The House Opposite Part 14

Nothing is known against her except that in that city she chose her companions from amongst a very fast crowd. There is also a rumor, which the Chicago detective has not been able to verify, that when she was about sixteen or seventeen years old, she eloped with an Eastern man, from whom she was almost immediately divorced. At any rate, she has been known for a good many years as Miss Day, and has lived at home with her father. The memory of her marriage, if indeed she ever was married, has grown so dim that a great many people, among whom may be numbered some of her intimate friends, have never heard of it, and vehemently deny the whole story. I hope, however, soon to find out the facts of the case.

Young Atkins met his wife last winter at Atlantic City, and at once fell in love with her. His father, who is a very wealthy contractor, was strongly opposed to the match. He was very ambitious for his son, and thought the daughter of a saloon-keeper, whose reputation was none of the best, was no desirable wife for his boy."

"But they married in spite of him," I said.

"Yes, and old man Atkins has become reconciled to them, and makes them a very handsome allowance."

"How long have they been married?" I asked.

"Since the fifteenth of April," replied the detective, "and they were not married in Chicago, but in this city. I guess the lady was not over anxious to introduce her husband to her former pals."

"I suppose you have searched her apartment for a possible clue,--the hat, for instance?"

"Yes, but as she has not been out since Wednesday, I have not been able to make as thorough a search as I should like. She is a shy bird, and I don't want to frighten her till I have a few more facts to go on. If she thinks herself watched she may become wary, while now, I hope she will make use of her fancied security to do something which may give us a lead."

"Well, Mr. Merritt, I conclude from all this that, although you are unable to trace the possession of the key to Mrs. Atkins, nevertheless, your suspicions point towards her?"

"Certainly not. There is nothing to connect her with the tragedy, except the fact that one negro boy identified the corpse as that of one of her visitors. On the contrary, the more I look into this case, the less do I see how the lady could be involved in it. Let us suppose that she did kill the man. Where could she have secreted him during the twenty-four hours that must have elapsed before the body was finally disposed of?

The only place of concealment on the lower floor of her apartment is a coat closet under the stairs, and I doubt very much whether a small, unmuscular woman like Mrs. Atkins is capable of dragging so large a man even for a short distance."

"But," I suggested, "the murder may have been committed in the hall, just a step from this hiding-place."

"Yes, that is, of course, possible. But there is still another objection. The closet is so small that I do not believe a man could be got into it without doubling him up, and of that the body shows no signs. Besides, if Mrs. Atkins is guilty, we must believe her husband to be her accomplice, for who else could have helped her hide her victim?

Now, you must know that the Atkins men, both father and son, bear most excellent reputations, especially the young man, of whom every one speaks in the highest terms, and I do not think that a person unaccustomed to deceit could have behaved with such perfect composure in the presence of a corpse of which he had criminal knowledge."

"But he did show some emotion," I urged.

"Oh, yes; I know what you mean,--when he learned that the man was murdered on Tuesday night he seemed startled."

"Well, how do you account for that?"

"I don't account for it. Why, Doctor, in a case like this there are a hundred things I can't account for. For instance, what was the cause of Mrs. Atkins's scream? You have no idea; neither have I. Why did she show such emotion at the sight of the corpse? I am not prepared to say. Why did she appear so relieved when she heard that the murder occurred on Tuesday? I can formulate no plausible explanation for it. And these are only a few of the rocks that I am running up against all the time."

"But look here. If you really believe Miss Derwent and Mrs. Atkins both innocent, who do you think killed the man?"

"I don't know. Oh, I am aware that the detective of fiction is always supposed to be omniscient, but my profession, Doctor, is just like any other. There is no hocus-pocus about it. To succeed in it requires, in the first place, accurate and most minute powers of observation, unlimited patience, the capacity for putting two and two together.

Add to this an unprejudiced mind, and last, but not least, respect, amounting to reverence, for any established _fact_. Now, the only _facts_ we have as yet gathered about this murder are: that the man was young, dissipated, and was stabbed through the heart by some very small instrument or weapon; that his a.s.sailant was an inmate of the Rosemere; that the crime was committed on Tuesday night; and, lastly, that whoever placed the body where it was found must, at one time or another, have had the key to the outside door in his or her possession. Whatever else we may think or believe, is purely speculative. We presume, for instance, that the man was poor. As for the other facts we have gleaned about the different inmates of the building, till we know which one of them had a hand in this tragedy, we cannot consider what we have learned about them as throwing any light on the murder. About that, as I said before, we know mighty little, and even that little is the result of thirty-eight hours' work, not of one man alone, but of seven or eight."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed.

"Now, both ladies deny that they knew the deceased, and perhaps they are right. It is, of course, possible that there was a third man in the building that evening, who was also tall, dark, and wore a pointed beard. It is not likely, however. Such a coincidence is almost unheard of. Still it is possible, and that possibility must be reckoned with.

Now, I must be off," said Mr. Merritt, rising abruptly from his chair, "and if you hear any more of the young lady's movements, let me know.

There's my address. In the meantime, thank you very much for what you have already told me." And before I could get out one of the twenty questions that were still burning on my lips, the man was gone.

For some minutes I sat quite still, too miserable to think connectedly.

Alas! my fears had not been groundless. The poor girl was in even greater trouble than I had supposed. I believed the detective to be a decent chap, who would keep his mouth shut, but how dreadful to think that her reputation depended on the discretion of any man. Should it become known that she had received one young man alone in an empty apartment, while another was seen there at three o'clock in the morning, it would mean social death to her. Oh, for the right to offer her my protection, my services!

Of course, it was now absolutely necessary to trace the man who spent Tuesday evening with her, and to prove beyond doubt that he was still alive. I wished that this might be done without her knowledge, so as to spare her the shock of finding herself suspected of a crime.

Again I thought of Fred, and at once sent him a few lines, begging him to let me know whether he or his sister knew of any friend or admirer of Miss Derwent who resembled the enclosed description, and if either of them did know of such a person, please to telegraph me the man's name, and, if possible, his address. While giving no reasons for my questions, I again enjoined the greatest secrecy.

CHAPTER VIII

AN IDENTIFICATION

TELEGRAM.

DR. CHARLES FORTESCUE, Madison Avenue, New York City.

SAt.u.r.dAY, August 12.

Maurice Greywood. Can't find his address. May be in Directory.

FREDERIC COWPER.

Clipping from the New York _Bugle_, Sunday, August 13.

LANDLADY IDENTIFIES BODY OF THE ROSEMERE VICTIM AS THAT OF HER VANISHED LODGER, ARTIST GREYWOOD. POLICE STILL SCEPTICAL.

Mr. Maurice Greywood, the talented young artist who returned from Paris the beginning of last winter, has disappeared, and grave fears for his safety are entertained. He was last seen in his studio, 188 Was.h.i.+ngton Square, early on Tuesday, August 8th, by Mrs. Kate Mulroy, the janitress. Ever since the young artist moved into the building, Mrs. Mulroy has taken complete charge of his rooms, but, owing to a disagreement which took place between them last Tuesday, she has ceased these attentions. Yesterday evening, while looking over a copy of the _Bugle_ of the preceding day, Mrs.

Mulroy came across the portrait of the unknown man whose murdered body was discovered under very mysterious circ.u.mstances in an unoccupied apartment of the Rosemere, corner of ---- Street and Madison Avenue, on the preceding Thursday. She at once recognized it as bearing a striking resemblance to her lodger. Thoroughly alarmed she decided to investigate the matter. After knocking several times at Mr. Greywood's door, without receiving an answer, she opened it by means of a pa.s.s-key. Both the studio and bedroom were in the greatest confusion, and from the amount of dust that had acc.u.mulated over everything, she concluded that the premises had not been entered for several days. Her worst fears being thus confirmed, she hastened at once to the Morgue, and requested to see the body of the Rosemere victim, which she immediately identified as that of Maurice Greywood.

Strangely enough, the police throw doubts on this identification, although they acknowledge that they have no other clue to go on.

However, Mrs. Greywood, the young man's mother, has been sent for, and is expected to arrive to-morrow from Maine, where she is spending the summer.

The people at the Rosemere are still foolishly trying to make a mystery of the murder, and refuse all information [etc., etc.].

TO DR. CHARLES K. FORTESCUE FROM DR. FREDERIC COWPER, BEVERLEY, L. I.

SUNDAY EVENING, August 13th.

DEAR CHARLEY:

No sooner had I read in to-day's paper that the body found in the Rosemere had been identified as that of Maurice Greywood, than I knew at once why you have taken such an interest in poor May. I see now that you have suspected from the first that the murdered man was not unknown to her, and your last letter, describing her "friend," proves to me beyond doubt that you were ignorant of nothing but his name, for Greywood and no other answers exactly to that description. How you found out what you did, I can't imagine; but remembering that your office window commands a view of the entrance to the building, I think it possible that you may have seen something from that point of vantage, which enabled you to put two and two together. But I wonder that I can feel any surprise at your having discovered the truth, when the truth itself is unbelievable!! May Derwent is incapable of killing any one--no matter what provocation she may have had. She is incapable of a dishonourable action, and above all things incapable of an intrigue. She is purity itself. I swear it. And yet what are the facts that confront us? A man, known to have been her professed suitor, is found dead in a room adjoining her apartment, dead with a wound through his heart--a wound, too, caused by a knitting-needle or hat-pin, as you yourself testified! And before trying to find out who killed him we must first think of some reasonable excuse for his having been at the Rosemere at all. How strange that he should happen to go to the building at the very time when May (who was supposed to be on her way to Bar Harbor, mind you!) was there also. Who was he calling on, if not on her?

Luckily, no one as yet seems to have thought of her in connection with Greywood's death. My sister has, in fact, been wondering all day whom he could have been visiting when he met his tragic fate.

But, sooner or later, the truth will become known, and then--? Even in imagination I can't face that possibility.

And now, since you have discovered so much, and as I believe you to be as anxious as I am to help this poor girl, I am going to accede to your request and tell you all that I have been able to find out about the sad affair. I know that I run the risk of being misunderstood--even by you--and accused of unpardonable indiscretion. But it seems to me that in a case like this no ordinary rules hold good, and that in order to preserve a secret, one has sometimes to violate a confidence.

I have discovered--but I had better begin at the beginning, and tell you as accurately and circ.u.mstantially as possible how the following facts became known to me, so that you may be better able to judge of their value. Truth, after all, is no marble G.o.ddess, unchangeable, immovable, but a very chameleon taking the colour of her surroundings. A detached sentence, for instance, may mean a hundred things according to the when, where, and how of its utterance. But enough of apologies--_Qui s'excuse, s'accuse._

So here goes.

I spent the morning on our piazza, and as I lay there, listening to the faint strains of familiar hymns which floated to me through the open windows of our village church, I could not help thinking that those peaceful sounds made a strange accompaniment to my gloomy and distracted thoughts. I longed to see May and judge for myself how things stood with her. I was therefore especially glad after the service was over to see Mrs. Derwent turn in at our gate. She often drops in on her way from church to chat a few minutes with my mother. But I soon became convinced that the real object of her visit to-day was to see me. Why, I could not guess. The dear lady, usually so calm and dignified, positively fidgeted, and several times forgot what she was saying, and remained for a minute or so with her large eyes fastened silently upon me, till, noticing my embarra.s.sment, she recovered herself with a start and plunged into a new topic of conversation. At last my mother, feeling herself _de trop_, made some excuse, and went into the house. But even then Mrs. Derwent did not immediately speak, but sat nervously clasping and unclasping her long, narrow hands.