No. 13 Washington Square Part 34

And thus they were still sitting when there was a knock, which Mr.

Pyecroft answered. The cabinet-maker entered. He wore a slouching, ready-made suit and a celluloid collar with ready-made bow tie snapped by an elastic over his collar-b.u.t.ton--the conventional garb of the artisan who aspires for the air of gentlemanliness while at work. His face, though fresh-shaven, was dark with the sub-cutaneous stubble of a heavy beard; his eyes were furtive, with that masked gleam of Olympian all-confidence which a detective can never entirely mask.

"How are you, Miss Simpson?" he said to Matilda. "Your niece told me I'd find you here, so I came right up. Could I have a word with you outside?"

"Couldn't you have it here just as well," suggested Mr. Pyecroft--who somehow had imperceptibly taken on an air of mediocrity. "We're all in the family, you know."

"Mebbe it'd be better to have it here," agreed the cabinet-maker. "You other two are living in the house, so I understand, because you're hard up; so your needing money may help what I'm after." He suddenly and visibly expanded with importance. "When the time comes to put my cards on the table, I don't waste a minute in showing my hand. That cabinet-maker business was all con. I'm an officer of the law."

"You don't say!" cried Mr. Pyecroft with a startled air.

"A detective. Brown's my name. I'm here hunting for something. I got part of what I wanted, but not all. What I want isn't here, or I'd have found it; there's only three or four places it'd have been locked up. I know," he ended, with driving confidence, "that a letter was written to Mrs. De Peyster by the Duke de Crecy saying he couldn't marry her. That letter is what I'm after."

"Oh!" breathed Mr. Pyecroft. And then with his wide-eyed mediocrity, "I wonder whom you represent."

"Mrs. Allistair!" exclaimed Matilda.

Mrs. De Peyster long since had been silently exclaiming the same.

"Why, what could Mrs. Allistair want it for?" queried the futile-looking brother.

"Never mind who I represent, or the reasons of the party," said Mr.

Brown. "That letter is what I'm after, and I'm willing to pay for it.

That's what ought to concern you folks."

"But if there ever was such a letter," commented Mr. Pyecroft with his simple-minded manner, "perhaps Mrs. de Peyster destroyed it."

"Perhaps she did. But I found two others he wrote her. And if she didn't tear it up or burn it, I'm going to have it!"

He directed himself at Matilda, and spoke slowly, suggestively, impressively. "Confidential servants, who think a bit of number one, should be on the lookout for doc.u.ments and letters that may be of future value to themselves. I guess you get me. For the original of the letter I'm willing to come across with five hundred dollars."

"But I have no such letter!" cried Matilda.

"I might make it a thousand," conceded the detective. "And," he added, "the money might come in very handy for your sick sister there."

"But I tell you I have no such letter!"

"Say fifteen hundred, then."

"But I haven't got it!" cried Matilda.

"Perhaps you may have it without knowing what it is. Some of his letters he signed only with an initial. Here is a sample of the Duke's handwriting--one of his letters I found."

"I tell you I have--"

"Pardon me, Mr. Brown," interrupted the ineffectual-looking Mr.

Pyecroft. "May I see the handwriting, please?"

Firmly holding it in his own hands, the detective displayed the letter to Mr. Pyecroft--an odd, foreign hand, the paper of superfine quality, but without crest or any other embossing. Mr. Pyecroft studied it closely; his look grew puzzled; then he turned to Matilda.

"I don't exactly remember, Matilda, but it seems to me that there was handwriting like this among the letters you sent to me to keep for you."

Matilda gaped at Mr. Pyecroft. Mrs. De Peyster, half-rising on an elbow, peered in amazed stupefaction at her incalculable young man of the sea.

"Why, of course, she'd have turned it over to some one else for safe-keeping!" the detective cried triumphantly. "Where is it?" he demanded of Mr. Pyecroft.

"I'm not so sure I have it," said the shallow Mr. Pyecroft apologetically. "It just seems to me that I saw writing like this.

If I have, it's over in a little room I keep. But if I really do have it"--with the shrewd look of a small mind--"we couldn't sell it for fifteen hundred."

"How much d'you want?"

"Well"--Mr. Pyecroft hesitated--"say--say three thousand."

"Good G.o.d, that's plain blackmail!"

"It may be, but poor people like us don't often get a chance like this."

"I won't pay it!"

"Perhaps, then,"--apologetically,--"we'd better deal with Mrs.

Allistair direct."

"Oh, well,--if you've got the letter, we won't sc.r.a.p about the price.

I'll come across."

"Cash?" shrewdly queried the doltish brother.

"Sure. I don't run no risks with checks."

"I--we--wouldn't let the letter go out of our hands until it's paid for. And we won't go to any office. You yourself can say whether it's what you want or not? And you can pay right here?"

"Sure. I'm the judge of what I want. And when I go for a big thing, I go prepared." Mr. Brown opened his coat, and significantly patted a bulge on the right side of his vest.

"Well, then, I'll go to my room and see if I have it. But you'll have to wait here, for"--again with the shrewd look of the ineffectual man--"you might follow me, and with some more detectives you might take the letter from me."

"Soon wait here as anywhere else. Anyhow, I'll want your sister's word," nodding at Matilda, "that the letter is the same. But don't worry--n.o.body's going to take anything from you."

Mr. Pyecroft started out, then paused.

"I just happened to remember; you said the letter might not be signed.

Hadn't you better let me have one of the Duke de Crecy's letters, so I can verify the handwriting?"

"I don't mind; these don't tell much." And the detective handed over one letter.

"It may be an hour or two before I can get back; the letters are packed away and I've got to go through them and compare them."

He slipped out. Mr. Brown, as he watched him, could hardly conceal his contempt.

The detective sat heavily down. Mrs. De Peyster was sick with apprehension as to what that incomprehensible Mr. Pyecroft was about to do. She wanted to talk to Matilda. But the two dared not speak with this confident, omniscient, detectorial presence between them. Mr.