The Affair Next Door (36 page)

"Your liberty and your good name will depend upon your innocence,"
retorted Mr. Gryce, and said no more, feeling himself at a disadvantage
before the imperturbability of this man and the silent, non-accusing
attitude of this woman, from the shock of whose passions he had
anticipated so much and obtained so little.

Meantime they were moving rapidly towards Police Headquarters, and
fearing that the sight of that place might alarm Miss Oliver more than
was well for her, he strove again to rouse her by a kindly word or so.
But it was useless. She evidently tried to pay attention and follow the
words he used, but her thoughts were too busy over the one great subject
that engrossed her.

"A bad case!" murmured Mr. Van Burnam, and with the phrase seemed to
dismiss all thought of her.

"A bad case!" echoed Mr. Gryce, "but," seeing how fast the look of
resolution was replacing her previous aspect of frenzy, "one that will
do mischief yet to the man who has deceived her."

The stopping of the carriage roused her. Looking up, she spoke for the
first time.

"I want a police officer," she said.

Mr. Gryce, with all his assurance restored, leaped to the ground and
held out his hand.

"I will take you into the presence of one," said he; and she, without a
glance at Mr. Van Burnam, whose knee she brushed in passing, leaped to
the ground, and turned her face towards Police Headquarters.

But before she was well in, her countenance changed.

"No," said she, "I want to think first. Give me time to think. I dare
not say a word without thinking."

"Truth needs no consideration. If you wish to denounce this man—"

Her look said she did.

"Then now is the time."

She gave him a sharp glance; the first she had bestowed upon him since
leaving Miss Althorpe's.

"You are no doctor," she declared. "Are you a police-officer?"

"I am a detective."

"Oh!" and she hesitated for a moment, shrinking from him with very
natural distrust and aversion. "I have been in the toils then without
knowing it; no wonder I am caught. But I am no criminal, sir; and if you
are the one most in authority here, I beg the privilege of a few words
with you before I am put into confinement."

"I will take you before the Superintendent," said Mr. Gryce. "But do you
wish to go alone? Shall not Mr. Van Burnam accompany you?"

"Mr. Van Burnam?"

"Is it not he you wish to denounce?"

"I do not wish to denounce any one to-day."

"What do you wish?" asked Mr. Gryce.

"Let me see the man who has power to hold me here or let me go, and I
will tell him."

"Very well," said Mr. Gryce, and led her into the presence of the
Superintendent.

She was at this moment quite a different person from what she had been
in the carriage. All that was girlish in her aspect or appealing in her
bearing had faded away, evidently forever, and left in its place
something at once so desperate and so deadly, that she seemed not only a
woman but one of a very determined and dangerous nature. Her manner,
however, was quiet, and it was only in her eye that one could see how
near she was to frenzy.

She spoke before the Superintendent could address her.

"Sir," said she, "I have been brought here on account of a fearful crime
I was unhappy enough to witness. I myself am innocent of that crime,
but, so far as I know, there is no other person living save the guilty
man who committed it, who can tell you how or why or by whom it was
done. One man has been arrested for it and another has not. If you will
give me two weeks of complete freedom, I will point out to you which is
the veritable man of blood, and may Heaven have mercy on his soul!"

"She is mad," signified the Superintendent in by-play to Mr. Gryce.

But the latter shook his head; she was not mad yet.

"I know," she continued, without a hint of the timidity which seemed
natural to her under other circumstances, "that this must seem a
presumptuous request from one like me, but it is only by granting it
that you will ever be able to lay your hand on the murderer of Mrs. Van
Burnam. For I will never speak if I cannot speak in my own way and at my
own time. The agonies I have suffered must have some compensation.
Otherwise I should die of horror and my grief."

"And how do you hope to gain compensation by this delay?" expostulated
the Superintendent. "Would you not meet with more satisfaction in
denouncing him here and now before he can pass another night in fancied
security?"

But she only repeated: "I have said two weeks, and two weeks I must
have. Two weeks in which to come and go as I please. Two weeks!" And no
argument they could advance succeeded in eliciting from her any other
response or in altering in any way her air of quiet determination with
its underlying suggestion of frenzy.

Acknowledging their mutual defeat by a look, the Superintendent and
detective drew off to one side, and something like the following
conversation took place between them.

"You think she's sane?"

"I do."

"And will remain so two weeks?"

"If humored."

"You are sure she is implicated in this crime?"

"She was a witness to it."

"And that she speaks the truth when she declares that she is the only
person who can point out the criminal?"

"Yes; that is, she is the only one who will do it. The attitude taken by
the Van Burnams, especially by Howard just now in the presence of this
girl, shows how little we have to expect from them."

"Yet you think they know as much as she does about it?"

"I do not know what to think. For once I am baffled, Superintendent.
Every passion which this woman possesses was roused by her unexpected
meeting with Howard Van Burnam, and yet their indifference when
confronted, as well as her present action, seems to argue a lack of
connection between them which overthrows at once the theory of his
guilt. Was it the sight of Franklin, then, which really affected her?
and was her apparent indifference at meeting him only an evidence of her
self-control? It seems an impossible conclusion to draw, and indeed
there are nothing but hitches and improbable features in this case.
Nothing fits; nothing jibes. I get just so far in it and then I run up
against a wall. Either there is a superhuman power of duplicity in the
persons who contrived this murder or we are on the wrong tack
altogether."

"In other words, you have tried every means known to you to get at the
truth of this matter, and failed."

"I have, sir; sorry as I may be to acknowledge it."

"Then we must accept her terms. She can be shadowed?"

"Every moment."

"Very well, then. Extreme cases must be met by extreme measures. We will
let her have her swing, and see what comes of it. Revenge is a great
weapon in the hands of a determined woman, and from her look I think she
will make the most of it."

And returning to where the young girl stood, the Superintendent asked
her whether she felt sure the murderer would not escape in the time that
must elapse before his apprehension.

Instantly her cheek, which had looked as if it could never show color
again, flushed a deep and painful scarlet, and she cried vehemently:

"If any hint of what is here passing should reach him I should be
powerless to prevent his flight. Swear, then, that my very existence
shall be kept a secret between you two, or I will do nothing towards his
apprehension,—no, not even to save the innocent."

"We will not swear, but we will promise," returned the Superintendent.
"And now, when may we expect to hear from you again?"

"Two weeks from to-night as the clock strikes eight. Be wherever I may
chance to be at that hour, and see on whose arm I lay my hand. It will
be that of the man who killed Mrs. Van Burnam."

The events just related did not come to my knowledge for some days after
they occurred, but I have recorded them at this time that I might in
some way prepare you for an interview which shortly after took place
between myself and Mr. Gryce.

I had not seen him since our rather unsatisfactory parting in front of
Miss Althorpe's house, and the suspense which I had endured in the
interim made my greeting unnecessarily warm. But he took it all very
naturally.

"You are glad to see me," said he; "been wondering what has become of
Miss Oliver. Well, she is in good hands; with Mrs. Desberger, in short;
a woman whom I believe you know."

"With Mrs. Desberger?" I
was
surprised. "Why, I have been looking
every day in the papers for an account of her arrest."

"No doubt," he answered. "But we police are slow; we are not ready to
arrest her yet. Meanwhile you can do us a favor. She wants to see you;
are you willing to visit her?"

My answer contained but little of the curiosity and eagerness I really
felt.

"I am always at your command. Do you wish me to go now?"

"Miss Oliver is impatient," he admitted. "Her fever is better, but she
is in an excited condition of mind which makes her a little
unreasonable. To be plain, she is not quite herself, and while we still
hope something from her testimony, we are leaving her very much to her
own devices, and do not cross her in anything. You will therefore listen
to what she says, and, if possible, aid her in anything she may
undertake, unless it points directly towards self-destruction. My
opinion is that she will surprise you. But you are becoming accustomed
to surprises, are you not?"

"Thanks to you, I am."

"Very well, then, I have but one more suggestion to make. You are
working for the police now, madam, and nothing that you see or learn in
connection with this girl is to be kept back from us. Am I understood?"

"Perfectly; but it is only proper for me to retort that I am not
entirely pleased with the part you assign me. Could you not have left
thus much to my good sense, and not put it into so many words?"

"Ah, madam, the case at present is too serious for risks of that kind.
Mr. Van Burnam's reputation, to say nothing of his life, depends upon
our knowledge of this girl's secret; surely you can stretch a point in a
matter of so much moment?"

"I have already stretched several, and I can stretch one more, but I
hope the girl won't look at me too often with those miserable appealing
eyes of hers; they make me feel like a traitor."

"You will not be troubled by any appeal in them. The appeal has
vanished; something harder and even more difficult to meet is to be
found in them now: wrath, purpose, and a desire for vengeance. She is
not the same woman, I assure you."

"Well," I sighed, "I am sorry; there is something about the girl that
lays hold of me, and I hate to see such a change in her. Did she ask for
me by name?"

"I believe so."

"I cannot understand her wanting me, but I will go; and I won't leave
her either till she shows me she is tired of me. I am as anxious to see
the end of this matter as you are." Then, with some vague idea that I
had earned a right to some show of confidence on his part, I added
insinuatingly: "I supposed you would feel the case settled when she
almost fainted at the sight of the younger Mr. Van Burnam."

The old ambiguous smile I remembered so well came to modify his brusque
rejoinder.

"If she had been a woman like you, I should; but she is a deep one, Miss
Butterworth; too deep for the success of a little ruse like mine. Are
you ready?"

I was not, but it did not take me long to be so, and before an hour had
elapsed I was seated in Mrs. Desberger's parlor in Ninth Street. Miss
Oliver was in, and ere long made her appearance. She was dressed in
street costume.

I was prepared for a change in her, and yet the shock I felt when I
first saw her face must have been apparent, for she immediately
remarked:

"You find me quite well, Miss Butterworth. For this I am partially
indebted to you. You were very good to nurse me so carefully. Will you
be still kinder, and help me in a new matter which I feel quite
incompetent to undertake alone?"

Her face was flushed, her manner nervous, but her eyes had an
extraordinary look in them which affected me most painfully,
notwithstanding the additional effect it gave to her beauty.

"Certainly," said I. "What can I do for you?"

"I wish to buy me a dress," was her unexpected reply. "A handsome dress.
Do you object to showing me the best shops? I am a stranger in New
York."

More astonished than I can express, but carefully concealing it in
remembrance of the caution received from Mr. Gryce, I replied that I
would be only too happy to accompany her on such an errand. Upon which
she lost her nervousness and prepared at once to go out with me.

"I would have asked Mrs. Desberger," she observed while fitting on her
gloves, "but her taste"—here she cast a significant look about the
room—"is not quiet enough for me."

"I should think not!" I cried.

"I shall be a trouble to you," the girl went on, with a gleam in her eye
that spoke of the restless spirit within. "I have many things to buy,
and they must all be rich and handsome."

"If you have money enough, there will be no trouble about that."

"Oh, I have money." She spoke like a millionaire's daughter. "Shall we
go to Arnold's?"

As I always traded at Arnold's, I readily acquiesced, and we left the
house. But not before she had tied a very thick veil over her face.

"If we meet any one, do not introduce me," she begged. "I cannot talk to
people."

"You may rest easy," I assured her.

At the corner she stopped. "Is there any way of getting a carriage?" she
asked.

"Do you want one?"

"Yes."

I signalled a hack.