The Affair Next Door (5 page)

"Wait, with a yelling crowd screaming murder in my ear, and Isabella on
one side of me calling for salts, and Caroline on the opposite seat
getting that blue look about the mouth we have learned to dread so in a
hot day like this? No, sir, when there is anything wrong going on I want
to know it, and evidently there is something wrong going on here. What
is it? Some of Howard's—"

But the son, seizing me by the hand and drawing me forward, put a quick
stop to the old gentleman's sentence. "Miss Butterworth, father! Our
next-door neighbor, you know."

"Ah! hum! ha! Miss Butterworth. How do you do, ma'am? What the — is
she doing here?" he grumbled, not so low but that I heard both the
profanity and the none too complimentary allusion to myself.

"If you will come into the parlor, I will tell you," urged the son. "But
what have you done with Isabella and Caroline? Left them in the carriage
with that hooting mob about them?"

"I told the coachman to drive on. They are probably half-way around the
block by this time."

"Then come in here. But don't allow yourself to be too much affected by
what you will see. A sad accident has occurred here, and you must expect
the sight of blood."

"Blood! Oh, I can stand that, if Howard—"

The rest was lost in the sound of the closing door.

And now, you will say, I ought to have gone. And you are right, but
would you have gone yourself, especially as the hall was full of people
who did not belong there?

If you would, then condemn me for lingering just a few minutes longer.

The voices in the parlor were loud, but they presently subsided; and
when the owner of the house came out again, he had a subdued look which
was as great a contrast to his angry aspect on entering, as was the
change I had observed in his son. He was so absorbed indeed that he did
not notice me, though I stood directly in his way.

"Don't let Howard come," he was saying in a thick, low voice to his son.
"Keep Howard away till we are sure—"

I am confident that his son pressed his arm at this point, for he
stopped short and looked about him in a blind and dazed way.

"Oh!" he ejaculated, in a tone of great displeasure. "This is the woman
who saw—"

"Miss Butterworth, father," the anxious voice of his son broke in.
"Don't try to talk; such a sight is enough to unnerve any man."

"Yes, yes," blustered the old gentleman, evidently taking some hint from
the other's tone or manner. "But where are the girls? They will be dead
with terror, if we don't relieve their minds. They got the idea it was
their brother Howard who was hurt; and so did I, but it's only some
wandering waif—some—"

It seemed as if he was not to be allowed to finish any of his sentences,
for Franklin interrupted him at this point to ask him what he was going
to do with the girls. Certainly he could not bring them in here.

"No," answered the father, but in the dreamy, inconsequential way of
one whose thoughts were elsewhere. "I suppose I shall have to take them
to some hotel."

Ah, an idea! I flushed as I realized the opportunity which had come to
me and had to wait a moment not to speak with too much eagerness.

"Let me play the part of a neighbor," I prayed, "and accommodate the
young ladies for the night. My house is near and quiet."

"But the trouble it will involve," protested Mr. Franklin.

"Is just what I need to allay my excitement," I responded. "I shall be
glad to offer them rooms for the night. If they are equally glad to
accept them—"

"They must be!" the old gentleman declared. "I can't go running round
with them hunting up rooms to-night. Miss Butterworth is very good; go
find the girls, Franklin; let me have them off my mind, at least."

The young man bowed. I bowed, and was slipping at last from my place by
the stairs when, for the third time, I felt my dress twitched.

"Are you going to keep to that story?" a voice whispered in my ear.
"About the young man and woman coming in the night, you know."

"Keep to it!" I whispered back, recognizing the scrub-woman, who had
sidled up to me from some unknown quarter in the semi-darkness. "Why,
it's true. Why shouldn't I keep to it."

A chuckle, difficult to describe but full of meaning, shook the arm of
the woman as she pressed close to my side.

"Oh, you are a good one," she said. "I didn't know they made 'em so
good!" And with another chuckle full of satisfaction and an odd sort of
admiration I had certainly not earned, she slid away again into the
darkness.

Certainly there was something in this woman's attitude towards this
affair which merited attention.

I welcomed the Misses Van Burnam with just enough good-will to show that
I had not been influenced by any unworthy motives in asking them to my
house.

I gave them my guest-chamber, but I invited them to sit in my front room
as long as there was anything interesting going on in the street. I knew
they would like to look out, and as this chamber boasts of a bay with
two windows, we could all be accommodated. From where I sat I could now
and then hear what they said, and I considered this but just, for if the
young woman who had suffered so untimely an end was in any way connected
with them, it was certainly best that the fact should not lie concealed;
and one of them, that is Isabella, is such a chatterbox.

Mr. Van Burnam and his son had returned next door, and so far as we
could observe from our vantage-point, preparations were being made for
the body's removal. As the crowd below, driven away by the policemen one
minute, only to collect again in another, swayed and grumbled in a
continual expectation that was as continually disappointed, I heard
Caroline's voice rise in two or three short sentences.

"They can't find Howard, or he would have been here before now. Did you
see her that time when we were coming out of Clark's? Fanny Preston did,
and said she was pretty."

"No, I didn't get a glimpse—" A shout from the street below.

"I can't believe it," were the next words I heard, "but Franklin is
awfully afraid—"

"Hush! or the ogress—" I am sure I heard her say ogress; but what
followed was drowned in another loud murmur, and I caught nothing
further till these sentences were uttered by the trembling and
over-excited Caroline: "If it is she, pa will never be the same man
again. To have her die in our house! O, there's Howard now!"

The interruption came quick and sharp, and it was followed by a double
cry and an anxious rustle, as the two girls sprang to their feet in
their anxiety to attract their brother's attention or possibly to convey
him some warning.

But I did not give much heed to them. My eyes were on the carriage in
which Howard had arrived, and which, owing to the ambulance in front,
had stopped on the other side of the way. I was anxious to see him
descend that I might judge if his figure recalled that of the man I had
seen cross the pavement the night before. But he did not descend. Just
as his hand was on the carriage door, a half dozen men appeared on the
adjoining stoop carrying a burden which they hastened to deposit in the
ambulance. He sank back when he saw it, and when his face became visible
again, it was so white it seemed to be the only face in the street,
though fifty people stood about staring at the house, at the ambulance,
and at him.

Franklin Van Burnam had evidently come to the door with the rest; for
Howard no sooner showed his face the second time than we saw the former
dash down the steps and try to part the crowd in a vain attempt to reach
his brother's side. Mr. Gryce was more successful. He had no difficulty
in winning his way across the street, and presently I perceived him
standing near the carriage exchanging a few words with its occupant. A
moment later he drew back, and addressing the driver, jumped into the
carriage with Howard, and was speedily driven off. The ambulance
followed and some of the crowd, and as soon as a hack could be obtained,
Mr. Van Burnam and his son took the same road, leaving us three women in
a state of suspense, which as far as one of us was concerned, ended in a
nervous attack that was not unlike heart failure. I allude, of course,
to Caroline, and it took Isabella and myself a good half hour to bring
her back to a normal condition, and when this was done, Isabella thought
it incumbent upon her to go off into hysterics, which, being but a weak
simulation of the other's state, I met with severity and cured with a
frown. When both were in trim again I allowed myself one remark.

"One would think," said I, "that you knew the young woman who has fallen
victim to her folly next door."

At which Isabella violently shook her head and Caroline observed:

"It is the excitement which has been too much for me. I am never strong,
and this is such a dreadful home-welcoming. When will father and
Franklin come back? It was very unkind of them to go off without one
word of encouragement."

"They probably did not consider the fate of this unknown woman a matter
of any importance to you."

The Van Burnam girls were unlike in appearance and character, but they
showed an equal embarrassment at this, casting down their eyes and
behaving so strangely that I was driven to wonder, without any show of
hysterics I am happy to say, what would be the upshot of this matter,
and how far I would become involved in it before the truth came to
light.

At dinner they displayed what I should call their best society manner.
Seeing this, I assumed my society manner also. It is formed on a
different pattern from theirs, but is fully as impressive, I judge.

A most formal meal was the result. My best china was in use, but I had
added nothing to my usual course of viands. Indeed, I had abstracted
something. An
entrée
, upon which my cook prides herself, was omitted.
Was I going to allow these proud young misses to think I had exerted
myself to please them? No; rather would I have them consider me
niggardly and an enemy to good living; so the
entrée
was, as the
French say, suppressed.

In the evening their father came in. He was looking very dejected, and
half his bluster was gone. He held a telegram crushed in his hand, and
he talked very rapidly. But he confided none of his secrets to me, and I
was obliged to say good-night to these young ladies without knowing much
more about the matter engrossing us than when I left their house in the
afternoon.

But others were not as ignorant as myself. A dramatic and highly
exciting scene had taken place that evening at the undertaker's to which
the unknown's body had been removed, and as I have more than once heard
it minutely described, I will endeavor to transcribe it here with all
the impartiality of an outsider.

When Mr. Gryce entered the carriage in which Howard sat, he noted first,
that the young man was frightened; and secondly, that he made no effort
to hide it. He had heard almost nothing from the detective. He knew that
there had been a hue and cry for him ever since noon, and that he was
wanted to identify a young woman who had been found dead in his father's
house, but beyond these facts he had been told little, and yet he seemed
to have no curiosity nor did he venture to express any surprise. He
merely accepted the situation and was troubled by it, showing no
inclination to talk till very near the end of his destination, when he
suddenly pulled himself together and ventured this question:

"How did she—the young woman as you call her—kill herself?"

The detective, who in his long career among criminals and suspected
persons, had seen many men and encountered many conditions, roused at
this query with much of his old spirit. Turning from the man rather than
toward him, he allowed himself a slight shrug of the shoulders as he
calmly replied:

"She was found under a heavy piece of furniture; the cabinet with the
vases on it, which you must remember stood at the left of the
mantel-piece. It had crushed her head and breast. Quite a remarkable
means of death, don't you think? There has been but one occurrence like
it in my long experience."

"I don't believe what you tell me," was the young man's astonishing
reply. "You are trying to frighten me or to make game of me. No lady
would make use of any such means of death as that."

"I did not say she was a lady," returned Mr. Gryce, scoring one in his
mind against his unwary companion.

A quiver passed down the young man's side where he came in contact with
the detective.

"No," he muttered; "but I gathered from what you said, she was no common
person; or why," he flashed out in sudden heat, "do you require me to go
with you to see her? Have I the name of associating with any persons of
the sex who are not ladies?"

"Pardon me," said Mr. Gryce, in grim delight at the prospect he saw
slowly unfolding before him of one of those complicated affairs in which
minds like his unconsciously revel; "I meant no insinuations. We have
requested you, as we have requested your father and brother, to
accompany us to the undertaker's, because the identification of the
corpse is a most important point, and every formality likely to insure
it must be observed."

"And did not they—my father and brother, I mean—recognize her?"

"It would be difficult for any one to recognize her who was not well
acquainted with her."

A horrified look crossed the features of Howard Van Burnam, which, if a
part of his acting, showed him to have genius for his
rôle
. His head
sank back on the cushions of the carriage, and for a moment he closed
his eyes. When he opened them again, the carriage had stopped, and Mr.
Gryce, who had not noticed his emotion, of course, was looking out of
the window with his hand on the handle of the door.