muffled cry it was, and to those outside sounded as if it came from the upper story of the house. But when the detective paused and looked up at the windows overhead he saw nothing, and being in a very indifferent mood, went on his way, remembering the occurrence only as a sort of lugubrious echo to the rather melancholy thoughts in which he had been at that moment indulging.

His course was toward the city. He took it direct, getting on the elevated train at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and getting off again at Twenty-third. Why Twenty-third? Was it not late enough for him to go home? He evidently did not think so. Without hesitation and with a certain determination of manner, he went immediately to the C— Hotel.

Let us follow him.

“Well, I suppose the wedding has come off.”

These were his words to the clerk who was still at his desk in the office.

The clerk looked at him and laughed.

“No,” was his quick rejoinder, “it didn’t. The bride absconded.”

“What is that?”

Mr. Gryce’s tone was quite sharp. His face resumed its old expression.

“She ran off; didn’t wait for the clergyman; afraid to risk herself with such a glum-looking customer as Molesworth I suppose. I can’t say I blame her.”

“Humph! You interest me. And at what hour was this; how soon after we left?”

“In a few minutes I should say; for you had not been gone more than half an hour when the expectant bridegroom came with the Reverend Mr. Pease at his heels, and she was not here then nor had been for some little time.”

“Who saw her go out?”

“The hall boy.”

“No one else?”

“I think not.”

“Didn’t she leave any word behind her?”

“Yes, a note: it was lying on the table in her room. Molesworth got it.”

“The door then was open?”

“It was unlocked.”

“Curious. There seems to be some difficulty in the way of wedlock to-night. I have just come from a wedding and the bride was three quarters or more of an hour late. But Molesworth as you call him—how did he take it?”

“That’s hard telling; he looked grim enough, but then he was none too cheerful looking before. Anything but a bridegroom in appearance at any time. But then, it was rather hard lines for him. ’Twould make any man angry; Mr. Pease on hand and no bride! I declare, I felt cheap myself; and the chambermaid I believe shed tears, grieving over the loss of the good fee she expected, I suppose.”

“Yes, it’s quite thrilling, quite romantic,” quoth Mr. Gryce, enthusiastically. Then in quieter tones, remarked. “You were all in the room, then?”

“No, I didn’t know anything about it till Dr. Molesworth came down, and giving me the price of the room, remarked that there would be no wedding at present, the young lady having preferred to wait till she could have her friends about her.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Mr. Gryce.

“Neat, wasn’t it?” remarked the clerk. “But he is no fool; and though I knew on the spot that she had run away for good, I couldn’t help giving him credit for coolness. But it was all in his words, his look was terrible.”

Mr. Gryce’s eyes fixed themselves on the small lamp used to light cigars.

“I can imagine it,” said he.

“But he wasn’t tragic, not a bit of it,” continued the clerk. “Not even when he took out the note he had evidently received from the girl, and burned it in the flame of that jet.”

“Oh! he burned it, did he?”

“Down to the very end.”

“And then went away?”

“Directly.”

“Well, this has been a delightful evening!” commented Mr. Gryce; and he lounged away a few more minutes in the office, then went out and entering a drug-store near by, searched for an address in the directory.

“I cannot sleep, why then not amuse myself,” his look seemed to say, as glancing up at the clock, he passed again into the street and betook himself westward.

Certainly one does not run across such a complication every day, and when one is a detective, why not enjoy now and then the advantages of his position.

Mr. Gryce went up the steps of a four-story brick building to which was attached a doctor’s sign.

A middle-aged woman, of neat enough appearance, answered his ring, after a short delay.

“Is the doctor in?” he asked.

She shook her head, and glancing at a slate that hung on one of the pegs of the old fashioned hall rack, declared,

“He won’t be home before to-morrow.”

“And I am so ill,” murmured the detective, with an air of great weakness. He had read her character at a glance.

“You?” she exclaimed.

“And I have come so far,” he went on. “I thought surely I should see him to-night, if I came late enough. I know he is going to be married soon but—”

“Married!” The interruption was full of surprise and incredulity. “Married! Dr. Molesworth! I guess you are mistaken.”

“O, no,” the old gentleman persisted, assuming with every instant a look of greater distress.

“I had it from one who knows him intimately. He is going to be married; but sensible girls don’t keep their lovers out too late, and I thought I might find him in; I wish I had, for when I have these turns nothing but opium will help me, and the drug clerks won’t give it to me without a doctor’s prescription. I must go on.”

But the old lady’s sympathy as well as curiosity had been aroused. She was a widow and a boarding-house-keeper, but she had a heart and was not afraid of showing it.

She therefore stopped him as he hobbled towards the door, and showing him the way into the parlor, asked him to sit down by the fire and warm himself a moment before going out.

“I am sitting up,” she explained, “because there are still four or five of my young men out, and as I do not give night-keys to anyone but the doctor, I have to sit up, or ask some of my hard-working girls to do so. It is dreary waiting sometimes, but on the whole, they are considerate, and I don’t complain.”

Then as she saw or thought she saw the old gentleman’s face grow brighter in the really genial glow of the good hard-coal fire before them, she asked in a hospitable tone, if he had ever heard whom the doctor was going to marry.

He shook his gray hairs indifferently, picked out with his glance a coal in the fire-place, and began to study it intently.

“I never paid it any attention,” said he. “I am getting too old to busy myself much about such matters; and girls are all the same to me, unless it be one girl,” he added, with a half-senile half pathetic smile, taking from his pocket as he did so a photograph which he looked at fondly.

“Your daughter?” inquired the old lady.

“My grand-daughter,” he replied, with enthusiasm.

She leaned over as women will at the sight of any picture in the hand of another, and quietly looked at it.

“Good heavens,” she exclaimed, “it is Mildred Farley,”

“Mildred Farley,” he repeated, in mild surprise, “I never heard that name. This is Joanna Handscombe.”

“Let me see it,” cried she, and Mr. Gryce, greatly pleased at the success of his trick, handed her the picture of Genevieve Gretorex, satisfied that if this good woman continued to find it like the Mildred Farley she had mentioned, he should find that Mildred Farley was the name of the young woman he had himself first taken for the original of this picture, and in whose fate despite his reason and his years he had found himself so much interested that he had come here at this late hour of the night to learn her name, and if possible her dwelling place.

His success surpassed his hopes. The old lady looked at the picture, shook her head, and looked again.

“How these photographs can deceive,” cried she. “If I had not stopped to look at this twice, I would have sworn it was Mildred Farley’s face, but I see now that she wears her hair quite different, and that she is older and much better dressed than Mildred could ever hope to be. Nevertheless, there is a very striking similarity and I should like to see Miss—Miss—”

“Handscombe,” put in the detective.

“And Mildred together. It would be a pleasing study.” And she stared long and earnestly at the picture, winding up with: “I should like to show it to Mildred.”

This was putting herself exactly in the position desired by Mr. Gryce.

“You can do so,” he observed, “if you do not have to carry it far nor keep it long. Does Mildred live anywhere near you? Can you see her tonight?”

“She lives in my fourth story front room, sir; Mildred Farley is one of my boarders.”

Mr. Gryce stroked his trembling right knee with a very loving hand. “One of your boarders,” he repeated. “She is doubtless then up-stairs asleep.”

“No, poor girl, no. She is a dressmaker and sometimes does not close her eyes till one o’clock at night. She is not asleep, but come to think of it, she is not in the house at all. She went away for a short vacation a few days ago, and though she promised to be home this afternoon, I believe she did not come. It has always been my hope that Dr. Molesworth would marry her. She is a lovely girl and he is a very fine man. Why, then, shouldn’t they come together?”

“And what makes you think they will not? Why shouldn’t it be she he is going to marry?”

“Why? Because they would have told me. He knows and she knows there is nothing I wish so much. It would be preposterous for them to keep it to themselves after all I have said. No, if Dr. Molesworth is going to marry anyone (and I don’t believe yet he is), it must be some ridiculous chit of a girl he has met away from here; and Mildred—why, Lena!”

This exclamation was caused by the appearance at the door of a young girl who the moment she saw Mr. Gryce, shrank back and started to run away.

But that emphatic Lena! stopped her, and in a moment the old lady was in the hall; a whispered conference ensued, followed by the reentrance of the good woman with a note in her hand.

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed, looking first at the letter she held and then at the feeble figure of the old man who had risen with well feigned indifference as if to go. “A note from Dr. Molesworth which he left on purpose for me! and that girl forgot to give it to me till now! What can he have to say!” And breaking the seal, she read the few enclosed lines with a growing wonder that ended in the joyous exclamation of “Good gracious, it is Mildred, after all! He is going to marry her tonight, and bring her home to-morrow. Well, I will give up. Never a word to me about it, and I so fond of them both! I don’t understand it, folks are so queer.” And she fluttered to and fro in ill-disguised joy, talking and muttering to herself, while Mr. Gryce pulled his muffler about him and began to move slowly towards the door.

“I declare,” she broke in, as her attention was recalled to him by this movement, “it does seem a pity for you to go out again into the cold. If you think you would be better here, I have an empty room.” But at this moment a carriage was heard to stop before the door, and startled into a new train of thought by this unwonted occurrence, she moved towards the front windows, exclaiming: “I do believe they have come now!”

But at her first glance through the curtains, she drew back with a frightened air, and crying, “Oh, what can this mean,” hurried towards the door with every sign of intense agitation.

Mr. Gryce at once took her place at the window, but he did not look out, for at that moment a man’s voice was heard in the hall and the wary detective thought it prudent to resume his role of the self-absorbed, semi-oblivious old man whose infirmities were so engrossing he had neither eyes nor ears for what went on about him. It was well he did so, for in another moment his imperturbability received a great shock by the certainly unlooked for entrance of two men bearing a burden which at one glance showed itself to be the inert form of a young woman. From the appearance of one of these he judged him to be Dr. Molesworth. They were followed by the landlady, crying and wringing her hands.

“Mildred, Mildred, what has happened to you, poor girl!” came in piercing tones from the latter, as the sad burden having been deposited on a sofa, she approached, and drew aside the cloak, which had hitherto concealed the face.

“O God! how pale she is, how cold! Doctor, has she only fainted or is she—”

“Dead,” came from his lips in deep and thrilling tones, while his gaze sought the landlady’s face and rested there with an intentness he might not have displayed had he noticed the old man mumbling and chattering to himself in a corner.

“And what has killed her? What has destroyed my poor girl, the very night you hoped to marry her?”

“Shall I tell you?” The doctor had waved the man aside who had assisted him in his fearful task, and now stood with folded arms side by side with the landlady, looking down upon the still, set face which with the blue robe that enshrouded the form were already so well known to the watching detective. “She preferred this bridal to the one I had planned for her. Now you know all.” And with just one more deep and searching look at the landlady’s startled face, he walked up to his assistant.

“That is all,” said he, “I will do the rest. The coroner will probably be here soon and—Who are you?”

This was said to a small, slight man who at this moment appeared in the doorway.

“I am a detective, sir,” was the reply, and he was doubtless going to say more, but he caught an unexpected sight of Mr. Gryce, and paused in some confusion. He had recognized a superior.

As for Mr. Gryce himself he had scarcely noticed the young man; he was too intent upon the doctor who at the utterance of the word detective had wheeled suddenly about with the evident intention of hiding his surprise. But a mirror hung opposite him and in this the watchful eye of Mr. Gryce detected such an expression of uncontrollable shock and anxiety that he inwardly congratulated himself over the curiosity which had drawn him to this house.

The confusion, if there was such, in the physician’s mind was but momentary. In an instant he turned, and confronting the intruder, asked with some severity:

“And what work is there for a detective here? The young lady has taken poison and is dead. I have notified the coroner—”

“Pardon me,” interposed the other with every appearance of humility and respect, “I have come from the coroner. I am only a messenger and my errand is to say that as he cannot come till morning it might relieve you to have me stop here and see that there is no interference with the remains. It is a common duty and it is not the first time I have performed it.”

“But it is nobody’s duty to watch over this poor girl’s body but myself,” broke in the landlady with hearty indignation. “Do you forget that it is a woman and a lady you are talking about, and do you think I will stand by and see any man, much less a stranger, take the place which only one of her own sex should occupy? She is no relative of mine but I loved her and—Doctor, you have some regard for her memory I am sure; send that man away; he has already been here too long.”

And with a care that was almost motherly in its tenderness, she drew the end of the cloak once again over the poor dead face, dropping a tear as she did so, which was not unseen by Mr. Gryce if it was unappreciated by the stern and bitter-souled physician.

“But, madam—” that stranger began.

“Stop!” cried Dr. Molesworth, “I will explain to her.” And in a few words he told her how in cases of violent death, it was thought advisable for the coroner to see the victim as soon after decease as possible, and when as in this case circumstances demanded delay, no one, not even a mother could rightfully interfere with whatever surveillance the coroner thought it his duty to impose. “So you will let this man stay here, and I will stay too; for it is as much my wish as yours that every respect should be shown the one whom living I honored sufficiently to wish to make my wife.”

The landlady shook her head with an aggressive air but made no further protest. Dr. Molesworth pointed to a chair and the representative of the coroner sat down; then while the former glanced at Mr. Gryce who had just caught his attention, a slight noise was heard in the hall and a second stranger entered,

“What does this mean?” angrily cried the doctor. “Is it possible that the front door has been left open?”

And brusquely pushing by the new comer, he shut the offending door and then coming back, asked his business of the last arrival.

The fellow who was slimmer than the other and much more dapper, pulled a small book and pencil from his pocket. It was enough. Dr. Molesworth recognized a reporter, and gave his irritation full play.

“You are intruding,” cried he. “This is a private house and no one asked you to enter. As for the calamity which has occurred, learn of it how and where you will; I shall tell you nothing.”

But this young man was not one to be easily daunted. “Do you wish me to make up an article out of surmises?” he inquired. “A young girl of this city has died in a carriage and the people have a right to know how. Shall I say by use of the knife or—”

“Scoundrel!” came from Dr. Molesworth’s lips. “You deserve chastising, but I shall simply see that you do, what you have probably never done before, tell the exact truth.” And turning to the detective at his side, he exclaimed, “Note what I tell the fellow. If he alters a word or interposes one item that is not borne out by what he observes and hears here, I will see that he is discharged from his place. I know what paper he is on and I know the editor, and my threat is no idle one. Now let him listen. This young lady, Mildred Farley by name, was engaged to marry me to-night. Being an orphan without friends—pardon me, Mrs. Olney, I should have said relatives, perhaps—and not being well, she thought a private marriage at a hotel would be most suitable. I agreed with her and the arrangements were all made for the ceremony. But she was sicker than I supposed. The symptoms of fever which I had perceived in her this afternoon increased rapidly on my departure and when I returned before the specified hour to marry her, I found she had fled, leaving an incoherent note behind which so alarmed me that I went out at once, and jumping into my phaeton, drove up and down the streets searching for her. I did not find her of course; and remembering an important prescription I had promised to send a patient of mine, I despatched my driver with it, and was taking my phaeton home myself when I suddenly detected a woman seated on one of the steps in Twenty-second Street, whose appearance struck me as familiar. Though no believer in miracles I accepted this one without scruple, and jumping from my carriage, went up to her and soon saw that I was right in supposing I had found Miss Farley. She was very ill and did not know me. ‘I am sleepy,’ she said, and dropped her head on my shoulder as I lifted her up. At the same moment I heard the sound of breaking glass as if a small phial had slipped to the side-walk and been shivered, while a pungent odor rose to my nostrils so suggestive of the poison known as prussic-acid that I felt greatly alarmed, and hastily carrying her to my phaeton, I put her in and drove as fast as I could towards home. But soon her increasing pallor and general condition convincing me that death was near, I stopped at the drug-store on the corner of Nineteenth Street, and leaving her in the phaeton, ran in and asked one of the clerks to assist me in bringing her into the store. He consented and we went back to the phaeton but only to find that I was too late. She had died in my absence.”

“Horrible!” burst from the landlady’s lips, and even the callous reporter looked shocked and a trifle ashamed.

“Where she got the poison,” continued the doctor, “remains to be found out. Perhaps she bought it after leaving the hotel, perhaps she had had it with her there as a medicine. If so she may have taken an overdose without being conscious of her danger. I only know I was her physician, and had never prescribed it to her, nor did I know she suffered from any ailment that required such a tonic.”

“And is that all? Will you tell me nothing more?”

“You have a very good article,” remarked the doctor, dryly. “Leave something for the future.” And the reporter had to be content and the detectives too.

The reporter gone. Dr. Molesworth turned again towards Mr. Gryce,

“And who are you?” he asked.

“I was going to say I didn’t know,” answered the seemingly trembling old man. “I am in pain and want to get home. Will one of you help me down the steps?”

“In pain!” repeated the doctor, who was not by any means a hard hearted man.

“Yes, rheumatism in the stomach, I think. I came for some opium, but I won’t wait any longer. They will worry about me at home. Besides I feel a bit better now.”

His manner was so natural, his look so in accordance with the character he had assumed, that Dr. Molesworth suspected nothing and kindly held out his arm. But he found the alleged detective had forestalled him.

“Let me do this business,” he entreated, with a great show of good-nature and respect. “I have nothing else to do and am used to old men.” And nodding graciously to his superior, he led him carefully out, whispering as soon as the lintel of the door had hidden them from view. “What orders? Do you smell anything wrong here?”

“Watch,” was the quiet, but emphatic command. “Note everything, even to the lifting of an eyelid, but say nothing and do not seem to watch.”

Then as they reached the front door, “Don’t be hurt if I send someone else here. They know your character too well.” And with this the elder man went out with a slow and hobbling step. The pain and distress of that evening had not been altogether assumed.