Читать книгу The Casual Murderer and other stories - Footner Hulbert - Страница 4

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Our offices face Gramercy Park, that delightful and still aristocratic little back-water of the town. We are on the second floor of a magnificent old residence which has been sub-divided. My room, the outer office, was I suppose, originally a library or music-room. Through it you enter Mme. Storey’s own room, which was the drawing-room. We have a third room to the rear of that, which we call the middle room, and which Mme. Storey uses as a dressing-room, or for any miscellaneous purposes that may be required.

Swanley had accompanied me, but it was clear he had no great hopes of Mme. Storey. Having told me his story, he had relapsed into himself. While we waited for my mistress, he sat in my room stony with despair.

The door from the hall opened, and Mme. Storey came in. Swanley looked at her in astonishment, and involuntarily rose to his feet. Have I mentioned that he was very tall and well-proportioned? His expression of amazement was almost comical. What he had expected to see I don’t know; some beetle-browed, bespectacled old wise-woman, I suppose. Certainly not this glorious apparition of loveliness. She was wearing a little red hat, I remember—she is the one woman in a thousand who is pretty enough to wear a red hat; and a coat of chipmunk fur with its delicate black stripes; great fluffy collar and cuffs of fox. She had walked down, for her cheeks were as red as her hat, her dark eyes sparkling, and her lips parted to reveal gleaming teeth.

She gave Swanley a comprehensive glance, and I began to be assured that I had made no mistake in bringing him to her. With her insight she must see at once that he was neither a trifler nor a fool. She bowed to him slightly, smiled at me, and went into her room. Swanley stood looking after her with his mouth open.

“But why ... why didn’t you tell me ...?” he stammered.

“I did tell you she was unique,” I said, and went after Mme. Storey.

“Who is he, Bella?” she asked.

“I picked him up in Union Square,” I said breathlessly. “He’s in trouble. Oh, I know you have a hundred important things to do this morning; but give him ten minutes. Let him talk for himself. He’s terribly eloquent.”

“Bring him in,” she said.

There is a whole row of casement windows along the front of Mme. Storey’s room. (For the house has been modernised). She sits with her back to them, at an immense and beautiful Italian table, black with age. The long room stretches before her into the shadows; and all her beautiful things are revealed to her in the horizontal light from the windows at her back. Priceless things, yet the effect of the room on the whole is simple, because there is not too much in it.

Swanley sat partly to the right of her desk facing her, and I at my little desk over in the corner. He repeated his story as I have already given it to you.

When he came to the end Mme. Storey said at once: “Well, I agree with you, there can be no question of a vulgar love affair here.”

The young man betrayed his first sign of weakness. He hung his head; his face broke up. “Oh, Madame! Oh, Madame!” he murmured brokenly. “Thank you! ... I hardly expected ... Nobody else ...” He was unable to go on.

Mme. Storey made haste to help him over the difficult place. “Oh, people don’t change their natures over night,” she said briskly. “You have described Miss Elder so that I see her quite clearly.... Now, let’s see what we have to start on. The letter. We may assume that there was a letter. Nothing discreditable in that. But Miss Elder was hardly the person to have responded to a summons out of the blue, so to speak. There must have been something in her life to prepare her to receive such a letter, or she wouldn’t have gone.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?” groaned the poor young fellow.

“I don’t know,” said Mme. Storey. “The psychology text-books attempt to classify human motives, but there are mixed motives that defy classification. We’ll find out before we’re through.... What was there in her life ...”

“Nothing! Nothing!” he cried. “I have told you all.”

“That can hardly be true,” said Mme. Storey. “Let’s go into it. Take her parents, for instance; you said they were both dead. How long?”

“The mother, only two years,” he said. “I knew her. I was strongly attached to her. She was the librarian at Ancaster and I went there as assistant. When she died they promoted me to be librarian, and gave me Aline as assistant.”

“What sort of woman was Mrs. Elder?”

“She had a noble nature, Madame. She was universally respected and loved. Her people have been known in Ancaster since the village was settled.”

“And the father?”

“He did not belong to Ancaster. He died when Aline was a baby. I know very little about him, but I know all that Aline knew. Aline told me that the mention of her father’s name was the only thing that could make her mother’s face harden. Once when Aline was a child, she put it up to her mother frankly: ‘Tell me about my father.’ All her mother would say was that he had treated them both very badly, and the best thing they could do was to put him out of their minds.”

“He was not buried in Ancaster,” said Mme. Storey. “You would have known, I suppose, if his grave was there.”

“It was not there, Madame. He died in Chicago, where the Elders lived during their brief married life. Aline was born in Chicago. After her husband died, Mrs. Elder returned to her native village with the baby.”

“Ha!” said Mme. Storey. “I suspect that Elder did not die at all.”

The young man’s eyes opened wide. “What reason have you to suppose that?” he asked.

“A woman like Mrs. Elder does not cherish rancour beyond the grave,” said Mme. Storey. “Particularly not in speaking to a child. It was likely the knowledge that he was alive and misbehaving himself that kept her bitter. Why the very form of the words she used—if you have correctly repeated them, ‘put him out of our minds’ suggests that he was still a person to be reckoned with.”

“Why, of course!” said Swanley.

“Did Aline share her mother’s feelings towards the father?” asked Mme. Storey.

“Not exactly, Madame. Much as she loved her mother, the mere fact that everything had been kept from her, inclined Aline to think that her mother might have been a little unjust.”

“Naturally. Well, there we have the beginning of a clue already.”

“You think that letter was from Aline’s father!” he said excitedly.

“Oh, not so fast!” said Mme. Storey. “I said a beginning.”

“Wait!” cried Swanley. “Here is something. Aline had a little photograph of her father. After her mother’s death she had it framed, and hung it on the wall of her room. I visited her room on Friday; to see if there was any clue. The picture was gone; my attention was called to it by the faded spot on the wallpaper.”

“Well, let us say that her visit to New York had something to do with her father. That’s that.... Now, the fact that she never turned up at her hotel, and has never sent you a line suggests that she has met with an accident of some sort.”

The young man turned pale.

“Do not lose heart!” said Mme. Storey. “All accidents are not fatal.... One feels somehow, that she has an enemy.”

“How could she?”

“That is for us to find out. Suppose there is somebody who wishes her ill; who was plotting against her; that person would be likely to spy on her first. Now, Ancaster is a small place; any stranger whose business could not be accounted for would be conspicuous there. Has there been any such person there lately?”

The young man looked blank, and at first he slowly shook his head. Then a recollection arrested him. “There has been somebody,” he said, “just lately, too, but no one would ever suppose ...”

“What are the particulars?” asked Mme. Storey.

“This man turned up late Monday night. Touring in a big car; handsome imported car.”

“Alone?” asked Mme. Storey.

“Well, he had his chauffeur. He put up at the local hotel, and stayed on. Said he was attracted by the beauty of the village.”

“In November!” remarked Mme. Storey.

“Well, nobody thought anything about that. An agreeable sort of man; willing to talk to anybody.”

“What name did he give?”

“I never heard. He was always referred to as the rich man, or the city man.”

“What did he look like?”

“Quite the fine gentleman; elegant clothes. A man nearing fifty—well-preserved. Striking-looking face; high cheek bones; prominent nose; jetty black eyes. You’d remember him by his nose.” Swanley made a mark in the air over his own straight nose. “What do you call that shaped nose?”

“Aquiline?” suggested Mme. Storey.

“Yes; or Roman. He had a Roman nose.”

“It did not occur to you that there might be some connection between this man’s coming, and Aline’s going?”

“Why, no; how could there be? He came late Monday night. Aline left Wednesday. But he stayed on. In fact, he was on the train with me on Saturday.”

“Ha!” said Mme. Storey. “And did it not seem strange to you, that he should leave the luxurious car and undertake a tedious railway journey?”

“I was not thinking about him,” said Swanley painfully. “What about it?”

“Well, he might, for instance, have been following you. You were Aline’s natural protector. You started off to look for her.”

Swanley stared at her in amazement.

Mme. Storey half turned in her chair, and thoughtfully looked out of the window. “An elegant gentleman of near fifty,” she murmured; “high cheek bones; jetty black eyes; Roman nose.... Keep back from the window, but look across the street. Is that, by any chance, he who is now passing in front of the Park railings?”

“Good God! yes!” gasped Swanley.

“He has passed by twice since you have been here,” said Mme. Storey quietly.