A. Warburton.etc.Dear Sir:—We have just secured, for your case, a very valuable man, Mr. Augustus Grip, late of Scotland Yards. He is an able and most successful detective; we hope much from him. Have already instructed him to extent of our ability, and he will wait upon you personally this P. M., between, say, three and four o’clock. You will do well to give Mr. G— full latitude in the case.Very respectfully, etc.
A. Warburton.etc.
Dear Sir:—We have just secured, for your case, a very valuable man, Mr. Augustus Grip, late of Scotland Yards. He is an able and most successful detective; we hope much from him. Have already instructed him to extent of our ability, and he will wait upon you personally this P. M., between, say, three and four o’clock. You will do well to give Mr. G— full latitude in the case.
Very respectfully, etc.
This much Alan slowly deciphered, and this gave the key to the unreadable signature. It was from the Chief of Police, evidently.
Alan reperused the letter, and slowly returned it to its envelope.
“This comes at the right moment,” he soliloquized. “If this Grip is what he is said to be, he may save me in more ways than one.”
And once more he summoned a servant, and gave these instructions:
“See that this room is thoroughly aired and set in order before three o’clock;” adding, as the servant was turning away: “Show a person who will call here after that hour, into this room, and then bring me his name.”
In the arrival of such a message, at that precise moment, there was, to Alan Warburton, no occasion for surprise. Fromthe first he had communicated with the officers of the law by letter, or by quiet interviews held in his own apartments.
He was fully alive to the fact that, in dealing with the police, he was himself in momentary danger. But having resolved, from the beginning, to make his own safety and welfare secondary to that of little Daisy, he had been strengthened and confirmed in this resolve by his recent interview with Leslie. And now, in his dogged determination to find the Francoises, he vowed to sacrifice, if need be, his entire fortune, and accept any attendant danger, in prosecuting a vigorous search for these old wretches, and the missing child.
His brother’s illness and death had furnished him with a sufficient reason for living secluded, and for receiving such business callers as he chose to admit, in his own apartments. Only this morning he had dispatched a missive to police headquarters, desiring the Chief to secure the services of the best detectives at any cost, and to send to him for instructions or consultation, representing himself as confined to the house by slight indisposition.
He hated a falsehood, but, as he penned this fabrication, he had thrown the moral responsibility of the act upon the already heavily burdened shoulders of his sister-in-law.
And now, as he went slowly from the study, he looked forward anxiously, but not apprehensively, to the two coming interviews: the first, with Leslie; the second, with Mr. Grip, of Scotland Yards.
In spite of the fact that the Warburton servants were a thoroughly disciplined corps, and that domestic affairs, above stairs and below, usually moved with mechanical regularity, it was nearly two o’clock before Millie, armed with dusters and brushes, entered Alan’s study to do battle with a small quantity of slowly-accumulated dust.
“Ah!” she exclaimed as she flung open the windows, “how gloomy the house is! I s’pose Mr. Alan will set himself up as master now, and then, Millie, you’ll getyourwalking papers. Well, who cares; I don’t like him, anyhow.” And she made a vigorous dash at the fireless grate.
Millie Davis was the joint protege of Leslie and Winnie, a rustic with a pretty face, and scant knowledge of the world and its ways.
Up and down the study flitted Millie, dusting, arranging, and pausing very often to admire some costly fabric, or bit of vivid color.
Almost the last article to come under her brush was Alan’s cabinet-arsenal, and her feminine curiosity prompted her to peep in at the door, which Alan had left ajar; and then Millie gasped and stood aghast.
“Guns and pistols, and all manner of cuttin’ and shootin’ things,” she soliloquized, as she drew back and prepared to close the door of the cabinet. “Well, it takes a good while to findsome folksout!” And then, as a tuneful sound smoteher ears, she turned swiftly from the open cabinet to the window.
A hand organ grinding out the “Sweet By-and-by”, is a thing most of us fail to appreciate. But Millie both appreciated and understood. It was music, familiar music, and sweet; at least so thought Millie, and she hurried to the window nearest the cabinet, and looked out.
“My,” she said, half aloud, “but that sounds cheerful!”
She leaned over the window-ledge and looked up and down the quiet side street. Ah, there he was; quite near the window, resting his organ against the iron railings, and playing, with his eyes turned toward her. Such beseeching eyes; such a good-looking, picturesque, sad-faced organ-grinder!
Catching sight of Millie, he lifted his organ quickly, and without a break in the “Sweet By-and-by”, came directly under the window, gazing up at her with a look that was a wondrous mixture of admiration and pathos. Poor fellow; how sorrowful, how distressed, and how respectful, was his look and attitude!
“What a mournful-looking chap it is!” murmured Millie, drawing back a little when the tune came to an end.
As the organ struck up a more cheerful strain, a new thought seized her, and she leaned out again over the sill.
“Look here, my man,” she began, in a tone of gentle remonstrance, “you shouldn’t play, come to think of it, quite so near the house. It won’t do; stop, stop.” And, as the man stared, hesitated, and then ground away more vigorously than before, she indulged in a series of frantic gestures, seeing which the organ-grinder paused and stared wonderingly. Then, with a sudden gleam of comprehension, he smiled up at her, touched a stop in his organ, and complacently began a different tune.
“No! no! no!” cried Millie; “notthat; stop!” And she shook her head so violently that the little blue bow atop of her brown locks, flew off and fell at the feet of the minstrel, who, in obedience to the movement of her head and hand, stopped his instrument once more, stooped down, and picking up the blue bow, began to clamber up the iron railings, with his organ still strapped to his side, evidently intent upon restoring the bow in the most gallant manner.
“My! you shouldn’t climb onto the railings like that,” remonstrated Millie, as she put out her hand to receive the bit of ribbon.
But the minstrel, bracing one knee against the brick and mortar, thus steadying himself and giving his hands full play, began a series of pantomines so strange that Millie involuntarily exclaimed:
“Why, what in the world ails the man!” And then, struck once more by the pitiful appeal in his eyes, she cried: “Look here, are you sick?”
Only renewed pantomines from the minstrel.
“Are you hungry?” Then, in a tone of discouragement: “What is he at, anyhow?”
But as the man’s hand went from his lips to his ear, even Millie’s dull comprehension was awakened.
“Gracious goodness!” she exclaimed, “he’s deaf and dumb.”
Faster still flew the fingers of the minstrel, sadder and more pitiful grew his face, and Millie watched his movements with renewed interest.
“He’s talking with his fingers,” muttered Millie. “I wonder—”
She stopped suddenly; he was doing something new in the way of pantomine, and Millie guessed its meaning.
“A baby!” she gasped; “it’s something about a baby. One, two, three, ah! five fingers; five babies, five years—oh, say, say, man;sayman!”—and Millie’s face was white with agitation, and she barely saved herself from tumbling out of the window, in the intensity and eagerness of her excitement—“you don’t mean—you don’t know anything about our Daisy—you don’t—”
But Millie’s breath failed her, for even as she spoke, the sad-eyed organ-grinder took from his pocket a dirty bit of paper, unfolded it, and displayed to the eager girl a tiny tress of yellow hair—just such a tress as might have grown on little Daisy’s head.
“Oh,” she cried, “I’ll bet that’s it! I’ll bet, oh,—” And with this last interjection, any such small stock of prudence as Millie may naturally have possessed, was scattered to the four winds.
“Wait here,” she cried, utterly disregarding the fact that she was addressing a deaf man, but by a natural instinct suiting her gestures to her word. “Just you wait a minute. I know who can talk finger talk.”
In another moment she had rushed from the room, shutting the door behind her with a sudden emphasis that must have been a surprise to those stately panels, and the noiseless, slow-moving hinges on which they swung.
Scarcely has Millie turned away from the window when the man outside, with two quick turns of the neck, has assured himself that for a moment at least, the window is not under the scrutiny of any passer-by. No sooner has the study door closed, than the mute, without one shade of pathos in look or action, grasps the window-sill, swings himself up, and drops into the room, organ and all.
“So far, good,” mutters this pathetic mute, under his breath. “This is Alan Warburton’s study; not a doubt of that. Now, if I can continue to stay in it until he comes—”
He broke off abruptly, with his eyes fixed upon the half-open cabinet; moved briskly toward it, peeped in, and then, with a satisfied chuckle, stepped inside, and depositing his organ upon the floor of his hiding-place, drew the door shut, softly and slowly.
In another moment the study door opened quickly, and there was a rustle, and the patter of light feet, as Winnie French crossed the room rapidly, and leaned out of the window.
“Why, Millie,” she said, looking back over her shoulder, “there’s no one here.”
“Perhaps—” began Millie; then, catching her breath sharply, she too leaned over the sill.
“Where is your pathetic mute, Millie?”
“Well, I never!” declared the girl, still gazing incredulously up and down the street. “Hewashere.”
Winnie smiled as she turned from the window.
“Some one has imposed upon you, Millie,” she said; “and you did a very careless thing when you left such a stranger at an open window.”
And a certain listener near by added to this exordium a mental amen.
“He might have entered—” continued Winnie.
“Oh, my!”
“And robbed the house.”
“Bless me; I never thought of that!”
“Try and be more thoughtful in future, Millie. Close the window and let us go; ah!”
This last exclamation, uttered in a tone of unmistakable annoyance, caused Millie to turn swiftly.
Alan Warburton, having entered noiselessly at the door left ajar by Millie’s reckless hand, was standing in the centre of the room, his well-bred face expressive of nothing in particular, his eyes slightly smiling.
At sight of him, Millie shrank back, but Winnie came forward haughtily.
“You are doubtless surprised at seeing me here, sir,” she said, with freezing politeness, bent only upon screening Millie and beating an orderly retreat. “I came—in search of Millie; and, being here, had a desire to take a view of Elm street. You will pardon the intrusion, I trust.” And she moved toward the door.
“Winnie,” said Alan gently, “you entered to please yourself, and you are very welcome here. Will you remain just five minutes, to please me?”
Winnie frowned visibly, but after a moment’s hesitation, said:
“I think I may spare you five minutes. You may go, Millie.”
And Millie, only too thankful to escape thus, went with absurd alacrity.
When the door had closed behind her,—for, retreating under Alan’s eye, the fluttered damselhadremembered to close the door properly—Winnie stood very erect and silent before her host, and waited.
“Winnie,” began Alan, consulting his watch as he spoke, “it is now almost three o’clock, and I expect a visitor soon; that is why I asked for only a few moments.”
“I am not anxious to remain,” observed Winnie, glancingcarelessly from the timepiece in Alan’s hand to aplacqueon the wall above his head.
“But I am most anxious that you should.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Warburton, but you have such a peculiar way of making yourself agreeable.”
“Winnie!”
“Your interviews with ladies are liable to such dramatic endings: I seriously object to fainting, and I remained here, as you must know, not because I cared to listen to you, but because of Millie’s presence. I think it took you half an hour to talk Leslie into a dead faint yesterday, and as nearly as I can guess at time, one of your minutes must be gone. You have just four minutes in which to reduce me to silence.”
“You are very bitter, Winnie,” he said sadly. “I am bowed down with grief—that you know. I am also burdened with such a weight of trouble as I pray Heaven you may never suffer. Will you let me tell you all the truth; will you listen and judge between Leslie Warburton and me?”
She drew herself very erect, and turned to face him fully, thus shutting from her view the door behind Alan.
“No,” she answered, “I will listen to nothing from you concerning Leslie. Without knowing the cause, I know you are her enemy. If I ever learn why you hate her so, I will hear it from her, not from you. Leslie is not a child; and you must have said bitterly cruel words before you left her in a dead faint on that library floor last night—”
A very distinct cough interrupted her speech, and they both turned, to meet the respectful gaze of a jaunty-looking stranger, who said, as he advanced into the room:
“Pardon me; the servant showed me in somewhat unceremoniously,supposing the room unoccupied. I was instructed to wait here for Mr. Warburton.”
Winnie was first to recover herself. Turning to Alan, she murmured politely:
“I think my time has expired; good evening, Mr. Warburton.”
As she swept from the room, the stranger approached Alan, saying:
“This, then, is Mr. Warburton. My name is Grip, sir; Augustus Grip.”
This sudden appearance of Mr. Grip was not precisely to Alan Warburton’s taste, and he eyed his visitor with a somewhat haughty air, while he said:
“Mr. Grip is prompt, to say the least. I believe that the hour—”
“Hour appointed, between three and four—precisely, sir;precisely. But my time’s valuable, Mr. Warburton;valuable, sir! And it’s better too early than too late. Everything’s cut and dried, and nothing else on hand for this hour; couldn’t afford to waste it.”
Mr. Grip’s words fell from his lips like hailstones from a November sky—rap, rap, rap; patter, patter; swift, sharp, decisive. And Alan was not slow to realize that all the combined dignity of all the combined Warburtons, would be utterly lost upon this plebeian.
Plebeian, Mr. Grip evidently was, from the crown of hishead to the tips of his too highly polished, creaking boots. Vulgarity reveled in the plaid of his jaunty business suit, flaunted in the links of his glittering watch guard, and gleamed in the folds of his gorgeous neck gear. You smelled it in his ambrosial locks; you saw it in his self-satisfied face, and heard it in his inharmonious voice.
And this was Augustus Grip, of Scotland Yards! Well, one might be a good detective and yet not be a gentleman. So mused Alan; and then, seeing that Mr. Grip, while waiting for him to speak, was utilizing the seconds by making a survey of the premises, he said:
“Will you be seated, Mr. Grip?”
Mr. Grip dropped comfortably into the nearest lounging-chair, crossed one knee over the other, and resting a hand on either arm of the chair, began to talk rapidly.
“I’ve got your business down fine, sir;fine,” emphasizing with both hands upon the chair arms. “Saves time; always do it when possible. Posted at Agency—less to learn here.” And Mr. Grip begins to fumble in the breast-pocket of his startling plaid coat. “Was informed by—um—um—” producing a packet of folded papers and running them over rapidly; “oh, here we are.”
He restores the packet to his pocket, having selected the proper memoranda, and then without rising, but with a jerking movement of the knees and elbows, he propels his chair toward the table near which Alan is still standing. Putting the memoranda on the table before him, he unfolds them rapidly, and looks up at his host.
“Sit down, Warburton.”
A look of displeasure flits across Alan’s face. He remains standing, seeming to grow more haughtily erect.
“My instructions,” continues Mr. Grip, who has not lifted his eyes from the documents before him, “are, take entire charge of case; investigate in own way. That’s what I like.”
If Alan had ventured a comment just then, it would have been, “youare not whatIlike.” But he did not speak; and Mr. Grip, having paused for a remark and hearing none, now glanced up.
“Is that your pleasure, Mr. Warburton?”
A certain touch of acidity in the tone, recalls Alan to a sense of his position. This man before him is a man of business, a detective highly recommended by the Chief of Police, and he needs his services. He moves a step nearer the table and begins.
“That is what I—”
“Precisely,” breaks in Mr. Grip. “Now, then,” referring to papers, “first—sit down, won’t you? it’s more sociable.”
And Alan puts his aristocracy in his pocket and sits down opposite the dazzling necktie.
“Now then,” recommences Mr. Grip, “I’ve got thefactsin the case.”
“You have?”
“Facts in case; yes.” And he takes up the memoranda, reading therefrom:
“Lost child; daughter of Archibald Warburton; only daughter.” Then, turning his eyes upon Alan: “Father killed by shock, I’m told; sad—very.”
And he resumes his reading. “Relatives: Alan Warburton, uncle; fond of niece, eh—ahem; step-mother—um—a little mysterious;littleunder suspicion.”
“Stop!” interrupts Alan sternly. “On what authority dare you make such assertions?
”Mr. Grip permits the hand which holds the papers to rest upon one knee, and lifts his eyes to the face of his interrogator.
“I’ve reconnoitred,” he says tersely. “It’s a detective’s business to reconnoitre. I’m familiar with the facts in the case.”
Alan feels the perspiration start upon his brow, while he utters a mental, “Heaven forbid!”
“Now then,” resumes Mr. Grip, throwing himself back in his chair and stretching his legs underneath the table; “now then,herewe go. Daisy Warburton is her father’s heiress. Remove her, the bulk of property probably goes to second wife—step mother, d’ye see? Removeher, property comes down toyou.”
“Stop, sir! How dare you—preposterous!” And Alan Warburton pushes back his chair and rises, an angry flush upon his face.
Mr. Grip rises also. Stepping nimbly out from between the big chair and the table before it, he inserts his two hands underneath his two coat tails, bends his head forward, raising himself from time to time on the tips of his toes as he talks, and replies suavely:
“Ta ta; I’mreasoning. They havenotboth disappeared, have they? The lady in question is in the house at this present moment, is she not?”
“She is,” replied Alan, beginning to feel most uncomfortable.
“She is. Well, now, ifsheshould disappear,thensuspicion might point to you. As it is—ahem—” Here Alan fancies that Mr. Grip is watching him furtively. “As it is—we will begin to investigate.”
Alan has his first meeting with Mr. Grip“Stop, sir! How dare you—preposterous!”—page 274.
“Stop, sir! How dare you—preposterous!”—page 274.
Mr. Grip reseats himself, folds away his memoranda, and, reclining once more at his ease, looks up at Alan coolly.
“First, Mr. Warburton, I must see your sister-in-law.”
Alan cannot restrain his start of surprise, nor the look of anxiety that crosses his face.
“Not at present,” he says, after a moment’s hesitation. “She is ill; it would—”
“So much the better,” interrupts the detective. “Worn out, no doubt; nervous. May surprise something.I must see her, and every other member of this household, myself unseen.”
“Ah!” thinks Alan, his hands clenching themselves involuntarily, “if I dared throw you out of the window!”
And then, with a shade more of haughtiness than he had as yet used in addressing this man, who was fast becoming his tormentor, he asks:
“Mr. Grip, is this so very necessary?”
Slowly the detective leans forward; slowly he raises a warning forefinger.
“Mydearsir,” he says impressively, “if you want to catch a thief will you say, ‘come here, my dear, and be arrested?’No, sir; you catch herunawares. Tell that fine lady that she is to be interviewed by a detective, and, presto! she shuts her secrets up behind a mantle of smiles or sneers. Call her in, and lead her to talk; I’ll employ my eyes and ears. Use the cues set down here—” he extends to Alan a folded slip of paper. “Put her at her ease, and leave the rest to me. Now then—”
Again he rises, and this time he begins a slow survey of the room.
Alan, thoroughly alarmed for Leslie’s safety as well as forhis own, begins to wonder how this strange interview is to end. Even if he should summon Leslie, would she come at his call? Yes; he feels sure that she would, remembering her message of the morning. And what may she not say? If he could give her a word, a sign of warning. But those eyes, that are even now bestowing questioning glances upon him, are too keen. He would only bungle. He will try again.
“Mr. Grip,” he says, “my sister-in-law is already ill from excitement. If we could spare her this interview—”
“Sir!” Augustus Grip wheels suddenly, and looks straight into his face while he continues sharply: “Mygoodsir; for yourownsake, don’t!Youshould have no reason for keeping a witness in the background.”
The hot angry Warburton blood surges up to Alan’s brow. Realizing his danger more than ever, and recognizing in the man before him a force that might, perhaps, be bought or baffled, but never evaded, he lets his eyes rest for a moment, in haughty defiance, upon the detective’s face. And then he turns and walks to the door.
“Where do you purpose to conceal yourself?” he asks coldly, as he lays his hand upon the bell-rope.
Again Grip looks about him, and then steps toward the cabinet near the window.
“What’s this,” he asks, with his hand upon the closed door. “Will it hold me?”
“Yes,” replies Alan; “that will hold you.” And he pulls the bell.
“There’s no resisting Fate,” he mutters to himself. “At least that fellow shall not see me flinch again, let Leslie entangle me as she may, and as she doubtless will.”
And then there tingled in his veins a new sensation—aburning desire to seize that most impertinent, vulgar trail-hunter, who was now tugging away at his cabinet door, and send him crashing headlong through the window into the street below.
“Ask Mrs. Warburton if she will grant me a few moments of her time,” he said to the servant who appeared at the door, which Alan did not permit him to open more than half way. And then he turned his attention to Mr. Grip.
That individual, still tugging unsuccessfully at the door of the cabinet, has grown impatient.
“It’s locked!” he says, with an angry snap.
“No,”—Alan strides toward him—“it is not locked.” And he adds his strength to that of Mr. Grip.
A moment the door hesitates; then it yields with a suddenness which causes Alan to reel, and flies open.
In another instant, Grip has pounced upon the luckless organ-grinder, and dragged him into the centre of the room, where he crouches at Alan’s feet, the very image of terrified misery, limp and unresisting.
“That’s a pretty thing to keep hid away!” snarled the now thoroughly angry detective. “I’ve heard of skeletons in closets, but this thing looks more like a monkey.”
“More like a sneak thief, I should say,” remarks Alan, with aggravating coolness. “And a very cowardly one at that.”
Grip and Alan find the organ-grinder in the closet““That’s a pretty thing to keep hid away!” snarls the now thoroughly angry detective.”—page 278.
““That’s a pretty thing to keep hid away!” snarls the now thoroughly angry detective.”—page 278.
There may have been times in Alan Warburton’s life—such times come to most fastidious city-bred people—when hedoubted the wisdom of Providence in permitting the “street musician” to inherit the earth, and, especially to transport so much of his “heritage,” wheresoever he might go, upon his person. But to-day, for the first time, he fancies that he sees some reason for the existence of the species, and he finds himself looking down almost complacently upon the crouching minstrel who has lawlessly invaded the sanctity of his splendid cabinet.
This strange intruder has brought him at least a respite; and he breathes a sigh of relief even as he asks sternly:
“Fellow, how long have you been hiding in that cabinet?”
But the culprit is once more a mute; again the pathetic look is in his eyes, and with Grip’s hand still clutching his shoulder, he begins a terrified pantomime.
“Bah!” says Mr. Grip, pushing his prisoner away contemptuously, “that won’t wash. You ain’t deaf—not much; nor dumb, neither. Answer me,” giving him a rough shake, “how came you here?”
There is no sign that the fellow hears or understands; he continues to gesticulate wildly.
Mr. Grip releases his hold, and bends upon Alan a look of impatience. In a moment, the organ-grinder bounds to the cabinet and, dragging forth his organ, turns back, displaying it and slinging it across his shoulder with grimaces of triumph.
“That won’t go down, either,” snarls Mr. Grip. “Put that thing on the floor,presto!”
But the minstrel only grins with delight, and throwing himself into an attitude, begins to grind out a doleful air. With an angry growl, Mr. Grip makes a movement toward him. But the organist retreats as he advances, and the doleful tune goes on.
It is a ludicrous picture, and Alan smiles in spite of himself, even while he wishes that Leslie would come now,—now, while he might warn her; now, while Mr. Augustus Grip, in his pursuit of the intruding musician, has put the width of the room between himself and his chosen place of concealment.
But Leslie does not come. And Mr. Grip’s next remark shows that he has not forgotten himself. With a sudden movement, he wrests the organ from the hands of its manipulator, and converting the strap of the instrument into a very serviceable lasso, brings the fellow down upon his knees with a quick, dexterous throw, and holding him firmly thus, says over his shoulder, to Alan:
“This is a fine thing to happen just now! The fellow must be got out of the way, and kept safe until I have time to discover his racket. He’s not such a fool as he looks. Can’t you get in a policeman quietly? We don’t want any servants to gossip over it, or to see me.”
Alan turns his face toward the closet. “Can’t we lock him up again?” he suggests.
“My dear sir,” says Grip coolly, “this fellow is probably aspy.”
“What!” Alan starts, and turns a sharp glance upon the organ-grinder. Then he seems to recover all his calmness and says quietly, “nonsense; look at that stolid countenance.”
“Umph!” mutters Grip; “too much hair and dirt.” Then turning toward the side window: “I intend to satisfy myself about this fellow later. Get in a policeman somehow; try the window.”
As Alan goes toward the window, the organ-grinder seeming in a state of utter collapse, and making no effort to free himself from the grasp of Mr. Grip, still crouches beside hisorgan, and begins anew his pleading, terrified pantomine.
“Ah,” says Alan, as the window yields to his touch, “this window must have been the place where he entered.” Then, after a prolonged look up and down the street: “I don’t see an officer anywhere.”
“No; I presume not. Try the other windows.”
“The other windows, Mr. Grip, look out upon the grounds.”
“Perdition! Keep quiet, you fellow. Then shut that window, sir, and come and guard this door; the lady may present herself at any moment.”
Alan turns again, and looks down into the street.
“I think,” he says, quietly, “that we will just drop him back into the street whence he came.”
“You seem to want this fellow to escape,” snarls the detective, casting upon Alan a glance of suspicion. “He shall not escape; I’ll take care of him!”
At this moment the door of the study flies suddenly open, and Millie, breathless and with eyes distended, precipitates herself into the room.
“Mr. Alan,” she pants, without pausing to note the other occupants of the room; “we can’t find Mrs. Warburton; she is not in the house!”
“What!” Alan strides toward her in unfeigned astonishment.
“Ah-h-h!” Mr. Grip turns swiftly, and his single syllable is as full of meaning as is his face of derision, and suspicion confirmed.
“Impossible, Millie,” says Alan sharply; “go to Miss French—”
“I did, sir, and she is—”
She pauses abruptly, for there in the doorway is Winnie French, pale and tearful, an open letter in her hand.
“Read that, sir,” she says, going straight up to Alan and extending to him the letter. “See what your cruelty has done. Leslie Warburton is gone!”
“Gone!”
This time Grip and Alan both utter the word, both start forward.
For just one moment the hand that clutches the collar of the organ-grinder relaxes its hold, but that moment is enough. With amazing agility, and seemingly by one movement, the prisoner has freed himself and is on his feet. In another second, by a clever wrestler’s manœuvre, he has thrown Mr. Grip headlong upon the floor. And then, before the others can realize his intentions, he has bounded to the open window, and flung himself out, as easily and as carelessly as would a cat.
But Mr. Grip, discomfited for the moment, is not wanting in alertness. He is on his feet before the man has cleared the window. He bounds toward it, and drawing a small revolver, fires after the fugitive—once—twice.
“Stop!” It is Alan Warburton’s voice, stern and ringing. He has seized the pistol arm, and holds it in a grasp that Mr. Grip finds difficult to release.
“Hands off!” cries Grip, now hoarse with rage. “That man’s aspy!”
“No matter; we will have no more shooting.”
“We!” struggling to release his arm from Alan’s firm grasp; “who are you that—”
“I am master here, sir.”
With an angry hiss, the detective from Scotland Yardsthrows himself upon Alan, and they engage in a fierce struggle. But Alan Warburton is something more than a ball-room hero; he is an adept in the manly sports, and fully a match for Mr. Grip.
Panting and terrified, Winnie and Millie stand together near the door; and the eyes of the latter damsel wander from the combatants near the window, to something that has fallen close at her feet, and that lies half hidden by the folds of her dress.
But disaster has befallen Mr. Grip. While they wrestle, Alan’s quick eye has detected something that looks like a displacement of Mr. Grip’s cranium, and with a sudden, dexterous, upward movement, he solves the mystery. There is an exclamation of surprise, another of anger, and the two combatants stand apart, both gazing down at the thing lying on the floor between them.
It is a wig of curling auburn hair, and it leaves the head of Mr. Grip quite a different head in shape, in size, in height of forehead, and in general expression!
“So,” sneers Alan, “Mr. Grip, of Scotland Yards, saw fit to visit me in disguise. Is your name as easily altered as your face, sir?”
The discomfited wrestler stoops down, and picking up his wig adjusts it carefully on his head once more; bends again to take up his fallen pistol; lifts his hat from a chair, and returns to the window.
“My name is not Augustus Grip,” he says coolly. “Neither will you find me by inquiring at police headquarters. But you and I will meet again, Mr. Warburton.”
Grip fires at the organ-grinder, but is stopped by Alan“Drawing a small revolver, he fires after the fugitive—once—twice!”page 283.
“Drawing a small revolver, he fires after the fugitive—once—twice!”page 283.
And without unseemly haste, he places his hand upon the window-sill, swings himself over the ledge, resting hisfeet upon the iron railings, and drops down upon the pavement.
By this time some people have collected outside, attracted by the pistol-shots. Two laggard policemen are hastening down the street. A group of servants are whispering and consulting anxiously in the hall, and cautiously peeping in at the study door.
The coolness of the false Mr. Grip takes him safely past the group of inquiring ones.
“It was a sneak thief,” he explains, as he leaps down among them. “Don’t detain me, friends; I must report this affair at police headquarters.”
A few quick strides take him across the street to where a carriage stands in waiting. He enters it, and in a moment more, Mr. Grip and carriage have whirled out of sight.
“I’d give a hundred dollars to know what that fellow was in hiding for,” he mused, as the carriage rolled swiftly along. “Could he have been put there by Warburton? But no—Confound that Warburton, I’ll humble his pride before we cry quits, or my name is notVan Vernet!”
But Vernet little dreamed that he had that day aimed a bullet at the life of a brother detective; that his disguise had been penetrated and his plans frustrated, byRichard Stanhope!
If Van Vernet had been thwarted, in a measure, Richard Stanhope had been no less baffled.
Each had succeeded partially, and each had beaten a too hasty and altogether unsatisfactory retreat.
Van Vernet had planned well. By keeping himself informed as to the doings at police headquarters, he had been aware of all the efforts there being made in the search for the missing child. He found it quite easy to possess himself of a sheet and envelope bearing the official stamp; and by writing his spurious letter in a most unreadable scrawl, and ending with a signature positively undecipherable, he had guarded himself against dangerous consequences should a charge of forgery, by any mischance, be preferred against him. The disguise was a mere bit of child’s play to Van Vernet, and the rest “went by itself”.
His object in thus entering the Warburton house was, first, to see Alan Warburton; study his face and hear his voice; to satisfy himself, as far as possible, as to the feud, or seeming feud, between Alan and his brother’s wife—for since the day on which he had discovered, and he had taken pains since to confirm this discovery, that the six-foot masker who had personated Archibald Warburton was not Archibald Warburton, but his brother Alan, Van Vernet had harbored many vague suspicions concerning the family and its mysteries. He had also hoped to see Leslie, and to surprise from one or both of them some word, or look, or tone, that would furnish him with a clue, if ever so slight.
Well, he had surprised several things, so he assured himself, but he had not seen Leslie. And thedenouementof his visit had rendered it impossible for him ever to reenter that house, in the character of Mr. Augustus Grip.
True, he had learned something. He had heard Winnie’s words: “Leslie is not a child; and you must have said bitterly cruel words before you left her in a dead faint on that library floor last night.” And he had coupled these withthose other words uttered by Winnie as she confronted Alan, with that farewell note in her hand: “Read that; see what your cruelty has done.”
Was this girl a plotter, too? If he could have seen that note! And then the organ-grinder—. On the whole, he was not even half satisfied with the result of his expedition, especially when he remembered that organ-grinder, and how he had let his temper escape its leash and rage itself into that cold white heat, his most intense expression of wrath, in which he had openly defied Alan Warburton, and flung his own colors boldly forth.
Another thing puzzled Vernet exceedingly. He had discovered Richard Stanhope at the Warburton masquerade, and had bestowed upon him the character of lover. Was he there in that character? Was he, in any way, mixed up with their family secrets? Where had he spent the remainder of that eventful night? Since the morning when Stanhope had reported to his Chief, after his night of adventure beginning with the masquerade, Vernet had heard no word from that Chief concerning Stanhope’s unaccountable conduct, or the abandoned Raid.
The whole affair was to Vernet, vague, unsatisfactory, mysterious. But the more unsatisfactory, the more mysterious it became, the more doggedly determined became he.
He had not forgotten, nor was he neglecting, the Arthur Pearson murder. He was pursuing that investigation after a manner quite satisfactory—to himself at least.
There are in most cities, and connected with many detective forces, and more individual members of forces, a class of men, mongrels, we might say,—a cross between the lawyer and the detective but actually neither, and sometimes fitted for both.They are called, by those initiated, “private enquirers,” “trackers,” “bloodhounds.”
These gentry are often employed by lawyers, as well as by detectives and the police. They trace out titles, run down witnesses, hunt up pedigrees, unearth long-forgotten family secrets. They are searchers of records, burrowers into the past. Their work is slow, laborious, pains-taking, tedious. But it is not dangerous; the unsafe tracks are left to the detective proper.
Into the careful hands of some of these gentry, Van Vernet had entrusted certain threads from the woof of the “Arthur Pearson murder case,” as they styled it. And these tireless searchers were burrowing away while Vernet was busying himself with other matters, waiting for the time when the “tracker” should find his occupation gone, and the detective’s efforts be called in play.
Vernet had not been aware of the close proximity of his sometime friend and present rival. He had felt sure, from the first, that the pretended mute was other than he seemed; that he was a spy and marplot. But Richard Stanhope’s disguise was perfect, and Vernet had not scrutinized him closely, being in such haste to dispose of him, and expecting to investigate his case later. Then, too, Richard Stanhope was absent; he had not been seen, or heard of, at the Agency for many days.
As for Stanhope, he had not been slow to recognize Van Vernet, and if he had not succeeded in all that he had hoped to accomplish, he had at least discovered Vernet’s exact position. And he had left a slip of paper where, he felt very sure, it would fall into the right hands. For the rest, he came and went like a comet, and was seen no more for many weeks.
Meanwhile, quiet had been restored in Alan Warburton’s study, and Alan himself now sat with a crumpled bit of paper in his hand.
This bit of paper had been given him by Millie, who, acting upon Winnie’s advice, had made to Alan a very meek confession of the part she had unwittingly played in the drama just enacted.
“Of course, sir, he came in when I went to call Miss Winnie,” she had said contritely. “But oh, he did look so sorrowful, and then that curl of hair! I was so sure it was something about Miss Daisy.”
Alan had listened gravely, had glanced at the bit of paper, and then dismissed her with a kind word and a smile, and without a reprimand.
When this unexpected escape had been joyfully reported to Winnie French, that stony-hearted damsel elevated her nose and said:
“Umph! so the man has a grain of something besides pride in him somewhere. Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
To which Millie had replied, warmly:
“Why, Miss Winnie! Think how he fought to protect that poor organ man, who had come to rob him, maybe, though I can’t think it.Thatwas splendid in him, anyhow.”
And this had reminded Winnie that she was not indulging in a soliloquy. So, having charged Millie to say nothing about the events of the afternoon, she dismissed her, and sat sadly down to peruse Leslie’s farewell note once more.