The Saturday Evening Post/The Buckled Bag/Part 2
V
MY first feeling was one of horror. Her condition was frankly terrible. I even feared at first that she was dead. I found a pulse, however. I am big and strong; I got her down off the staircase and laid her flat on the floor. All the time I was praying that none of the family or the servants had been roused. I did not want any one to see her yet.
I brought down some aromatic ammonia and gave it to her in water. Mrs. March was sleeping calmly; across the hall Mr. March also slept, audibly. I had a little time; I wanted an hour—maybe two.
She came to very gradually, throwing an arm over her head, moving a little, and finally opening her eyes. I talked soothingly to her.
“Now don't be alarmed,” I said over and over. “You are at home and everything is all right. I am a nurse. Everything is all right.”
“I want—Julie,” she said at last, feebly.
I had never heard the name.
“Julie is coming. Can you sit up if I hold you?”
She made an effort, and by degrees I got her into the music room. She collapsed again there; and, there being no couch, I put her down on the floor with a cushion under her head. Terrible thoughts had been running through my head. The papers had been full of abduction stories, and I confess I thought nothing else could explain her condition, her rags.
“I am hungry,” she said when I got her settled. “I am—I am starving! I don't know when I have had anything to eat.”
She looked it too. I had the beef capsules in my pocket and I left her there while I made some broth. I brought it back, with crackers. She was into a chair by that time; and she drank the stuff greedily, blistering hot as it was.
I had my first chance to take an inventory of her appearance. It was startling. Her hands were abraded and blistered. She held one out to me pathetically, but without comment. Over one eye was a deep bluish bruise. Her face was almost colorless, and her forearm, where one sleeve had been torn away, was thin to emaciation. Every trace of beauty was eclipsed for the time. She was shocking—that is all.
I Had No Idea There Would be Further Mystery to Solve
Her clothing was thin and inadequate—a torn white waist, much soiled; a short, ragged black skirt; and satin bedroom slippers, frayed and cut. She had nothing on her head and no wrap, though the night was cold. She looked up at me when she held out the empty cup.
“How is mother?”
“She has not been well. She is all right.”
“Was it worry?”
“Yes. Do you think you can get up the stairs?”
“Is that all I am to have to eat?”
“I'll get more soon. You mustn't take too much at once.”
She rose and I put my arm around her. She had taken me for granted, childishly, but at the foot of the stairs she halted our further progress to ask me:
“Who are you? You are not a servant.”
“I am a trained nurse. I've been caring for your mother during her illness.”
We went up the stairs and into her room.
Mrs. March wakened about the time I had got the girl to her own room.
“Don't tell mother yet,” she begged. “Give me a little time. I—I'd frighten her now.”
I promised. When I went back, half an hour later, Clare had undressed herself and put on a negligée from the closet. She was sitting in front of the fire I had lighted, brushing out her hair. For the first time she was reminiscent of the girl of the photographs. She was not like them yet—she was too gaunt.
I tried to coax her to bed, but she would not go. I was puzzled. Her nervous excitement was extreme; more than once she stopped, with brush poised, as if she were on the point of asking me some question; but she never asked it—her courage evidently failed her. It was a horrible night. I sat inside the door of my patient's room, in darkness, and watched the door opposite. I could hear the girl pacing back and forth; I was almost crazy.
I offered her a bromide, which she refused to take; but about half-past three I heard her lie down on the bed, and some of the tension relaxed. I had a chance to think, to work out a course of action. Mr. Patton should be notified at once; and as soon as the girl was really composed, I would rouse Mr. March. I knew I would be criticized in the family for not rousing them all at once, but I am always willing to take the responsibility for what I do—the doctor's orders first and my own judgment next is my motto. And there have been times when the doctor's orders—but never mind about that.
I looked at my watch. It was almost four o'clock and still black dark. I went down to the library, where the telephone stood on a stand behind a teakwood screen, and called up Mr. Patton's apartment; but I could not get him. I hung up the receiver and sat there in the darkness, meaning to try again in a moment or so. It was while I was still there that I heard Clare on the stairs.
She came slowly and painfully—a step; a pause for rest, another step. Once down in the lower hall, she made better progress. She came directly into the library, through the music room, and turned on the lights.
I was curious. It was easy to watch her through the carved margin of the screen. It was only curiosity. I had no idea there would be further mystery to solve. In the morning she would tell her story, the law would take hold, and that would be all. But I recall distinctly every movement she made.
First she went to the long table littered with magazines, with the bronze reading lamp in the center. She glanced over the magazines as they lay, picked up the framed picture of herself and looked at it for a long moment, her hands visibly trembling. Then she took a survey of the room.
There was an English fender about the fireplace, with a tufted leather top. Mr. Plummer habitually sat there, with his back to the fire. And just inside, thrown carelessly, lay a newspaper. It was the newspaper she wanted. It was not easy for her to reach it in her weakened condition. She stooped, staggered, bent again, and got it.
The wood fire had burnt itself out, but the warm bricks and ashes still threw out a comforting heat. She curled up on the floor by the fender and proceeded to go over the pages, running a shaking finger through paragraph after paragraph. I was most uncomfortable, half-ashamed, and cramped from my position.
When I felt that I could stand no more, she found what she was looking for. I heard her gasp and then saw her throw herself forward, her face in her arms, crying silently but fiercely, her shoulders shaking. She paid no attention when I bent over her, except to draw herself away from my hand. When I tried to take the newspaper, however, she snatched it from my hand and sat up.
“Go away!” she said hysterically. “You're always round watching me. Can't I even cry alone?”
I was rather offended. I was raw and new, and it hurt. I drew back, like a fool, and lost a clew that we did not find until weeks later.
“I'm sorry you feel that way,” I said coldly and went out and up the stairs.
She burned the paper before she made a laborious and faltering ascent of the staircase half an hour later—at least, when I went down, there was no sign of it or of any of the newspapers that had littered the room. And, though Mr. Patton secured copies of them all later and we went over them patiently, we could find nothing that seemed to have the remotest bearing on what we were trying to learn.
She was much better by morning—had slept a little; was calmer; had a bit of color in her ears, which had been wax-white; but the bruise on her forehead was blacker.
I broke the news of her return very gently to Mr. March at dawn and left it to him to tell his wife. I went to her afterward and found her hysterically impatient to see her daughter. I induced her to wait, however, until she had had an egg and a piece of toast. I do not believe in excitement on an entirely empty stomach. We covered the bruise with a loop of Clare's heavy hair; and then her father and mother went in and I closed the door.
Somebody had telephoned for Mr. Plummer; but she sent her father out to say she would not see him just yet. It was like a blow in the face. He almost reeled.
“That's the message, boy,” Mr. March said. “I don't understand it any more than you do. She's in frightful condition; we've sent for the doctor. Tomorrow I am sure”
“But what does she say?” Mr. Plummer broke in. “Where has she been? I'll wait until she wants to see me, of course, but for God's sake tell me where she has been!”
“She has told us very little,” Mr. March had to confess. “She is hardly coherent yet. She says she will talk to the police sometime today. She has been imprisoned—that is all we know.”
Mrs. March's sitting room was open and Mr. Plummer went in and sat down heavily. Sometime later, as I passed the door, he called me in.
“You saw her first, didn't you?” he asked. “Will you sit down and tell me all you know about it?”
“Let Him In, Ma. We Ain't Got Nothing to Hide”
I was glad to talk—I had been bottled up for so long. I told him everything—except my reason for being down in the library behind the screen.
“Did she ask for me at all?” he asked when I had finished.
“I—I think so. Naturally she would.”
He smiled at me wryly.
“You know she did not ask for me,” he said and got up.
I was very sorry for him. He was so earnest, so bewildered. He waited round all morning, hoping for a message, and about noon she said she would see him. Her own maid dressed her and together we put a little rouge on her face and touched up her colorless lips. Except for the hollows in her cheeks, she looked lovely. I gave her message to him.
“Tell him I want to see him,” she said to me; “but he is not to ask a lot of questions, and he is to stay only a minute or two—I am so very tired.”
He was uncertain of his welcome, I think. I took him to the door. She was on a couch, propped up with pillows, and the bruise was covered. And when I saw the look in his eyes and the answering flame in hers, I knew that, whatever else was wrong, it was nothing that lay between them. The vision of the blond man as Clare's lover died at that moment and never came to life again.
The story of the almost two months of Clare March's disappearance she told to Mr. Patton that afternoon. She would not allow her father and mother to be present, and only Mr. Patton's insistence that the nurse should be there to see that she did not overtax her strength secured my admission. The story was short and was told haltingly. It gave me the impression of truth, but of being only a part of the truth. Her descriptions of the people and of the surroundings, for instance, were undoubtedly drawn from painful memory. They were photographic—raw with truth. The same was true of her story of the escape.
“It was on the third of September that you started home,” Mr. Patton said. “We know that, and that you arrived on the morning of the fourth. We lost you from the time you got into a taxicab at the station. Did you order the man to drive you home?”
“Not directly. I went to ” She named the department store to which she had been traced. “I had made my purchase when a young man came up to me and introduced himself. He said I did not know him, but that he was living in the same house with an old German teacher of mine, Fräulein Julie Schlenker. She had taught me at boarding school and I was very fond of her. He said she was—dying.”
Tears came into her eyes. Mr. Patton caught my eye for the fraction of a second.
“Was this before you bought the blankets or after?”
She looked startled, but he was smiling pleasantly. If she had to reassemble her story, she did it well and quickly.
“Before. I was terribly worried about Julie,” she said. “I agreed to go there at once, and I asked him what I could take her to make her comfortable. He said she couldn't eat, but perhaps blankets—or something like that. I bought blankets and had them put in the taxicab.”
“What address did this blond young man give you?”
“I did not say he was a blond young man,” she objected. “I do not remember what he looked like. I should not know him again.”
Mr. Patton nodded gravely.
“My mistake,” he said. “Was this the same taxicab?”
“No; I had dismissed the other. I got into the taxicab and the man gave an address to the driver. I paid no attention to it. I was upset about Julie. I hardly looked out. We went very fast. All the time I was seeing Julie lying dead, with her poor old face” She shuddered. Clearly that part of the story was true enough and painful. “We drove for a long time. I was worried about the bill. When the register said four dollars I was anxious. I had checks, but very little money.”
She stopped herself suddenly and gave Mr. Patton a startled glance, but he was blandness itself.
“Four dollars!” he said. “Did you know the neighborhood?”
“Not at all. I was angry and accused the driver of taking a roundabout way. He said he had gone directly and offered to ask a policeman.”
“You were still in the city then?”
“Yes; but it was far out. When the driver drew up, I had just enough money to pay him. It was almost five dollars.”
“Can you remember exactly?”
“Four dollars and eighty cents. I gave that man five dollars. I had only a dollar left.”
“The young man was still with you?”
“No, indeed. I was quite alone. I wish you would not interrupt me.”
Mr. Patton sat back good-humoredly and folded his hands. I knew why he had continually broken in on the story. I thought he had caught something, by his look.
“I got out. I had the blankets and they were bulky. The man carried them to the doorstep and drove away. I thought it was a queer neighborhood. It was a mean little house, off by itself, with only an unoccupied house near. I felt very strange, but Julie was always queer.
“I asked for Julie. A hideous old woman answered the door. The whole place was filthy. I felt terribly for Julie—she was always so neat. I went in and up the stairs. The stairs were narrow and steep, and shut off below with a door. All I could think of was Julie in that horrible place. There were cobwebs along the stairs. We turned toward the back of the house and stopped before a door. The old woman did not rap. She opened it and said, 'In here, miss.' I went in. The room was empty. I said, 'Why, where is Julie?' But the old woman had gone. I heard her outside locking the door.”
That was a strange story we listened to that afternoon—a story of futile calls for help; of bread and water passed through a broken panel in the door; of a drugged sleep, from which she wakened to find her clothing gone and rags substituted; of drunken revels below; and of the constant, maddening surveillance through the panel by a man with a squint. She described the room with absolute accuracy and even drew it roughly for Mr. Patton—a low attic room with two small windows; a sloping roof; discolored plaster from a leak above; a washstand without bowl or pitcher; for light a glass lamp with a smoked chimney; and for furniture a cot under the lowest part of the ceiling, and a chair.
Once a day, she said, the old woman brought her a tin basin for washing, and a towel, rough-dried. The basin had a red string to hang it up by, she said. The towels were checked—pink and white.
“Like glass towels,” she said. “There was a grate for coal and a wooden shelf above it, with an old steel engraving tacked up on the wall. One corner was loose, and if I left the window open, it flapped all the time. I had a fire only once; but I did not suffer from cold—the kitchen was beneath, and the flue was always warm.”
“This steel engraving—do you remember what it was?”
“The Landing of the Pilgrims,” she said promptly. “Some one had colored a part of it with crayons—a child probably.”
Mr. Patton looked puzzled. She might have invented the panel in the door or the man with the squint; but parts of her story bore the absolute imprint of truth—the chimney flue being warm, the flapping picture, the rough-dried towels, the basin with a red string through its rim.
“In a moment I want you to tell us how you got away,” Mr. Patton said, “but first—I want a reason for all this. Was it—did they try to force you to anything?”
“Nothing at all.”
“They were not white slavers then?”
She colored.
“No.”
“They never threatened you?”
She hesitated, considered.
“Only when I cried out—and that did no good. There was only an empty house near.”
“Miss March, this is an almost incredible story. A crime must have a motive. You are saying that you were imprisoned in an isolated house for nearly two months, were unharmed and unthreatened, but under constant surveillance, and finally made your escape. And you can imagine no reason for it!”
“I haven't said that at all—I imagined plenty of reasons. Couldn't they have wanted a ransom?”
“They made no attempt to secure one.”
She told of her escape rather briefly. If I can give in so many words my impression of her story it was that here and there she was on sure ground, and that the escape was drawn absolutely from memory and was accurate in every detail.
“Every now and then they all got drunk,” she said. “I—I always thought they would set the house on fire. The two younger women would sing—and it was horrible.”
“You did not say there were younger women.”
She was confused.
“There were two. One was married to the man. They called the old woman ma. And there was a man with a wooden leg who visited the house. He came over the field; I saw him often. For two days they'd been drinking, and the old woman fell down and hurt herself. I could hear her groaning. And I was hungry—I was terribly hungry.” She looked at me. “You know how hungry I was. I had not even water.”
“She was starving,” I said.
“Nobody came. I was frightened. I kept thinking that something had happened.” She checked herself, started again. “All evening I lay in darkness. I could hear them yelling and singing and now and then the old woman groaning. And I was so thirsty I hoped it would rain and the roof would leak. That's how thirsty I was. I slept a little—not very much. Mostly I walked about and worried. The house was so quiet that it drove me crazy.”
“Quiet! Were they asleep?”
She looked at him quickly.
“They went away—all of them. There was only the old woman, and she was hurt. When I called, nobody answered.”
“How was your door fastened?”
“On the outside.”
“Couldn't you have put your arm through the broken panel and unlocked it?”
“The key was not in the lock. It never was. It was always on a nail at the top of the staircase. I could see it.”
No one could have doubted her. The key was kept at the top of the stairs on a nail. It takes a perceptible second to invent such a detail. She had not invented it.
“I Lowered Myself By My Hands And Then Dropped”
“All the next day no one came near me. One of the windowpanes was broken. I called through it for help. Sometimes there were people in the fields beyond the house. There was nobody that day except some little boys. They paid no attention; perhaps they did not hear me. I was getting weaker all the time. I thought that pretty soon I would be too weak to try to escape. The fire was out below and my room was cold. My hands were so stiff I could hardly move them. I worked a long time at the window. They had driven nails in all round it. I worked them loose.”
She held out her hands. They were cut and blistered.
“I got them out at last, but I broke a pane of glass. I hardly cared whether it was heard or not. I had never been able before to see what lay below the window. There was a sort of shed there.
“I had to wait until night. The room was freezing, with the window out. They were still away, except the old woman. She lay and groaned down below. I lay on the mattress the rest of the day and shivered. As soon as it was dark, I crawled up on the windowsill. I was frightened—it looked so far down. I lowered myself by my hands and then dropped; but I slipped. I thought I had broken my ankle. The loose boards on the shed made a frightful noise.”
“How did you find your way home?”
“I walked for hours. I do not know anything about the streets. I just walked toward the glow of the city lights against the sky. When I got into the city proper, I knew where I was.”
“Where were you when you first recognized your surroundings?”
“I saw the North Market.”
“Do you remember from which direction you approached it?”
“The west side, I believe.” Her tone was reluctant.
Mr. Patton drew a soiled lavender envelope from his pocket and took out its enclosure.
“'Am all right. Clare,'” he read. “Now, Miss March, just when and where did you write this little note?”
Her only answer was to break into hysterical crying. “Julie! Julie!” she cried. She absolutely refused to explain the note. It was an impasse. She could neither explain it nor ignore it. She took refuge in tears and silence.
That was the end of Clare March's story. It sounded like madness; but there was proof of a sort—her general condition; her hands; her brief but photographic descriptions. It was true—at least in part. It was not the whole truth. She had not spoken of the blond man or of the little old lady in black; and yet I was convinced she knew about them both. Mr. Patton thought as I did; for when she was quieter, he asked for a description of the old woman of her story.
“She was very stout,” she said slowly, “and very dirty. She always wore the same things—a blue calico dress and an apron. She seemed to be washing all the time; the apron was always wet and soapy. And she had thin gray hair drawn into a hard knot.”
“Could you tell her nationality by her voice—her accent?”
“I'm afraid not.”
“Did you ever see her dressed for the street?”
“Never.”
“Then you never saw her in a black bonnet trimmed with jet and an old-fashioned dolman, and carrying a pocketbook fastened with two buckles?”
She leaned over suddenly and caught Mr. Patton by the wrist.
“I can't stand it any longer!” she cried. “What do you know? Was the paper wrong?”
When she saw by his face that he did not understand and could not help her, she sank back among her pillows. She would not answer any more questions and lapsed into a watchful silence.
VI
NATURALLY I have never taken any credit for the solution of the Clare March mystery. Even now, when I am writing under an assumed name, I am uneasy. To be suspected would be my professional ruin. So far I have been able to keep my double calling a profound secret. I may have been in your house. Think it over, those of you who have something to conceal—are you certain that the soft-walking, starched young woman to whom in your weakness you talked so freely—are you sure it was not myself? Under the skin, I said in the beginning—aye, and under the flesh and its weaknesses. Do you recall that day when you and a visitor talked at the bedside and I wrote letters in a corner by a window? How do you know but that your entire conversation, word by word, was at the Central Office in two hours? Did it ever occur to you before?
I wrote many letters that week. Mrs. March was up and about, bustling and busy; Clare was my patient. I no longer met Mr. Patton in the evenings. He was combing the outskirts of the city, I believe, and interviewing taxicab drivers. I sent a daily report to him by mail:
Monday—I notice one curious thing: She will not let me do much for her. Hortense, her maid, does some things—not much. She gets rid of us both whenever she can. I feel worse than useless. I have offered to give her massage, but she refuses. Mr. Plummer only comes to the door—she does not wish him to come in.
Tuesday—Still weak and inert. A box of flowers every day from Mr. Plummer. I had once thought possibly she did not care for him; but today I saw her eyes again when she looked at the roses—I believe she is crazy about him. She would like to get rid of me, but her parents insist she needs me. Her hands are healing. There is one curious thing—her wrists are abraded. Did she say her hands were tied?
Wednesday—The blond man has been here. I saw him from the stairs and went down. He is not what we thought at all. He is untidy and shabby. He was waiting inside the door, turning his hat round in his hands. I told him Miss March was ill, but he refused to leave. He said, “Tell her it is Samuels, and this is the last call. She'll know what I mean.” I said, “I think she has had a letter from you.” He turned livid. “Then she got it!” he stormed. “And she paid no attention to it! You tell her, for me, that she'll fix things with me now—today—or I'll tell the whole story!” He felt in his watch pocket and seemed to remember that his watch was gone. That added to his rage. “You tell her that. Tell her she'll have it at the old place by three this afternoon or I'll go to her precious sweetheart and tell him some things he ought to know.” I tried to follow him when he left, but by the time I'd got my hat and ulster he was out of sight. If Samuels is his real name, you can probably find him. He is blond and smooth-shaved, and has a gold tooth—right side, upper jaw; wears a tan overcoat and a soft green felt hat.
Wednesday, four p.m.—I have just come back from an errand for Clare. I have been to the “old place” with a parcel for Samuels. It was money. He was so greedy that he tore it open while I waited. It seemed to be considerable—well over a hundred dollars. When he had counted it, he put it in his pocket. He looked better than in the morning and was calmer. He looked at me after he had counted it. “Don't look so damned virtuous!” he said. “This isn't blackmail. It's for value received.”
The “old place” is at the corner of Tenth Street and the Embankment. We stood in the doorway of a vacant building and talked. Samuels looks decayed—as if he has seen better days. I tried to get you by telephone to follow me. You were out.
Thursday—A very curious thing happened today: Clare asked for some chicken cooked in cream. The cook had never done it and I volunteered. It took some time; I was in the basement more than an hour. When I came up with the chicken, she had disappeared. We were all terribly frightened. I called the office twice, but you were out as usual—you will have to arrange some way for me to get you in emergencies. She had taken her wraps and gone out by the garden door. The parlor maid had not seen her. It was two hours later when she came back, exhausted. She locked herself in her room and it was almost the dinner hour before she would admit me.
Her father had a talk with her tonight. He said,
“You must not do such unwise things. You will drive your mother frantic.”
“Poor Mother!” she replied. “I'll tell you before long where I was. Don't ask me.”
I thought she had been crying. I believe she has pawned or sold her sapphire ring; I do not see it.
That last letter, sent special delivery, and unsigned as all of them were, brought a telephone message from the detective and an appointment for that evening.
“Ask for an evening off,” he said. “I think I've got it. And I want to talk to you.”
He had a taxi at the corner that night. It was when it was well under way that he began to talk.
“We've got the house,” he said. “The man with the squint did it—but that's a long story. In Miss March's anxiety to tell as much as she dared of the truth, she went a little too far. Given a four-dollar-and-eighty-cent taxicab radius, an isolated house with two young women, an old hag and a man with a squint—put a shed on the back of the house and a bad reputation all over it—and you have perhaps two dozen possibilities. Add such graphic touches as a built-in stairway and a tin basin hung up by a red string as identification marks, and an empty house and a man with a wooden leg for neighbors, and out of the two dozen there will be one house that fits. We've found it.”
“Is that where we are going?”
“To that neighborhood. I really wanted a chance to go over the whole thing with you. Now, then, what do you think? You've been close to the case—closer than I have. How much of that story of hers is true?”
“About half of it.”
“Which half?”
“Well, I think she was not a prisoner. I believe she was a voluntary guest in the house she described and that she was hiding from something.”
“I see. And not expecting us to find the house, she gave a circumstantial description. But what was she hiding from? So far as we can learn, her past has been an open book—she was away at school for four years, and spent a year abroad with a party of girls and a chaperone. She came out two years ago—I remember reading about the coming-out ball, something very elaborate. That first winter she went about with young Page, became engaged and broke it off. Page has been away ever since. It can't have anything to do with Page. Last spring she took on this Plummer—has been with her family all summer—has never, except during the year abroad, been away from her mother for any length of time. That doesn't look like anything to hide from. What do you think of the Julie story?”
“I don't believe it. But there is a Julie.”
“Does the family know the name?”
“No. The girl is paying blackmail, Mr. Patton.”
“The blond chap?”
“Yes.”
“That was rotten luck, my being out of touch that day. If we had him—or if we had your friend, the little old lady!”
He stopped the taxicab shortly after and we got out. We were well out of the center of town, in a scattering suburb. I had never seen it. And before us stretched one of those empty spaces that are left here and there, without apparent cause, during the growth of the city. House-builders are gregarious—they build in clusters. Perhaps it's a matter of sewers or of gas and water. To right and left of us stretched a sort of field, almost bare of grass, with straggling paths across it. Long before, a street had been cut through; its edges were still intact—a pitfall for the unwary.
I did not see all this that night. It was late October and very dark. Mr. Patton had a pocket flash, and with that and his hand I managed fairly. Our destination was before us—a little house, faintly lighted.
“I'm afraid this isn't very pleasant, Miss Adams,” he apologized; “and I haven't a good reason for bringing you. But I'm up against it in a way. I want you to see this place and perhaps your instinct will tell you what I fail to make out. I've been here once today and it stumps me. They swear they've never had a girl there; that the man with the wooden leg sleeps in the garret sometimes. He's a watchman at the railroad over there. By the way, did she speak of a railroad?”
“I think not.”
“It's a bad place. The police protection doesn't amount to much, but over there in the town they say it's a speakeasy. The cellar's full of beer. They say other things, too—that the old woman is a white slaver, for one thing. That bears out the story partly. And another thing does also—the hag hurt herself lately. She's going about with a cane. On the other hand—well, if they were lying today they did a good piece of work.”
There was a wagon near the house as we approached. At first we thought they were moving out. Then Mr. Patton laughed.
“Getting rid of the beer and the empties,” he said. “Got them scared! Now don't be nervous. You needn't speak to them. I want you to keep your eyes open—that's all.”
I was nervous. There was something sinister about the very location. I have even now rather a hazy recollection of Mr. Patton's rap at the door, the imperious summons of the law, and of a hideous old woman who peered out into the darkness.
“Well, mother,” Mr. Patton said cheerfully, “here I am again. I want to look round a little.”
The hag made as if to close the door, but a woman spoke from behind.
“Let him in, ma,” she said. “We ain't got nothing to hide. Come in, mister.”
A man came up from a cellarway with a box of bottles. I can still see his face over the bottles—his sickening pallor, his squint. He thought it was a raid, clearly. Then he saw me and his color came back.
“I guess a man's 'ouse is 'is own,” he snarled. “We drink a little beer ourselves. That ain't agin' the law, I reckon.”
“Not at all,” Mr. Patton said good-humoredly. “I'll have a lamp, please.”
It appeared to be a four-roomed house. We stood in the front room, an untidy place with a bed in a corner, and heavy with stale odors. Behind, there was a kitchen containing a table littered with the remains of the evening meal. Between the two rooms was a narrow, steep staircase shut off with a door below and ending above in a small landing. From this landing two doorways opened—one into a front room, the other into a half room, or attic, over the kitchen. It was into this room that Mr. Patton, carrying a smoky lamp, led the way.
“This is the room,” he said. “That is the window with the shed below. Here is where the flue comes up from the kitchen.”
I looked round. It was a sordid, filthy place. The plaster had broken away here and there. Where it was intact it was discolored from a leaking roof. For furniture there was a mattress on the floor, with soiled bedding, a chair with a broken seat and a washstand. Clare had said the washstand was unfurnished, but had mentioned a tin basin. Here was a tin basin with a red string. Mr. Patton was watching me grimly.
“Well, what do you make of it?” he said.
“It looks queer,” I admitted. “Only there are some things—the panel in the door, for instance. There is no door.”
“I asked about that. They say it came off the hinges a month or so ago and they chopped it up for firewood.”
I was still looking about. He had stooped and was examining the door-hinges.
“She said she broke the glass. One window is broken, but this one over the shed is not.”
He came over and ran his hand over the windowframe.
“Sash is nailed in, which I believe was also mentioned!” he said. Our eyes met in the dim light—a friendly clash; he was so sure of the place and I was so doubtful.
As I stood there peering into the squalid corners of the attic, I remembered the daintiness of the girl's room at home—its bright chintz and shining silver; its soft lamps; its cushions; its white bath beyond. I remembered the exquisite service of the March household and tried to picture the hag below climbing that ladder of a staircase with a platter of greasy food. I tried to forget Clare in her lovely negligée, and to recall the haggard creature who had dropped in her rags at the foot of the staircase. And I tried to place the wretched girl of that night in this wretched place. I could not do it. There was something wrong.
Mr. Patton turned to me, gravely smiling.
“Now, then, your instinct against my training,” he said. “Is this the place?”
“I do not believe she was ever here,” I said. “Don't ask me why—I just don't believe it.” But a moment later I felt that my instinct had received a justification. “Do you remember,” I said, “a graphic description of a steel engraving that flapped in the wind?”
“By George!”
“There is not only no engraving—there are no nail holes in the plaster. There has never been such an engraving here,” I said in triumph.
VII
I HAVE often wondered what would have happened had we taken Clare March the next day to that untidy house in Brickyard Road. Brickyard Road was the local name of the street that had been cut through and forgotten.
Would she have told the real story or not? If not, how would she have explained the discrepancy, for instance, of the missing engraving? Would she have taken refuge in silence? Had she hoped by the very detail of her description to throw us off the track? Did she wonder, those dreadful days, how the bag with the buckles had come into the hands of the police and yet had not led us further? Did she suspect me at any time?
Sometimes I thought she did. She would not let me do much for her. I gave her the medicines that were ordered, saw to her nourishment, read to her occasionally. Her own maid looked after her personally. It rather irritated me. More than once I found her watching me. I would glance up from my book and find her eyes on me with a question in them; but she never asked it.
“And I Was Terribly Hungry. I Had Not Even Water”
Mr. Patton was waiting eagerly to take her out to Brickyard Road; but she was still very weak and she showed a distaste for the excursion that was understandable enough under the circumstances. Other things puzzled me, however—her unwillingness to see Mr. Plummer was one. Yet she sat for hours looking at his picture. I suspected, too, that her maid was closely in her confidence. More than once I caught a glance of understanding between them. Sometimes I wondered if Clare was quite normal—not insane, of course, but with some queer mental bias.
Outwardly everything was calm. She lay or sat in her fairylike room, with flowers all about her. Her color was coming back. In her soft negligées she looked flowerlike herself. The picture was quite complete—a lovely convalescent; a starched and capped nurse; a maid in black and white; flowers; order; decorum; with a lover hovering in the background. But the nurse was making notes on her record that were not of symptoms on her record, the maid was not clever enough to mask her air of mystery, and the lover paced back and forth downstairs waiting for a word that never came.
On the day following my excursion with Mr. Patton, going into my own room unexpectedly, I found Hortense, the maid, in my clothes closet. She made profuse apologies and backed out. She had been looking, she said, for a frock that had been mislaid. I did not believe her.
After she had gone, I made a careful examination of the closet. A row of my white linen dresses hung there, my street clothes, my mackintosh. In a far end, where I had placed them the night she arrived, were the ragged garments in which Clare had come home. I locked my door and, taking them out, went over them carefully.
There was a worn black skirt, rather short; a ragged and filthy waist of poor material and carelessly made, put together by hand with large stitches and coarse thread. The undergarments were similarly sewed. They might have come from just such a place as the house in Brickyard Road. The skirt was different. Though ragged, it was wellmade, and it had been shortened. It had been altered at the top, too, I decided—the belt taken off and put on again inside out.
I found something just then. On the inside of the belt was woven the name of one of the leading tailors in the city. I thought that over awhile. The skirt could hardly belong to Brickyard Road. It seemed to me that this was a valuable clew. It seemed to me that Hortense knew this also, and that there was no time to be lost.
The situation was put up to me that day in an unexpected fashion. Mr. Patton slipped on the first ice of the season and injured the leg that had been hurt before. He was almost wild with vexation.
“Just keep wide awake,” he wrote me by special delivery, “and send me the usual daily bulletins. If anything very important happens, come round and see me. The people we saw are being watched. If you meet the blond chap follow him until you get a chance to telephone. I'll send some one to relieve you. We haven't got it all yet by any means.”
It rather knocked my plans, especially as I could tell by the shaky writing that he was suffering when he wrote the letter. It seemed to me that for a day or so I should have to get along alone.
But I could do something—I could perhaps trace the skirt.
I had been in the March house now for eight weeks and had had practically no time off. When I asked for two hours, Mrs. March offered me the remainder of the day. I took it; I was glad to get it.
I took the skirt along, carrying it out quite calmly under Hortense's not too friendly eyes. I thought it probable she would miss it, but I could see no other way. I wanted to identify the skirt. If it had been made for Clare, her story of having had all her clothing taken away from her would fall to shreds. If it had not I meant to trace it. And trace it I did that autumn afternoon, while the dead leaves in the park made crackling eddies under the trees; while the wind held me back at every corner; while fashionable women donned the first furs of the season and sallied forth to the tailors for their winter garments. I, too, went to a tailor.
I dare say I was not fashionable enough to be worth while. It was a long time before I received attention and my few hours were flying. When at last the manager turned to me, I indicated my bundle.
“I want to trace a skirt that was made here,” I began. “Your name is on the belt. It is very important.”
“But, madam,” he said, “we cannot give any information that concerns our customers.”
“This is vitally important.”
“It would be impossible. We turn out a great many costumes. We keep no record of the styles.”
“There is a number on the belt.”
I believe he suspected me of divorce proclivities. He held out both hands, palms up.
“Madam surely understands—it is impossible!”
I turned over the lapel of my coat and he saw a badge that Mr. Patton had given me. He had said:
“Don't use it unless you need to; but when the time comes, flash it!”
I flashed it. I got my information within ten minutes, but it did not help at first. He gave me the name of the woman for whom it had been made. I had never heard of her—a Mrs. Kershaw.
“You are quite positive?”
“Positive, madam. The number is distinct. Also one of the skirtmakers recalls—it was part of a trousseau a year or so ago.”
A sort of lust of investigation seized me. I had started the thing and I would see it out. With a new deference the tailor handed me my rewrapped bundle and saw me to the door.
“No trouble with the Kershaws, I hope?” he said.
“None whatever,” I answered at random. “She gave a skirt away and I am tracing it.”
That was it, of course. I said it first and believed it afterward. She had given the skirt away.
It took an hour and a half of my shortening afternoon to locate and interview Mrs. Kershaw. She was quite affable. I did not show my badge—it was not necessary. I made up a story about some stolen goods, with this skirt among them. She was anxious to help, she said, but
“I hardly remember,” she said. “I gave away a lot of my wedding clothes—the styles changed so quickly. Why, I remember exactly what I did with that! I gave it to the Fräulein—Fräulein Schlenker. But stolen goods! She's the honestest old soul in the world.”
“She is old then?”
“Oh, yes—quite. Such a quaint little figure. She taught me at boarding school; she seemed old even then. Poor Fräulein Julie!”
My lips were dry. Julie!
“Would you mind describing the Fräulein, Mrs. Kershaw?”
“You do not suspect her of anything?”
“No, indeed; but I should like to find her.”
“Well, she is a little thing, stooped and lame. She hurt her ankle after I knew her first. She is very saving—we all thought she was rich; but I believe not. There's a brother, or some one, that she helps. She wears a rusty black bonnet with jet on it, and a queer old wrap; and—oh, yes—she always carries the same bag—a foreign one, with buckles. I really think the bag was the reason we thought she was wealthy. It seemed such a secure affair.”
Julie, then, was my little old lady of the dining room and the garden door! And there was more than that—the school was the school from which Clare had graduated.
“Have you seen the Fräulein lately?”
“We have been away all summer. She may have called. I'll ask.”
The little old lady had not called, however. I got her address. It seemed to me that things were closing up.
It was quite dark when I left the Kershaw house. It was very cold and I was hungry; but excitement would not let me eat. I was getting my first zest for this new game I was playing, and I was losing my shrinking horror of spying into affairs that were not my own. It seemed to me that my cause was just; for if Clare March had not been incarcerated in the Brickyard Road house, she might still, out of terror of the truth, insist that she had been. Hysterical young women had done such things before. I held no brief for the family in Brickyard Road; but if they were innocent, they were not to suffer. I was after the truth, and I felt that I should get it. I had no course of action mapped out. I wanted to confront the little old lady—I got no further.
It was seven o'clock when I reached the house. I had crossed the city again. I was hungry and shivering with cold, and I still carried the parcel under my arm. For the first time that day I was nervous. The fear of failure assailed me. I used to have the same feeling when I had charge of the operating room and a strange surgeon was about to operate. Would he want silk or catgut? What solutions did he use? Would the assistant get there in time to lay out the instruments? So now with the Fräulein—would she deny the skirt? If she did, should I accuse her of the night visit to the March house? Or of the letter in the buckled bag?
The house was a small one on a by-street, a comfortable two-story brick, with a wooden stoop and a cheerful glow through the curtains of a vestibule door. The woman who answered my ring was clearly the mistress. She wore a white apron and there was an agreeable odor of cooking food in the air.
“Fräulein Schlenker?” she said. “Yes; she made her home here. She is not here now.”
“Can't you tell me where I may find her?”
She hesitated.
“I don't know exactly. We've been anxious about her lately. She went away for a vacation about two months ago. Did you want to see her about renting the house in Brickyard Road?”
For just a minute I distinctly saw two white aprons and two vestibule doors!
“Yes,” I said as coolly as I could. “When—when will it be empty?”
“It is empty,” she replied. “I hardly know what to do. She's been anxious to rent it; but now that she's away and no word from her Would you like the key?”
The empty house in Brickyard Road!
“If I might have it.”
“You'll return it soon, won't you?” She went into the hall and got a key from the drawer of a table, “She'll do anything that's reasonable—paper the lower floor and fix the roof. It's a nice little house.” I took the key, still rather dazed. “It's a growing neighborhood out that way,” she went on, evidently eager to do her roomer a good turn. “Some of these days that street will be paved.” She had an air of doubt; she was clearly divided between eagerness and trepidation. “You'll be sure to return the key?”
“I'll have it back here tomorrow.”
She watched me down the street, still vaguely uneasy. I tried to make my back honest, to step as one who walks the straight and narrow path. I had a feeling that she might suddenly change her mind and pursue me, commanding the return of the key. I hardly breathed until I had turned the corner.
I got something to eat at the first restaurant I saw. I needed food and time to think. I meant at first to telephone Mr. Patton. As I grew warmer and less fatigued I decided to go on alone. It was my first case; I wanted to make good—frankly I desired Mr. Patton's approval, and something he had once said to me came back.
“In this business,” he said, “there are times when two's a crowd.” I remembered that.
I ate deliberately. I never hurry with my food—I've seen too many stomachs treated like coal cellars on the first cold day of fall. And as I ate, the key lay before me on the cloth. It had a yellow tag tied to it, endorsed in a small, neat script, very German.
“Key to the house in Brickyard Road,” it said. “Kitchen door.”
I had, at the best, about two hours and a half when I left the restaurant. That meant a taxicab. I counted my money. I had thirteen dollars. It would surely be enough.
Brickyard Road lay a square or two away from where I alighted. I retained the cab—out there in that potter's field of dead-and-gone real-estate hopes it was a tie with the living world. Its lamps made a comfortable glow. The driver was broad-shouldered. I borrowed a box of matches from him. I have often wondered since what he thought.
The house Mr. Patton and I had examined was dimly lighted, as before. I passed it at a safe distance. The empty house, that was the only other building in Brickyard Road, was my destination. The two houses were alike—clearly built by the same builder. Only the courage of an idea took me on. In the lighted house the crone was singing—a maudlin voice. Some one was walking along the rickety boardwalk round the place—a step and a tap, a step and a tap—the one-legged man, of course.
There is something horrible about an empty house at night. A house is an intimate place; its every emanation is human. Life has begun and ended in it. Thoughts are things, I have always believed—things that leave their mark.
I had such a feeling about the little house in Brickyard Road. I was very nervous. The other house was near enough to be dangerous—too far away to be company. I felt terribly alone. There was not even starlight. I stumbled and fumbled along, feeling my way by the side of the house to the rear. There was a dispute going on next door. The crone had ceased singing. Some one broke a bottle with a crash.
I found the kitchen door at last. To reach it I had to go through a wooden shed. In the safety of the shed I struck a match and found the keyhole. The key turned easily. As I opened the door, a breath of musty air greeted me and blew out my match. The thick darkness closed down on me like a veil; I was frightened.
It was a moment or two before I could light a fresh match, and it took more than that for me to survey the kitchen. It had been in use not very long before. There was a kettle on the stove and a few odds and ends of dishes in orderly stacks on an upturned box. And there was a loaf of bread, covered with gray-green mold. There was no table, no chair—only, in a corner, there was a cot bed, neatly made up. I remember distinctly the comfort of discovering that orderly bed, with a log-cabin quilt spread over it.
My match went out, but the box was almost full. I was not uneasy now. The peace of the log-cabin quilt was on my soul. I found a smoky lamp with very little oil in it, and lighted it. My nerves are pretty good. I've laid out more than one body in the mortuary at night and alone. I was not going to be daunted by an empty house. Nevertheless the glow of the lamp was comforting. I put down my bundle and went into the front room.
I had a real fright there. Something shadowy stood in the center of the room, moving very slightly. I almost dropped the lamp. I had a patient once who used to say her heart “dropped a stitch.” Mine did. Then I saw that it was a woman's black dress hanging on a gas fixture and moving in the air from the open kitchen door.
I began to feel uneasy. What if the house were inhabited? Certainly it had been occupied recently. I dare say I move softly by habit, but I doubled my ordinary caution. I wanted to get away, but I wanted more than that. I wanted desperately to see whether there was a steel engraving of the Landing of the Pilgrims in the attic room over the kitchen. If I was right—if in this house Clare March had been imprisoned—if her detail of the house next door was merely what she had gained from a window—what was the meaning of it all? Where was Julie? If I knew anything, this old black silk swaying in the air belonged to her.
Not, of course, that I reasoned all this out. I felt it partly; for the next moment I heard a door open at the top of the stairs. I blew out the lamp instantly, but a sort of paralysis of fright kept me from flight. I could have made it. The stairs, as in the house next door, were closed off with a door—a dash past this door and I should have been in the kitchen; but I hesitated, and it was too late. The steps were at the lower door.
Now and then since that evening I have a nightmare, and it is always the same. I am standing in a dark room and there are stealthy steps drawing nearer and nearer. At last the thing comes toward me; I can hear it; but there is nothing to see. And then it touches me with ice-cold hands—and I waken with a scream. I frightened a nervous patient almost into convulsions once because of that dream of mine.
The darkness was terrible. Behind me the dress swayed, touched me. I almost fainted. The staircase door did not open immediately. I wondered frantically what was standing and waiting there. It showed my abnormal mental condition when it occurred to me that perhaps the old woman, Julie—perhaps she was dead, and that this on the staircase was she again, come back. I almost dropped the lamp.
I braced myself against I knew not what when I heard the door opening. Whoever it was, was listening, I felt sure. Through the open kitchen door came the sound of singing from next door and of some one hammering on a table in time. It covered my gasping breaths, I dare say. The stair door opened wider and some one stepped down into the tiny passage. We were perhaps eight feet apart.
I lived a century, waiting to hear which way the footsteps turned. They went toward the kitchen, still stealthily, with a caution that was more terrible than curses. I had a moment's respite then, and I felt my way toward the front door. If the key was there, I might yet escape. I found the door. The key was gone. Even in that moment of frenzy I knew where the key was—in the buckled bag at the police station. I was trapped!
There were various sounds now from the kitchen—a match struck, and a wavering search, probably for the lamp I held; then a dim but steady light, as though from a candle, followed by the cautious lifting of stovelids and much rustling of paper. The paper reminded me of something—my bundle lay on the cot!
I knew the exact moment when it was discovered. I heard it torn open and I shivered in the silence that followed. Then the candle went out and there was complete silence again; but this time it was the quiet of strained ears and quickened senses. I dream of that, too, sometimes—of a silence that is a horror.
I dared not move a muscle. I felt that if I relaxed I should stagger. I breathed with only the upper part of my lungs. Then, very slowly, there was movement in the next room—a step and then another. It was coming. While the light was burning I had been terrified by something desperate, but at least quick with life. Now, in the darkness, it became disembodied horror again! It came slowly but inevitably, and directly toward me. I tried to move, but I could not. The black dress moved in the air; a chill breath blew on me. Then, out of the black void all round, a cold hand touched my cheek. I must have collapsed without a sound.
VIII
WHEN I came to I was lying on the floor of the empty room, with the black dress swaying above me. There was a faint light in the room. By turning my head, I saw that it came from the kitchen. Some one was moving quickly there; there was a rattle of china. A moment later a figure appeared in the doorway and peered in.
“Are you awake, Miss Adams?”
It was Clare! I struggled to a sitting position and stared at her.
“Was it—you—before?” I asked.
“Yes. Don't talk about it just now. I have a fire going and soon we can have some tea. I think you are almost frozen—and I know I am.”
It was curious to see how our positions had been reversed. And there was a change in Clare—she was almost cheerful. She helped me out into the kitchen and onto the cot, and then busied herself about the room.
“I am sure there is tea somewhere,” she said, “Julie was always making tea.”
She was dressed for the street—suit and hat and furs. She tried to make talk as she moved about the room, but the really vital things of the evening she avoided. She fussed with the fire, filled the kettle afresh from a hydrant outside, rinsed out two cups, found tea, searched for sugar. And still her eyes had not met mine.
She found me staring at an engraving that lay on the floor, however, and she dropped her artificial manner.
“The Landing of the Pilgrims!” she said gravely. “I was going to burn it.”
The sounds in the next house died away. The kettle on the stove began to boil cheerfully. The little room grew bright with firelight. Clare drew the box before the cot and poured two steaming cups of tea.
“We will drink our tea,” she said, “and then I shall tell you, Miss Adams. I am very happy tonight—I have only one grief.”
What that was she did not say. She had found a box of biscuits and opened it. She took very little herself. She was plainly intent on making up to me for my fright. She seemed to bear me no malice for being there. It was not until I had drained my cup that she put hers down.
“Now we'll begin,” she said, and took off her jacket. Next she drew up the sleeve of the soft blouse she wore beneath and held out her arm for me to see. I gave a shocked exclamation.
“Cocaine!” she said briefly. “The other arm is also scarred. I got it first at school for toothache.” I could not say anything; I only stared. “But that's all over now,” she went on briskly. “Today I have—but I'll tell you about that later. I knew there was only one way out, Miss Adams—to do it myself. Father and Mother would have helped me, of course; but it would have been their will, not mine. I had to educate my own will to be strong enough. Oh, I'd thought it all out. And then—I did not want them to know. Even now, when I know it's over, I'm afraid to have them know. I've lied to keep it from them; but the detective knew it wasn't true.”
She told me the whole story eagerly, frankly. It was clearly a relief. She had made her plans that summer and made them thoroughly. She had tried before and failed. This time there was the great incentive—she wished to marry.
“I wanted to bring children into the world, Miss Adams,” she said. “I should not have dared—the way things were. All summer I tried and broke over. I was almost crazy. Then I got a letter from Julie—she had been my German teacher at school and I was fond of her. She had been taking care of an insane brother, who had died. She wanted to work again. Poor Julie!
“I thought she could help me. I knew it would be hard, though I didn't know—well, I wrote her the whole story and told her my plan. I had been here to see the brother with her; I knew the house. I asked her to send out after dark for just enough to keep us going for a time. I did not want the house opened. I thought there would be a hue and cry and they might trace me to Julie.”
“Your father and mother said they knew of no one named Julie.”
“They would have known of her as Fräulein Schlenker. They had never seen her. I came to the city, bought some blankets and a book or two, and came out here. She was here and partly settled. She was against the plan even then; but I showed her my arms and she knew I was desperate. I had a supply of cocaine—I had got it in town. I was to have it—I should have died without—but she was to reduce the quantity. I locked myself in and gave her the key.”
“You had been getting the cocaine from the man with the blond hair?”
“Yes. He was in a pharmacy at first—where I got the prescription filled. He suspected me after a time. After he lost his position, he still got it for me. I met him wherever I could—on the street, in the park, anywhere; but generally we met by the Embankment. He robbed me, I think. I owed him a great deal finally. He took to bothering me about it. I used up all my allowance and more.
“I gave Julie the cocaine; and she was to reduce it—a little at a time. I suffered the tortures of the lost, Miss Adams—but perhaps you know. There were many days when I wanted to kill myself; and once Julie tied my hands behind my back. She was wonderful—wonderful! I owe it all to her. I was lost, Miss Adams—I would lie, steal, almost murder, to get the cocaine. I lived for it.”
“All this was here in this house?”
“Upstairs—in the back room one window looked out over a field and could be kept unshuttered. I chose it. Besides, the fire from below heated it. We had only a little coal left in the cellar, and we could get none. Julie went out after dark and did our buying. It—it all took longer than I had thought. I planned for a month. It was more than that. We were running out of money. At the end of five weeks we were desperate—and I sent Julie to the house.”
I remembered that well enough! But I did not interrupt.
“Father always gave me the fees from directors' meetings; and, as they were in gold, I dropped them under the cushion of a silver box on my dressing table. Sometimes there would be several; most of them went eventually to—to the man I spoke of. Before we went away in the summer, I had put some there; I could not remember how many—my mind was hazy—but I was sure there was perhaps fifty dollars. I had my own house keys with me and I gave Julie the key to the garden door. She was terribly frightened, but we were desperate. She got in without any trouble and got it. There was forty dollars.”
I remembered something. “Forty dollars and a book,” I said, smiling.
“Forty dollars and a book—was it yours? The day came when she told me I had had no cocaine for a week. I was faint and dizzy, but I wrote a line to father and mother. I shouldn't have written it. It could never be reconciled with anything but the truth, and I was morbid about that. They were never to know. I did not want Mr. Plummer to know—I thought he would never trust me again. But I wrote it and Julie took it out. She never came back—and I was locked in, upstairs!”
“She never came back!”
“She was killed—struck by an automobile. I thought—didn't the detective know that? He had her bag.”
So my little old lady was dead after all! I was sorry. What a spirit she had!
“I was locked in,” Clare was saying. “I waited—and she did not come. I had not eaten for a day or so before, and there were two days and a night without even water. I was so desperate that I tried to call the other house; but the old woman had hurt herself, and there was no one about outside. I tried to break down the door. There was a panel in it—for the brother who was crazy. I could almost reach the key on the nail outside. The last day I think I was delirious. The key made faces at me through the panel. I told you, didn't I, about getting out of the window?”
“Yes. When did you learn about Julie?”
“The night I went home. As you know, I went down to the library and searched the newspapers. I felt that she had been hurt. As soon as I was strong enough, I slipped away from the house; and—they were going to give her a pauper's burial. I pawned a ring and, at least, she did not have that.”
She broke down, after keeping up bravely for so long. I gathered from broken sentences her terrible fear of having the facts known; her despair over the tissue of falsehood and truth that she had told Mr. Patton; her fear of seeing her lover again until she was sure of herself; her grief for Julie's death and her self-accusation of it; her terror that day when Hortense had told her that I had taken her skirt from my closet. But after a time she looked up, smiling through her tears.
“I am really only crying over Julie,” she said. “The rest is—all gone, Miss Adams. I am cured—really cured! Today I sat for an hour with a bottle of cocaine beside me, and—I did not touch it!”
That was my first case for Mr. Patton; and, though I really discovered nothing that Clare would not have told eventually herself, he was kind enough to say some very pleasant things.
“Though,” he said, wincing as he tried to move his leg, “courage carried to the nth power is often foolishness! What possessed you to go to that house alone?”
“I wanted to locate the Landing of the Pilgrims.”
He leaned back and looked up at me, smiling.
“Curiosity!” he said. “That was the only quality I was afraid you lacked.” He took an envelope from the stand at his elbow and held it out.
“Your check, as per agreement.”
“I don't want money, Mr. Patton. I—don't think I am silly; but I had my reward—if I deserve one, which, of course, I don't—when I saw Mr. Plummer's eyes last night. She went straight into his arms.”
“You won't take the check?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then I'll bank it for you. We are going to have some interesting cases together, Miss Adams, but I wish you were back here to look after me. There's a spineless creature here who lets me bully her. Do you know—you're a queer woman! Taking as remuneration the sight of a young girl going into her lover's arms!”
“I've taken most of my pleasures and all of my sentiment vicariously for a number of years,” I retorted. “And, even if it's the other person's, sentiment one has to have!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Patton, looking at me curiously. “Sentiment one has to have!”
The bag is before me as I write. There are two keys—one to the house in Brickyard Road; the other to the garden door at the March home. The lavender envelope is there and its scrawled note from Clare—simply explained, as are all confusing things when one has a key. The envelope had contained the vial of cocaine that Clare took with her on her flight, and had come, of course, from the pharmacy clerk. I never examined the clipping carefully until today. It is curious to locate one's mental blind-spot. I had read it many times.
The reverse is an advertisement for the cure of the drug habit.
THE END