CHAPTER IV. THOMPSON'S STORY
"An affair of some mystery," remarked Mr. Gryce, as we halted at thecorner to take a final look at the house and its environs. "Why a girlshould choose such a method of descent as that,"--and he pointed to theladder down which we believed her to have come--"to leave a house ofwhich she had been an inmate for a year, baffles me, I can tell you. Ifit were not for those marks of blood which betray her track, I wouldbe disinclined to believe any such hare-brained adventure was everperpetrated by a woman. As it is, what would'nt I give for herphotograph. Black hair, black eyes, white face and thin figure! what adescription whereby to find a girl in this great city of New York.Ah!" said he with sudden gratification, "here is Mr. Blake again; hisappointment must have been a failure. Let us see if his description willbe any more definite." And hurrying towards the advancing figure of thatgentleman, he put some questions to him.
Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, thenreplied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear:
"I am sorry, sir, if my description could have done you any good, but Ihave not the remotest idea how the girl looked. I did not know tillthis morning even, that there was such a person in my house as asewing-woman. I leave all such domestic concerns entirely with Mrs.Daniels."
Mr. Gryce again bowed low and ventured another question. The answer cameas before, distinctly to my ears.
"O, I may have seen her, I can not say about that; I very often runacross the servants in the hall; but whether she is tall or short, lightor dark, pretty or ugly, I know no more than you do, sir." Then witha dignified nod calculated to abash a man in Mr. Gryce's position,inquired,
"Is that all?"
It did not seem to be, Mr. Gryce put another question.
Mr. Blake give him a surprised stare before replying, then courteouslyremarked,
"I do not concern myself with servants after they have left me. Henrywas an excellent valet, but a trifle domineering, something which Inever allow in any one who approaches me. I dismissed him and that wasthe end of it, I know nothing of what has become of him."
Mr. Gryce bowed and drew back, and Mr. Blake, with the haughty steppeculiar to him, passed by him and reentered his house.
"I should not like to get into that man's clutches," said I, as mysuperior rejoined me; "he has a way of making one appear so small."
Mr. Gryce shot an askance look at his shadow gloomily following himalong the pavement. "Yet it may happen that you will have to run therisk of that very experience."
I glanced towards him in amazement.
"If the girl does not turn up of her own accord, or if we do not succeedin getting some trace of her movements, I shall be tempted to place youwhere you can study into the ways of this gentleman's household. If theaffair is a mystery, it has its centre in that house."
I stared at Mr. Gryce good and roundly. "You have come acrosssomething which I have missed," observed I, "or you could not speak sopositively."
"I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight of any body whohad eyes to see it," he returned shortly.
I shook my head slightly mortified.
"You had it all before you," continued he, "and if you were not ableto pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn'tblame me for it."
More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back withhim to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined toreestablish my reputation with Mr. Gryce before the affair was over.Accordingly hunting up the man who had patrolled the district the nightbefore, I inquired if he had seen any one go in or out of the side gateof Mr. Blake's house on ----- street, between the hours of eleven andone.
"No," said he, "but I heard Thompson tell a curious story this morningabout some one he had seen."
"What was it?"
"He said he was passing that way last night about twelve o'clock when heremarked standing under the lamp on the corner of Second Avenue, a groupconsisting of two men and a woman, who no sooner beheld him than theyseparated, the men drawing back into Second Avenue and the woman cominghastily towards him. Not understanding the move, he stood waiting herapproach, when instead of advancing to where he was, she paused at thegate of Mr. Blake's house and lifted her hand as if to open it, whenwith a wild and terrified gesture she started back, covering herface with her hands, and before he knew it, had actually fled in thedirection from which she had come. A little startled, Thompson advancedand looked through the gate before him to see if possible what hadalarmed her, when to his great surprise, he beheld the pale face of themaster of the house, Mr. Blake himself, looking through the bars fromthe other side of the gate. He in his turn started back and before hecould recover himself, Mr. Blake had disappeared. He says he tried thegate after that, but found it locked."
"Thompson tells you this story, does he?"
"Yes."
"Well," said I, "it's a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I havegot to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbingit around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake areconcerned." And I departed to hunt up Thompson.
But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girlappeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a shawl.My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety into theprivate concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and discovered--well, suchfacts as these:
That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to domesticaffairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except upon occasionsof great political importance, when he was always to be found onthe platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the ordinaryobserver a man eminently calculated, from his good looks, fine position,and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only manifested a distastefor it, but even went so far as to refuse to participate in the socialdinners of his most intimate friends; the only table to which he wouldsit down being that of some public caterer, where he was sure of findingnone but his political associates assembled.
To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out bythe fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place ofamusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in aman, young--he was not far from thirty-five at that time--rich, andmarriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it wasif he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for theireccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some markedpeculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would never treat aman or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare to him, nor wouldhe acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in that divine poetbeyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr. Blake's uncle hatedall members of the legal profession, and as for his grandfather--but youhave heard what a mania of dislike he had against that simple article ofdiet, fish; how his friends were obliged to omit it from their bills offare whenever they expected him to dinner. If then Mr. Blake choseto have any pet antipathy--as for women for instance--he surelyhad precedent enough in his own family to back him. However, it waswhispered in my ear by one gentleman, a former political colleague ofhis who had been with him in Washington, that he was known at one timeto show considerable attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin ofhis who has since made such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, andstraightway losing by death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble,the Count De Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about,Madame the Countess being free at present and in New York, though to allappearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.
Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake's private apartment, Iasked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of themost pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon somethingin the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with myinformation, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I wouldhave to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth lying atthe bottom of this well.