The Affair Next Door (35 page)

"Miss Althorpe has been so good to me I should like to thank her; from
my despairing heart, I should like to thank her," she said to me as I
stood by her side before leaving. "Do you know"—she went on, catching
me by the dress as I was turning away—"what kind of a man she is going
to marry? She has such a loving heart, and marriage is such a fearful
risk."

"Fearful?" I repeated.

"Is it not fearful? To give one's whole soul to a man and be met by—I
must not talk of it; I must not think of it—But is he a good man? Does
he love Miss Althorpe? Will she be happy? I have no right to ask,
perhaps, but my gratitude towards her is such that I wish her every joy
and pleasure."

"Miss Althorpe has chosen well," I rejoined. "Mr. Stone is a man in ten
thousand."

The sigh that answered me went to my heart.

"I will pray for her," she murmured; "that will be something to live
for."

I did not know what reply to make to this. Everything which this girl
said and did was so unexpected and so convincing in its sincerity, I
felt moved by her even against my better judgment. I pitied her and yet
I dared not urge her on to speak, lest I should fail in my task of
making her well. I therefore confined myself to a few haphazard
expressions of sympathy and encouragement, and left her in the hands of
the nurse.

Next day Mr. Gryce called.

"Your patient is better," said he.

"Much better," was my cheerful reply. "This afternoon she will be able
to leave the house."

"Very good; have her down at half-past three and I will be in front with
a carriage."

"I dread it," I cried; "but I will have her there."

"You are beginning to like her, Miss Butterworth. Take care! You will
lose your head if your sympathies become engaged."

"It sits pretty firmly on my shoulders yet," I retorted; "and as for
sympathies, you are full of them yourself. I saw how you looked at her
yesterday."

"Bah,
my
looks!"

"You cannot deceive me, Mr. Gryce; you are as sorry for the girl as you
can be; and so am I too. By the way, I do not think I should speak of
her as a girl. From something she said yesterday I am convinced she is a
married woman; and that her husband—"

"Well, madam?"

"I will not give him a name, at least not before your scheme has been
carried out. Are you ready for the undertaking?"

"I will be this afternoon. At half-past three she is to leave the house.
Not a minute before and not a minute later. Remember."

It was a new thing for me to enter into any scheme blindfold. But the
past few weeks had taught me many lessons and among them to trust a
little in the judgment of others.

Accordingly I was on hand with my patient at the hour designated, and,
as I supported her trembling steps down the stairs, I endeavored not to
betray the intense interest agitating me, or to awaken by my curiosity
any further dread in her mind than that involved by her departure from
this home of bounty and good feeling, and her entrance upon an unknown
and possibly much to be apprehended future.

Mr. Gryce was awaiting us in the lower hall, and as he caught sight of
her slender figure and anxious face his whole attitude became at once so
protecting and so sympathetic, I did not wonder at her failure to
associate him with the police.

As she stepped down to his side he gave her a genial nod.

"I am glad to see you so far on the road to recovery," he remarked. "It
shows me that my prophecy is correct and that in a few days you will be
quite yourself again."

She looked at him wistfully.

"You seem to know so much about me, doctor, perhaps you can tell me
where they are going to take me."

He lifted a tassel from a curtain near by, looked at it, shook his head
at it, and inquired quite irrelevantly:

"Have you bidden good-bye to Miss Althorpe?"

Her eyes stole towards the parlors and she whispered as if half in awe
of the splendor everywhere surrounding her:

"I have not had the opportunity. But I should be sorry to go without a
word of thanks for her goodness. Is she at home?"

The tassel slipped from his hand.

"You will find her in a carriage at the door. She has an engagement out
this afternoon, but wishes to say good-bye to you before leaving."

"Oh, how kind she is!" burst from the girl's white lips; and with a
hurried gesture she was making for the door when Mr. Gryce stepped
before her and opened it.

Two carriages were drawn up in front, neither of which seemed to possess
the elegance of so rich a woman's equipage. But Mr. Gryce appeared
satisfied, and pointing to the nearest one, observed quietly:

"You are expected. If she does not open the carriage door for you, do
not hesitate to do it yourself. She has something of importance to say
to you."

Miss Oliver looked surprised, but prepared to obey him. Steadying
herself by the stone balustrade, she slowly descended the steps and
advanced towards the carriage. I watched her from the doorway and Mr.
Gryce from the vestibule. It seemed an ordinary situation, but
something in the latter's face convinced me that interests of no small
moment depended upon the interview about to take place.

But before I could decide upon their nature or satisfy myself as to the
full meaning of Mr. Gryce's manner, she had started back from the
carriage door and was saying to him in a tone of modest embarrassment:

"There is a gentleman in the carriage; you must have made some mistake."

Mr. Gryce, who had evidently expected a different result from his
stratagem, hesitated for a moment, during which I felt that he read her
through and through; then he responded lightly:

"I made a mistake, eh? Oh, possibly. Look in the other carriage, my
child."

With an unaffected air of confidence she turned to do so, and I turned
to watch her, for I began to understand the "scheme" at which I was
assisting, and foresaw that the emotion she had failed to betray at the
door of the first carriage might not necessarily be lacking on the
opening of the second.

I was all the more assured of this from the fact that Miss Althorpe's
stately figure was very plainly to be seen at that moment, not in the
coach Miss Oliver was approaching, but in an elegant victoria just
turning the corner.

My expectations were realized; for no sooner had the poor girl swung
open the door of the second hack, than her whole body succumbed to a
shock so great that I expected to see her fall in a heap on the
pavement. But she steadied herself up with a determined effort, and with
a sudden movement full of subdued fury, jumped into the carriage and
violently shut the door just as the first carriage drove off to give
place to Miss Althorpe's turn-out.

"Humph!" sprang from Mr. Gryce's lips in a tone so full of varied
emotions that it was with difficulty I refrained from rushing down the
stoop to see for myself who was the occupant of the coach into which my
late patient had so passionately precipitated herself. But the sight of
Miss Althorpe being helped to the ground by her attendant lover,
recalled me so suddenly to my own anomalous position on her stoop, that
I let my first impulse pass and concerned myself instead with the
formation of those apologies I thought necessary to the occasion. But
those apologies were never uttered. Mr. Gryce, with the infinite tact he
displays in all serious emergencies, came to my rescue, and so
distracted Miss Althorpe's attention that she failed to observe that she
had interrupted a situation of no small moment.

Meanwhile the coach containing Miss Oliver had, at a signal from the
wary detective, drawn off in the wake of the first one, and I had the
doubtful satisfaction of seeing them both roll down the street without
my having penetrated the secret of either.

A glance from Mr. Stone, who had followed Miss Althorpe up the stoop,
interrupted Mr. Gryce's flow of eloquence, and a few minutes later I
found myself making those adieux which I had hoped to avoid by departing
in Miss Althorpe's absence. Another instant and I was hastening down the
street in the direction taken by the two carriages, one of which had
paused at the corner a few rods off.

But, spry as I am for one of my settled habits and sedate character, I
found myself passed by Mr. Gryce; and when I would have accelerated my
steps, he darted forward quite like a boy and, without a word of
explanation or any acknowledgment of the mutual understanding which
certainly existed between us, leaped into the carriage I was endeavoring
to reach, and was driven away. But not before I caught a glimpse of Miss
Oliver's gray dress inside.

Determined not to be baffled by this man, I turned about and followed
the other carriage. It was approaching a crowded part of the avenue, and
in a few minutes I had the gratification of seeing it come to a
standstill only a few feet from the curb-stone. The opportunity thus
afforded me of satisfying my curiosity was not to be slighted. Without
pausing to consider consequences or to question the propriety of my
conduct, I stepped boldly up in front of its half-lowered window and
looked in. There was but one person inside, and that person was Franklin
Van Burnam.

What was I to conclude from this? That the occupant of the other
carriage was Howard, and that Mr. Gryce now knew with which of the two
brothers Miss Oliver's memories were associated.

I was as much surprised at this result of Mr. Gryce's scheme as he was,
and possibly I was more chagrined. But I shall not enter into my
feelings on the subject, or weary you any further with my conjectures.
You will be much more interested, I know, in learning what occurred to
Mr. Gryce upon entering the carriage holding Miss Oliver.

He had expected, from the intense emotion she displayed at the sight of
Howard Van Burnam (for I was not mistaken as to the identity of the
person occupying the carriage with her), to find her flushed with the
passions incident upon this meeting, and her companion in a condition of
mind which would make it no longer possible for him to deny his
connection with this woman and his consequently guilty complicity in a
murder to which both were linked by so many incriminating circumstances.

But for all his experience, the detective was disappointed in this
expectation, as he had been in so many others connected with this case.
There was nothing in Miss Oliver's attitude to indicate that she had
unburdened herself of any of the emotions with which she was so
grievously agitated, nor was there on Mr. Van Burnam's part any deeper
manifestation of feeling than a slight glow on his cheek, and even that
disappeared under the detective's scrutiny, leaving him as composed and
imperturbable as he had been in his memorable inquisition before the
Coroner.

Disappointed, and yet in a measure exhilarated by this sudden check in
plans he had thought too well laid for failure, Mr. Gryce surveyed the
young girl more carefully, and saw that he had not been mistaken in
regard to the force or extent of the feelings which had driven her into
Mr. Van Burnam's presence; and turning back to that gentleman, was about
to give utterance to some very pertinent remarks, when he was
forestalled by Mr. Van Burnam inquiring, in his old calm way, which
nothing seemed able to disturb:

"Who is this crazy girl you have forced upon me? If I had known I was to
be subjected to such companionship I should not have regarded my outing
so favorably."

Mr. Gryce, who never allowed himself to be surprised by anything a
suspected criminal might do or say, surveyed him quietly for a moment,
then turned towards Miss Oliver.

"You hear what this gentleman calls you?" said he.

Her face was hidden by her hands, but she dropped them as the detective
addressed her, showing a countenance so distorted by passion that it
stopped the current of his thoughts, and made him question whether the
epithet bestowed upon her by their somewhat callous companion was
entirely unjustified. But soon the something else which was in her face
restored his confidence in her sanity, and he saw that while her reason
might be shaken it was not yet dethroned, and that he had good cause to
expect sooner or later some action from a woman whose misery could wear
an aspect of such desperate resolution.

That he was not the only one affected by the force and desperate
character of her glance became presently apparent, for Mr. Van Burnam,
with a more kindly tone than he had previously used, observed quietly:

"I see the lady is suffering. I beg pardon for my inconsiderate words. I
have no wish to insult the unhappy."

Never was Mr. Gryce so nonplussed. There was a mingled courtesy and
composure in the speaker's manner which was as far removed as possible
from that strained effort at self-possession which marks suppressed
passion or secret fear; while in the vacant look with which she met
these words there was neither anger nor scorn nor indeed any of the
passions one would expect to see there. The detective consequently did
not force the situation, but only watched her more and more attentively
till her eyes fell and she crouched away from them both. Then he said:

"You can name this gentleman, can you not, Miss Oliver, even if he does
not choose to recognize
you
?"

But her answer, if she made one, was inaudible, and the sole result
which Mr. Gryce obtained from this venture was a quick look from Mr. Van
Burnam and the following uncompromising words from his lips:

"If you think this young girl knows me, or that I know her, you are
greatly mistaken. She is as much of a stranger to me as I am to her,
and I take this opportunity of saying so. I hope my liberty and good
name are not to be made dependent upon the word of a miserable waif like
this."