 CHAPTER XII. ALMOST. This is your patient. Your new nurse, my dear. What did you say your name is? Miss Ayres? Yes, Mr. Gray. Alice Ayres. Oh, what a sweet name! This expressive greeting from the patient herself was the first heart-sting I received, a sting which brought a flesh into my cheek which I would feign have kept down. Since a change of nurses was necessary, I am glad they sent me one like you, the feeble but musical voice went on, and I saw a wasted but eager hand stretched out. In a whirl of strong feeling I advanced to take it. I had not counted on such a reception. I had not expected any bond of congeniality to spring up between this high-feeling English girl and myself to make my purpose hateful to me. Yet as I stood there looking down at her bright if wasted face, I felt that it would be very easy to love so gentle and cordial a being, and dreaded raising my eyes to the gentleman at my side lest I should see something in him to hamper me, and make this attempt which I had undertaken in such loyalty of spirit, a misery to myself, and ineffectual to the man I had hoped to save by it. When I did look up and catch the first beams of Mr. Gray's keen blue eyes fixed inquiringly on me, I neither knew what to think nor how to act. He was tall and firmly knit, and had an intellectual aspect altogether. I was conscious of regarding him with a decided feeling of awe, and found myself forgetting why I had come there and what my suspicions were. Suspicions which had carried hope with them, hope for myself and hope for my lover, who would never escape the approbrium even if he did the punishment of this great crime, were this the only other person who could possibly be associated with it, found to be the fine, clear-soled man he appeared to be in this my first interview with him. Perceiving very soon that his apprehensions in my regard were limited to a fear lest I should not feel at ease in my new home under the restraint of a presence more accustomed to intimidate than attract strangers, I threw aside all doubts of myself and met the advances of both father and daughter with that quiet confidence which my position there demanded. The result both gratified and grieved me. As a nurse entering on her first case I was happy. As a woman with an ulterior object in view verging on the audacious and unspeakable, I was wretched and regretful, and just a little shaken in the conviction which had hitherto upheld me. I was therefore but poorly prepared to meet the ordeal which awaited me, when a little later in the day Mr. Gray called me into the adjoining room, and after saying that it would afford him great relief to go out for an hour or so, ask if I were afraid to be left alone with my patient. Oh no, sir, I began, but stopped in secret dismay. I was afraid, but not on account of her condition, rather on account of my own. What if I should be led into betraying my feelings on finding myself under no other eye than her own? What if the temptation to probe her poor sick mind should prove stronger than my duty toward her as a nurse? My tones were hesitating, but Mr. Gray paid little heed. His mind was too fixed on what he wished to say himself. Before I go, said he, I have a request to make. I may as well say a caution to give you. Do not, I pray, either now or at any future time, carry or allow anyone else to carry newspapers into Miss Gray's room. They are just now too alarming. There has been, as you know, a dreadful murder in this city. If she caught one glimpse of the headlines, or saw so much as the name of Fair Brother, which—which is a name she knows—the result might be very hurtful to her. She is not only extremely sensitive from illness, but from temperament. Will you be careful? I shall be careful. It was such an effort for me to say these words, to say anything in the state of mind into which I had been thrown by his unexpected allusion to this subject, that I unfortunately drew his attention to myself, and it was with what I felt to be a glance of doubt that he added with decided emphasis. You must consider this whole subject as a forbidden one in this family. Only cheerful topics are suitable for the sick room. If Miss Gray attempts to introduce any other, stop her. Do not let her talk about anything which will not be conductive to her speedy recovery. These are the only instructions I have to give you. All others must come from her physician. I made some reply with as little show of emotion as possible. It seemed to satisfy him for his face cleared as he kindly observed. You have a very trustworthy look for one so young. I shall rest easy while you are with her, and I shall expect you to be always with her when I am not. Every moment, mind, she is never to be left alone with gossiping servants. If a word is mentioned in her hearing about this crime which seems to be in everybody's mouth, I shall feel forced, greatly as I should regret the fad, to blame you. This was a heart stroke, but I kept up bravely, changing color, perhaps, but not to such a marked degree as to arouse any deeper suspicion in his mind than that I had been wounded in my amor propra. She shall be well guarded, said I. You may trust me to keep from her all avoidable knowledge of this crime. He bowed, and I was about to leave his presence, when he detained me by remarking with the air of one who felt that some explanation was necessary. I was at the ball where this crime took place. Naturally it has made a deep impression on me and would on her if she heard of it. I assuredly, I murmured, wondering if he would say more and how I should have the courage to stand there and listen if he did. It is the first time I have ever come in contact with crime. He went on with what, in one of his reserved nature, seemed a hardly natural insistence. I could well have been spared the experience. A tragedy with which one has been even thus remotely connected produces a lasting effect upon the mind. Oh yes, oh yes, I murmured, edging involuntarily toward the door. Did I not know? Had I not been there too? I, little I, whom he stood gazing down upon from such a height, little realizing the fatality which united us, and what was even a more overwhelming thought to me at the moment, the fact that of all persons in the world the shrinking little being into whose eyes he was then looking, was perhaps his greatest enemy and the one person, great or small, from whom he had the most to fear. But I was no enemy to his gentle daughter, and the relief I felt at finding myself thus cut off by my own promise from even the remotest communication with her on this forbidden subject was genuine and sincere. But the father, what was I to think of the father? Alas, I could have but one thought. Admirable as he appeared in all light save the one in which his two evident connection with this crime had placed him, I spent the hours of the afternoon in alternately watching the sleeping face of my patient, two sweetly calm in its repose or so it seemed, for the mind beneath to harbor such doubts as were shown in the warning I had ascribed to her, and vain efforts to explain by any other hypothesis than that of guilt the extraordinary evidence which linked this man of great affairs and the loftiest repute to a crime involving both theft and murder. Nor did the struggle end that night. It was renewed with still greater positiveness the next day as I witnessed the glances from which time to time pass between this father and daughter, glances full of doubt and question on both sides, but not exactly such doubt or such question as my suspicions called for. Or so I thought, and spent another day or two hesitating very much over my duty, when, coming unexpectedly upon Mr. Gray one evening, I felt all my doubts revive in view of the extraordinary expression of dread. I might was still greater truth, say, fear, which informed his features and made them to my unaccustomed eyes almost unrecognizable. He was sitting at his desk in reverie over some papers which he seemed not to have touched for hours, and when, at some movement I made, he started up and met my eye, I could swear that his cheek was pale, the firm carriage of his body shaken, and the whole man a victim to some strong and secret apprehension he vainly sought to hide. When I ventured to tell him what I wanted, he made an effort and pulled himself together, but I had seen him with his mask off, and his usually calm visage and self-possess mean could not again deceive me. My duties kept me mainly at Ms. Gray's bedside, but I had been provided with a little room across the hall, and to this room I retired very soon after this, for rest and a necessary understanding with myself. For in spite of this experience, and my now settled convictions, my purpose required wedding. The indescribable charm, the extreme refinement and nobility of manner observable in both Mr. Gray and his daughter were producing their effect. I felt guilty, constrained, whatever my convictions the impetus to act was leaving me. How could I recover it? By thinking of Anson Durand and his present disgraceful position. Anson Durand. Oh, how the feeling surged up in my breast as that name slipped from my lips on crossing the threshold of my little room. Anson Durand, whom I believed innocent, whom I loved, but whom I was betraying with every moment of hesitation in which I allowed myself to indulge. What if the honorable Mr. Gray is an imminent statesman, a dignified, scholarly, and to all appearance high-minded man? What if my patient is sweet, dove-eyed, and affectionate? Had not Anson qualities as excellent in their way, writes as certain, and a hold upon myself superior to any claims which another might advance? Drying a much crumpled little note from my pocket, I eagerly read it. It was the only one I had of his writing, the only letter he had ever written me. I had already re-read it a hundred times, but as I once more repeated to myself its well-known lines, I felt my heart grow strong and fixed in the determination which had brought me into this family. Restoring the letter to its place, I opened my grip-sack, and from its inmost recesses drew forth an object which I had no sooner in hand than a natural sense of disquietude led me to glance apprehensively, first at the door, then at the window, though I had locked the one and shaded the other. It seemed as if some other eye besides my own must be gazing at what I held so gingerly in hand. That the walls were watching me, if nothing else, and the sensation this produced was so exactly like that of guilt, or what I imagined to be guilt, that I was forced to repeat once more to myself that it was not a good man's overthrow I sought, or even a bad man's immunity from punishment, but the truth, the absolute truth. No shame could equal that which I should feel if, by any over-delicacy now, I failed to save the man who trusted me. The article which I held, have you guessed it, was the stiletto with which Mrs. Fairbrother had been killed. It had been entrusted to me by the police for a definite purpose. The time for testing that purpose had come, or so nearly come, that I felt I must be thinking about the necessary ways and means. Unwinding the folds of tissue paper in which the stiletto was wrapped, I scrutinized the weapon very carefully. Hitherto I had seen only pictures of it. Now I had the article itself in my hand. It was not a natural one for a young woman to hold, a woman whose taste ran more toward healing than inflicting wounds, but I forced myself to forget why the end of its blade was rusty and looked mainly at the devices which ornamented the handle. I had not been mistaken in them. They belonged to the House of Grey and to none other. It was a legitimate inquiry I had undertaken. However the matter ended, I should always have these historic devices for my excuse. My plan was to lay this dagger on Mr. Grey's desk at a moment when he would be sure to see it and I to see him. If he betrayed a guilty knowledge of this fatal steal, if unconscious of my presence he showed surprise and apprehension, then we should know how to proceed. Justice would be loosed from constraint and the police feel at liberty to approach him. It was a delicate task, this. I realized how delicate, when I had thrust the stiletto out of sight under my nurse's apron and started to cross the hall. Should I find the library clear? Would the opportunity be given me to approach his desk, or should I have to carry this guilty witness of a world-famous crime on into Miss Grey's room and with its unholy outline pressing a semblance of itself upon my breast sit at that innocent pillow, meet those innocent eyes, and answer the gentle inquiries which now and then fell from the sweetest lips I have ever seen smile into the face of a lonely preoccupied stranger. The arrangement of the rooms was such as made it necessary for me to pass through this sitting room in order to reach my patient's bedroom. With careful tread so timed as not to appear stealthy, I accordingly advanced and pushed open the door. The room was empty. Mr. Grey was still with his daughter, and I could cross the floor without fear. But never had I entered upon a task requiring more courage or one more obnoxious to my natural instincts. I hated each step I took, but I loved the man for whom I took those steps and moved resolutely on. Only as I reached the chair in which Mr. Grey was accustomed to sit, I found that it was easier to plan an action than to carry it out. Home life and the domestic virtues had always appealed to me more than a man's greatness. The position which this man held in his own country, his usefulness there, even his prestige as a statesman and scholar, were facts but very dreamy facts to me. While his feelings as a father, the place he held in his daughter's heart, these were real to me, these I could understand, and it was of these and not of his place as a man that this his favorite seat spoke to me. How often had I beheld him sit by the hour with his eye on the door behind which his one darling lay ill. Even now it was easy for me to recall his face as I had sometimes caught a glimpse of it through the crack of the suddenly opened door, and I felt my breast heave in my hand falter as I drew forth the stiletto and moved to place it, where his eye would fall upon it on his leaving his daughter's bedside. But my hand returned quickly to my breast and fell back again empty. A pile of letters lay before me on the open lid of the desk. The top one was addressed to me with the word important written in the corner. I did not know the writing, but I felt that I should open and read this letter before committing myself or those who stood back of me to this desperate undertaking. Glancing behind me and seeing that the door into Miss Gray's room was ajar, I caught up this letter and rushed with it back into my own room. As I surmised it was from the inspector, and as I read it I realized that I had received it not one moment too soon. In language purposely noncommittal, but of a meaning not to be mistaken, it advised me that some unforeseen facts had come to light which altered all former suspicions and made the little surprise I had planned no longer necessary. There's no allusion to Mr. Durand, but the final sentence ran, Drop all care and give your undivided attention to your patient. CHAPTER XIII. OF THE WOMEN IN THE ALCOVE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Patty Cunningham. THE WOMEN IN THE ALCOVE By Anna Catherine Green CHAPTER XIII. THE MISSING RECOMMENDATION My patient slept that night, but I did not. The shock given by this sudden cry of halt at the very moment I was about to make my great move, the uncertainty as to what it meant, and my doubt of its effect upon Mr. Durand's position, put me on the anxious seat and kept my thoughts fully occupied till morning. I was very tired and must have shown it, when with the first rays of a very meager sun, Miss Gray softly unclosed her eyes and found me looking at her. Her smile had a sweet compassion in it, and she said as she pressed my hand, You must have watched me all night. I never saw anyone look so tired, or so good, she softly finished. I had rather she had not uttered that last phrase. It did not fit me at the moment. It did not fit me, perhaps, at any time. Good? I? When my thoughts had not been with her, but with Mr. Durand? When the dominating feeling in my breast was not that of relief, but a vague regret that I had not been allowed to make my great test, and so established to my own satisfaction at least, Perfect innocence of my lover, even at the cost of untold anguish to this confiding girl upon whose gentle spirit the very thought of crime would cast a deadly blight. I must have flushed. Certainly I showed some embarrassment, for her eyes brightened with shy laughter as she whispered. You do not like to be praised. Another of your virtues. You have too many. I have only one. I love my friends. She did. One could see that love was life to her. For an instant I trembled. How near I had been to wrecking this gentle soul. Was she safe yet? I was not sure. My own doubts were not satisfied. I awaited the papers with feverish impatience. They should contain news. News of what? Ah, that was the question. You will let me see my mail this morning, will you not? she asked, as I busied myself about her. That is for the doctor to say, I smiled. You are certainly better this morning. It is so hard for me not to be able to read his letters, or to write a word to relieve his anxiety. Thus she told me her heart secret, and unconsciously added another burden to my already too heavy load. I was on my way to give some orders about my patient's breakfast, when Mr. Gray came into the sitting-room and met me face to face. He had a newspaper in his hand, and my heart stood still as I noted his altered looks and disturbed manner. Were these due to anything he had found in those columns? With difficulty that I kept my eyes from the paper which he held in such a manner as to disclose its glaring headlines. These I dared not read with his eyes fixed on mine. How is Miss Gray? How is my daughter? he asked, in great haste and uneasiness. Is she better this morning, or worse? Better, I assured him, and was greatly astonished to see his brow instantly clear. Really? he asked. You really consider her better? The doctor say so, but I have not very much faith in doctors in a case like this, he added. I have seen no reason to distrust them, I protested. Miss Gray's illness, while severe, does not appear to be of an alarming nature. But then I have had very little experience out of the hospital. I am young yet, Mr. Gray. He looked as if he quite agreed with me in this estimate of myself, and with a brow still clouded, passed into his daughter's room the paper in his hand. Before I joined them I found and scanned another journal. Expecting great things I was both surprised and disappointed to find only a small paragraph devoted to the Fairbrother case. In this it was stated that the authorities hoped for new light on this mystery as soon as they had located a certain witness, whose connection with the crime they had just discovered. No more, no less than was contained in Inspector Dalzel's letter. How could I bear it, the suspense, the doubt, and do my duty to my patient? Happily I had no choice. I had been adjudged equal to this business, and I must prove myself to be so. Perhaps my courage would revive after I had had my breakfast. Perhaps then I should be able to fix upon the identity of the new witness, something which I found myself incapable of at this moment. These thoughts were on my mind as I crossed the rooms on my way back to Miss Gray's bedside. By the time I reached her door I was outwardly calm, as her first words showed. Oh, the cheerful smile! It makes me feel better in spite of myself, if she could have seen into my heart. Mr. Gray, who was leaning over the foot of the bed, cast me a quick glance which was not without its suspicion. Had he detected me playing apart, or were such doubts as he displayed the product simply of his own uneasiness, I was not able to decide, and with this unanswered question added to the number already troubling me, I was forced to face the day which, for ought I knew, might be the precursor of many others equally trying an unsatisfactory. But help was near. Before noon I received a message from my uncle to the effect that if I could be spared he would be glad to see me at his home as near three o'clock as possible. What could he want of me? I could not guess, and it was with great inner perturbation that having won Mr. Gray's permission I responded to his summons. I found my uncle awaiting me in a carriage before his own door, and I took my seat at his side without the least idea of his purpose. I suppose that he had planned this ride that he might talk to me unreservedly and without fear of interruption. But I soon saw that he had some very different object in view, for not only did he start downtown instead of up, but his conversation, such as it was, confined itself to generalities, and studiously avoided the one topic of supreme interest to us both. At last, as we turned into Bleaker Street, I let my astonishment and perplexity appear. Where are we bound? I asked. It cannot be that you are taking me to see Mr. Durand. No said he, and said no more. Ah! police headquarters I faltered as the carriage made another turn and drew up before a building I had reason to remember. Uncle, what am I to do here? See a friend he answered, as he helped me to alight. Then as I followed him in some bewilderment he whispered in my ear, Inspector Dolzel, he wants a few minutes' conversation with you. Oh! the weight which fell from my shoulders at these words. I was to hear, then, what had intervened between me and my purpose. The wearing night I had anticipated was to be lightened with some small spark of knowledge. I had confidence enough in the kind-hearted Inspector to be sure of that. I caught at my Uncle's arm and squeezed it delightedly. Quite oblivious of the curious glances I must have received from the various officials we passed on our way to the Inspector's office. We found him waiting for us, and I experienced such pleasure at the sight of his kind and earnest face that I hardly noticed Uncle's sly retreat till the door closed behind him. Inspector, what has happened? I impetuously exclaimed in answer to his greeting. Something that will help Mr. Durand without disturbing Mr. Gray? Have you as good a news for me as that? Hardly he answered, moving up a chair and seating me in it with a fatherly air which, under the circumstances, was more discouraging than consolatory. We have simply heard of a new witness, or rather a fact has come to light which has turned our inquiries into a new direction. And—and you cannot tell me what this fact is! I faltered, as he showed no intention of adding anything to this very unsatisfactory explanation. I should not, but you are willing to do so much for us. I must set aside my principles a little and do something for you. After all, it is only forestalling the reporters by a day. Miss Van Arsdale, this is the story. Yesterday morning a man was shown into this room and said that he had information to give which might possibly prove to have some bearing on the Fair Brother case. I had seen the man before and recognized him at the first glance as one of the witnesses who made the inquest unnecessarily tedious. Do you remember Jones, the caterer, who had only two or three facts to give and yet who used up the whole afternoon in trying to state those facts? I do indeed, I answered. Well, he was the man, and I owned that I was none too delighted to see him. But he was more at his ease with me than I expected, and I soon learned what he had to tell. It was this. One of his men had suddenly left him, one of his very best men, one of those who had been with him in the capacity of waiter at the Ramsdale Ball. It was not uncommon for his men to leave him, but they usually gave notice. This man gave no notice, he simply did not show up at the usual hour. This was a week or two ago. Jones, having a liking for the man, who was an excellent waiter, sent a messenger to his lodging-house to see if he were ill, but he had left his lodgings with his little ceremony as he had left the caterer. This, under ordinary circumstances, would have ended the business, but there being some great function in prospect, Jones did not feel like losing so good a man without making an effort to recover him, so he looked up his references in the hope of obtaining some clue to his present whereabouts. He kept all such matters in a special book, and expected to have no trouble in finding the man's name, James Welgood, or that of his former employer. But when he came to consult this book, he was astonished to find that nothing was recorded against this man's name but the date of his first employment, March 15th. Had he hired him without a recommendation? He would not be likely to, yet the page was clear of all reference, only the name in the date. But the date, you have already noted its significance, and later he did too. The Day of the Roundsdale Ball. The Day of the Great Murder. As he recalled the incidents of that day, he understood why the record of Welgood's name was unaccompanied by the usual reference. It had been a difficult day all round. The function was an important one, and the weather bad. There was, besides, an unusual shortage in his number of assistants. Two men had that very morning been laid up with sickness, and when this able-looking, self-confident Welgood presented himself for immediate employment, he took him out of hand with the nearest glance at what looked like a very satisfactory reference. Later he had intended to look up this reference, which he had been careful to preserve by sticking it, along with other papers, on his spike file. But in the distractions following the untoward events of the evening, he had neglected to do so, feeling perfectly satisfied with the man's work and general behaviour. Now it was a different thing. The man had left him summarily, and he felt impelled to hunt up the person who had recommended him and see whether this was the first time that Welgood had repaid good treatment with bad. Running through the papers with which his file was now full, he found that the one he sought was not there. This roused him in good earnest, for he was certain that he had not removed it himself, and there was no one else who had the right to do so. He suspected the culprit, a young lad who occasionally had access to his desk. But this boy was no longer in the office. He had dismissed him for some petty fault the previous week, and it took him several days to find him again. Meantime his anger grew, and when he finally came face to face with the lad, he accused him of the suspected trick with so much vehemence that the inevitable happened, and the boy confessed. This is what he acknowledged. He had taken the reference off the file, but only to give it to Welgood himself who had offered him money for it. When asked how much money, the boy admitted that the sum was ten dollars, an extraordinary amount from a poor man for so simple a service if the man merely wished to secure his reference for future use, so extraordinary that Mr. Jones grew more and more pertinent in his inquiries, eliciting finally what he surely could not have hoped for in the beginning, the exact address of the party referred to in the paper he had stolen, and which, for some reason, the boy remembered. It was an uptown address, and as soon as the caterer could leave his business, he took the elevated and proceeded to the specified street and number. Miss Van Arsdale a surprise awaited him, and awaited us when he told us the result of his search. The name attached to the recommendation had been Hyrum Sears Steward. He did not know of any such man, perhaps you do, but when he reached the house from which the recommendation was dated, he saw that it was one of the great houses of New York, though he could not at the instant remember who lived there, but he soon found out. Miss Van Arsdale, perhaps you can do the same. The number was 86th Street. I repeated quite a gasp. Why, Mr. Fairbrother himself, the husband of—exactly so, and Hyrum Sears, whose name you may have heard mentioned at the inquest, though for a very good reason he was not there in person, is his steward and general fact totem. Oh, and it was he who recommended well good? Yes, and did Mr. Jones see him? No, the house you remember is closed. Mr. Fairbrother, on leaving town, gave his servants a vacation. His steward he took with him. That is, they started together, but we hear no mention made of him in our telegrams from Santa Fe. He does not seem to have followed Mr. Fairbrother into the mountains. You say that in a peculiar way, I remarked, because it has struck us peculiarly. Where is Sears now? And why did he not go on with Mr. Fairbrother when he left home with every apparent intention of accompanying him to the placid mine? Miss Van Arsdale, we were impressed with this fact when we heard of Mr. Fairbrother's lonely trip from where he was taken ill to his mine outside of Santa Fe, but we have only given it its due importance to hearing what has come to us today. Miss Van Arsdale continued the inspector as I looked up quickly. I am going to show great confidence in you. I am going to tell you what our men have learned about this Sears. As I have said before, it is but forestalling the reporters by a day, and it may help you to understand why I sent you such preemptory orders to stop when your whole heart was fixed on an attempt by which you hoped to write Mr. Durand. You cannot afford to disturb so distinguish a person as the one you have under your eye while the least hope remains of fixing this crime elsewhere. And we have such hope. This man, this Sears, is by no means the simple character one would expect from his position. Considering the short time we have had, it was only yesterday that Jones found his way into this office, we have unearthed some very interesting facts in his regard. His devotion to Mr. Fairbrother was never any secret, and we knew as much about that the day after the murder as we do now. But the feelings with which he regarded Mrs. Fairbrother, well, that is another thing, and it was not till last night we heard that the attachment which bound him to her was of the sort which takes no account of youth or age, fitness or unfitness. He was no Adonis and old enough, we are told, to be her father. But for all that we have already found several persons who can tell strange stories of the persistence with which his eager old eyes would follow her whenever chance threw them together during the time she remained under her husband's roof, and others who relate, with even more avidity, how after her removal to apartments of her own he used to spend hours in the adjoining park just to catch a glimpse of her figure as she crossed the sidewalk on her way to and from her carriage. Indeed his senseless, almost senile passion for this magnificent beauty became a byword in some mouths, and it only escaped being mentioned at the end-quest from respect to Mr. Fairbrother, who had never recognized this weakness in his steward, and from its lack of visible connection with her horrible death and the stealing of her great jewel. Nevertheless we have a witness now. It is astonishing how many witnesses we can scare up by a little effort who never thought of coming forward themselves, who can swear to having seen him one night shaking his fist at her retreating figure as she stepped hotly by him into her apartment house. This witness is sure that the man he saw, thus gesticulating, was Sears, and he is sure the woman was Mrs. Fairbrother. The only thing he is not sure of is how his own wife will feel when she hears that he was in that particular neighborhood on that particular evening when he was evidently supposed to be somewhere else, and the inspector laughed. Is the steward's disposition a bad one, I asked, that this display of feelings should impress you so much? I don't know what to say about that yet. Opinions differ on this point. His friends speak of him as the mildest kind of man who, without native executive skill, could not manage the great household he has in charge. His enemies, and we have unearthed a few, say on the contrary that they have never had any confidence in his quiet ways, that these were not in keeping with the fact, or his having been a California minor in the early fifties. You can see I am putting you very nearly where we are ourselves. Nor do I see, why I should not add, that this passion of the seemingly subdued, but really hot-headed steward for a woman who never showed him anything but what he might call an insulting indifference struck us as a clue to be worked up. Especially after we received this answer to a telegram we sent late last night to the nurse who was caring for Mr. Fairbrother in New Mexico. He handed me a small yellow slip and I read, the steward left Mr. Fairbrother at El Morrow. He has not heard from him since. Annetta Lacerra for Abner Fairbrother. At El Morrow I cried, why, that was long enough ago, for him to have reached New York before the murder, exactly so if he took advantage of every close connection. End of Chapter 13. Recording by Patti Cunningham. Chapter 14 of The Woman in the Alcove. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Patti Cunningham. The Woman in the Alcove by Anna Catherine Green. Chapter 14. Trapped. I caught my breath sharply. I did not say anything. I felt that I did not understand the inspector sufficiently yet to speak. He seemed to be pleased with my reticence. At all events, his manner grew even kinder, as he said. This seers as a witness we must have. He is being looked for now, high and low, and we hope to get some clue to his whereabouts before night. That is, if he is in this city, meanwhile we are all glad, and I am sure you are also, to spare so distinguished a gentleman as Mr. Gray the slightest annoyance. And Mr. Durand, what of him in this interim? He will have to await developments. I see no other way, my dear. It was kindly said, but my head drooped. This waiting was what was killing him and killing me. The inspector saw and gently padded my hand. Come, said he, you have had enough to see that it is never wise to force matters. Then possibly, with an intention of rousing me, he remarked, there is another small fact which may interest you. It concerns the waiter well good, recommended, as you will remember, by this seers. In my talk with Jones it leaked out as a matter of small moment, and so it was to him that this well good was the waiter who ran and picked up the diamond after it fell from Mr. Gray's hand. This may mean nothing, it meant nothing to Jones, but I inform you of it because there is a question I want to put to you in this connection. You smile. Did I, I meekly answered? I do not know why. This was not true. I had been waiting to see why the inspector had so honored me with all these disclosures, almost with his thoughts. Now I saw. He desired something in return. You were on the scene at this very moment, he proceeded, after a brief contemplation of my face, and you must have seen this man when he lifted the jewel and handed it back to Mr. Gray. Did you remark his features? No, sir, I was too far off. Besides, my eyes were on Mr. Gray. That is a pity. I was in hopes you could satisfy me on a very important point. What point is that, Inspector Dalzell? Whether he answered the following description, and taking up another paper he was about to read it aloud to me when an interruption occurred. A man showed himself at the door, whom the inspector no sooner recognized than he seemed to forget me in his eagerness to interrogate him. Perhaps the appearance of the latter had something to do with it. He looked as if he had been running, or had been the victim of some extraordinary adventure. At all events the inspector arose as he entered and was about to question him when he remembered me, and casting about for some means of ridding himself of my presence without injury to my feelings, he suddenly pushed open the door of an adjoining room and requested me to step inside while he talked a moment with this man. Of course I went, but I cast him an appealing look as I did so. It evidently had its effect for his expression changed as his hand fell on the doorknob. Would he snap the lock tight and so shut me out from what concerned me as much as it did anyone in the whole world? Or would he recognize my anxiety and the necessity I was under just the ground I was standing on and let me hear what this man had to report? I watched the door. It closed slowly, too slowly to latch. Would he catch it anew by the knob? No, he left it thus. And while the crack was hardly perceptible I felt confident that the least shake of the floor would widen it and give me the opportunity I sought. But I did not have to wait for this. The two men in the office I had just left began to speak and to my unbounded relief were sufficiently intelligible even now to warrant me in giving them my fullest attention. After some expressions of astonishment on the part of the inspector as to the plight in which the other presented himself the latter broke out. I've just escaped death. I'll tell you about that later. What I want to tell you now is that the man we want is in town. I saw him last night or his shadow which is the same thing. It was in the house in 86th Street. The house they all think closed. He came in with a key and— Wait! You have him? No, it's a long story, sir. Tell it! The tone was dry. The inspector was evidently disappointed. Don't blame me till you hear, said the other. He is no common crook. This is how it was. You wanted the suspect's photograph and a specimen of his writing. I knew no better place to look for them than in his own room in Mr. Fairbrother's house. I accordingly got the necessary warrant and late last evening undertook the job. I went alone. It was always an egotistical chap, more's the pity, and with no further precaution than a passing explanation to the officer I met at the corner I hastened up the block to the rear entrance on 87th Street. There are three doors to the Fairbrother house as you probably know. Two on 86th Street, the large front one and a small one connecting directly with the turret stairs, and one on 87th Street. It was to the latter I had a key. I do not think anyone saw me go in. It was raining, and such people as went by were more concerned in keeping their umbrellas properly over their heads than in watching men skulking about in doorways. I got in then, all right, and being careful to close the door behind me went up the first short flight of steps to what I knew must be the main hall. I had been given a plan of the interior, and I had studied it more or less before starting out, but I knew that I should get lost if I did not keep to the rear staircase, at the top of which I expected to find the stewards room. There was a faint light in the house, in spite of its closed shutters and tightly drawn shades, and having a certain dread of using my torch, knowing my weakness for pretty things and how hard it would be for me to pass so many fine rooms without looking in, I made my way upstairs with no other guide than the handrail. When I had reached what I took to be the third floor I stopped. Finding it very dark I first listened, a natural instinct with us, then I lit up and looked about me. I was in a large hall, empty as a vault, and almost as desolate. Blank doors met my eyes in all directions with here and there an open passageway. I felt myself in a maze. I had no idea which was the door I sought, and it is not pleasant to turn unaccustomed knobs in a shut-up house at midnight with the rain pouring in torrents and the wind making pandemonium in a half-dozen great chimneys. But it had to be done, and I went at it in regular order till I came to a little narrow one opening on the turret stair. This gave me my bearings. Sears room adjoined the staircase. There was no difficulty in spotting the exact door now, and merely stopping to close the opening I had made to this little staircase I crossed to this door and flung it open. I had been right in my calculations. It was the stewards room, and I made it once for the desk. And you found? Mostly locked drawers, but a key on my bunch opened some of these, and my knife the rest. Here are the specimens of his handwriting which I collected. I doubt if you will get much out of them. I saw nothing compromising in the whole room, but then I hadn't time to go through his trunks, and one of them looked very interesting. Old is the hills, and you hadn't time. Why hadn't you time? What happened to cut it short? Well, sir, I'll tell you. The tone in which this was said roused me if it did not the inspector. I had just come from the desk which had disappointed me, and was casting a look about the room which was as bare as my hand of everything like ornament. I might almost say comfort when I heard a noise which was not that of swishing rain or even gusty wind. These had not been absent from my ears for a moment. I didn't like that noise. It had a sneakish sound, and I shut my light off in a hurry. After that I crept hastily out of the room for I don't like a set to in a trap. It was darker than ever now in the hall or so it seemed, and as I backed away I came upon a jog in the wall behind which I crept, where the sound I had heard was no fancy. Someone besides myself was in the house, and that someone was coming up the little turret stair striking matches as he approached. Who could it be? A detective from the district attorney's office? I hardly thought so. He would have been provided with something better than matches to light his way. A burglar? No, not on the third floor of a house as rich as this. Some fellow on the force then who had seen me come in and by some trick of his own had managed to follow me? I would see. Meantime I kept my place behind the jog and watched, not knowing which way the intruder would go. Whoever he was he was evidently astonished to see the turret-dora jar for he lit another match as he threw it open, and though I failed to get a glimpse of his figure, I succeeded in getting a very good one of his shadow. It was one who aroused a detective's instinct at once. I did not say to myself, this is the man I want, but I did say, this is nobody from headquarters, and I steadied myself for whatever might turn up. The first thing that happened was the sudden going out of the match which had made this shadow visible. The intruder did not light another. I heard him move across the floor with the rapid step of one who knows his way well, and the next minute a gas jet flared up in the steward's room, and I knew that the man the whole force was looking for had trapped himself. You will agree that it was not my duty to take him then and there without seeing what he was after. He was thought to be in the eastern states, or south or west, but he was here. But why here? That is what I knew you would want to know, and it was just what I wanted to know myself, so I kept my place, which was good enough, and just listened, for I could not see. What was his errand? What did he want in this empty house at midnight? Papers first, then clothes. I heard him at his desk. I heard him in the closet, and afterward, pottering in the old trunk, I had been so anxious to look into myself. He must have brought the key with him, for it was no time before I heard him throwing out the contents in a wild search for something he wanted in a great hurry. He found it sooner than you would believe and began throwing things back when something happened. Expectedly or unexpectedly, his eye fell on some object which roused all his passions, and he broke into loud exclamations ending in groans. Finally he fell to kissing this object with a fervor suggesting rage, and a rage suggesting tenderness carried to the point of agony. I have never heard the like. My curiosity was so aroused that I was on the point of risking everything for a look, when he gave a sudden snarl and cried out loud enough for me to hear. Kiss what I've hated? That is as bad as to kill what I've loved. Those were the words. I am sure he said kiss, and I am sure he said kill. This is very interesting. Go on with your story. Why didn't you collar him while he was in this mood? You would have won by the surprise. I had no pistol, sir, and he had. I heard him cock it. I thought he was going to take his own life and held my breath for the report. But nothing like that was in his mind. Instead he laid the pistol down and deliberately tore into the object of his anger. Then with a smothered curse he made for the door and the turret staircase. I was for following, but not till I had seen what he had destroyed in such an excess of feeling. I thought I knew, but I wanted to feel sure. So before risking myself in the turret, I crept to the room he had left and felt about on the floor till I came upon these. A torn photograph. Mrs. Fairbrothers. Yes. Have you not heard how he loved her? A foolish passion, but evidently sincere and never mind comment, sweet water, stick to facts. I will, sir. They are interesting enough. After I had picked up these scraps I stole back to the turret staircase and here I made my first break. I stumbled in the darkness and the man below heard me for the pistol clicked again. I did not like this and had some thoughts of backing out of my job. But I didn't. I merely waited till I heard his step again then I followed, but very warily this time. It was not an agreeable venture. It was like descending into a well with possible death at the bottom. I could see nothing and presently could hear nothing but the almost imperceptible sliding of my own fingers down the curve of the wall, which was all I had to guide me. Had he stopped midway and would my first intimation of his presence be the touch of cold steel or the flinging around me of two murderous arms, I had met with no break in the smooth surface of the wall so could not have reached the second story. When I should get there the question would be whether to leave the staircase and seek him in the mazes of its great rooms or to keep on down to the parlor floor and so to the street whether he was possibly bound. I owned that I was almost tempted to turn on my light and have done with it but I remembered of how little use I should be to you lying in this well of a stairway with a bullet in me and so I managed to compose myself and go on as I had begun. Next instant my fingers slipped round the edge of an opening and I knew that the moment of decision had come. Realizing that no one can move so softly that he will not give away his presence in some way I paused for the sound which I knew must come and when a click grows from the depths of the hall before me I plunged into that hall and thus into the house proper. Here it was not so dark yet I could make out none of the objects I now and then ran against. In that mirror I hardly know how I knew it to be such and in that mirror I seemed to see the ghost of a ghost flit by and vanish. It was too much. I muttered a suppressed oath and plunged forward when I struck against a closing door. It flew open again and I rushed in turning on my light in my extreme desperation when instead of hearing the sharp report of a pistol as I expected I saw a second door fall to before me this time with a sound like the snap of a spring lock. Finding that this was so and that all advance was barred that way I wheeled hurriedly back toward the door by which I had entered the place to find that that had fallen too simultaneously with the other a single spring acting for both. I was trapped, a prisoner in the strangest sort of passageway or closet and as a speedy look about presently assured me a prisoner with very little hope of immediate escape for the doors were not only immovable without even locks to pick or panels to break in but the place was bare of windows and the only communication which it could be said to have with the outside world at all was a shaft rising from the ceiling almost to the top of the house. Whether this served as a ventilator or a means of lighting up the hole when both doors were shut it was much too inaccessible to offer any apparent way of escape. Never was a man more thoroughly boxed in. As I realized how little chance there was of any outside interference how my captor, even if he was seen leaving the house by the officer on duty would be taken for myself and so allowed to escape I owned that I felt my position a hopeless one but anger is a powerful stimulant and I was mortally angry not only with seers but with myself. So when I was done swearing I took another look around and finding that there was no getting through the walls turned my attention wholly to the shaft which would certainly lead me out of the place if I could only find means to mount it. And how do you think I managed to do this at last? A look at my bedraggled lime covered clothes may give you some idea. I cut a passage for myself up those perpendicular walls as the boy did up the face of the natural bridge in Virginia. Do you remember that old story in the Reader? It came to me like an inspiration as I stood looking up from below and though I knew I should have to work close to the way in perfect darkness I decided that a man's life was worth some risk and that I had rather fall and break my neck while doing something than to spend hours in maddening inactivity only to face death at last from slow starvation. I had a knife, an exceedingly good knife in my pocket, and for the first few steps I should have the light of my electric torch. The difficulty, that is the first difficulty was to reach the shaft from the floor where I stood there was but one article of furniture in the room and that was something between a table and a desk. No chairs and the desk was not high enough to enable me to reach the mouth of the shaft. If I could turn it on end there might be some hope but this did not look feasible however I threw off my coat and went at the thing with a vengeance and whether I was given superhuman power or whether the clumsy thing was not as heavy as it looked I did finally succeed in turning it on its end close under the opening from which the shaft rose. The next thing was to get on its top. That seemed about as impossible as climbing the bear wall itself but presently I bethought me of the drawers and though they were locked I did succeed by the aid of my keys to get enough of them to open to make for myself a very good pair of stairs. I could now see my way to the mouth of the shaft but after that taking out my knife I felt the edge it was a good one so was the point but was it good enough to work holes in plaster? It depended somewhat on the plaster. Had the masons in finishing that shaft any thought of the poor wretch who one day would have to pit his life against the hardness of the final covering? My first dig at it would tell I own I trembled violently at the prospect of what that first test would mean to me and wondered if the perspiration which I felt starting at every pore was the result of the effort I had been engaged in or just plain fear. Inspector, I do not intend to have you live with me through the five mortal hours which followed. I was enabled to pierce that plaster with my knife and even to penetrate deep enough to afford a place for the tips of my fingers and afterward for the point of my toes digging, prying, sweating, panting, listening first for a sudden opening of the door beneath then for some shout or wicked interference from above as I worked my way up inch by inch by foot to what might not be safety after it was attained. Five hours, six then I struck something which proved to be a window and when I realized this and knew that with but one more effort I should breathe freely again I came as near to falling as I had at any time before I began this terrible climb. Happily I had some premonition of my danger and threw myself into a position which held me till the dizzy minute passed. Then I went calmly on with my work and in another half hour had reached the window which fortunately for me not only opened inward but was off the latch. It was with a sense of inexpressible relief that I clambered through this window and for a brief moment breathed in the pungent odor of cedar. But it could have been only for a moment. It was three o'clock in the afternoon before I found myself again in the outer air. The only way I can account for the lapse of time is that the strain to which both body and nerve had been subjected was too much for even my hearty body and that I fell to the floor of the cedar closet and from a faint went into a sleep that lasted until two. I can easily account for the last hour because it took me that long to cut the thick paneling from the door of the closet. However, I am here now, sir, and in very much the same condition in which I left that house. I thought my first duty was to tell you that I had seen high room seers in that house last night and put you on his track. I drew a long breath I think the inspector did. I had been almost rigid from excitement and I don't believe he was quite free from it either but his voice was calmer than I expected when he finally said, I'll remember this, it was a good night's work. Then the inspector put to him some questions which seemed to fix the fact that seers had left the house before Sweetwater did after which he bade him send certain men to him and then go fix himself up. I believe he had forgotten me. I had almost forgotten myself. End of Chapter 14 Recording by Patty Cunningham Chapter 15 of The Woman in the Alcove This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sean Michael Hogan The Woman in the Alcove by Anna Catherine Green Chapter 15 Seers or Well-Good Not till the inspector had given several orders was I again summoned into his presence. He smiled as our eyes met but did not allude any more than I did to what had just passed. Nevertheless we understood each other. When I was again seated he took up the conversation where we had left it. The description I was just about to read to you he went on. Will you listen to it now? Gladly, said I, it is Well-Goods, I believe. He did not answer, save by a curious glance from under his brows but, taking the paper again from his desk, went on reading. A man of fifty-five, looking like one of sixty, medium height, insignificant features, head bald, save for a ring of scanty dark hair, no beard, a heavy nose, long mouth and sleepy half-shot eyes capable of shooting strange glances. Nothing distinctive in face or figure saved the depth of his wrinkles and a scarcely observable stoop in his right shoulder. Do you see Well-Good in that? he suddenly asked. I have only the faintest recollection of his appearance, was my doubtful reply but the impression I get from this description is not exactly the one I received of that waiter in the momentary glimpse I got of him. So others have told me before he remarked, looking very disappointed. The description is of Sears given me by a man who knew him well and if we could fit the description of the one to that of the other, we should have it easy. But the few persons who have seen Well-Good differ greatly in their remembrance of his features and even of his coloring. It is astonishing how superficially most people see a man, even when they are thrown into daily contact with him. Mr. Jones says the man's eyes are grey, his hair a-wig and dark, his nose pudgy and his face without much expression. His landlady, that his eyes are blue, his hair, whether wig or not, a dusty auburn and his look quick and piercing. A look which always made her afraid. His nose she can't remember. Both agree, or rather all agree, that he wore no beard. Sears did, but a beard can be easily taken off. And all of them declare that they would know him instantly if they saw him. And so the matter stands. Even you can give me no definite description. One I mean as satisfactory or unsatisfactory as this of Sears. I shook my head. Like the others, I felt that I should know him if I saw him, but I could go no further than that. There seemed to be so little that was distinctive about the man. The inspector, hoping perhaps that all this would serve to rouse my memory, shrugged his shoulders and put the best face he could on the matter. Well, well said, we shall have to be patient. A day may make all the difference possible in our outlook, if we can lay hands on either of these men. He seemed to realize he'd said a word too much, for he instantly changed the subject and succeeded in getting a sample of Miss Grey's writing. I was forced to say no, that everything had been very carefully put away. But I do not know at what moment I may come upon it, I added. I do not forget its importance in this investigation. Very good. Those lines handed up to Mrs. Fairbrother from the walk outside of the second most valuable clue we possess. I did not ask him what the first was. I knew it was this deletto. Strange that no one has testified to that yet. He looked at me in surprise. Fifty persons of sent in samples of writing which they think like it, he observed. Often of persons who never heard of the Fairbrothers, we have been bothered greatly with the business. You know little of the difficulties the police labor under. I know too much, I sighed. He smiled and patted me on the hand. Go back to your patient, he said. Forget every other duty but that of your calling, until you get some definite word from me. I will not keep you in suspense one minute longer than is absolutely necessary. He had risen. I rose too, but I was not satisfied. I could not leave the room with my ideas, I might say with my convictions, in such a turmoil. Inspector, said I, you will think me very obstinate, but all you have told me about Sears, all I have heard about him, in fact, this I emphasized, does not convince me of the entire folly of my own suspicions. Indeed, I am afraid that if anything is strengthened, this steward who is a doubtful character I acknowledge may have had his reasons for wishing Mrs. Fairbrothers death, may even have had a hand in the matter. But what evidence of you to show that he himself entered the alcove, struck the blow, or stole the diamond? I have listened eagerly for some such evidence, but I have listened in vain. I know, you remember it, I know, but it will come, at least I think so. This should have reassured me no doubt and sent me away quiet and happy, but something, the tenacity of a deep conviction possibly, kept me lingering before the Inspector and finally gave me the courage to say, I know I ought not to speak another word, but I am putting myself at a disadvantage in doing so. But I cannot help it, Inspector. I cannot help it when I see you laying such stress upon the few indirect clues connecting the suspicious Sears with this crime, and ignoring the direct clues we have against one whom we need not name. Had I gone too far? Had my presumption transgressed all bounds, and would he show a very natural anger? No, he smiled instead. An enigmatic smile, no doubt, which I found it difficult to understand, but yet a smile. You mean, he suggested, that Sears's possible connection with the crime cannot eliminate Mr. Gray's very positive one, nor can the fact that Wellgood's hand came in contact with Mr. Gray's at or near the time of the exchange of the false stone with the real make it any less effective than the false stone with the real make it any less evident who was the guilty author of this exchange. The Inspector's hand was on the doorknob, but he dropped it at this, and surveying me very quietly said, I thought that a few days spent at the bedside of Miss Gray in the society of so renowned and cultured gentlemen as her father would disabuse you of these damaging suspicions. I don't wonder that you thought so, I burst out. You would think so all the more that attitude he shows for all about him, but I cannot get over the facts. They all point, it seems, to me, straight in one direction. All? You heard what was said in this room. I saw it in your eye how the man who surprised the steward in his own room last night heard him talking of love and death in connection with Mrs. Fairbrother. To kiss what I hate it is almost as bad as to kill what I love. He said something like that. Yes, I heard that, Slayer, could you convict him on those words? Well, we shall find out. Then, as to Wellgood's part in the little business, you choose to consider that it took place at the time the stone fell from Mr. Gray's hand. What proof have you that the substitution you believe in was not made by him? You could easily have done it while crossing the room to Mr. Gray's side. Inspector! Then, hotly as the absurdity of the suggestion struck him with full force, he do this a waiter or, as you think, Mr. Fairbrother's steward to be provided with so hard to come by an article as this counterpart of a great stone. Isn't that almost as incredible a supposition as any I have myself presumed to advance? Possibly. But the affair is full of incredibilities. The greatest of which, to my mind, is the persistence with which you, a kind-hearted enough little woman, persevere in ascribing the deepest guilt to one you profess to admire, and certainly would be glad to find innocent of any complicity with a great crime. I felt that I must justify myself. Mr. Durand has had no such consideration shown him, said I. I know, my child, I know, but the cases differ. Wouldn't it be well for you to see this and be satisfied with the turn which things have taken without continuing to insist upon involving Mr. Gray in your suspicions? A smile took off the edge of this rebuke, yet I felt it keenly, and only the confidence I had in his kindness as a man and a public official enabled me to say, but I am talking quite confidentially, and you have been so good to me, so willing to listen to all I had to say, that I cannot help but speak my whole mind. It is my only safety valve. Remember how I have to sit in the presence of this man with my thoughts all choked up? It is killing me, but I think I should go back content if you will listen to one more suggestion I have to make. It is my last. Say it, I am nothing if not indulgent. He had spoken the word indulgent. That was it. He let me speak, probably had let me speak from the first, from pure kindness. He did not believe one little bit in my good sense or logic, but I was not to be deterred. I would empty my mind of the ugly thing that lay there. I would leave there no miserable dregs of doubt to ferment and work their evil way with me in the dead watches of the night which I had yet to face, so I took him at his word. I had to ask this. In case Sears is innocent of the crime, who wrote the warning, and where did the assassin get the stiletto with the grey arms chased into its handle? And the diamond. Still the diamond! You hint that he stole that, too. That with some idea of its proving useful to him on this gala occasion he had provided himself with an imitation stone setting and all? He who has never shown, so far as we have heard, any interest in Mrs. Fairbrothers' diamond, only by her brother herself, if well good is Sears, and Sears the medium by which the false stone was exchanged for the real, that he made this exchange in Mr. Grey's interests and not his own. But I don't believe he had anything to do with it. I think everything goes to show that the exchange was made by Mr. Grey himself. A second Daniel muttered the inspector lightly. Go on, little lawyer. But for all this attempted banter on his part I imagined that I saw the beginning of my anxiety close the conversation. I therefore hastened with what I had yet to say, cutting my words short and almost stammering in my eagerness. Remember the perfection of that imitation stone? A copy so exact that it extends to the setting? That shows plan, forgive me if I repeat myself, preparation, a knowledge of stones, a particular knowledge of this one. Mr. Fairbrothers steward may have had the knowledge, but he would have been a fool to have used secure for himself a valuable he could never have found a purchaser for in any market. But a fancier, one who has his pleasure in the mere possession of a unique and invaluable gem? Ah, that is different. He might risk a crime. History tells us of several. Here I paused to take breath which gave the inspector chance to say, in other words, this is what you think. The Englishman, desirous of covering up his tracks, conceived the idea of having this imitation on hand in case it might be of use in the daring and disgraceful undertaking you ascribe to him. Recognizing his own inability to do this himself, he delegated the task to one who in some way he had been led to think cherished a secret grudge against its present possessor. A man who had had some opportunity for seeing the stone and studying the setting. The copy thus procured Mr. Gray went to the ball, and relying on his own seemingly unassailable position, attacked Mrs. Fairbrother in the alcove and would have carried off the diamond if he had found it where he had seen it earlier, blazing on her breast. But it was not there. The warning received by her, a warning you ascribe to his daughter, a fact which is yet to be proved, had led her to rid herself of the jewel in the way Mr. Durand describes. And he found himself burdened with a dastardly crime and with nothing to show for it. Later, however, to his intense surprise and possible satisfaction, he saw that diamond in my hands. And recognizing an opportunity as he thought of yet securing it, he asked to see it, held it for an instant, and then making use of an almost incredible expedient for distracting attention, dropped not the real stone but the false one, retaining the real one in his hand. This in plain English as I take it is your present idea of the situation. Astonished at the clearness with which he read my mind, I answered, Yes, Inspector, that is what was in my mind. Good, then it is just as well that it is out. Your mind is now free and you can give it entirely to your duties. Then, as he laid his hand on the doorknob, he added, In studying so intently your own point of view, you seem to have forgotten that the last thing which Mr. Gray would be likely to do under those circumstances would be to call attention to the falsity of the gem upon whose similarity to the real stone he was depending. Not even his confidence in his own position as an honored and highest esteemed guest would lead him to do that. Not if he were a well-known connoisseur, I faltered, with the pride of one who has handled the best gems. He would know that the deception would be soon discovered and that it would not do for him to fail to recognize it for what it was, when the make-believe was in his hands. Forced, my dear child, forced, and as chimerical as all the rest. It cannot stand putting into words. I will go further. You are a good girl and can bear to hear the truth from me. I don't believe in your theory. I can't. I have not been able to from the first, nor have any of my men. But if your ideas are true and Mr. Gray is involved in this matter, you will find that there has been more of a hitch about that diamond than you and your simplicity believe. If Mr. Gray were in actual possession of this valuable, he would show less care than you say he does. So would he if it were in Wellgood's hands with his consent and a good prospect of its coming to him in the near future. But if it is in Wellgood's hands without his consent, or any near prospect of his regaining it, then we can present apprehensions in the growing uneasiness he betrays. True, I murmured. If then, the inspector pursued, giving me a parting glance not without its humor, probably not without something really serious underlying its humor, we should find in following up our present clue that Mr. Gray has had dealings with this Wellgood or the Sears, or if you, with your advantages for learning the fact, should discover that he shows any extraordinary interest in either of the matter will take on a different aspect. But we have not got that far yet. At present our task is to find one or the other of these men. If we are lucky, we shall discover that the waiter and the steward are identical in spite of their seemingly different appearance. A rogue, such as this Sears has shown himself to be, would be an adept at disguise. You are right, I acknowledged. He has certainly the heart of a criminal. If he had no hand in Mrs. Fairbrothers' murder, he came near him. You know what I mean. I could not help hearing Inspector. He smiled, looked at me steadfastly in the face for a moment, and then bowed me out. The inspector told me afterward that in spite of the cavalier manner with which he had treated my suggestions, he spent a very serious half-hour head-to-head with the district attorney. The result was the following order to Sweet Apple, the detective. You were to go to the St. Regis, make yourself solid there, and work yourself into a position for knowing all that goes on in room blank. If the gentleman, mind you, the gentleman, we care nothing about the women, should go out, you were to follow him if it takes you to blank. We want to know his secret, but he must never know our interest in it, and you are to be as silent in this matter as if possessed of neither ear nor tongue. I will add memory, for if you find this secret to be one in which we have no lawful interest, you are to forget absolutely and forever. You will understand why when you consult the St. Regis Register. But they expected nothing from it, absolutely nothing. I had seen it many times, but I felt that I should see it with new eyes after the story I had just heard in the inspector's office, that an adventure of this nature could take place in a New York house taxed my credulity. I might have believed it of Paris, wicked, mysterious, but I felt that I should see it with new eyes after the story I had just heard in the inspector's office, that an adventure of this nature could take place in a New York house taxed my credulity. I might have believed it of Paris, wicked, mysterious Paris, the home of intrigue and every redoubtable crime, but of our own homely commonplace metropolis. The house must be seen for me to be convinced of the fact related. Many of you know the building. It is usually spoken of with a shrug, the sole reason for which seems to be that there is no other just like it in the city. I myself have always considered it On this afternoon, a dull, depressing one, it looked undeniably heavy as we approached it. But interesting, and a very new way to me, because of the great turret at one angle, the scene of that midnight descent of two men, each in deadly fear of the other, yet quailing not in their purpose, the one of flight, the other of pursuit. There was no railing in front of the house. It may have seemed an unnecessary safeguard to the audacious owner. Consequently, the small door in the turret opened directly upon the street, making entrance and exit easy enough for anyone who had the key. But the shaft and the small room at the bottom, where were they? Naturally in the center of the great mass, the room being without windows. It was, therefore, useless to look for it, and yet my eye ran along the peaks and pinnacles of the roof, searching for the skylight in which it undoubtedly ended. At last I aspired it, and my curiosity satisfied in this score, I let my eyes run over the side and face of the building for an open window or a lifted shade. But all were tightly closed, and gave no more sign of life than did the board of up-door. But I was not deceived by this. As we drove away, I thought how on the morrow there would be a regular procession passing through this street to see just the little I had seen today. The detective's adventure was like to make the house notorious. Several minutes after I had left its neighborhood, my imagination pictured room after room shot up from the light of day, but bearing within them the impalpable aura of those two shadows flitting through them like the ghosts of ghosts, as the detective had telling me put it. The heart has its strange surprises. Through my whole ride and the indulgence in these thoughts, I was conscious of great inner revulsion against all I had intimated and even honestly felt while talking with the inspector. Perhaps this is what this wise old official expected. He had let me talk, and the inevitable reaction followed. I could now see only Mr. Gray's goodness and claims to respect, and began to hate myself that I had not been immediately impressed by the inspector's views, and shown myself more willing to drop every suspicion against the august personage I had presumed to associate with crime. What had given me the strength to persist? Loyalty to my lover? His innocence had not been involved. Indeed, every word uttered in the inspector's office had gone to prove that he no longer occupied a leading place in police calculations, that their eyes were turned elsewhere, and that I had only to be patient to see Mr. Durand quite cleared in their minds. But was this really so? Was he as safe as that? What if this new clue failed? What if they failed to find seers or lay hands on the doubtful well-good? Would Mr. Durand be released without a trial? Should we hear nothing more of the strange and to many the suspicious circumstances which linked him to this crime? It would be expecting too much from either police or official discrimination. No, Mr. Durand would never be completely exonerated till the true culprit was found and all explanations made. I had therefore been simply fighting his battles when I pointed out what I thought to be the weak place in their present theory, and so as I felt in contemplation of my seemingly heartless action, I was not the unimpressionable, battle-pated non-entity I must have seemed to the inspector. Yet my comfort was small, and the effort it took to face Mr. Gray and my young patient was much greater than I had anticipated. I blushed as I approached to take my place at Ms. Gray's bedside, and had her father been as suspicious of me at that moment as I was of him, I am sure that I should have fared badly in his thoughts. But he was not on the watch for my emotions. He was simply relieved to see me back. I noticed this immediately, also that something had occurred during my absence which absorbed his thought and filled him with anxiety. A Western Union envelope lay at his feet, proof that he had just received a telegram. This under ordinary circumstances would not have occasioned me as second thought, such a man being naturally the recipient of all sorts of communications from all parts of the world. But at this crisis, with the worm of a half stifled doubt still gnawing at my heart, everything that occurred to him took on importance and roused questions. When he had left the room, Ms. Gray nestled up to me with the seemingly ingenuous remark, Poor Papa, something disturbs him. He will not tell me what. I suppose he thinks I'm not strong enough to share his troubles. But I shall be soon. Don't you see I am gaining every day? Indeed I do, was my hearty response. In face of such a sweet confidence and open affection, doubt vanished, and I was able to give all my thoughts to her. I wished Papa felt as sure of this as you do, she said. For some reason he does not seem to take any comfort from my improvement. When Dr. Fraley says, Well, well, we are getting on finally today, I notice that he does not look less anxious. Notice he even meet these encouraging words with a smile. Haven't you noticed it? He looks as care-worn and troubled about me now as he did the first day I was taken sick. Why should he? Is it because he has lost so many children he cannot believe in his good fortune that having the most insignificant of all left to him? I do not know your father very well, I protested, and cannot judge what is going on in his mind. But he must see that you are quite a different girl from what you were a week ago, and that if nothing unforeseen happens, your recovery will only be a matter of a week or two longer. Oh, how I love to hear you say that, to be well again, to read letters, she murmured, and to write them. And I saw the delicate hand falter up to pinch the precious packet awaiting that happy hour. I did not like to discuss her father with her, so took this opportunity to turn the conversation aside into safer channels. But we had not proceeded far before Mr. Gray returned, and taking his stand at the foot of the bed, remarked after a moment's gloomy contemplation of his daughter's face. You were better today, the doctor says. I have just been telephoning to him. But do you feel well enough for me to leave you for a few days? There is a man I must see, must go to, if you have no dread of being left alone with your good nurse and the doctor's constant attendance. Miss Gray looked startled. Doubtless she found it difficult to understand what man in this strange country could interest her father enough to induce him to leave her while he was yet laboring under such solicitude. But a smile speedily took the place of her look of surprised inquiry, and she affectionately exclaimed, Oh, I haven't the least dread in the world, not now. See, I can hold up my arms. Go, Papa, go. He will give me a chance to surprise you with my good looks when you come back. He turned abruptly away. He was suffering from an emotion deeper than he cared to acknowledge. But he gained control over himself speedily and, coming back, announced with force the decision, I shall have to go tonight. I have no choice. Promise me that you will not go back in my absence, that you will strive to get well, that you will put all your mind into striving to get well. Indeed, I will, she answered a little frightened by the feeling he showed. Don't worry so much. I have more than one reason for living, Papa. He shook his head and went immediately to make his preparations for departure. His daughter gave one sob, then caught me by the hand. You looked unfounded, said she. But never mind. We shall get on very well together. I have the most perfect confidence in you. Was it my duty to let the inspector know that Mr. Gray anticipated absenting himself from the city for a few days? I decided that I would only be impressing my own doubts upon him after a rebuke which should have allayed them. Yet when Mr. Gray came to take his departure, I wished that the inspector might have been a witness to his emotion, if only to give me one of his very excellent explanations. The parting was more like that of one who sees no immediate promise of return than of a traveler who intends to limit his stay to a few days. He looked her in the eyes and kissed her a dozen times, each time with an air of heartbreak which was good neither for her nor for himself. And when he finally tore himself away, it was to look back at her from the door with an expression I was glad she did not see. Or it would certainly have interfered with the promise she had made to concentrate all her energies on getting well. What was at the root of his extreme grief at leaving her? Did he fear the person he was going to meet? Or were his plans such as involved a much longer stay than he had mentioned? Did he even mean to return at all? Ah, that was the question. Did he intend to return? Or had I been the unconscious witness of a flight? End of Chapter 16 Recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. Jones, Newfoundland, Canada Chapter 17 of The Woman in the Alcove This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sean Michael Hogan The Woman in the Alcove by Anna Catherine Green Chapter 17 Sweetwater in a New Role A few days later three men were closeted in the District Attorney's Office. Two of them were officials, the District Attorney himself and our old friend, the Inspector. The third was the detective Sweetwater, chosen by them to keep watch on Mr. Gray. Sweetwater had just come to town. This was evident from the grip sack he had set down in a corner on entering. Also from a certain tousaled appearance which bespoke hasty rising, and but few facilities for proper attention to his person. These details counted little, however, in the astonishment created by his manner. For a hearty chap he looked strangely nervous and indisposed. So much so that, after the first short greeting, the Inspector asked him what was up, and if he had had another Fair Brother House experience. He replied with a decided no, that it was not his adventure which had upset him, but the news he had to bring. Here he glanced at every door and window, and then leaning forward over the table at which the two officials sat, he brought his head as nearly to them as possible and whispered five words. They produced a most unhappy sensation. Both the men, hardened as they were by duties which soon sapped the sensibilities, started and turned as pale as the Speaker himself. Then the District Attorney, with one glance at the Inspector, rose and locked the door. It was a prelude to this tale which I give, not as it came from his mouth, but as it was afterward related to me. The language I fear is mostly my own. The detective had just been with Mr. Gray to the coast of Maine. Why there will presently appear. His task had been to follow this gentleman, and follow him he did. Mr. Gray was a very stately man, difficult of approach, and was absorbed besides by some overwhelming care. But this fellow was one in a thousand, and somehow during the trip he managed to do him some little service, which drew the attention of the great man to himself. Once done, he so improved his opportunity that the two were soon on the best of terms, and he learned that the Englishman was without a valet, and being unaccustomed to move about without one, felt the awkwardness of his position very much. This gave Sweetwater his cue, and when he found that the services of such a man were wanted only for the present trip, and for the handling of affairs quite apart from personal tendons upon the gentleman himself, he showed such an honest desire to fill the place, and made out to give such a good account of himself, that he found himself engaged for the work before reaching sea. This was a great stroke of luck, he thought, but he little knew how big a stroke or into what a series of adventures it was going to lead him. Once on the platform of the small station at which Mr. Gray had bitten him to stop, he noticed two things, the utter helplessness of the man in all practical matters, and his extreme anxiety to see all that was going on about him without being himself seen. There was method in his curiosity, too much method. Women did not interest him in the least, they could pass and repass without arousing his attention. But the moment a man stepped his way, he shrank from him, only to betray the greatest curiosity concerning him, the moment he felt it safe to turn and observe him, all of which convinced Sweetwater that the Englishman's errand was in connection with a man whom he equally dreaded and desired to meet. Of this he was made absolutely certain a little later, as they were leaving the depot with the rest of the arrivals, Mr. Gray said, I want you to get me a room at a very quiet hotel. This done, you were to hunt up the man whose name you will find written in this paper, and when you have found him, make up your mind how it would be possible for me to get a good look at him, without his getting any sort of a look at me. Do this, and you will earn a week's salary in one day. Sweetwater, with his head in air and his heart on fire, for matters were looking very promising indeed, took the paper and put it in his pocket. Then he began to hunt for a hotel. Not till he had found what he wished, and installed the Englishman in his room, did he venture to open the precious memorandum, and read the name he had been speculating over for an hour. It was not the one he had anticipated, but it came near to it. It was that of James, well good. Satisfied now that he had a ticklish matter to handle, he prepared for it with his usual enthusiasm and circumspection. Sauntering out into the street, he strolled first to the post office. The train on which he had just come had been a mail train, and he calculated that he would find half the town there. His calculation was a correct one. The store was crowded with people. Taking his place in the line drawn up before the post office window, he waited his turn, and when it came shouted out the name that was his one talisman, James, well good. The man behind the boxes was used to the name, and reached out a hand toward a box unusually well stacked, but stopped half way there and gave Sweetwater a sharp look. Who are you, he asked. A stranger, that young man put in volubly, looking for James well good. I thought perhaps he could tell me where to find him. I see that his letters passed through this office. You're taking up another man's time, complained the postmaster. He probably alluded to the man whose elbow Sweetwater fell to his back. Ask Dick over there, he knows him. The detective was glad enough to escape and ask Dick, but he was better pleased yet when Dick, a fellow with a squint whose hand was always in the sugar, told him that Mr. well good would probably be in for his mail in a few moments. That is his buggy standing before the drugstore on the opposite side of the way. So he had netted James' quantum waiter at the first cast. Lucky, he was what he said to himself, still lucky. Sauntering to the door he watched for the owner of that buggy. He had learned, as such fellows do, that there was a secret hue and cry after this very man by the New York police, that he was supposed to buy some to be serious himself. In this way he would soon be looking upon the very man whose steps he had followed through the Fairbrother House a few nights before, and through whose resolute action he had very nearly run the risk of a lingering death from starvation. A dangerous customer thought he. I wonder if my instinct will go so far as to make me recognize his presence. I shouldn't wonder. He deserved me almost as well as that many times before. It appeared to serve him now, for when the man finally showed himself on the crosswalk separating the two buildings, he experienced a sudden indecision, not unlike that of dread, and there being nothing in the man's appearance to warrant apprehension, he took it for the instinctive recognition it undoubtedly was. He therefore watched him narrowly and succeeded in getting one glance from his eye. It was enough. The man was commonplace. Commonplace in feature, dress, and manner, but his eye gave him away. There was nothing commonplace in that. It was an eye to beware of. He had taken in sweet water as he passed, but sweet water was of a commonplace type too, and woke no corresponding dread in the other's mind, for he went whistling into the store from which he presently reissued with a bundle of mail in his hand. The detective's first instinct was to take him into custody of the suspect much wanted by the New York police. The reason assured him that he not only had no warrant for this, but that he would better serve the ends of justice by following out his present task of bringing this man and the Englishman together and watching the result. But how, with the conditions laid on him by Mr. Gray, was this to be done? He knew nothing of the man's circumstances or of his position in the town. How then go to work to secure his cooperation in a scheme possibly as mysterious to him as it was to himself? He could stop this stranger in Mid Street with some plausible excuse, but it did not follow that he would succeed in luring him to the hotel where Mr. Gray could see him. Well good, or as he believed, seers, knew too much of life to be beguiled by any open claptrap, and sweet water was obliged to see him drive off without having made the least advance in the purpose engrossing him. But that was nothing. He had all the evening before him, and re-entering the store he took up his stand near the sugar barrel. He had perceived that in the pauses of weighing and tasting Dick talked. If he were guided with suitable discretion, why should he not talk of well good? He was guided, and he did talk, and to some effect. That is, he gave information of the man which surprised sweet water. If in the past, and in New York, he had been known as a waiter, or should I say steward, he was known here as a manufacturer of patent medicine designed to rejuvenate the human race. He had not been long in town and was somewhat of a stranger yet, but he wouldn't be so long. He was going to make things hum, he was. Money for this, money for that, a horse where another man would walk, and mail. Well, that alone would make this post office worthwhile. Then the drugs ordered by wholesale. Those boxes over there were his, ready to be carted out to his manufacturing. Count them, someone, and think of the bottles and bottles of stuff they stand for. If it sells as he says it will, then he will soon be rich, and so on, till sweet water brought the garrulous Dick to a standstill by asking whether Welgood had been away for any purpose since he first came to town. He received the reply that he had just come home from New York, where he had been for some articles needed in his manufacturing. Sweetwater felt all his convictions confirmed, and ended the colloquy with the final question. And where is his manufacturing? Might be worth visiting, perhaps. The other made a gesture, said something about Northwest, and rushed to help a customer. Sweetwater took the opportunity to slide away. More explicit directions could easily be got elsewhere, and he felt anxious to return to Mr. Gray and discover, if possible, whether it would prove as much a matter of surprise to him as to Sweetwater himself, that the man who answered to the name of Welgood was the owner of a manufacturing and a barrel or two of drugs, out of which he proposed to make a compound that would rob the doctors of their business and make himself and this little village rich. Sweetwater made only one stop on his way to Mr. Gray's hotel rooms, and that was at the stables. Here he learned whatever else there was to know. And armed with definite information, he appeared before Mr. Gray, who to his astonishment was dining in his own room. He had dismissed the waiter and was rather brooding than eating. He looked up eagerly, however, when Sweetwater entered, and asked what news. The detective, with some semblance of respect, answered that he had seen Welgood, but that he had been unable to detain him or bring him within his employer's observation. He is a patent medicine man, he then explained, and manufactures his own concoctions in a house he has rented here on a lonely road some half-mile out of town. Welgood does? The man named Welgood? Mr. Gray exclaimed, with all the astonishment the other secretly expected. Yes, Welgood, James Welgood, there is no other in town. How long has this man been here, the statesman inquired, after a moment of apparently great discomforture? Just 24 hours this time, he was here once before when he rented the house and made all his plans. Ah, Mr. Gray rose precipitately. His manner had changed. I must see him. What you tell me makes it all the more necessary for me to see him. How can you bring it about? Without his seeing you, Sweetwater asked. Yes, yes, certainly without his seeing you. Couldn't you wrap him up at his own door and hold him in talk a minute, while I looked on from the carriage or whatever vehicle we can get to carry us there? The least glimpse of his face would satisfy me. That is, tonight. I'll try, said Sweetwater, not very sanguine as to the probable result of this effort. Returning to the stables, he ordered the team. With the last ray of the sun, they set out the rains in Sweetwater's hands. They headed for the coast road. End of Chapter 17, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Chapter 18 of The Woman in the Alcove. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Woman in the Alcove, by Anna Catherine Green. Chapter 18, The Closed Door. The road was once the highway, but the tide, having played so many tricks with its numberless bridges, a new one had been built farther up the cliff, carrying with it the life and business of the small town. Many old landmarks still remained. Shops, warehouses, and even a few scattered dwellings, but most of these were deserted, and those that were still in use showed such neglect that it was very evident the whole region would soon be given up to the encroaching sea and such interests as are inseparable from it. The hour was that mysterious one of late twilight, when outlines lose their distinctness and sea and shore melt into one mass of uniform gray. There was no wind, and the waves came in with a soft plash, but so near to the level of the road that it was evident, even to these strangers, that the tide was at its height and would presently begin to ebb. Soon they had passed the last forsaken dwelling of the town properly behind them. Sand and a few rocks were all that lay between them now in the open stretch of the ocean, which at this point approached the land in a small bay, well guarded on either side by embracing rocky heads. This was what made the harbor at sea. It was very still. They passed one team and only one. Sweetwater looked very sharply at this team and at its driver, but saw nothing to arouse suspicion. They were now a half mile from sea and seemingly in a perfectly desolate region. A manufacturer here, exclaimed Mr. Gray. It was the first word he had uttered since starting. Not far from here was Sweetwater's equally laconic reply, and the road taking a turn almost at the moment of his speaking, he leaned forward and pointed out a building standing on the right hand side of the road with its feet in the water. That's it, said he. They described it well enough for me to know it when I see it. Looks like a robber's hole at this time of night, he laughed. But what can you expect from a manufacturer of patent medicine? Mr. Gray was silent. He was looking very earnestly at the building. It is larger than I expected, he remarked at last. Sweetwater himself was surprised, but as they advanced and their point of view changed, they found it to be really an insignificant structure. And Mr. Welgood's portion of it more insignificant still. In reality, it was a collection of three stores under one roof. Two of them were shut up and evidently unoccupied. The third showed a lighted window. This was the manufacturer. It occupied the middle place and presented a tolerably decent appearance. It showed, besides the lighted lamp I have mentioned, such signs of life as a few packing boxes tumbled out on the small platform in front, and a whinnying horse attached to an empty buggy tied to a post on the opposite side of the road. I'm glad to see the lamp, muttered Sweetwater. Now, what shall we do? Is it light enough for you to see his face if I can manage to bring him to the door? Mr. Gray seemed startled. It's darker than I thought, said he. But call the man, and if I cannot see him plainly, I'll shout to the horse to stand, which he will take as a signal to bring this Welgood nearer. But do not be surprised if I ride off before he reaches the buggy. I'll come back again and take you up further down the road. All right, sir, answered Sweetwater with a side glance at the speaker's inscrutable features. It's a go, and leaping to the ground, he advanced to the manufacturing door and knocked loudly. No one appeared. He tried the latch. It lifted, but the door did not open. It was fastened from within. Strange, he muttered, casting a glance at the waiting horse and buggy. Then at the lighted window, which was on the second floor directly over his head. Guess I'll sing out. Here he shouted the man's name. Welgood, I say, Welgood. No response to this, either. Looks bad, he acknowledged to himself, and, taking a step back, he looked up at the window. It was closed, but there was neither shade nor curtain to obstruct the view. Do you see anything? He inquired of Mr. Gray, who sat with his eye at the small window in the buggy top. Nothing. No movement in the room above, no shadow at the window. Nothing. Well, it's confounded strange, and he went back, still calling Welgood. The tied-up horse whinnied, and the waves gave a soft splash, and that was all, if I accept Sweetwater's muttered oath. Then, with a gesture toward Mr. Gray, turned the corner of the building and began to edge himself along its side in an endeavour to reach the rear and see what it offered. But he came to a sudden standstill. He found himself on the edge of the bank before he had taken twenty steps. Yet the building projected on, and he saw why it had looked so large from a certain point of the approach. Its rear was built out on piles, making its depth even greater than the united width of the three stores. At low tide this might be accessible from below, but just now the water was almost on a level with the top of the piles, making all approach impossible safe by boat. Disgusted with his failure, Sweetwater returned to the front, and finding the situation unchanged, took a new resolve. After measuring with his eye the height of the first story, he coolly walked over to the strange horse and, slipping his bridle, brought it back and cast it over a projection of the door. By its aid he succeeded in climbing up to the window, which was the sole eye to the interior. Mr. Gray sat far back in his buggy, watching every movement. There were no shades at the window, as I have before said, and once Sweetwater's eye had reached the level of the sill, he could see the interior without the least difficulty. There was nobody there. The lamp burned on a great table littered with papers, but the rude cane chair before it was empty, and so was the room. He could see into every corner of it, and there was not even a hiding place where anybody could remain concealed. Sweetwater was still looking when the lamp, which had been burning with considerable smoke, flared up and went out. Sweetwater uttered an ejaculation, and finding himself face to face with utter darkness, slid from his perch to the ground. Approaching Mr. Gray for the second time, he said, I cannot understand it. The fellow was either lying low, or he's gone out, leaving his lamp to go out too. But who's is the horse? Just excuse me while I tie him up again. Looks like the one he was driving today, it is the one. Well, he won't leave him here all night. Shall we lie low and wait for him to come and unhitch this animal, or do you prefer to return to the hotel? Mr. Gray was slow in answering. Finally, he said, the man may suspect our intention. You can never tell anything about such fellows as he. He may have caught some unexpected glimpse of me or simply heard that I was in town. If he's the man I think him, he has reasons for avoiding me, which I can very well understand. Let us go back. Not to the hotel. I must see this adventure through tonight. But far enough for him to think we have given up all idea of routing him out tonight. Perhaps that is all he is waiting for. You can steal back. Excuse me, said sweetwater, but I know a better dodge than that. We'll circumvent him. We passed a boat house on our way down here. I'll just drive you up, procure a boat, and bring you back here by water. I don't believe that he will expect that. And if he is in the house, we shall see him or his light. I mean, while he can escape by the road. Escape? Do you think he's planning to escape? The detective spoke with becoming surprised, and Mr. Gray answered without apparent suspicion. It is possible if he suspects my presence in the neighborhood. Do you want to stop him? I want to see him. Oh, I remember. Well, sir, we will drive on. That is after a moment. What are you going to do? Oh, nothing. He said you wanted to see the man before he escaped. Yes, but, and that he might escape by the road, yes. I was just making that a little bit impracticable. A small pebble in the keyhole, and, well, I see now his horse is walking off. Gee, I must have fastened him badly. I shouldn't wonder if he trod it all the way to town. But it can't be helped. It cannot be supposed to race after him. Are you ready now, sir? I'll give another shout, then I'll get in. And once more the lonely region about echoed with the cry. Well good, I say, well good. There was no answer, and the young detective masking for the nonsense of Mr. Gray's confidential servant jumped into the buggy and turned the horse's head towards sea. End of Chapter 18, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Chapter 19 of The Woman in the Echo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Diana Meilinger. The Woman in the Echo, by Anna Catherine Green. Chapter 19, The Face. The moon was well up, when the small boat in which our young detective was seated with Mr. Gray appeared in the bay approaching the so-called Manufactory of Valgud. The looked-for light on the water side was not there. All was dark except where the windows reflected the light of the moon. This was a decided disappointment to Sweetwater, if not to Mr. Gray. He had expected to detect signs of life in this quarter, and this additional proof of Valgud's absence from home made it look as if they had come out on a full zealand and might much better have stuck to the road. No promise there. Came in a mutter from his lips. Shall I ruin sir and try to make a landing? You made own error. I should like a closer view. I don't think we shall attract any attention. There are more boats than ours on the water. Sweetwater was startled. Looking ground, he saw a launch or some such small steamer riding a tanker not far from the mouth of the bay. But that was not all. Between it and them was a robot like their own, resting quietly in the wake of the moon. I don't like so much company, he muttered. Some things brewing, something in which we may not want to take apart. Very likely, answered Mr. Gray grimly, but we must not be deterred, not till I have seen. The rest, Sweetwater, did not hear. Mr. Gray seemed to remember himself. Rown error, he now bid. Get under the shadow of the rocks, if you can. If the boat is for him, he will show himself. Yet I hardly see how he can board from that bank. It did not look feasible. Nevertheless, they waited and watched with much patience for several long minutes. The boat behind them did not advance, nor was any movement discernible in the direction of the manufacturing. In another short period, then suddenly a light flashed from the window high up in the center gable, sparkled for an instant, and was gone. Sweetwater took it for a signal, and, with a slight motion of the wrist, began to work his way in toward shore, till they lay almost at the edge of the piles. Hark! It was Sweetwater who spoke. Both listened. Mr. Gray with his head turned toward the plunge, at Sweetwater with his eye on the cavernous space, sharply outlined by the piles, which the falling tide now disclosed under each contagious building. Goods had been directly shipped from these stores in the old days. This he had learned in the village. How shipped? He had not been able to understand from his previous survey of the building, but he thought he could see now. At low tide, or better, at half tide, excess could be got to the floor of the extension, and, if this floor held a trap, the mystery would be explainable. So would be the hovering boat, the signal light, and, yes, this sound overheard of steps on the rattling planking. I hear nothing, whispered Mr. Gray from the other end. The boat is still there, but not a man has dipped an oar. They will soon return Sweetwater as a smothered sound of clacking iron reached his ears from the hollow spaces before him. Duck your head, sir. I'm going to row in under this portion of the house. Mr. Gray would have protested, and with very good reason. There was carefully a space of three feet between them and the boards overhead, but Sweetwater had so immediately suited action to word that he had no choice. They were now in utter darkness, and Mr. Gray's thoughts must have been peculiar, as he crouched over the stern, hardly knowing what to expect, or whether this sudden launch into darkness was for the purpose of light or pursuit. But enlightenment came soon. The sound of a man's tread in the building above was every moment becoming more persistable, and while wondering possibly at his position, Mr. Gray naturally turned his head as nearly as he could in the direction of these sounds, and was staring with blank eyes into the darkness, when Sweetwater, leaning toward him, whispered, Look up, there's a trap. In a minute he'll open it, mark him by the tone of the breath of word, and I'll get you out of this all right. Mr. Gray attempted some answer, but it was lost in the prolonged creak of a slowly moving hinge somewhere over their heads. Spaces which had looked dark suddenly looked darker. Hearing was satisfied, but not the eye. A man's breath panting with exertion testified to a nearby presence, but that man was working without a light in a room with shuttered windows, and Mr. Gray probably felt that he knew very little more than before, when suddenly, most unexpectedly to him at least, a face started out of that overhead darkness, a face so white with every feature made so startingly distinct by the strong light Sweetwater had thrown upon it, that it seemed the only thing in the world that the two men beneath. In another moment it had vanished, or rather the light which had revealed it. What's that? Are you there? Came down from above in a horse, and none too encouraging tones. There was none to answer. Sweetwater, with a quick pull on the horse, had already shot the boat out of its dangerous harbor. End of chapter 19