The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (20 page)

The lady who presently came in to receive him was one who called him instinctively to his feet in respect and admiration. She was an American and of the best type, a woman who, if she told a lie, would not tell it for her own comfort or gain, but to help some one else to whom she owed fealty or love. But would she lie for anyone? As he studied her longer, taking in, in his own way, the candid expression of her eye and the sweet but firm set of her lips, he began to think she would not, and the interest with which he proceeded to address her was as much due to herself as to the knowledge he hoped to gain from her.

"Mrs. Duclos?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. And you?"

"I am a member of the New York police. My errand is one which you can probably guess. You have a sister-in-law, the widow of your husband's brother. As her testimony is of the utmost importance in the inquiry which is to be made into the cause and manner of her daughter's death, I should be very glad to have a few minutes' talk with her if, as we have every reason to believe, she is in this house at the present moment."

Mrs. Edward Duclos was a strong and upright woman, but this direct address, this open attack, was too much for her. However, before replying, she had a question of her own to put, and she proceeded to ask it firmly, quietly and apparently with every expectation of its being answered:

"How did you learn that Mr. Duclos had a brother and that this brother had left a widow?"

"Not from you, madam," he smiled. "Nor from your husband. I very much wish we had. We have been waiting for some such word ever since our advertisement appeared. It has not come."

She gave him a quick interrogating glance, folded her hands and answered without further hesitation:

"We had our reasons for silence, reasons which we thought quite justifiable. But they don't hold good if we are to be brought into conflict with the police. Mr. Duclos told me this morning that if we were driven to speak we must do so with complete honesty and without quibble. What do you want to know?"

"Everything. First, your sister-in-law's story, then her reasons for sending her child alone to the museum, as well as the cause of her flight before she could have heard of that poor child's fate. More hangs upon an understanding of these facts than I am at liberty to tell you. She herself would agree with me in this if I could have a few minutes' conversation with her."

"She is not in the house. She left us late last night without giving us the least hint as to where she was going. She is, as you can very well see, as little anxious to talk of her great trouble as you are to have her, and recognizing that attempts were being made to find her and make her speak, she fled before it was too late. I am sorry she did so, sorry for her and sorry for ourselves. We do not approve her course, whatever reasons she may have for it. At the same time, I feel bound to assure you that to her they are all-sufficient. She is a conscientious woman, with many fine qualities, and when she says as she did to us, 'It is my duty to flee,' and again as she bade us a final adieu, 'I will die rather than speak a word of what is on my mind,' I know that it is no small matter which sends her wandering about like this."

"I should think not. A mother to leave her daughter to be exposed at the morgue, and never intervene to protect her from this ignominy or to see that she has proper burial after that dread display is over!"

"I know—it was dreadful—and we! Do you not think we felt the horror of this also?"

"Your own flesh and blood—that is, your husband's. I wonder you could stand it."

"We had promised. She made us promise the first day she came that we would keep still and make no move, whatever happened."

"It was here she came then, directly from the hotel?"

"I am obliged to admit it."

"With her torn dress and her little bag?"

"Yes."

"And you procured her different clothes and the suit-case in which she now lugs about her effects?"

"You seem to know it all."

"Mrs. Duclos, I hope you will answer my next question as honestly as you have the previous ones. Had Madame Duclos heard of her daughter's death when she first presented herself to you?"

"Since you ask me this, I must answer. She was in great distress, but did not tell me why, till I asked her where Angeline was. Then she broke down utterly and flinging herself face down on the sofa, sobbed and wailed and finally confided to us that a terrible accident had happened to the child and that she was lying dead in one of the city's great museums."

"Did she say what accident?"

"No; she was almost delirious with grief, and we couldn't question her. After the papers came and we had read the dreadful news, we tried to get from her some explanation of what it all meant, but now she wouldn't answer; before, she couldn't."

"Did you ask her how she came to know that Angeline was dead, before the news was circulated outside the museum?"

"Yes; but she did not answer, only looked at us. It was the most despairing look I ever saw in my life. It made it easier for us to promise her all she wanted, though we regretted having done this when we came to think the matter over."

"So you positively do not know any more than this of what she has so religiously held secret?"

"No; and I have got to the point where I do not wish to."

"Did you know she was coming to this country?"

"Yes—but not her reasons for doing so. She has been a little mysterious of late."

"Did she say she was going to bring her daughter with her?"

"Yes, she mentioned Angeline. Also the name of the ship on which they expected to sail."

"Was this letter mailed from Paris or London?"

"It came from Paris."

"Did you understand that she was leaving France for good?"

"I got that idea, certainly."

"But not her reasons for it?"

"No. The letter was very short and not very explicit. I really have given you all the information I have on this subject."

"Mrs. Duclos, it is my duty to inform you that your sister-in-law had a deep and intense hatred for a man to us at present unknown. Can you name him? Is there anything in her early history or in what you know of her later life, here and abroad, to enlighten you as to his identity?"

With a steady look and a slow shake of her head, Mrs. Duclos denied any such knowledge, even showing a marked surprise at what was evidently a new development to her.

"Antoinette has had little to do with the men since our brother's death," she said. "I can hardly conceive of her being greatly interested either in favor of or against any of the opposite sex."

"Yet she is—even to the point of wishing him dead."

Mrs. Duclos rose quickly to her feet, but instantly sat again.

"How do you know?" she asked.

Should he tell her? At first he thought not; then he reconsidered his decision and spoke out plainly.

"Madam," said he, "some day you will hear what I had rather you heard now and from me. Madame Duclos left the lodging-house where she was so safe because she was detected, or was suspicious of having been detected, shooting the face from a photograph she had set up before her as a target in the small hours of the night."

"Impossible!" The woman thus exclaiming was quite sincere. "I cannot imagine Antoinette doing that."

"Yet she did. We have the remains of the photograph."

"And who was the man?"

"When we know that, we shall know all, or be in the way of knowing all."

"You alarm me!" She certainly looked alarmed.

"Why, madam? Do you not think it better for the truth to be known in such a case?"

"You forget what I told you. Antoinette will not survive the betrayal of her secret. She said she would not, and she is a woman who weighs her words. There is a firm edge to her resolves. It has always worked for good till now. I cannot bear to think of its working in any way for evil."

"Has she socialistic ideas? Can her hatred be for some of our plutocrats or supposed oppressors of the people?"

"Oh, no; she is of aristocratic descent and proud of her order. The Duclos are bourgeois, but Antoinette is a De Montfort."

Mr. Gryce suppressed all token of his instinctive amazement. This fine American woman was not without a sense of reflected glory given by this fact. Her sister-in-law was a De Montfort! Expressing his thanks for her candor, he rose to depart.

"For all that," said he, "she may be at heart a
révolutionnaire
." Then, as he noticed the negation in her look, he added softly: "The least clue as to her present refuge would make me greatly your debtor."

"I cannot give it; I do not know it."

And somehow he believed her as absolutely as even she could desire. If he should yet be fortunate enough to find this elusive Madame, it would have to be through some other agency than these relatives of hers by marriage.

As he passed out, he heard a frightened gasp from somewhere back in the hall. Turning, he asked in the most natural manner whether there were children in the house.

Mrs. Duclos answered with some dignity that she had three daughters.

"You are fortunate, madame," he remarked with his old-fashioned bow. "I live alone. My last grandchild left me a year ago for a man many years my junior."

This brought the little one into his view. She was smiling, and he went away in a state of relief marred by but one regret:

He was as ignorant as ever where to look for the mother of Angeline.

Nevertheless Mr. Gryce was proud of the gain he had made in his talk with Mrs. Duclos, and he smiled as he thought of his next interview with Sweetwater. Assurance will often accomplish much, it is true, but it sometimes needs age to make it effective. He could not imagine either Mrs. Duclos or her daughter yielding to the blandishments of one even as gifted in this special direction as Sweetwater. Authority was needed as well—the authority of long experience and an ineradicable sympathy with human nature.

Thus he gratified himself with a few complacent thoughts. But when he stopped to think what a great haystack New York was, and how elusive was the needle which had escaped them now these three times, his spirits sank a trifle, and by the time he had ridden a half-block on his way back to Headquarters, he was at that low ebb of disheartenment from which only some happy inspiration can effectually lift one. He was glad to be able to report that he had learned a few important facts in regard to Madame Duclos, but he equally hated to admit that for all his haste in following up the clue given him, he knew as little as ever of her present whereabouts; and hated even worse to have to give the cue which would lead to a surveillance, however secret, over a house which held a child of so sensitive and tremulous a nature as that of the little friend who had picked up his stick in front of the drug-store.

He was recalling to mind the pathetic spectacle presented by her agitated little figure, when his eyes chanced to fall upon a small shop he was then passing. It was devoted to ladies' furnishings, and as he took in the contents of the window and such articles as could be seen on the shelves beyond, a happy thought came to him.

Madame Duclos had left her hotel in a hurry, carrying but few of her belongings with her. A lady of cultivated taste, she must have missed many articles necessary to her comfort; and having money would naturally buy them. Prevented by her fears from going downtown, or even from going anywhere in the daytime, what was left for her to do but to patronize some such small shop as this. Its nearness to her late refuge, as well as its neat and attractive appearance, made this seem all the more likely. A question or two would suffice to settle his mind on this point and perhaps lead to results which might prove invaluable in his present emergency.

Signaling to the chauffeur to stop, he got out in front of this little shop, toward which he immediately proceeded, with an uncertainty of step not altogether assumed. He did have some rheumatic twinges that day.

Entering, Mr. Gryce first cast a comprehensive glance at the shelves and counters, to make sure that he would find here the line of dress-goods in which he had decided to invest; then, approaching the middle-aged woman who seemed to be in charge, he engaged her in a tedious display of the goods, which led on to talk and finally to a casual remark from him, quite in keeping with the anxiety he had been careful to show.

"I am buying this for a woman to whom you have probably sold many odd little things within the past few days. Perhaps you knew her taste, and can help me choose what will please her. She lives down the street and buys always in the evening—a dark, genteel appearing Frenchwoman, with a strange way of looking down even when other people would be likely to look up. Do you remember her?"

Yes, she remembered her and recognized her perfectly from this description. He saw this at once, but he kept right on talking as he handled first one piece of goods and then another, seeming to hesitate between the gray and the brown.

"She went out of town yesterday, and wanted this material sent after her. Do you think you could do that for me, or shall I have to see to expressing it myself? I'll do it if I must—only I've forgotten her exact address." This he muttered self-reproachfully, "I've a shocking bad memory, and it's growing worse every day. You don't happen to know where she's gone to, do you?"