he had just made was so startling, and his assumption of my complete
understanding of and participation in the discovery he professed to have
made, so puzzling, that I dared not venture beyond these simple
exclamations, lest he should see the state of mind into which he had
thrown me, and shut up like an oyster.

"We have kept counsel over what we have found," the wary old detective
continued, with a smile, which I wish I could imitate, but which
unhappily belongs to him alone. "I hope that you, or your maid, I should
say, have been equally discreet."

My maid!

"I see you are touched; but women find it so hard to keep a secret. But
it does not matter. To-night the whole town will know that the older and
not the younger brother has had these rings in his keeping."

"It will be nuts for the papers," I commented; then making an effort, I
remarked: "You are a most judicious man, Mr. Gryce, and must have other
reasons than the discovery of these rings for your threatened arrest of
a man of such excellent repute as Silas Van Burnam's eldest son. I
should like to hear them, Mr. Gryce. I should like to hear them very
much."

My attempt to seem at ease under these embarrassing conditions must have
given a certain sharpness to my tone; for, instead of replying, he
remarked, with well simulated concern and a fatherly humoring of my
folly peculiarly exasperating to one of my temperament: "You are
displeased, Miss Butterworth, because we did not let _you_ find the
rings."

"Perhaps; but we were engaged in an open field. I could not expect the
police to stand aside for me."

"Exactly! Especially when you have the secret satisfaction of having put
the police on the track of these jewels."

"How?"

"We were simply fortunate in laying our hands on them first. You, or
your maid rather, showed us where to look for them."

Lena again.

I was so dumfounded by this last assertion, I did not attempt to reply.
Fortunately, he misinterpreted my silence and the "stony glare" with
which it was accompanied.

"I know that it must seem to you altogether too bad, to be tripped up at
the moment of your anticipated triumph. But if apologies will suffice to
express our sense of presumption, then I pray you to accept them, Miss
Butterworth, both on my own part and on that of the Superintendent of
Police."

I did not understand in the least what he was talking about, but I
recognized the sarcasm of his final expression, and had spirit enough to
reply:

"The subject is too important for any more nonsense. Whereabouts in
Franklin Van Burnam's desk were these rings found, and how do you know
that his brother did not put them there?"

"Your ignorance is refreshing, Miss Butterworth. If you will ask a
certain young girl dressed in gray, upon what object connected with Mr.
Van Burnam's desk she laid her hands yesterday morning, you will have
an answer to your first question. The second one is still more easily
answered. Mr. Howard Van Burnam did not conceal the rings in the Duane
Street office for the reason that he has not been in that office since
his wife was killed. Regarding this fact we are as well advised as
yourself. Now you change color, Miss Butterworth. But there is no
necessity. For an amateur you have made less trouble and fewer mistakes
than were to be expected."

Worse and worse! He was patronizing me now, and for results I had done
nothing to bring about. I surveyed him in absolute amazement. Was he
amusing himself with me, or was he himself deceived as to the nature and
trend of my late investigations. This was a question to settle, and at
once; and as duplicity had hitherto proved my best weapon in dealing
with Mr. Gryce, I concluded to resort to it in this emergency. Clearing
my brow, I regarded with a more amenable air the little Hungarian vase
he had taken up on entering the room, and into which he had been talking
ever since he thought it worth while to compliment its owner.

"I do not wish," said I, "to be published to the world as the discoverer
of Franklin Van Burnam's guilt. But I do want credit with the police, if
only because one of their number has chosen to look upon my efforts with
disdain. I mean you, Mr. Gryce; so, if you are in earnest"--he smiled at
the vase most genially--"I will accept your apologies just so far as you
honor me with your confidence. I know you are anxious to hear what
evidence I have collected, or you would not be wasting time on me this
busy morning."

"Shrewd!" was the short ejaculation he shot into the mouth of the vase
he was handling.

"If that term of admiration is intended for me," I remarked, "I am sure
I am only too sensible of the honor. But flattery has never succeeded in
making me talk against my better judgment. I may be shrewd, but a fool
could see what you are after this morning. Compliment me when I have
deserved it. I can wait."

"I begin to think that what you withhold so resolutely has more than
common value, Miss Butterworth. If this is so, I must not be the only
one to listen to your explanations. Is not that a carriage I hear
stopping? I am expecting Inspector Z----. If that is he you have been
wise to delay your communications till he came."

A carriage _was_ stopping, and it was the Inspector who alighted from
it. I began to feel my importance in a way that was truly gratifying,
and cast my eyes up at the portrait of my father with a secret longing
that its original stood by to witness the verification of his prophecy.

But I was not so distracted by these thoughts as not to make one attempt
to get something from Mr. Gryce before the Inspector joined us.

"Why do you speak to me of my maid in one breath and of a girl in gray
in another? Did you think Lena----"

"Hush!" he enjoined, "we will have ample opportunities to discuss this
subject later."

"Will we?" thought I. "We will discuss nothing till I know more
positively what you are aiming at."

But I showed nothing of this determination in my face. On the contrary,
I became all affability as the Inspector entered, and I did the honors
of the house in a way I hope my father would have approved of, had he
been alive and present.

Mr. Gryce continued to stare into the vase.

"Miss Butterworth,"--it was the Inspector who was speaking,--"I have
been told that you take great interest in the Van Burnam murder, and
that you have even gone so far as to collect some facts in connection
with it which you have not as yet given to the police."

"You have heard correctly," I returned. "I have taken a deep interest in
this tragedy, and have come into possession of some facts in reference
to it which as yet I have imparted to no living soul."

Mr. Gryce's interest in my poor little vase increased marvellously.
Seeing this, I complacently continued:

"I could not have accomplished so much had I indulged in a confidant.
Such work as I have attempted depends for its success upon the secrecy
with which it is carried on. That is why amateur work is sometimes more
effective than professional. No one suspected me of making inquiries,
unless it was this gentleman, and he was forewarned of my possible
interference. I told him that in case Howard Van Burnam was put under
arrest, I should take it upon myself to stir up matters; and I have."

"Then you do not believe in Mr. Van Burnam's guilt? Not even in his
complicity, I suppose?" ventured the Inspector.

"I do not know anything about his complicity; but I do not believe the
stroke given to his wife came from his hand."

"I see, I see. You believe it the work of his brother."

I stole a look at Mr. Gryce before replying. He had turned the vase
upside down, and was intently studying its label; but he could not
conceal his expectation of an affirmative answer. Greatly relieved, I
immediately took the position I had resolved upon, and calmly but
vigorously observed:

"What I believe, and what I have learned in support of my belief, will
sound as well in your ears ten minutes hence as now. Before I give you
the result of such inquiries as I have been enabled to make, I require
to know what evidence you have yourself collected against the gentleman
you have just named, and in what respect it is as criminating as that
against his brother?"

"Is not that peremptory, Miss Butterworth? And do you think us called
upon to part with all or any of the secrets of our office? We have
informed you that we have new and startling evidence against the older
brother; should not that be sufficient for you?"

"Perhaps so if I were an assistant of yours, or even in your employ. But
I am neither; I stand alone, and although I am a woman and unused to
this business, I have earned, as I think you will acknowledge later, the
right to some consideration on your part. I cannot present the facts I
have to relate in a proper manner till I know just how the case stands."

"It is not curiosity that troubles Miss Butterworth--Madam, I said it
was not curiosity--but a laudable desire to have the whole matter
arranged with precision," dropped now in his dryest tones from the
detective's lips.

"Mr. Gryce has a most excellent understanding of my character," I
gravely observed.

The Inspector looked nonplussed. He glanced at Mr. Gryce and he glanced
at me, but the smile of the former was inscrutable, and my expression,
if I showed any, must have betrayed but little relenting.

"If called as a witness, Miss Butterworth,"--this was how he sought to
manage me,--"you will have no choice in the matter. You will be
compelled to speak or show contempt of court."

"That is true," I acknowledged. "But it is not what I might feel myself
called upon to say then, but what I can say now, that is of interest to
you at this present moment. So be generous, gentlemen, and satisfy my
curiosity, for such Mr. Gryce considers it, in spite of his assertions
to the contrary. Will it not all come out in the papers a few hours
hence, and have I not earned as much at your hands as the reporters?"

"The reporters are our bane. Do not liken yourself to the reporters."

"Yet they sometimes give you a valuable clue."

Mr. Gryce looked as if he would like to disclaim this, but he was a
judicious soul, and merely gave a twist to the vase which I thought
would cost me that small article of vertu.

"Shall we humor Miss Butterworth?" asked the Inspector.

"We will do better," answered Mr. Gryce, setting the vase down with a
precision that made me jump; for I am a worshipper of _bric-à-brac_, and
prize the few articles I own, possibly beyond their real value. "We will
treat her as a coadjutor, which, by the way, she says she is not, and by
the trust we place in her, secure that discretionary use of our
confidence which she shows with so much spirit in regard to her own."

"Begin then," said I.

"I will," said he, "but first allow me to acknowledge that you are the
person who first put us on the track of Franklin Van Burnam."

XXX.

THE MATTER AS STATED BY MR. GRYCE.

I had exhausted my wonder, so I accepted this statement with no more
display of surprise than a grim smile.

"When you failed to identify Howard Van Burnam as the man who
accompanied his wife into the adjacent house, I realized that I must
look elsewhere for the murderer of Louise Van Burnam. You see I had more
confidence in the excellence of your memory than you had yourself, so
much indeed that I gave you more than one chance to exercise it, having,
by certain little methods I sometimes employ, induced different moods in
Mr. Van Burnam at the time of his several visits, so that his bearing
might vary, and you have every opportunity to recognize him for the man
you had seen on that fatal night."

"Then it was he you brought here each time?" I broke in.

"It was he."

"Well!" I ejaculated.

"The Superintendent and some others whom I need not mention,"--here Mr.
Gryce took up another small object from the table,--"believed implicitly
in his guilt; conjugal murder is so common and the causes which lead to
it so frequently puerile. Therefore I had to work alone. But this did
not cause me any concern. _Your_ doubts emphasized mine, and when you
confided to me that you had seen a figure similar to the one we were
trying to identify, enter the adjoining house on the evening of the
funeral, I made immediate inquiries and discovered that the gentleman
who had entered the house right after the four persons described by you
was _Franklin Van Burnam_. This gave me a definite clue, and this is why
I say that it was you who gave me my first start in this matter."

"Humph!" thought I to myself, as with a sudden shock I remembered that
one of the words which had fallen from Miss Oliver's lips during her
delirium had been this very name of Franklin.

"I had had my doubts of this gentleman before," continued the detective,
warming gradually with his subject. "A man of my experience doubts every
one in a case of this kind, and I had formed at odd times a sort of side
theory, so to speak, into which some little matters which came up during
the inquest seemed to fit with more or less nicety; but I had no real
justification for suspicion till the event of which I speak. That you
had evidently formed the same theory as myself and were bound to enter
into the lists with me, put me on my mettle, madam, and with your
knowledge or without it, the struggle between us began."

"So your disdain of me," I here put in with a triumphant air I could not
subdue, "was only simulated? I shall know what to think of you
hereafter. But don't stop, go on, this is all deeply interesting to me."

"I can understand that. To proceed then; my first duty, of course, was
to watch _you_. You had reasons of your own for suspecting this man, so
by watching you I hoped to surprise them."

"Good!" I cried, unable to entirely conceal the astonishment and grim
amusement into which his continued misconception of the trend of my
suspicions threw me.

"But you led us a chase, madam; I must acknowledge that you led us a
chase. Your being an amateur led me to anticipate your using an
amateur's methods, but you showed skill, madam, and the man I sent to
keep watch over Mrs. Boppert against your looked-for visit there, was
foiled by the very simple strategy you used in meeting her at a
neighboring shop."

"Good!" I again cried, in my relief that the discovery made at that
meeting had not been shared by him.

"We had sounded Mrs. Boppert ourselves, but she had seemed a very
hopeless job, and I do not yet see how you got any water out of that
stone--if you did."

"No?" I retorted ambiguously, enjoying the Inspector's manifest delight
in this scene as much as I did my own secret thoughts and the prospect
of the surprise I was holding in store for them.

"But your interference with the clock and the discovery you made that it
had been going at the time the shelves fell, was not unknown to us, and
we have made use of it, good use as you will hereafter see."

"So! those girls could not keep a secret after all," I muttered; and
waited with some anxiety to hear him mention the pin-cushion; but he did
not, greatly to my relief.

"Don't blame the girls!" he put in (his ears evidently are as sharp as
mine); "the inquiries having proceeded from Franklin, it was only
natural for me to suspect that he was trying to mislead us by some
hocus-pocus story. So _I_ visited the girls. That I had difficulty in
getting to the root of the matter is to their credit, Miss Butterworth,
seeing that you had made them promise secrecy."

"You are right," I nodded, and forgave them on the spot. If I could not
withstand Mr. Gryce's eloquence--and it affected me at times--how could
I expect these girls to. Besides, they had not revealed the more
important secret I had confided to them, and in consideration of this I
was ready to pardon them most anything.

"That the clock was going at the time the shelves fell, and that he
should be the one to draw our attention to it would seem to the
superficial mind proof positive that he was innocent of the deed with
which it was so closely associated," the detective proceeded. "But to
one skilled in the subterfuges of criminals, this seemingly conclusive
fact in his favor was capable of an explanation so in keeping with the
subtlety shown in every other feature of this remarkable crime, that I
began to regard it as a point against him rather than in his favor. Of
which more hereafter.

"Not allowing myself to be deterred, then, by this momentary set-back,
and rejoicing in an affair considered as settled by my superiors, I
proceeded to establish Franklin Van Burnam's connection with the crime
which had been laid with so much apparent reason at his brother's door.

"The first fact to be settled was, of course, whether your
identification of him as the gentleman who accompanied his victim into
Mr. Van Burnam's house could be corroborated by any of the many persons
who had seen the so-called Mr. James Pope at the Hotel D----.

"As none of the witnesses who attended the inquest had presumed to
recognize in either of these sleek and haughty gentlemen the shrinking
person just mentioned, I knew that any open attempt on my part to bring
about an identification would result disastrously. So I employed
strategy--like my betters, Miss Butterworth" (here his bow was
overpowering in its mock humility); "and rightly considering that for a
person to be satisfactorily identified with another, he must be seen
under the same circumstances and in nearly the same place, I sought out
Franklin Van Burnam, and with specious promises of some great benefit to
be done his brother, induced him to accompany me to the Hotel D----.

"Whether he saw through my plans and thought that a brave front and an
assumption of candor would best serve him in this unexpected dilemma, or
whether he felt so entrenched behind the precautions he had taken as not
to fear discovery under any circumstances, he made but one demur before
preparing to accompany me. This demur was significant, however, for it
was occasioned by my advice to change his dress for one less
conspicuously fashionable, or to hide it under an ulster or mackintosh.
And as a proof of his hardihood--remember, madam, that his connection
with this crime has been established--he actually did put on the ulster,
though he must have known what a difference it would make in his
appearance.

"The result was all I could desire. As we entered the hotel, I saw a
certain hackman start and lean forward to look after him. It was the one
who had driven Mr. and Mrs. Pope away from the hotel. And when we passed
the porter, the wink which I gave him was met by a lift of his eyelids
which he afterwards interpreted into 'Like! very like!'

"But it was from the clerk I received the most unequivocal proof of his
identity. On entering the office I had left Mr. Van Burnam as near as
possible to the spot where Mr. Pope had stood while his so-called wife
was inscribing their names in the register, and bidding him to remain in
the background while I had a few words at the desk, all in his brother's
interests of course, I succeeded in secretly directing Mr. Henshaw's
attention towards him. The start which he gave and the exclamation he
uttered were unequivocal. 'Why, there's the man now!' he cried, happily
in a whisper. 'Anxious look, drooping head, brown moustache, everything
but the duster.' 'Bah!' said I; 'that's Mr. _Franklin_ Van Burnam you
are looking at! What are you thinking of?' 'Can't help it,' said he; 'I
saw both of the brothers at the inquest, and saw nothing in them then to
remind me of our late mysterious guest. But as he stands there, he's a
---- sight more like James Pope than the other one is, and don't you
forget it.' I shrugged my shoulders, told him he was a fool, and that
fools had better keep their follies to themselves, and came away with my
man, outwardly disgusted but inwardly in most excellent trim for
pursuing an investigation which had opened so auspiciously.

"Whether this man possessed any motive for a crime so seemingly out of
accordance with his life and disposition was, of course, the next point
to settle. His conduct at the inquest certainly showed no decided
animosity toward his brother's wife, nor was there on the surface of
affairs any token of the mortal hatred which alone could account for a
crime at once so deliberate and so brutal. But we detectives plunge
below the surface, and after settling the question of Franklin's
identity with the so-called Mr. Pope of the Hotel D----, I left New York
and its interests--among which I reckoned your efforts at detective
work, Miss Butterworth--to a young man in my office, who, I am afraid,
did not quite understand the persistence of your character; for he had
nothing to tell me concerning you on my return, save that you had been
cultivating Miss Althorpe, which, of course, was such a natural thing
for you to do, I wonder he thought it necessary to mention it.

"My destination was Four Corners, the place where Howard first met his
future wife. In relating what I learned there, I shall doubtless repeat
facts with which you are acquainted, Miss Butterworth."

"That is of no consequence," I returned, with almost brazen duplicity;
for I not only was ignorant of what he was going to say, but had every
reason to believe that it would bear as remote a connection as possible
to the secret then laboring in my breast. "A statement of the case from
your lips," I pursued, "will emphasize what I know. Do not stint any of
your disclosures, then, I beg. I have an ear for all." This was truer
than my rather sarcastic tone would convey, for might not his story
after all prove to have some unexpected relation with the facts I had
myself gathered together.

"It is a pleasure," said he, "to think I am capable of giving any
information to Miss Butterworth, and as I did not run across you or your
very nimble and pert little maid during my stay at Four Corners, I shall
take it for granted that you confined your inquiries to the city and the
society of which you are such a shining light."

This in reference to my double visit at Miss Althorpe's, no doubt.

"Four Corners is a charming town in Southern Vermont, and here, three
years ago, Howard Van Burnam first met Miss Stapleton. She was living in
a gentleman's family at that time as travelling companion to his invalid
daughter."

Ah, now I could see what explanation this wary old detective gave
himself of my visits to Miss Althorpe, and began to hug myself in
anticipation of my coming triumph over him.

"The place did not fit her, for Miss Stapleton only shone in the society
of men; but Mr. Harrison had not yet discovered this special
idiosyncrasy of hers, and as his daughter was able to see a few friends,
and in fact needed some diversion, the way was open to her companion for
that acquaintance with Mr. Van Burnam which has led to such disastrous
results.

"The house at which their meeting took place was a private one, and I
soon found out many facts not widely known in this city. First, that she
was not so much in love with Howard as he was with her. _He_ succumbed
to her fascinations at once, and proposed, I believe, within two weeks
after seeing her; but though she accepted him, few of those who saw them
together thought her affections very much engaged till Franklin suddenly
appeared in town, when her whole manner underwent a change, and she
became so sparklingly and irresistibly beautiful that her avowed lover
became doubly enslaved, and Franklin--Well, there is evidence to prove
that he was not insensible to her charms either; that, in spite of her
engagement to his brother and the attitude which honor bade him hold
towards his prospective sister-in-law, he lost his head for a short
time at least, and under her seductions I do not doubt, for she was a
double-faced woman according to general repute, went so far as to
express his passion in a letter of which I heard much before I was so
fortunate as to obtain a sight of it. This was three years ago, and I
think Miss Stapleton would have been willing to have broken with Howard
and married Franklin if the latter had had the courage to meet his
brother's reproaches. But he evidently was deficient in this quality.
His very letter, which is a warm one, but which holds out no hope to her
of any closer bond between them than that offered by her prospective
union with his brother, shows that he still retained some sense of
honor, and as he presently left Four Corners and did not appear again
where they were till just before their marriage, it is probable that all
would have gone well if the woman had shared this sentiment with him.
But she was made up of mean materials, and while willing to marry Howard
for what he could give her or what she thought he could give her, she
yet cherished an implacable grudge against Franklin for his weakness, as
she called it, in not following the dictates of his heart. Being sly as
well as passionate, she hid her feelings from every one but a venial,
though apparently devoted confidante, a young girl named----"

"Oliver," I finished in my own mind.

But the name he mentioned was quite different.

"Pigot," he said, looking at the filigree basket he held in his hand as
if he picked this word out from one of its many interstices. "She was
French, and after once finding her, I had but little difficulty in
learning all she had to tell. She had been Miss Harrison's maid, but
she was not above serving Miss Stapleton in many secret and dishonorable
ways. As a consequence, she could give me the details of an interview
which that lady had held with Franklin Van Burnam on the evening of her
wedding. It took place in Mr. Harrison's garden, and was supposed to be
a secret one, but the woman who arranged the meeting was not the person
to keep away from it when it occurred, and consequently I have been
enabled to learn with more or less accuracy what took place between
them. It was not to Miss Stapleton's credit. Mr. Van Burnam merely
wanted his letter back, but she refused to return it unless he would
promise her a complete recognition by his family of her marriage and
ensure her a reception in his father's house as Howard's wife. This was
more than he could engage himself to perform. He had already, according
to his own story, made every effort possible to influence the old
gentleman in her favor, but had only succeeded in irritating him against
himself. It was an acknowledgment which would have satisfied most women,
but it did not satisfy her. She declared her intention of keeping the
letter for fear he would cease his exertions; and heedless of the effect
produced upon him by the barefaced threat, proceeded to inveigh against
his brother for the very love which made her union with him possible;
and as if this was not bad enough, showed at the same time such a
disposition to profit by whatever worldly good the match promised, that
Franklin lost all regard for her, and began to hate her.

"As he made no effort to conceal his feelings, she must have become
immediately aware of the change which had taken place in them. But
however affected by this, she gave no sign of relenting in her purpose.
On the contrary, she persisted in her determination to retain his
letter, and when he remonstrated with her and threatened to leave town
before her marriage, she retorted by saying that, if he did so, she
would show his letter to his brother as soon as the minister had made
them one. This threat seemed to affect Franklin deeply, and while it
intensified his feeling of animosity towards her, subjected him for the
moment to her whim. He stayed in Four Corners till the ceremony was
performed, but was such a gloomy guest that all united in saying that he
did the occasion no credit.

"So much for my work in Four Corners."

I had by this time become aware that Mr. Gryce was addressing himself
chiefly to the Inspector, being gratified no doubt at this opportunity
of presenting his case at length before that gentleman. But true to his
special habits, he looked at neither of us, but rather at the fretted
basket, upon the handle of which he tapped out his arguments as he
quickly proceeded:

"The young couple spent the first months of their married life in
Yonkers; so to Yonkers I went next. There I learned that Franklin had
visited the place twice; both times, as I judge, upon a peremptory
summons from her. The result was mutual fret and heartburning, for she
had made no progress in her endeavors to win recognition from the Van
Burnams; and even had had occasion to perceive that her husband's love,
based as it was upon her physical attributes, had begun to feel the
stress of her uneasiness and dissatisfaction. She became more anxious
than ever for social recognition and distinction, and when the family
went to Europe, consented to accompany her husband into the quiet
retreat he thought best calculated to win the approbation of his father,
only upon the assurance of better times in the fall and a possible visit
to Washington in the winter. But the quiet to which she was subjected
had a bad effect upon her. Under it she grew more and more restless, and
as the time approached for the family's return, conceived so many plans
for conciliating them that her husband could not restrain his disgust.
But the worst plan of all and the one which undoubtedly led to her
death, he never knew. This was to surprise Franklin at his office and,
by renewed threats of showing this old love-letter to his brother, win
an absolute promise from him to support her in a fresh endeavor to win
his father's favor. You see she did not understand Silas Van Burnam's
real character, and persisted in holding the most extravagant views
concerning Franklin's ascendancy over him as well as over the rest of
the family. She even went so far as to insist in the interview, which
Jane Pigot overheard, that it was Franklin himself who stood in the way
of her desires, and that if he chose he could obtain for her an
invitation to take up her abode with the rest of them in Gramercy Park.
To Duane Street she therefore went before making her appearance at Mrs.
Parker's; a fact which was not brought out at the inquest; Franklin not
disclosing it of course, and the clerk not recognizing her under the
false name she chose to give. Of the details of this interview I am
ignorant, but as she was closeted with him some time, it is only natural
to suppose that conversation of some importance took place between them.
The clerk who works in the outer office did not, as I have said, know
who she was at the time, but he noticed her face when she came out, and
he declares that it was insolent with triumph, while Mr. Franklin, who
was polite enough or calculating enough to bow her out of the room, was
pale with rage, and acted so unlike himself that everybody observed it.
She held his letter in her hand, a letter easily distinguishable by the
violet-colored seal on the back, and she filliped with it in a most
aggravating way as she crossed the floor, pretending to lay it down on
Howard's desk as she went by and then taking it up again with an arch
look at Franklin, pretty enough to see but hateful in its effect on him.
As he went back to his own room his face was full of anger, and such was
the effect of this visit on him that he declined to see any one else
that day. She had probably shown such determination to reveal his past
perfidy to her husband, that his fears were fully aroused at last, and
he saw he was not only likely to lose his good name but the esteem with
which he was accustomed to be regarded by this younger and evidently
much-loved brother.

"And now, considering his intense pride, as well as his affection for
Howard, do you not see the motive which this seemingly good man had for
putting his troublesome sister-in-law out of existence? He wanted that
letter back, and to obtain it had to resort to crime. Or such is my
present theory of this murder, Miss Butterworth. Does it correspond with
yours?"

XXXI.

SOME FINE WORK.

"O perfectly!" I assented, with just the shade of irony necessary to rob
the assertion of its mendacity. "But go on, go on. You have not begun to
satisfy me yet. You did not stop with finding a motive for the crime I
am sure."

"Madam, you are a female Shylock; you will have the whole of the bond or
none."

"We are not here to draw comparisons," I retorted. "Keep to the subject,
Mr. Gryce; keep to the subject."

He laughed; laid down the little basket he held, took it up again, and
finally resumed:

"Madam, you are right; we did not stop at finding a motive. Our next
step was to collect evidence directly connecting him with the crime."

"And you succeeded in this?"

My tone was unnecessarily eager, this was all so unaccountable to me;
but he did not appear to notice it.

"We did. Indeed the evidence against him is stronger than that against
his brother. For if we ignore the latter part of Howard's testimony,
which was evidently a tissue of lies, what remains against him? Three
things: his dogged persistency in not recognizing his wife in the
murdered woman; the receiving of the house keys from his brother; and
the fact that he was seen on the stoop of his father's house at an
unusual hour in the morning following this murder. Now what have we
against Franklin? Many things.

"First:

"That he can no more account for the hours between half-past eleven on
Tuesday morning and five o'clock on the following Wednesday morning than
his brother can. In one breath he declares that he was shut up in his
rooms at the hotel, for which no corroborative evidence is forthcoming;
and in another that he was on a tramp after his brother, which seems
equally improbable and incapable of proof.

"Second:

"That he and not Howard was the man in a linen duster, and that he and
not Howard was in possession of the keys that night. As these are
serious statements to make, I will give you my reasons for them. They
are distinct from the recognition of his person by the inmates of the
Hotel D----, and added to that recognition, form a strong case against
him. The janitor who has charge of the offices in Duane Street,
happening to have a leisure moment on the morning of the day on which
Mrs. Van Burnam was murdered, was making the most of it by watching the
unloading of a huge boiler some four doors below the Van Burnam
warehouse. He was consequently looking intently in that direction when
Howard passed him, coming from the interview with his brother in which
he had been given the keys. Mr. Van Burnam was walking briskly, but
finding the sidewalk blocked by the boiler to which I have alluded,
paused for a moment to let it pass, and being greatly heated, took out
his handkerchief to wipe his forehead. This done, he moved on, just as a
man dressed in a long duster came up behind him, stopping where he
stopped and picking up from the ground something which the first
gentleman had evidently dropped. This last man's figure looked more or
less familiar to the janitor, so did the duster, and later he discovered
that the latter was the one which he had seen hanging for so long a time
in the little disused closet under the warehouse stairs. Its wearer was
Franklin Van Burnam, who, as I took pains to learn, had left the office
immediately in the wake of his brother, and the object he picked up was
the bunch of keys which the latter had inadvertently dropped. He may
have thought he lost them later, but it was then and there they slipped
from his pocket. I will here add that the duster found by the hackman in
his coach has been identified as the one missing from the closet just
mentioned.

"Third:

"The keys with which Mr. Van Burnam's house was unlocked were found
hanging in their usual place by noon of the next day. They could not
have been taken there by Howard, for he was not seen at the office after
the murder. By whom then were they returned, if not by Franklin?

"Fourth:

"The letter, for the possession of which I believe this crime to have
been perpetrated, was found by us in a supposedly secret drawer of this
gentleman's desk. It was much crumpled, and bore evidences of having
been rather rudely dealt with since it was last seen in Mrs. Van
Burnam's hand in that very office.

"But the fact which is most convincing, and which will tell most heavily
against him, is the unexpected discovery of the murdered lady's rings,
also in this same desk. How _you_ became aware that anything of such
importance could be found there, knowing even the exact place in which
they were secreted, I will not stop to ask at this moment. Enough that
when your maid entered the Van Burnam offices and insisted with so much
ingenuousness that she was expected by Mr. Van Burnam and would wait for
his return, the clerk most devoted to my interests became distrustful of
her intentions, having been told to be on the look-out for a girl in
gray or a lady in black with puffs on each side of two very sharp eyes.
You will pardon me, Miss Butterworth. He therefore kept his eyes on the
girl and presently espied her stretching out her hand towards a hook at
the side of Mr. Franklin Van Burnam's desk. As it is upon this hook this
gentleman strings his unanswered letters, the clerk rose from his place
as quickly as possible, and coming forward with every appearance of
polite solicitude,--did she not say he was polite, Miss
Butterworth?--inquired what she wished, thinking she was after some
letter, or possibly anxious for a specimen of some one's handwriting.
But she gave him no other reply than a blush and a confused look, for
which you must rebuke her, Miss Butterworth, if you are going to
continue to employ her as your agent in these very delicate affairs. And
she made another mistake. She should not have left so abruptly upon
detection, for that gave the clerk an opportunity to telephone for me,
which he immediately did. I was at liberty, and I came at once, and,
after hearing his story, decided that what was of interest to you must
be of interest to me, and so took a look at the letters she had handled,
and discovered, what she also must have discovered before she let them
slip from her hand, that the five missing rings we were all in search of
were hanging on this same hook amid the sheets of Franklin's
correspondence. You can imagine, madam, my satisfaction, and the
gratitude which I felt towards my agent, who by his quickness had
retained to me the honors of a discovery which it would have been
injurious to my pride to have had confined entirely to yourself."

"I can understand," I repeated, and trusted myself to say no more, hot
as my secret felt upon my lips.

"You have read Poe's story of the filigree basket?" he now suggested,
running his finger up and down the filigree work he himself held.

I nodded. I saw what he meant at once.

"Well, the principle involved in that story explains the presence of the
rings in the midst of this stack of letters. Franklin Van Burnam, if he
is the murderer of his sister-in-law, is one of the subtlest villains
this city has ever produced, and knowing that, if once suspected, every
secret drawer and professed hiding-place within his reach would be
searched, he put these dangerous evidences of his guilt in a place so
conspicuous, and yet so little likely to attract attention, that even so
old a hand as myself did not think of looking for them there."

He had finished, and the look he gave me was for myself alone.

"And now, madam," said he, "that I have stated the facts of the case
against Franklin Van Burnam, has not the moment come for you to show
your appreciation of my good nature by a corresponding show of
confidence on your part?"

I answered with a distinct negative. "There is too much that is
unexplained as yet in your case against Franklin," I objected. "You have
shown that he had motive for the murder and that he was connected more
or less intimately with the crime we are considering, but you have by no
means explained all the phenomena accompanying this tragedy. How, for
instance, do you account for Mrs. Van Burnam's whim in changing her
clothing, if her brother-in-law, instead of her husband, was her
companion at the Hotel D----?"

You see I was determined to know the whole story before introducing Miss
Oliver's name into this complication.

He who had seen through the devices of so many women in his day did not
see through mine, perhaps because he took a certain professional
pleasure in making his views on this subject clear to the attentive
Inspector. At all events, this is the way he responded to my
half-curious, half-ironical question:

"A crime planned and perpetrated for the purpose I have just mentioned,
Miss Butterworth, could not have been a simple one under any
circumstances. But conceived as this one was by a man of more than
ordinary intelligence, and carried out with a skill and precaution
little short of marvellous, the features which it presents are of such a
varying and subtle character that only by the exercise of a certain
amount of imagination can they be understood at all. Such an imagination
I possess, but how can I be sure that you do?"

"By testing it," I suggested.

"Very good, madam, I will. Not from actual knowledge, then, but from a
certain insight I have acquired in my long dealing with such matters, I
have come to the conclusion that Franklin Van Burnam did not in the
beginning plan to kill this woman in his father's house.

"On the contrary, he had fixed upon a hotel room as the scene of the
conflict he foresaw between them, and that he might carry it on without
endangering their good names, had urged her to meet him the next morning
in the semi-disguise of a gossamer over her fine dress and a heavy veil
over her striking features; making the pretence, no doubt, of this being
the more appropriate costume for her to appear in before the old
gentleman should he so far concede to her demands as to take her to the
steamer. For himself he had planned the adoption of a disfiguring duster
which had been hanging for a long time in a closet on the ground-floor
of the building in Duane Street. All this promised well, but when the
time came and he was about to leave his office, his brother unexpectedly
appeared and asked for the key to their father's house. Disconcerted no
doubt by the appearance of the very person he least wished to see, and
astonished by a request so out of keeping with all that had hitherto
passed between them, he nevertheless was in too much haste to question
him, so gave him what he wanted and Howard went away. As soon after as
he could lock his desk and don his hat, Franklin followed, and merely
stopping to cover his coat with the old duster, he went out and hastened
towards the place of meeting. Under most circumstances all this might
have happened without the brothers encountering each other again, but a
temporary obstruction on the sidewalk having, as we know, detained
Howard, Franklin was enabled to approach him sufficiently close to see
him draw his pocket-handkerchief out of his pocket, and with it the keys
which he had just given him. The latter fell, and as there was a great
pounding of iron going on in the building just over their heads, Howard
did not perceive his loss but went quickly on. Franklin coming up behind
him picked up the keys, and with a thought, or perhaps as yet with no
thought, of the use to which they might be applied, put them in his own
pocket before proceeding on his way.

"New York is a large place, and much can take place in it without
comment. Franklin Van Burnam and his sister-in-law met and went together
to the Hotel D---- without being either recognized or suspected till
later developments drew attention to them. That _she_ should consent to
accompany him to this place, and that after she was there should submit,
as she did, to taking all the business of the scheme upon herself, would
be inconceivable in a woman of a self-respecting character; but Louise
Van Burnam cared for little save her own aggrandisement, and rather
enjoyed, so far as we can see, this very doubtful escapade, whose real
meaning and murderous purpose she was so far from understanding.

"As the steamer, contrary to all expectation, had not yet been sighted
off Fire Island, they took a room and prepared to wait for it. That is,
_she_ prepared to wait. He had no intention of waiting for its arrival
or of going to it when it came; he only wanted his letter. But Louise
Van Burnam was not the woman to relinquish it till she had obtained the
price she had put on it, and he becoming very soon aware of this fact,
began to ask himself if he should not be obliged to resort to extreme
measures in order to regain it. One chance only remained for avoiding
these. He would seem to embrace her later and probably much-talked-of
scheme of presenting herself before his father in his own house rather
than at the steamer; and by urging her to make its success more certain
by a different style of dress from that she wore, induce a change of
clothing, during which he might come upon the letter he was more than
confident she carried about her person. Had this plan worked; had he
been able to seize upon this compromising bit of paper, even at the cost
of a scratch or two from her vigorous fingers, we should not be sitting
here at this moment trying to account for the most complicated crime on
record. But Louise Van Burnam, while weak and volatile enough to enjoy
the romantic features of this transformation scene, even going so far as
to write out the order herself with the same effort at disguise she had
used in registering their assumed names at the desk, was not entirely
his dupe, and having hidden the letter in her shoe----"

"What!" I cried.

"_Having hidden the letter in her shoe_," repeated Mr. Gryce, with his
finest smile, "she had but to signify that the boots sent by Altman were
a size too small, for her to retain her secret and keep the one article
she traded upon from his envious clutch. You seem struck dumb by this,
Miss Butterworth. Have I enlightened you on a point that has hitherto
troubled you?"

"Don't ask me; don't look at me." As if he ever looked at any one! "Your
perspicacity is amazing, but I will try and not show my sense of it, if
it is going to make you stop."

He smiled; the Inspector smiled: neither understood me.

"Very well then, I will go on; but the non-change of shoes had to be
accounted for, Miss Butterworth."

"You are right; and it _has_ been, of course."

"Have you any better explanation to give?"

I had, or thought I had, and the words trembled on my tongue. But I
restrained myself under an air of great impatience. "Time is flying!" I
urged, with as near a simulation of his own manner in saying the words
as I could affect. "Go on, Mr. Gryce."

And he did, though my manner evidently puzzled him.

"Being foiled in this his last attempt, this smooth and diabolical
villain hesitated no longer in carrying out the scheme which had
doubtless been maturing in his mind ever since he dropped the key of his
father's house into his own pocket. His brother's wife must die, but not
in a hotel room with him for a companion. Though scorned, detested, and
a stumbling-block in the way of the whole family's future happiness and
prosperity, she still was a Van Burnam, and no shadow must fall upon her
reputation. Further than this, for he loved life and his own reputation
also, and did not mean to endanger either by this act of
self-preservation, she must perish as if from accident, or by some blow
so undiscoverable that it would be laid to natural causes. He thought he
knew how this might be brought about. He had seen her put on her hat
with a very thin and sharp pin, and he had heard how one thrust into a
certain spot in the spine would effect death without a struggle. A wound
like that would be small; almost indiscernible. True it would take skill
to inflict it, and it would require dissimulation to bring her into the
proper position for the contemplated thrust; but he was not lacking in
either of these characteristics; and so he set himself to the task he
had promised himself, and with such success that ere long the two left
the hotel and proceeded to the house in Gramercy Park with all the
caution necessary for preserving a secret which meant reputation to the
one, and liberty, if not life, to the other. That he and not she felt
the greater need of secrecy, witness their whole conduct, and when,
their goal reached, she and not he put the money into the driver's hand,
the last act of this curious drama of opposing motives was reached, and
only the final catastrophe was wanting.

"With what arts he procured her hat-pin, and by what show of simulated
passion he was able to approach near enough to her to inflict that cool
and calculating thrust which resulted in her immediate death, I leave to
_your_ imagination. Enough that he compassed his ends, killing her and
regaining the letter for the possession of which he had been willing to
take a life. Afterwards----"

"Well, afterwards?"

"The deed he had thought so complete began to assume a different aspect.
The pin had broken in the wound, and, knowing the scrutiny which the
body would receive at the hands of a Coroner's jury, he began to see
what consequences might follow its discovery. So to hide that wound and
give to her death the wished-for appearance of accident, he went back
and drew down the cabinet under which she was found. Had he done this at
once his hand in the tragedy might have escaped detection, but he
waited, and by waiting allowed the blood-vessels to stiffen and all
that phenomena to become apparent by means of which the eyes of the
physicians were opened to the fact that they must search deeper for the
cause of death than the bruises she had received. Thus it is that
Justice opens loop-holes in the finest web a criminal can weave."

"A just remark, Mr. Gryce, but in this fine-spun web of _your_ weaving,
you have not explained how the clock came to be running and to stop at
five."

"Cannot you see? A man capable of such a crime would not forget to
provide himself with an alibi. He expected to be in his rooms at five,
so before pulling down the shelves at three or four, he wound the clock
and set it at an hour when he could bring forward testimony to his being
in another place. Is not such a theory consistent with his character and
with the skill he has displayed from the beginning to the end of this
woful affair?"

Aghast at the deftness with which this able detective explained every
detail of this crime by means of a theory necessarily hypothetical if
the discoveries I had made in the matter were true, and for the moment
subjected to the overwhelming influence of his enthusiasm, I sat in a
maze, asking myself if all the seemingly irrefutable evidence upon which
men had been convicted in times gone by was as false as this. To relieve
myself and to gain renewed confidence in my own views and the
discoveries I had made in this matter, I repeated the name of Howard,
and asked how, in case the whole crime was conceived and perpetrated by
his brother, he came to utter such equivocations and to assume that
position of guilt which had led to his own arrest.

"Do you think," I inquired, "that he was aware of his brother's part in
this affair, and that out of compassion for him he endeavored to take
the crime upon his own shoulders?"

"No, madam. Men of the world do not carry their disinterestedness so
far. He not only did not know the part his brother took in this crime,
but did not even suspect it, or why acknowledge that he lost the key by
which the house was entered?"

"I do not understand Howard's actions, even under these circumstances.
They seem totally inconsistent to me."

"Madam, they are easily explainable to one who knows the character of
his mind. He prizes his honor above every consideration, and regarded it
as threatened by the suggestion that his wife had entered his father's
empty house at midnight with another man. To save himself that shame, he
was willing not only to perjure himself, but to take upon himself the
consequences of his perjury. Quixotic, certainly, but some men are
constituted that way, and he, for all his amiable characteristics, is
the most dogged man I ever encountered. That he ran against snags in his
attempted explanations, seemed to make no difference to him. He was
bound that no one should accuse him of marrying a false woman, even if
he must bear the opprobrium of her death. It is hard to understand such
a nature, but re-read his testimony, and see if this explanation of his
conduct is not correct."

And still I mechanically repeated: "I do not understand."

Mr. Gryce may not have been a patient man under all circumstances, but
he was patient with me that day.

"It was his ignorance, Miss Butterworth, his total ignorance of the
whole affair that led him into the inconsistencies he manifested. Let me
present his case as I already have his brother's. He knew that his wife
had come to New York to appeal to his father, and he gathered from what
she said that she intended to do this either in his house or on the
dock. To cut short any opportunity she might have for committing the
first folly, he begged the key of the house from his brother, and,
supposing that he had it all right, went to his rooms, not to Coney
Island as he said, and began to pack up his trunks. For he meant to flee
the country if his wife disgraced him. He was tired of her caprices and
meant to cut them short as far as he was himself concerned. But the
striking of the midnight hour brought better counsel. He began to wonder
what she had been doing in his absence. Going out, he haunted the region
of Gramercy Park for the better part of the night, and at daybreak
actually mounted the steps of his father's house and prepared to enter
it by means of the key he had obtained from his brother. But the key was
not in his pocket, so he came down again and walked away, attracting the
attention of Mr. Stone as he did so. The next day he heard of the
tragedy which had taken place within those very walls; and though his
first fears led him to believe that the victim was his wife, a sight of
her clothes naturally dispelled this apprehension, for he knew nothing
of her visit to the Hotel D---- or of the change in her habiliments
which had taken place there. His father's persistent fears and the quiet
pressure brought to bear upon him by the police only irritated him, and
not until confronted by the hat found on the scene of death, an article
only too well known as his wife's, did he yield to the accumulated
evidence in support of her identity. Immediately he felt the full force
of his unkindness towards her, and rushing to the Morgue had her poor
body taken to that father's house and afterwards given a decent burial.
But he could not accept the shame which this acknowledgment naturally
brought with it, and, blind to all consequences, insisted, when brought
up again for examination, that he was the man with whom she came to that
lonely house. The difficulties into which this plunged him were partly
foreseen and partly prepared for, and he showed some skill in
surmounting them. But falsehoods never fit like truths, and we all felt
the strain on our credulity as he met and attempted to parry the
Coroner's questions.

"And now, Miss Butterworth, let me again ask if your turn has not come
at last for adding the sum of your evidence to ours against Franklin Van
Burnam?"

It had; I could not deny it, and as I realized that with it had also
come the opportunity for justifying the pretensions I had made, I raised
my head with suitable spirit and, after a momentary pause for the
purpose of making my words the more impressive, I asked:

"And what has made you think that _I_ was interested in fixing the guilt
on Franklin Van Burnam?"

XXXII.

ICONOCLASM.

The surprise which this very simple question occasioned, showed itself
differently in the two men who heard it. The Inspector, who had never
seen me before, simply stared, while Mr. Gryce, with that admirable
command over himself which has helped to make him the most successful
man on the force, retained his impassibility, though I noticed a small
corner drop from my filigree basket as if crushed off by an inadvertent
pressure of his hand.

"I judged," was his calm reply, as he laid down the injured toy with an
apologetic grunt, "that the clearing of Howard from suspicion meant the
establishment of another man's guilt; and so far as we can see there has
been no other party in the case besides these two brothers."

"No? Then I fear a great surprise awaits you, Mr. Gryce. This crime,
which you have fixed with such care and seeming probability upon
Franklin Van Burnam, was not, in my judgment, perpetrated either by him
or any other man. It was the act of a woman."

"A WOMAN?"

Both men spoke: the Inspector, as if he thought me demented; Mr. Gryce,
as if he would like to have considered me a fool but dared not.

"Yes, a _woman_," I repeated, dropping a quiet curtsey. It was a proper
expression of respect when I was young, and I see no reason why it
should not be a proper expression of respect now, except that we have
lost our manners in gaining our independence, something which is to be
regretted perhaps. "A woman whom I know; a woman whom I can lay my hands
on at a half-hour's notice; a young woman, sirs; a pretty woman, the
owner of one of the two hats found in the Van Burnam parlors."

Had I exploded a bomb-shell the Inspector could not have looked more
astounded. The detective, who was a man of greater self-command, did not
betray his feelings so plainly, though he was not entirely without them,
for, as I made this statement, he turned and looked at me; _Mr. Gryce_
looked at me.

"Both of those hats belonged to Mrs. Van Burnam," he protested; "the one
she wore from Haddam; the other was in the order from Altman's."

"She never ordered anything from Altman's," was my uncompromising reply.
"The woman whom I saw enter next door, and who was the same who left the
Hotel D---- with the man in the linen duster, was not Louise Van Burnam.
She was that lady's rival, and let me say it, for I dare to think it,
not only her rival but the prospective taker of her life. O you need not
shake your heads at each other so significantly, gentlemen. I have been
collecting evidence as well as yourselves, and what I have learned is
very much to the point; very much, indeed."

"The deuce you have!" muttered the Inspector, turning away from me; but
Mr. Gryce continued to eye me like a man fascinated.

"Upon what," said he, "do you base these extraordinary assertions? I
should like to hear what that evidence is."

"But first," said I, "I must take a few exceptions to certain points you
consider yourself to have made against Franklin Van Burnam. You believe
him to have committed this crime because you found in a secret drawer of
his desk a letter known to have been in Mrs. Van Burnam's hands the day
she was murdered, and which you, naturally enough, I acknowledge,
conceive he could only have regained by murdering her. But have you not
thought of another way in which he could have obtained it, a perfectly
harmless way, involving no one either in deceit or crime? May it not
have been in the little hand-bag returned by Mrs. Parker on the morning
of the discovery, and may not its crumpled condition be accounted for by
the haste with which Franklin might have thrust it into his secret
drawer at the untoward entrance of some one into his office?"

"I acknowledge that I have not thought of such a possibility," growled
the detective, below his breath, but I saw that his self-satisfaction
had been shaken.

"As for any proof of complicity being given by the presence of the rings
on the hook attached to his desk, I grieve for your sake to be obliged
to dispel that illusion also. Those rings, Mr. Gryce and Mr. Inspector,
were not discovered there by the girl in gray, but taken there; and hung
there at the very moment your spy saw her hand fumbling with the
papers."

"Taken there, and hung there by your maid! By the girl Lena, who has so
evidently been working in _your_ interests! What sort of a confession
are you making, Miss Butterworth?"

"Ah, Mr. Gryce," I gently remonstrated, for I actually pitied the old
man in his hour of humiliation, "other girls wear gray besides Lena. It
was the woman of the Hotel D---- who played this trick in Mr. Van
Burnam's office. Lena was not out of my house that day."

I had never thought Mr. Gryce feeble, though I knew he was over seventy
if not very near the octogenarian age. But he drew up a chair at this
and hastily sat down.

"Tell me about this other girl," said he.

But before I repeat what I said to him, I must explain by what reasoning
I had arrived at the conclusion I have just mentioned. That Ruth Oliver
was the visitor in Mr. Van Burnam's office there was but little reason
to doubt; that her errand was one in connection with the rings was
equally plain. What else would have driven her from her bed when she was
hardly able to stand, and sent her in a state of fever, if not delirium,
down town to this office?

She feared having these rings found in her possession, and she also
cherished a desire to throw whatever suspicion was attached to them upon
the man who was already compromised. She may have thought it was
Howard's desk she approached, and she may have known it to be
Franklin's. On that point I was in doubt, but the rest was clear to me
from the moment Mr. Gryce mentioned the girl in gray; and even the spot
where she had kept them in the interim since the murder was no longer an
unsolved mystery to me. Her emotion when I touched her knitting-work
and the shreds of unravelled wool I had found lying about after her
departure, had set my wits working, and I comprehended now _that they
had been wound up in the ball of yarn I had so carelessly handled_.

But what had I to say to Mr. Gryce in answer to his question. Much; and
seeing that further delay was injudicious, I began my story then and
there. Prefacing my tale with the suspicions I had always had of Mrs.
Boppert, I told them of my interview with that woman and of the valuable
clue she had given me by confessing that she had let Mrs. Van Burnam
into the house prior to the visit of the couple who entered there at
midnight. Knowing what an effect this must produce upon Mr. Gryce,
utterly unprepared for it as he was, I looked for some burst of anger on
his part, or at least some expression of self-reproach. But he only
broke a second piece off my little filigree basket, and, totally
unconscious of the demolition he was causing, cried out with true
professional delight:

"Well! well! I've always said this was a remarkable case, a very
remarkable case; but if we don't look out it will go ahead of that one
at Sibley. _Two_ women in the affair, and one of them in the house
before the arrival of the so-called victim and her murderer! What do you
think of that, Inspector? Rather late for us to find out so important a
detail, eh?"

"Rather," was the dry reply. At which Mr. Gryce's face grew long and he
exclaimed, half shamefacedly, half jocularly:

"Outwitted by a woman! Well, it's a new experience for me, Inspector,
and you must not be surprised if it takes me a minute or so to get
accustomed to it. A scrub-woman too! It cuts, Inspector, it cuts."

But as I went on, and he learned how I had obtained definite proof of
the clock having been not only wound by the lady thus admitted to the
house, but set also and that correctly, his face grew even longer, and
he gazed quite dolefully at the small figure in the carpet to which he
had transferred his attention.

"So! so!" came in almost indistinguishable murmur from his lips. "All my
pretty theory in regard to its being set by the criminal for the purpose
of confirming his attempt at a false alibi was but a figment of my
imagination, eh? Sad! sad! But it was neat enough to have been true, was
it not, Inspector?"

"Quite," that gentleman good-humoredly admitted, yet with a shade of
irony in his tone that made me suspect that, for all his confidence in
and evident admiration for this brilliant old detective, he felt a
certain amount of pleasure at seeing him for once at fault. Perhaps it
gave him more confidence in his own judgment, seeing that their ideas on
this case had been opposed from the start.

"Well! well! I'm getting old; that's what they'll say at Headquarters
to-morrow. But go on, Miss Butterworth; let us hear what followed; for I
am sure your investigations did not stop there."

I complied with his request with as much modesty as possible. But it was
hard to suppress all triumph in face of the unrestrained enthusiasm with
which he received my communication. When I told him of the doubts I had
formed in regard to the disposal of the packages brought from the Hotel
D----, and how to settle those doubts I had taken that midnight walk
down Twenty-seventh Street, he looked astonished, his lips worked, and I
really expected to see him try to pluck that flower up from the carpet,
he ogled it so lovingly. But when I mentioned the lighted laundry and my
discoveries there, his admiration burst all bounds, and he cried out,
seemingly to the rose in the carpet, really to the Inspector:

"Didn't I tell you she was a woman in a thousand? See now! we ought to
have thought of that laundry ourselves; but we didn't, none of us did;
we were too credulous and too easily satisfied with the evidence given
at the inquest. Well, I'm seventy-seven, but I'm not too old to learn.
Proceed, Miss Butterworth."

I admired him and I was sorry for him, but I never enjoyed myself so
much in my whole life. How could I help it, or how could I prevent
myself from throwing a glance now and then at the picture of my father
smiling upon me from the opposite wall?

It was my task now to mention the advertisement I had inserted in the
newspapers, and the reflections which had led to my rather daring
description of the wandering woman as one dressed thus and so, and
_without a hat_. This seemed to strike him--as I had expected it
would,--and he interrupted me with a quick slap of his leg, for which
only that leg was prepared.

"Good!" he ejaculated; "a fine stroke! The work of a woman of genius! I
could not have done better myself, Miss Butterworth. And what came of
it? Something, I hope; talent like yours should not go unrewarded."

"Two letters came of it," said I. "One from Cox, the milliner, saying
that a bareheaded girl had bought a hat in his shop early on the morning
designated; and another from a Mrs. Desberger appointing a meeting at
which I obtained a definite clue to this girl, who, notwithstanding she
wore Mrs. Van Burnam's clothes from the scene of tragedy, is not Mrs.
Van Burnam herself, but a person by the name of Oliver, now to be found
at Miss Althorpe's house in Twenty-first Street."

As this was in a measure putting the matter into their hands, I saw them
both grow impatient in their anxiety to see this girl for themselves.
But I kept them for a few minutes longer while I related my discovery of
the money in her shoes, and hinted at the explanation it afforded for
her not changing those articles under the influence of the man who
accompanied her.

This was the last blow I dealt to the pride of Mr. Gryce. He quivered
under it, but soon recovered, and was able to enjoy what he called
another fine point in this remarkable case.

But the acme of his delight was reached when I informed him of my
ineffectual search for the rings, and my final conclusion that they had
been wound up in the ball of yarn attached to her knitting-work.

Whether his pleasure lay chiefly in the talent shown by Miss Oliver in
her choice of a hiding-place for these jewels, or in the acumen
displayed by myself in discovering it, I do not know; but he evinced an
unbounded satisfaction in my words, crying aloud:

"Beautiful! I don't know of anything more interesting! We have not seen
the like in years! I can almost congratulate myself upon my mistakes,
the features of the case they have brought out are so fine!"

But his satisfaction, great as it was, soon gave way to his anxiety to
see this girl who, if not the criminal herself, was so important a
factor in this great crime.

I was anxious myself to have him see her, though I feared her condition
was not such as to promise him any immediate enlightenment on the
doubtful portions of this far from thoroughly mastered problem. And I
bade him interview the Chinaman also, and Mrs. Desberger, and even Mrs.
Boppert, for I did not wish him to take for granted anything I had said,
though I saw he had lost his attitude of disdain and was inclined to
accept my opinions quite seriously.

He answered in quite an off-hand manner while the Inspector stood by,
but when that gentleman had withdrawn towards the door, Mr. Gryce
remarked with more earnestness than he had yet used:

"You have saved me from committing a folly, Miss Butterworth. If I had
arrested Franklin Van Burnam to-day, and to-morrow all these facts had
come to light, I should never have held up my head again. As it is,
there will be numerous insinuations uttered by men on the force, and
many a whisper will go about that Gryce is getting old, that Gryce has
seen his best days."

"Nonsense!" was my vigorous rejoinder. "You didn't have the clue, that
is all. Nor did I get it through any keenness on my part, but from the
force of circumstances. Mrs. Boppert thought herself indebted to me, and
so gave me her confidence. Your laurels are very safe yet. Besides,
there is enough work left on this case to keep more than one great
detective like you busy. While the Van Burnams have not been proved
guilty, they are not so freed from suspicion that you can regard your
task as completed. If Ruth Oliver committed this crime, which of these
two brothers was involved in it with her? The facts seem to point
towards Franklin, but not so unerringly that no doubt is possible on the
subject."

"True, true. The mystery has deepened rather than cleared. Miss
Butterworth, you will accompany me to Miss Althorpe's."

XXXIII.

"KNOWN, KNOWN, ALL KNOWN."

Mr. Gryce possesses one faculty for which I envy him, and that is his
skill in the management of people. He had not been in Miss Althorpe's
house five minutes before he had won her confidence and had everything
he wished at his command. _I_ had to talk some time before getting so
far, but _he_--a word and a look did it.

Miss Oliver, for whom I hesitated to inquire, lest I should again find
her gone or in a worse condition than when I left, was in reality
better, and as we went up-stairs I allowed myself to hope that the
questions which had so troubled us would soon be answered and the
mystery ended.

But Mr. Gryce evidently knew better, for when we reached her door he
turned and said:

"Our task will not be an easy one. Go in first and attract her attention
so that I can enter unobserved. I wish to study her before addressing
her; but, mind, no words about the murder; leave that to me."

I nodded, feeling that I was falling back into my own place; and
knocking softly entered the room.

A maid was sitting with her. Seeing me, she rose and advanced, saying:

"Miss Oliver is sleeping."

"Then I will relieve you," I returned, beckoning Mr. Gryce to come in.

The girl left us and we two contemplated the sick woman silently.
Presently I saw Mr. Gryce shake his head. But he did not tell me what he
meant by it.

Following the direction of his finger, I sat down in a chair at the head
of the bed; he took his station at the side of it in a large arm-chair
he saw there. As he did so I saw how fatherly and kind he really looked,
and wondered if he was in the habit of so preparing himself to meet the
eye of all the suspected criminals he encountered. The thought made me
glance again her way. She lay like a statue, and her face, naturally
round but now thinned out and hollow, looked up from the pillow in
pitiful quiet, the long lashes accentuating the dark places under her
eyes.

A sad face, the saddest I ever saw and one of the most haunting.

He seemed to find it so also, for his expression of benevolent interest
deepened with every passing moment, till suddenly she stirred; then he
gave me a warning glance, and stooping, took her by the wrist and pulled
out his watch.

She was deceived by the action. Opening her eyes, she surveyed him
languidly for a moment, then heaving a great sigh, turned aside her
head.

"Don't tell me I am better, doctor. I do not want to live."

The plaintive tone, the refined accent, seemed to astonish him. Laying
down her hand, he answered gently:

"I do not like to hear that from such young lips, but it assures me that
I was correct in my first surmise, that it is not medicine you need but
a friend. And I can be that friend if you will but allow me."

Moved, encouraged for the instant, she turned her head from side to
side, probably to see if they were alone, and not observing me, answered
softly:

"You are very good, very thoughtful, doctor, but"--and here her despair
returned again--"it is useless; you can do nothing for me."

"You think so," remonstrated the old detective, "but you do not know me,
child. Let me show you that I can be of benefit to you." And he drew
from his pocket a little package which he opened before her astonished
eyes. "Yesterday, in your delirium, you left these rings in an office
down-town. As they are valuable, I have brought them back to you. Wasn't
I right, my child?"

"No! no!" She started up, and her accents betrayed terror and anguish,
"I do not want them; I cannot bear to see them; they do not belong to
_me_; they belong to _them_."

"To _them_? Whom do you mean by them?" queried Mr. Gryce, insinuatingly.

"The--the Van Burnams. Is not that the name? Oh, do not make me talk; I
am so weak! Only take the rings back."

"I will, child, I will." Mr. Gryce's voice was more than fatherly now,
it was tender, really and sincerely tender. "I will take them back; but
to which of the brothers shall I return them? To"--he hesitated
softly--"to Franklin or to Howard?"

I expected to hear her respond, his manner was so gentle and apparently
sincere. But though feverish and on the verge of wildness, she had still
some command over herself, and after giving him a look, the intensity
of which called out a corresponding expression on his face, she faltered
out:

"I--I don't care; I don't know either of the gentlemen; but to the one
you call Howard, I think."

The pause which followed was filled by the tap-tap of Mr. Gryce's
fingers on his knee.

"That is the one who is in custody," he observed at last. "The other,
that is Franklin, has gone scot-free thus far, I hear."

No answer from her close-shut lips.

He waited.

Still no answer.

"If you do not know either of these gentlemen," he insinuated at last,
"how did you come to leave the rings at their office?"

"I knew their names--I inquired my way--It is all a dream now. Please,
please do not ask me questions. O doctor! do you not see I cannot bear
it?"

He smiled--I never could smile like that under any circumstances--and
softly patted her hand.

"I see it makes you suffer," he acknowledged, "but I must make you
suffer in order to do you any good. If you would tell me all you know
about these rings----"

She passionately turned away her head.

"I might hope to restore you to health and happiness. You know with what
they are associated?"

She made a slight motion.

"And that they are an invaluable clue to the murderer of Mrs. Van
Burnam?"

Another motion.

"How then, my child, did _you_ come to have them?"

Her head, which was rolling to and fro on the pillow, stopped and she
gasped, rather than uttered:

"I was _there_."

He knew this, yet it was terrible to hear it from her lips; she was so
young and had such an air of purity and innocence. But more heartrending
yet was the groan with which she burst forth in another moment, as if
impelled by conscience to unburden herself from some overwhelming load:

"I took them; I could not help it; but I did not keep them; you know
that I did not keep them. I am no thief, doctor; whatever I am, I am no
thief."

"Yes, yes, I see that. But why take them, child? What were you doing in
that house, and whom were you with?"

She threw up her arms, but made no reply.

"Will you not tell?" he urged.

A short silence, then a low "No," evidently wrung from her by the
deepest anguish.

Mr. Gryce heaved a sigh; the struggle was likely to be a more serious
one than he had anticipated.

"Miss Oliver," said he, "more facts are known in relation to this affair
than you imagine. Though unsuspected at first, it has secretly been
proven that the man who accompanied the woman into the house where the
crime took place, was _Franklin_ Van Burnam."

A low gasp from the bed, and that was all.

"You know this to be correct, don't you, Miss Oliver?"

"O must you ask?" She was writhing now, and I thought he must desist out
of pure compassion. But detectives are made out of very stern stuff, and
though he looked sorry he went inexorably on.

"Justice and a sincere desire to help you, force me, my child. Were you
not the woman who entered Mr. Van Burnam's house at midnight with this
man?"

"I entered the house."

"At midnight?"

"Yes."

"And with this man?"

Silence.

"You do not speak, Miss Oliver."

Again silence.

"It was Franklin who was with you at the Hotel D----?"

She uttered a cry.

"And it was Franklin who connived at your change of clothing there, and
advised or allowed you to dress yourself in a new suit from Altman's?"

"Oh!" she cried again.

"Then why should it not have been he who accompanied you to the
Chinaman's, and afterwards took you in a second hack to the house in
Gramercy Park?"

"Known, known, all known!" was her moan.

"Sin and crime cannot long remain hidden in this world, Miss Oliver. The
police are acquainted with all your movements from the moment you left
the Hotel D----. That is why I have compassion on you. I wish to save
you from the consequences of a crime you saw committed, but in which you
took no hand."

"O," she exclaimed in one involuntary burst, as she half rose to her
knees, "if you could save me from appearing in the matter at all! If you
would let me run away----"

But Mr. Gryce was not the man to give her hope on any such score.

"Impossible, Miss Oliver. You are the only person who can witness for
the guilty. If _I_ should let you go, the police would not. Then why not
tell at once whose hand drew the hat-pin from your hat and----"

"Stop!" she shrieked; "stop! you kill me! I cannot bear it! If you bring
that moment back to my mind I shall go mad! I feel the horror of it
rising in me now! Be still! I pray you, for God's sake, to be still!"

This was mortal anguish; there was no acting in this. Even he was
startled by the emotion he had raised, and sat for a moment without
speaking. Then the necessity of providing against all further mistakes
by fixing the guilt where it belonged, drove him on again, and he said:

"Like many another woman before you, you are trying to shield a guilty
man at your own expense. But it is useless, Miss Oliver; the truth
always comes to light. Be advised, then, and make a confidant of one who
understands you better than you think."

But she would not listen to this.

"No one understands me. I do not understand myself. I only know that I
shall make a confidant of no one; that I shall never speak." And turning
from him, she buried her head in the bedclothes.

To most men her tone and the action which accompanied it would have been
final. But Mr. Gryce possessed great patience. Waiting for just a moment
till she seemed more composed, he murmured gently:

"Not if you must suffer more from your silence than from speaking? Not
if men--I do not mean myself, child, for I am your friend--will think
that _you_ are to blame for the death of the woman whom you saw fall
under a cruel stab, and whose rings you have?"

"_I!_" Her horror was unmistakable; so were her surprise, her terror,
and her shame, but she added nothing to the word she had uttered, and he
was forced to say again:

"The world, and by that I mean both good people and bad, will believe
all this. _He_ will let them believe all this. Men have not the devotion
of women."

"Alas! alas!" It was a murmur rather than a cry, and she trembled so the
bed shook visibly under her. But she made no response to the entreaty in
his look and gesture, and he was compelled to draw back unsatisfied.

When a few heavy minutes had passed, he spoke again, this time in a tone
of sadness.

"Few men are worth such sacrifices, Miss Oliver, and a criminal never.
But a woman is not moved by that thought. She should be moved by this,
however. If either of these brothers is to blame in this matter,
consideration for the guiltless one should lead you to mention the name
of the guilty."

But even this did not visibly affect her.

"I shall mention no names," said she.

"A sign will answer."

"I shall make no sign."

"Then Howard must go to his trial?"

A gasp, but no words.

"And Franklin proceed on his way undisturbed?"

She tried not to answer, but the words would come. Pray God! I may never
see such a struggle again.

"That is as God wills. I can do nothing in the matter." And she sank
back crushed and wellnigh insensible.

Mr. Gryce made no further effort to influence her.

XXXIV.

EXACTLY HALF-PAST THREE.

"She is more unfortunate than wicked," was Mr. Gryce's comment as we
stepped into the hall. "Nevertheless, watch her closely, for she is in
just the mood to do herself a mischief. In an hour, or at the most two,
I shall have a woman here to help you. You can stay till then?"

"All night, if you say so."

"That you must settle with Miss Althorpe. As soon as Miss Oliver is up I
shall have a little scheme to propose, by means of which I hope to
arrive at the truth of this affair. I must know which of these two men
she is shielding."

"Then you think she did not kill Mrs. Van Burnam herself?"

"I think the whole matter one of the most puzzling mysteries that has
ever come to the notice of the New York police. We are sure that the
murdered woman was Mrs. Van Burnam, that this girl was present at her
death, and that she availed herself of the opportunity afforded by that
death to make the exchange of clothing which has given such a
complicated twist to the whole affair. But beyond these facts, we know
little more than that it was Franklin Van Burnam who took her to the
Gramercy Park house, and Howard who was seen in that same vicinity some
two or four hours later. But on which of these two to fix the
responsibility of Mrs. Van Burnam's death, is the question."

"She had a hand in it herself," I persisted; "though it may have been
without evil intent. No man ever carried that thing through without
feminine help. To this opinion I shall stick, much as this girl draws
upon my sympathies."

"I shall not try to persuade you to the contrary. But the point is to
find out how much help, and to whom it was given."

"And your scheme for doing this?"

"Cannot be carried out till she is on her feet again. So cure her, Miss
Butterworth, cure her. When she can go down-stairs, Ebenezer Gryce will
be on the scene to test his little scheme."

I promised to do what I could, and when he was gone, I set diligently to
work to soothe the child, as he had called her, and get her in trim for
the delicate meal which had been sent up. And whether it was owing to a
change in my own feelings, or whether the talk with Mr. Gryce had so
unnerved her that any womanly ministration was welcome, she responded
much more readily to my efforts than ever before, and in a little while
lay in so calm and grateful a mood that I was actually sorry to see the
nurse when she came. Hoping that something might spring from an
interview with Miss Althorpe whereby my departure from the house might
be delayed, I descended to the library, and was fortunate enough to find
the mistress of the house there. She was sorting invitations, and looked
anxious and worried.

"You see me in a difficulty, Miss Butterworth. I had relied on Miss
Oliver to oversee this work, as well as to assist me in a great many
other details, and I don't know of any one whom I can get on short
notice to take her place. My own engagements are many and----"

"Let me help you," I put in, with that cheerfulness her presence
invariably inspires. "I have nothing pressing calling me home, and for
once in my life I should like to take an active part in wedding
festivities. It would make me feel quite young again."

"But----" she began.

"Oh," I hastened to say, "you think I would be more of a hindrance to
you than a help; that I would do the work, perhaps, but in my own way
rather than in yours. Well, that would doubtless have been true of me a
month since, but I have learned a great deal in the last few weeks,--you
will not ask me how,--and now I stand ready to do your work in your way,
and to take a great deal of pleasure in it too."

"Ah, Miss Butterworth," she exclaimed, with a burst of genuine feeling
which I would not have lost for the world, "I always knew that you had a
kind heart; and I am going to accept your offer in the same spirit in
which it is made."

So that was settled, and with it the possibility of my spending another
night in this house.

At ten o'clock I stole away from the library and the delightful company
of Mr. Stone, who had insisted upon sharing my labors, and went up to
Miss Oliver's room. I met the nurse at the door.

"You want to see her," said she. "She's asleep, but does not rest very
easily. I don't think I ever saw so pitiful a case. She moans
continually, but not with physical pain. Yet she seems to have courage
too; for now and then she starts up with a loud cry. Listen."

I did so, and this is what I heard:

"I do not want to live; doctor, I do not want to live; why do you try to
make me better?"

"That is what she is saying all the time. Sad, isn't it?"

I acknowledged it to be so, but at the same time wondered if the girl
were not right in wishing for death as a relief from her troubles.

Early the next morning I inquired at her door again. Miss Oliver was
better. Her fever had left her, and she wore a more natural look than at
any time since I had seen her. But it was not an untroubled one, and it
was with difficulty I met her eyes when she asked if they were coming
for her that day, and if she could see Miss Althorpe before she left. As
she was not yet able to leave her bed I could easily answer her first
question, but I knew too little of Mr. Gryce's intentions to be able to
reply to the second. But I was easy with this suffering woman, very
easy, more easy than I ever supposed I could be with any one so
intimately associated with crime.

She seemed to accept my explanations as readily as she already had my
presence, and I was struck again with surprise as I considered that my
name had never aroused in her the least emotion.

"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."

XXXV.

A RUSE.

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.

_BOOK IV._

THE END OF A GREAT MYSTERY.

XXXVI.

THE RESULT.

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."

"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.

XXXVII.

"TWO WEEKS!"

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."

XXXVIII.

A WHITE SATIN GOWN.

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.

"Now for the dress!" she cried.

We rode at once to Arnold's.

"What kind of a dress do you want?" I inquired as we entered the store.

"An evening one; a white satin, I think."

I could not help the exclamation which escaped me; but I covered it up
as quickly as possible by a hurried remark in favor of white, and we
proceeded at once to the silk counter.

"I will trust it all to you," she whispered in an odd, choked tone as
the clerk approached us. "Get what you would for your daughter--no, no!
for Mr. Van Burnam's daughter, if he has one, and do not spare expense.
I have five hundred dollars in my pocket."

Mr. Van Burnam's daughter! Well, well! A tragedy of some kind was
portending! But I bought the dress.

"Now," said she, "lace, and whatever else I need to make it up suitably.
And I must have slippers and gloves. You know what a young girl requires
to make her look like a lady. I want to look so well that the most
critical eye will detect no fault in my appearance. It can be done, can
it not, Miss Butterworth? My face and figure will not spoil the effect,
will they?"

"No," said I; "you have a good face and a beautiful figure. You ought to
look well. Are you going to a ball, my dear?"

"I am going to a ball," she answered; but her tone was so strange the
people passing us turned to look at her.

"Let us have everything sent to the carriage," said she, and went with
me from counter to counter with her ready purse in her hand, but not
once lifting her veil to look at what was offered us, saying over and
over as I sought to consult her in regard to some article: "Buy the
richest; I leave it all to you."

Had Mr. Gryce not told me she must be humored, I could never have gone
through this ordeal. To see a girl thus expend her hoarded savings on
such frivolities was absolutely painful to me, and more than once I was
tempted to decline any further participation in such extravagance. But a
thought of my obligations to Mr. Gryce restrained me, and I went on
spending the poor girl's dollars with more pain to myself than if I had
taken them out of my own pocket.

Having purchased all the articles we thought necessary, we were turning
towards the door when Miss Oliver whispered:

"Wait for me in the carriage for just a few minutes. I have one more
thing to buy, and I must do it alone."

"But----" I began.

"I will do it, and I will not be followed," she insisted, in a shrill
tone that made me jump.

And seeing no other way of preventing a scene, I let her leave me,
though it cost me an anxious fifteen minutes.

When she rejoined me, as she did at the expiration of that time, I eyed
the bundle she held with decided curiosity. But I could make no guess at
its contents.

"Now," she cried, as she reseated herself and closed the carriage door,
"where shall I find a dressmaker able and willing to make up this satin
in five days?"

I could not tell her. But after some little search we succeeded in
finding a woman who engaged to make an elegant costume in the time given
her. The first measurements were taken, and we drove back to Ninth
Street with a lasting memory in my mind of the cold and rigid form of
Miss Oliver standing up in Madame's triangular parlor, submitting to the
mechanical touches of the modiste with an outward composure, but with a
brooding horror in her eyes that bespoke an inward torment.

XXXIX.

THE WATCHFUL EYE.

As I parted with Miss Oliver on Mrs. Desberger's stoop and did not visit
her again in that house, I will introduce the report of a person better
situated than myself to observe the girl during the next few days. That
the person thus alluded to was a woman in the service of the police is
evident, and as such may not meet with your approval, but her words are
of interest, as witness:

"Friday P.M.

"Party went out to-day in company with an elderly female of respectable
appearance. Said elderly female wears puffs, and moves with great
precision. I say this in case her identification should prove necessary.

"I had been warned that Miss O. would probably go out, and as the man
set to watch the front door was on duty, I occupied myself during her
absence in making a neat little hole in the partitions between our two
rooms, so that I should not be obliged to offend my next-door neighbor
by too frequent visits to her apartment. This done, I awaited her
return, which was delayed till it was almost dark. When she did come in,
her arms were full of bundles. These she thrust into a bureau-drawer,
with the exception of one, which she laid with great care under her
pillow. I wondered what this one could be, but could get no inkling from
its size or shape. Her manner when she took off her hat was fiercer than
before, and a strange smile, which I had not previously observed on her
lips, added force to her expression. But it paled after supper-time, and
she had a restless night. I could hear her walk the floor long after I
thought it prudent on my part to retire, and at intervals through the
night I was disturbed by her moaning, which was not that of a sick
person but of one very much afflicted in mind.

"Saturday.

"Party quiet. Sits most of the time with hands clasped on her knee
before the fire. Given to quick starts as if suddenly awakened from an
absorbing train of thought. A pitiful object, especially when seized by
terror as she is at odd times. No walks, no visitors to-day. Once I
heard her speak some words in a strange language, and once she drew
herself up before the mirror in an attitude of so much dignity I was
surprised at the fine appearance she made. The fire of her eyes at this
moment was remarkable. I should not be surprised at any move she might
make.

"Sunday.

"She has been writing to-day. But when she had filled several pages of
letter paper she suddenly tore them all up and threw them into the fire.
Time seems to drag with her, for she goes every few minutes to the
window from which a distant church clock is visible, and sighs as she
turns away. More writing in the evening and some tears. But the writing
was burned as before, and the tears stopped by a laugh that augurs
little good to the person who called it up. The package has been taken
from under her pillow and put in some place not visible from my
spy-hole.

"Monday.

"Party out again to-day, gone some two hours or more. When she returned
she sat down before the mirror and began dressing her hair. She has fine
hair, and she tried arranging it in several ways. None seemed to satisfy
her, and she tore it down again and let it hang till supper-time, when
she wound it up in its usual simple knot. Mrs. Desberger spent some
minutes with her, but their talk was far from confidential, and
therefore uninteresting. I wish people would speak louder when they talk
to themselves.

"Tuesday.

"Great restlessness on the part of the young person I am watching. No
quiet for her, no quiet for me, yet she accomplishes nothing, and as yet
has furnished me no clue to her thoughts.

"A huge box was brought into the room to-night. It seemed to cause her
dread rather than pleasure, for she shrank at sight of it, and has not
yet attempted to open it. But her eyes have never left it since it was
set down on the floor. It looks like a dressmaker's box, but why such
emotion over a gown?

"Wednesday.

"This morning she opened the box but did not display its contents. I
caught one glimpse of a mass of tissue paper, and then she put the cover
on again, and for a good half hour sat crouching down beside it,
shuddering like one in an ague-fit. I began to feel there was something
deadly in the box, her eyes wandered towards it so frequently and with
such contradictory looks of dread and savage determination. When she
got up it was to see how many more minutes of the wretched day had
passed.

"Thursday.

"Party sick; did not try to leave her bed. Breakfast brought up by Mrs.
Desberger, who showed her every attention, but could not prevail upon
her to eat. Yet she would not let the tray be taken away, and when she
was alone again or thought herself alone, she let her eyes rest so long
on the knife lying across her plate, that I grew nervous and could
hardly restrain myself from rushing into the room. But I remembered my
instructions, and kept still even when I saw her hand steal towards this
possible weapon, though I kept my own on the bell-rope which fortunately
hung at my side. She looked quite capable of wounding herself with the
knife, but after balancing it a moment in her hand, she laid it down
again and turned with a low moan to the wall. She will not attempt death
till she has accomplished what is in her mind.

"Friday.

"All is right in the next room; that is, the young lady is up; but there
is another change in her appearance since last night. She has grown
contemptuous of herself and indulges less in brooding. But her
impatience at the slow passage of time continues, and her interest in
the box is even greater than before. She does not open it, however, only
looks at it and lays her trembling hand now and then on the cover.

"Saturday.

"A blank day. Party dull and very quiet. Her eyes begin to look like
ghastly hollows in her pale face. She talks to herself continually, but
in a low mechanical way exceedingly wearing to the listener, especially
as no word can be distinguished. Tried to see her in her own room
to-day, but she would not admit me.

"Sunday.

"I have noticed from the first a Bible lying on one end of her
mantel-shelf. To-day she noticed it also, and impulsively reached out
her hand to take it down. But at the first word she read she gave a low
cry and hastily closed the book and put it back. Later, however, she
took it again and read several chapters. The result was a softening in
her manner, but she went to bed as flushed and determined as ever.

"Monday.

"She has walked the floor all day. She has seen no one, and seems
scarcely able to contain her impatience. She cannot stand this long.

"Tuesday.

"My surprises began in the morning. As soon as her room had been put in
order, Miss O. locked the door and began to open her bundles. First she
unrolled a pair of white silk stockings, which she carefully, but
without any show of interest, laid on the bed; then she opened a package
containing gloves. They were white also, and evidently of the finest
quality. Then a lace handkerchief was brought to light, slippers, an
evening fan, and a pair of fancy pins, and lastly she opened the
mysterious box and took out a dress so rich in quality and of such
simple elegance, it almost took my breath away. It was white, and made
of the heaviest satin, and it looked as much out of place in that shabby
room as its owner did in the moments of exaltation of which I have
spoken.

"Though her face was flushed when she lifted out the gown, it became
pale again when she saw it lying across her bed. Indeed, a look of
passionate abhorrence characterized her features as she contemplated it,
and her hands went up before her eyes and she reeled back uttering the
first words I have been able to distinguish since I have been on duty.
They were violent in character, and seemed to tear their way through her
lips almost without her volition. 'It is hate I feel, nothing but hate.
Ah, if it were only duty that animated me!'

"Later she grew calmer, and covering up the whole paraphernalia with a
stray sheet she had evidently laid by for the purpose, she sent for Mrs.
Desberger. When that lady came in she met her with a wan but by no means
dubious smile, and ignoring with quiet dignity the very evident
curiosity with which that good woman surveyed the bed, she said
appealingly:

"'You have been so kind to me, Mrs. Desberger, that I am going to tell
you a secret. Will it continue to remain a secret, or shall I see it in
the faces of all my fellow-boarders to-morrow?' You can imagine Mrs.
Desberger's reply, also the manner in which it was delivered, but not
Miss Oliver's secret. She uttered it in these words: 'I am going out
to-night, Mrs. Desberger. I am going into great society. I am going to
attend Miss Althorpe's wedding.' Then, as the good woman stammered out
some words of surprise and pleasure, she went on to say: 'I do not want
any one to know it, and I would be so glad if I could slip out of the
house without any one seeing me. I shall need a carriage, but you will
get one for me, will you not, and let me know the moment it comes. I am
shy of what folks say, and besides, as you know, I am neither happy nor
well, if I do go to weddings, and have new dresses, and----' She nearly
broke down but collected herself with wonderful promptitude, and with a
coaxing look that made her almost ghastly, so much it seemed out of
accord with her strained and unnatural manner, she raised a corner of
the sheet, saying, 'I will show you my gown, if you will promise to help
me quietly out of the house,' which, of course, produced the desired
effect upon Mrs. Desberger, that woman's greatest weakness being her
love of dress.

"So from that hour I knew what to expect, and after sending
precautionary advices to Police Headquarters, I set myself to watch her
prepare for the evening. I saw her arrange her hair and put on her
elegant gown, and was as much startled by the result as if I had not had
the least premonition that she only needed rich clothes to look both
beautiful and distinguished. The square parcel she had once hidden under
her pillow was brought out and laid on the bed, and when Mrs.
Desberger's low knock announced the arrival of the carriage, she caught
it up and hid it under the cloak she hastily threw about her. Mrs.