Читать книгу Behind Closed Doors - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 9

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Mr. Gryce had only a look to go upon, but it was a look that spoke volumes. When a man shrinks from the eye of a detective, he has something to conceal, and when that something is connected with the death of a young girl by poison, it behooves an officer of the law to follow that man till he finds out what that something is.

It was therefore with some interest that he received in the early morning a summons from the gentleman who held the office of coroner at this time, to come down to his office and have a talk with him concerning this case of Mildred Farley; nor was it long before he presented himself at the place designated. He found the coroner alone and the following conversation ensued.

“Well, Gryce,” said the latter, “I have just come from the house where you played the part of a sick patient so successfully last night. May I ask how you chanced to be so prompt on the scene of action? Do you scent out mysterious cases or had you any knowledge which led you to that especial spot just at the moment when your presence was possibly most required?”

“Both,” was the good-natured reply. “Something which I called curiosity but which I am fain now to consider instinct, made me an intruder in Dr. Molesworth’s home last night. But I had a bit of knowledge to start with that roused this curiosity, and it is of this I want to speak, if you think the subject worthy of discussion or Dr. Molesworth anything but what he seems, a good, honest and reliable man.”

“I think,” returned the coroner, slowly, “any subject of this kind worthy of discussion; and as for Dr. Molesworth he stands high but so do a great many others whose testimony we are called upon to question every day of our lives. You need not stop on his account if you have seen or discovered anything which contradicts his story.”

“What is his story?”

“Didn’t you hear it? I understood that he told all he had to tell in your presence.”

“He told two stories,”

“How two?”

“One with his lips, another with his face; that is what makes me doubt him.”

“You do doubt him, then?”

Mr. Gryce tapped the table before him, with an abstracted air, murmured some unintelligible words and looked as if he thought he had replied.

“Come,” cried the other, “your reasons? You usually have good ones.”

“Yes.” assented Mr. Gryce, “I usually have, but in this case it would be hard for me to tell you just what they are. I feel that there is something back of this affair which we do not see, but I am not ready as yet to go any further or even to express any suspicions, say that I have any. The facts which I have been able to glean in the short space of time we have had, are meagre but interesting. Perhaps you can add to them; if so, our conference may lead to something. This is what I know.” And he related first what Dr. Molesworth had to say about the matter the evening before. When he had finished, he asked, “Does this story agree with what he told you this morning?”

“Exactly.”

“Very good. So much for so much. Now for the side-lights. I saw the girl myself yesterday afternoon.”

“You?”

“Yes; I saw her but I did not speak to her nor did I recognize her for the person she was. Indeed I took her for another woman whom she greatly resembled. It was at the C— Hotel.”

“Ah.”

“I need not enter into any further particulars about this circumstance as it does not concern the affair before us which stands quite apart by itself. Enough that for reasons of my own I played the spy on this young woman and saw her when she thought herself alone, in the privacy of her own apartment. This was some time after noon and the great fact which I wish to bring before you is this, that she was then to all appearance (and my eye is accustomed to read countenances) perfectly happy and had not in face or bearing the least trace of sickness.

“That is a point, certainly.”

“Note it, and then add to it this, that being still under the error of which I have spoken, I went back to the hotel some three or four hours later, and wishing to confirm a former suspicion, sought my vantage spot again, and in conjunction with another witness whose testimony you will not need, looked in upon this Miss Farley again, when I perceived that a great change had passed over her. But it was not that of sickness. From happiness she had descended to misery, and in her pallor and wild, unrestrained attitudes I could detect the expression of despair but none of bodily suffering or mental disorder. Now what had occasioned this change in her in a space of time so short? I think I can answer that it was an interview with Dr. Molesworth. For according to his own story and that of the hotel-clerk, he was with her for a half-hour or so in the afternoon; and though upon going out he told the hotel clerk he was coming back in the evening to marry her, something in his determination or in what had taken place at their interview, had destroyed in her every vestige of hope and happiness. For it was anything but an expectant bride whom I saw after this visit, as it had been anything but an anxious woman whom I had seen before it.”

“So! so!”

“Now when did she fly?” the detective pursued. “Shortly after I saw her last. And how? On foot and quietly. The hall-boy saw her go out, and he says she had her little bag on her arm and looked decent and composed; not like a woman in a delirium, nor even like one who meditates any dreadful crime. But then a boy’s observation does not go for much, and we will let it pass. What we will remember though is this, that she had a veil on which covered her face, and that this veil was brown, or at least of a very dark color. Two persons have told me so; the boy whose word, as I say goes for little, and the chamber-maid, who though she did not see her go out, had had ample opportunity for observing her veil earlier in the afternoon, and whose word on such a subject does go for something. But, and mark the fact well, for it seems to me important, the veil that was clinging to her dress when she was brought into Mrs. Olney’s parlor was gray and decidedly light; not the same one at all, according to description, which she wore when she went out of the hotel. What is the conclusion? That she stopped somewhere. Where? Another thing to find out. And now about the poison. I went through Twenty-second Street very soon after leaving Mrs. Olney’s last night, and in front of one of the houses between Fifth and Sixth avenues, I found a broken phial reeking with the smell of bitter almonds. So that part of his story is true. I have brought the bits of broken glass; here they are.”

The coroner looked at them curiously, smelled them and glanced up at Mr. Gryce.

“Well!” he suggested, in an inquiring tone; he felt that the detective’s silence meant something.

“Don’t you notice anything peculiar about these pieces?”

“No, to be frank, I don’t.”

“Poison that is bought at a drug-store usually has a label on the bottle.”

“True.”

“And this phial once had a label on it.”

“I see.”

“But it has been washed off, or rather rubbed off by a moistened hand. There are bits of it still remaining.”

“I perceive them.”

“What inference can we draw? That caution has been used. Now caution is not an attribute of the suicide, whether that suicide was an intentional one or the result of a mistake.”

“Humph!”

“And then there is another thing that puzzles me. Dr. Molesworth declares he found her sitting on the steps. I looked at those steps; there was a light snow lying on them and this snow lay white and undisturbed as it would not have done if a woman had been sitting there. But then some little time had elapsed since he removed her from the spot and enough fresh snow may have fallen to cover up the traces which her skirts must have left behind her.”

“Very possible,”

“Only those skirts were not damp about the edges as they must have been if she had been sitting on a stoop under these circumstances. And this to my mind is good evidence that she did not sit there. I would sooner believe she had been carried down the stoop and placed in the phaeton without putting her foot to ground; only it happens to be General —’s house and the thing is impossible.”

“But how could you know about her skirts, you did not go near her?”

“But Harrison did, the man you yourself sent there to investigate.”

“And you have seen him since?”

“Five minutes after you did, sir.”

The coroner laughed, he did not understand such zeal.

“I knew you would send for me,” resumed Mr. Gryce, “and I wanted to have something to talk about.”

“I see,” said the coroner, “well, go on.”

“I am almost at the end of my rope, only—did you wonder what had become of Miss Farley’s bag?”

“I did not know she had any.”

“The people at the hotel say she had, and here is the ocular proof of it.” And Mr. Gryce produced from under his coat a small but neat hand-bag of black leather, having on one side two ornamental steel letters, one of which was M. and the other F. “The initials of her name, you perceive.”

The coroner nodded.

“You wonder where I got this bag. Why, in the most natural place in the world; it was in the phaeton.”

“Ah, the phaeton.”

“When I went out of the house last night I found that vehicle standing where it had been left, in front of the steps; and as according to the doctor’s story it had been the real scene of death, I naturally thought you would wish to have a look at it. I accordingly took possession of it and not seeing what else I could do with it at that time of night, drove it into a stable near by. I expected every moment to be stopped by somebody and so forced to reveal my true character; but circumstances favored me and I got off with my prize unmolested. You will find it in charge of an officer at 66 West — Street.”

“That is all right; but what about the look you took? You never left that phaeton for me to examine first.”

Mr. Gryce smiled grimly at the plain gold stud he wore as a cuff button. “I see you understand me.” He then admitted apologetically, “ ‘Twas dark and I did not find much. Still I found something; the bag for instance.”

The coroner looked at him with a doubtful air. Did he suspect for the first time that the detective was concealing something from him? If so, he said nothing and Mr. Gryce went on blandly.

“This bag may have stories to tell. Suppose you open it, sir.”

The coroner nodded and did so. A number of toilet articles came to light and some linen. All was fresh and neat.

“Nothing that is likely to help us,” asserted the coroner. “No vestiges of poison, no letters, not even a scrap of writing of any kind.”

Mr. Gryce did not commit himself.

“I would like to take an inventory of the articles,” said he.

The coroner allowed him to do so and then inquired,

“What about witnesses? Have you seen the clerks at the drug-store?”

“Yes, they have nothing to add to his story. He stopped there, came in as he said, told his fears and asked for assistance. One of them, Herbert Black by name, at once responded; but before he could reach the door, the doctor came rushing back, and crying out, “It is too late, she is dead,” led the way to the phaeton, where they saw the poor girl tumbled in a heap, white and lifeless. They were young men and did not know enough to take her by the hand and see if she were yet cold. They took the doctor’s words for granted, knowing him so well, and feeling a natural indisposition to interfere in a matter at once so horrible and so delicate, only asked what they should do to help him. ‘I am going to take her straight home,’ he told them, and requested one of them to telephone to you and the other to run along at his side as far as the house. This latter duty fell to Mr. Black, and it was he who helped the doctor carry the poor girl in. That is all. I worked a half hour but could get no more out of him.”

“And the clergyman?”

“Has nothing to impart.”

“And the driver? You surely have seen the driver, he whom he sent out of the way with a prescription to some patient or other?”

Mr. Gryce’s brows knit.

“I have had but nine hours to work in,” said he, “and one of them was thrown away on that boy. I set a watch for him in three places and succeeded in getting the first word with him. But he had only one story to tell and he told it doggedly. It was in strict accordance with that of Dr, Molesworth. He had been ordered to come to the C— Hotel at a quarter past eight to take Mr. Pease home after the expected ceremony. He had gone there on foot, Dr. Molesworth himself having driven Mr. Pease to the hotel, and finding the phaeton at the door, had waited beside it for the clergyman to come out. But before this could happen the doctor reappeared, and declaring that matters had not gone as he wished, took his place in the phaeton and beckoned him in beside him; after which they rode about the streets till the doctor suddenly stopped the horse somewhere near Union Square, and commanding him to get out gave him a bit of paper which he told him to take as quick as he could to Mr. Monroe in Seventy-third Street. He obeyed him and had only just come back. This is what the boy said and all he would say; but I know as well as I know anything that he did not tell me the truth; for when I asked him what cars he took, he stared at me for a moment helplessly, then said, ‘The Madison Avenue cars,’ which story he stuck to, but as one who is very much frightened sticks to a statement he knows is false but dares not abandon.”

“I will make him tell the truth,” asserted the coroner.

“It is to be hoped so. He is not dull but he is mighty obstinate and is to all appearance very much afraid of his master.”

“I know the species; I can manage him.”

Mr. Gryce looked doubtful, but did not pursue the subject. On the contrary he remarked:

“I forgot to give you another point I have made. Molesworth says that after leaving the hotel he rode through the streets searching for his missing bride. Now, a person who searches, goes slowly, and when he finds what he seeks in the condition in which Miss Farley was found, he still goes slowly. But Dr. Molesworth’s horse had been driven far and fast as the state he was in when I drove him into the stable, amply showed.”

“A point? I should think so!”

“And that is not all. Seeing that the horse went a trifle lame, I examined his feet, and there, wedged between the hoof and the shoe of his right fore-foot I found a bit of gravel which I dare wager never came from the streets about Madison Square. As the horse was not lame enough for it to have been there long, I drew the inference that Miss Farley was searched for in other regions than those his story would lead you to surmise.”

“Very likely.”

“Dr. B—,” Mr. Gryce now remarked, “I want time.”

“Good!” was the reply, and how much?”

“Well, that I cannot tell. Maybe hours will answer and maybe I shall want days. There is all her past history to learn, and where she was on that short vacation to which the landlady alludes. If you want to get at the truth, postpone your inquest a little. I won’t let the matter drag.”

“I see; Gryce is awake, and all because of a look.”

“Less things than that have sent a man to the gallows before now. Intricate locks have small keys.”

And you hope to open this one?”

Mr. Gryce’s cuff-button flashed. It had received a glance which recalled the days when Mr. Gryce’s glance meant something.