Part 44

“O, Arthur, you good, good boy! Together we’ll soon make up the amount, and then--”

“Then what?”

A sweet soft look robbed her face of its piquancy, but gave it an aspect of indescribable beauty quite new to Arthur’s eyes.

Tapping his lips with a thoughtful forefinger, he asked:

“Who was that sombre-looking chap I saw bowing to you as we came out of church last Sunday?”

She awoke from her dreamy state with an astonishing quickness.

“He? Surely you remember him. Have you forgotten that evening in Massachusetts--the grotto--and--”

“Oh, it’s Upjohn, is it? Yes, I remember him. He’s fond of church, isn’t he? That is, when he’s in New York.”

Her lips took a roguish curve then a very serious one; but she made no answer.

“I have noticed that he’s always in his seat and always looking your way.”

“That’s very odd of him,” she declared, her dimples coming and going in a most bewildering fashion. “I can’t imagine why he should do that.”

“Nor I,--” retorted Arthur with a smile. “But he’s human, I suppose. Only do be careful, Violet. A man so melancholy will need a deal of cheering.”

He was gone before he had fully finished this daring remark, and Violet, left again with her thoughts, lost her glowing colour but not her preoccupation. The hand which lay upon the packet already alluded to did not move for many minutes, and when she roused at last to the demands of her employer, it was with a start and a guilty look at the small gold clock ticking out its inexorable reminder.

“He will want an answer the first thing in the morning,” she complained to herself. And opening the packet, she took out first a letter, and then a mass of typewritten manuscript.

She began with the letter which was as characteristic of the writer as all the others she had had from his hand; as witness:

You probably remember the Hasbrouck murder,--or, perhaps, you don’t; it being one of a time previous to your interest in such matters. But whether you remember it or not, I beg you to read the accompanying summary with due care and attention to business. When you have well mastered it with all its details, please communicate with me in any manner most convenient to yourself, for I shall have a word to say to you then, which you may be glad to hear, if as you have lately intimated you need to earn but one or two more substantial rewards in order to cry halt to the pursuit for which you have proved yourself so well qualified.

The story, in deference to yourself as a young and much preoccupied woman, has been written in a way to interest. Though the work of an everyday police detective, you will find in it no lack of mystery or romance; and if at the end you perceive that it runs, as such cases frequently do, up against a perfectly blank wall, you must remember that openings can be made in walls, and that the loosening of one weak stone from its appointed place, sometimes leads to the downfall of all.

So much for the letter.

Laying it aside, with a shrug of her expressive shoulders, Violet took up the manuscript.

Let us take it up too. It runs thus:

On the 17th of July, 19--, a tragedy of no little interest occurred in one of the residences of the Colonnade in Lafayette Place.

Mr. Hasbrouck, a well known and highly respected citizen, was attacked in his room by an unknown assailant, and shot dead before assistance could reach him. His murderer escaped, and the problem offered to the police was how to identify this person who, by some happy chance or by the exercise of the most remarkable forethought, had left no traces behind him, or any clue by which he could be followed.

The details of the investigation which ended so unsatisfactorily are here given by the man sent from headquarters at the first alarm.

When, some time after midnight on the date above mentioned, I reached Lafayette Place, I found the block lighted from end to end. Groups of excited men and women peered from the open doorways, and mingled their shadows with those of the huge pillars which adorn the front of this picturesque block of dwellings.

The house in which the crime had been committed was near the centre of the row, and, long before I reached it, I had learned from more than one source that the alarm was first given to the street by a woman’s shriek, and secondly by the shouts of an old man-servant who had appeared, in a half-dressed condition, at the window of Mr. Hasbrouck’s room, crying “Murder! murder!”

But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves. The old servant, who was the first to talk, had only this account of the crime to give:

The family, which consisted of Mr. Hasbrouck, his wife, and three servants, had retired for the night at the usual hour and under the usual auspices. At eleven o’clock the lights were all extinguished, and the whole household asleep, with the possible exception of Mr. Hasbrouck himself, who, being a man of large business responsibilities, was frequently troubled with insomnia.

Suddenly Mrs. Hasbrouck woke with a start. Had she dreamed the words that were ringing in her ears, or had they been actually uttered in her hearing? They were short, sharp words, full of terror and menace, and she had nearly satisfied herself that she had imagined them, when there came, from somewhere near the door, a sound she neither understood nor could interpret, but which filled her with inexplicable terror, and made her afraid to breathe, or even to stretch forth her hand towards her husband, whom she supposed to be sleeping at her side. At length another strange sound, which she was sure was not due to her imagination, drove her to make an attempt to rouse him, when she was horrified to find that she was alone in bed, and her husband nowhere within reach.