Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER XI

  PERSONS UNKNOWN

  The revulsion of feeling in Christina's favor was so immense that itbecame a kind of panic. It practically engulfed the rest of the inquest.The taking of testimony from her mother and Mrs. Deutch was the emptiestof formalities; the notion of holding her under surveillance untilIngham's cabman and Ann Cornish could be produced confessed itselfridiculous. Another woman, a strange woman, an aggressive, sarcasticwoman forcing her way in upon Ingham a couple of hours before his death,and not coming down again! Well!

  As for the coroner, he suffered less a defeat than a rout. Even hisinstant leap upon Joe Patrick was only a plucky spurt. He was strugglingnow against the tide, and he knew it; the strength of his attack wassucked down. Even the remainder of Joe's own evidence did not receiveits due consideration. The public fancy fastened upon that figure of asmiling woman, "awful pretty, but with something scaring about her,"leaning over the baluster to laugh, "I won't hurt him!" It worked outthe rest for itself.

  "Yes, sir," Joe persisted, "my mother misunderstood me, all right. Isaid I took her for Miss Hope at the door, and so I did. But shewasn't."

  "Did she look so much like Miss Hope?"

  "No, sir; not when she came near. That was the thing made me feel soqueer. I can't understand it. First she was Miss Hope, and then shewasn't. She gave me a funny feeling when I seen her standing there inthe door an' says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope.' 'Twas kind of's if Iseen her ghost. An' then all of a sudden there she was, right on top o'me. An' not like Miss Hope a bit. An' that gimme a funny feeling, too!"

  "Well, never mind your sensations. If she didn't resemble Miss Hope, atleast how did she differ from her?"

  "Why, I guess she was a good deal handsomer for one thing. At least Iexpect most people would think so, though I prefer Miss Hope's style,myself. She was dressier, for one thing, in white lace like, with a bighat, an' she was pretty near as slim, but yet she had, as you might say,more figger. An' she had red hair."

  Joe had made another sensation.

  "Red hair! Curly?"

  "Well, it was combed standin' out fluffy like one o' these here halos,up into her hat. It wasn't anyways common red, you know, sir, it waselegant, stylish red, like the goldy part in flames."

  "Don't get poetic, Joe. Was she a very young lady?"

  "I don't think so, sir.--Oh, I guess she wouldn't hardly see twenty-fiveagain! Her feet, sir? I didn't notice. But she didn't walk kind o'waddlin', either, nor else kind o' pinchin', the way ladies mostly do;she just swum right along, like Miss Hope does."

  "But she didn't swim downstairs again, without your seeing her?"

  "No, sir."

  "Now look here, Joe Patrick, how do you know she didn't? When Mr. Birdwent to the 'phone after the shooting he was a long time gettingconnected, and Mr. Herrick found you asleep at the desk."

  "I couldn't have fell asleep again until after one o'clock, sir, for Ihad a clock right on the desk and at one I noticed the time. I waswatchin' for her, she was such a queer one, an' only one man came in allthat time, that I had to carry upstairs. He only went to the fourthfloor, just where she was, an' I rushed him up an' dropped right downagain. She couldn't ha' walked down in that time. I could hear the pianogoin' all the while, the front doors bein' open. But after one I mustha' dropped off. Because it was about twenty minutes past when Mr.Herrick shook me up. Then I knew I'd been kind o' comin' to, the lastfew minutes, hearin' Mr. Bird ringin'. When Mr. Herrick grabbed myelevator I called up Mr. Deutch, an' he was quite a minute, too. I saysto him, 'Say, Mr. Deutch, somepun's happened,' an' I switched him ontoMr. Bird."

  "Well, we're very much obliged to you, Mr. Patrick, for an exceedinglyfull account. What apartment did the gentleman have whom you took up tothe fourth floor? Perhaps he may have heard something."

  "I don't know, sir."

  "What?"

  "He just stepped into the elevator, like he lived there, an' he says tome, 'Fourth!' I never thought nothing about him."

  "You didn't know him?"

  "No, sir."

  "You'd never seen him before?"

  "No, sir."

  "Nor since?"

  "No, sir."

  "You took a man upstairs in the middle of the night, without announcinghim, whom you knew to be a stranger?"

  "Why no, I thought he was a new tenant. We got a few furnishedapartments in the building, goes by the month. And then there's always agood deal o' sublettin' in the summer. He was so quiet an' never askedany questions nor anything, goin' right along about his business, Inever give him a thought."

  "Well, give him a thought now, my boy. When you let him out of theelevator, which way did he turn?"

  The boy started and his eyes jumped open. "Oh, good Lord! sir," hecried, "why, he turned down toward 4-B."

  His start was reproduced in the persons of all present. Only the coronercontrolled himself.

  "What time was this?"

  "It hadn't quite struck one, sir."

  "And during all this talk about Mr. Ingham's murder, at one-fifteen, itnever occurred to you that at just before one, you had taken up to hisfloor a man whom you had never seen, whom you never saw again, and whoturned toward his apartment?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. I never thought of it till this minute."

  "Think hard, now. Give us a good description of this man."

  "A description of him?"

  "Yes, yes. What did he look like?"

  "Why, I don't hardly know, sir."

  "Try and remember. He at least, I presume, did not remind you of MissHope?"

  "No, sir; he didn't remind me of anything."

  "He looked so unlike other people?"

  "No, sir. He looked just like all gentlemen."

  "I see, Joseph, that you don't observe your own sex with the passionateattention which you reserve for ladies. Well, had he a beard or amustache?"

  "No, sir, he hadn't any beard, I'm sure."

  "Come, that's something! And no mustache?"

  "Well, I don't think so, sir. But I wouldn't hardly like to say."

  "Was he light or dark?"

  "I never noticed, sir."

  "Was he tall?"

  "Well, sir, I should say he was about middle height."

  "About how old?"

  "Oh, maybe thirty, sir. Or forty, maybe. Or maybe not so old."

  "Stout?"

  "No, sir."

  "Ah! He was slender, then?"

  "Well, I shouldn't say he was either way particular, sir."

  "How was he dressed, then?"

  "Well, as far as I can remember; he had on a suit, and a straw hat."

  "Was the suit light or dark?"

  "About medium, sir."

  "Not white, then? Nor rose color, I presume? Nor baby blue?"

  "No, sir."

  "Black?"

  "I don't think so, sir."

  "Well, was it brown, gray, navy-blue?"

  "Well, it seems like it might have been a gray, the way I think of it.But then, again, when I think of it, it seems like it might ha' been ablue."

  "Thank you, Joe. Your description is most accurate. It's a pity you'renot a detective."

  "There's no use getting mad at me, Mister," Joe protested. "I'm doingthe best I know."

  "I'm sure you are. If Mr. Ingham's second anonymous visitor had onlybeen a lady, what revelations we should have had! But this unfortunateand insignificant male, Mr. Patrick. Should you know him again if yousaw him?"

  "I think so, sir. I wouldn't hardly like to say."

  "Well, to get back to more congenial topics!--The lady who was not MissHope--you would know her, I presume?"

  "Oh, yes, sir!"--Joe hesitated.

  "Out with it!" commanded the coroner.

  "Why, it's only--why, anybody'd know her, sir. They couldn't help it.She had--" He paused, blushing.

  "She had--what?"

  "I couldn't hardly believe it myself, sir. She had--I'm afraid you'lllaugh."

  "Oh, not at you, Joe! Impossible
!"

  "Well, she had a blue eye, sir."

  "A blue eye! You don't mean she was a Cyclops?"

  "Sir?"

  "She had more than the one eye, hadn't she?"

  "Oh, yes, sir. She had the two o' them all right."

  "Well, then, I don't see anything remarkable in her having a blue one."

  "No, sir. Not if they was both blue. But the other one was brown!"

  The anticipated laughter swept the room. After a pallid glare even thecoroner laughed.

  "Well, Joe, I'm afraid you must have been very sleepy indeed! I don'twonder the lady gave you such a turn! But if only you had been awake,Joe, your friend would have had one invaluable quality--she would beeasily identified!"

  Thus, almost gaily, the inquest ended. With Mr. Ingham closeted justbefore his death with an unaccounted-for woman and, presumably, with anunaccounted-for man, there was but one verdict for the jury to bring in,and they brought it. James Ingham had come to a violent death byshooting at the hands of a person or persons unknown.

  Christina was surrounded by congratulating admirers. But Herrick had notgone far in the free air of the rainy street when, hearing his namecalled, he turned and saw her coming toward him. She had, in JoePatrick's phrase, swum right along. She came to him exactly as she hadcome along the sea-beach in his dream, the wet wind in her skirts and inher hair, the fog behind her, and the cool light of clearing in hereyes. And she said to him,

  "You're the man, I think, who thought a woman was in distress and wentto help her?"

  He replied, awkwardly enough, "I didn't see what else I could do!"

  "You haven't been long in New York, Mr. Herrick," she replied. "Iwonder, will you shake hands?"

  He had her hand in his, stripped of her long glove, her soft butelectric vitality at once cool and vibrant in his clasp.

  "And try to believe, will you?" said Christina, "that perhaps, whoevershe was and whatever she did, perhaps she was in distress, after all."