Part 47

I remembered who had lived there and was for ringing the bell at once. But, missing the doctor’s sign, I made inquiries and found that he had moved from the block. However, a doctor is soon found, and in less than fifteen, minutes I was at the door of his new home, where I asked, not for him, but for Mrs. Zabriskie.

It required some courage to do this, for I had taken particular notice of the doctor’s wife at the inquest, and her beauty, at that time, had worn such an aspect of mingled sweetness and dignity that I hesitated to encounter it under any circumstances likely to disturb its pure serenity. But a clue once grasped cannot be lightly set aside by a true detective, and it would have taken more than a woman’s frowns to stop me at this point.

However, it was not with frowns she received me, but with a display of emotion for which I was even less prepared. I had sent up my card and I saw it trembling in her hand as she entered the room. As she neared me, she glanced at it, and with a show of gentle indifference which did not in the least disguise her extreme anxiety, she courteously remarked:

“Your name is an unfamiliar one to me. But you told my maid that your business was one of extreme importance, and so I have consented to see you. What can an agent from a private detective office have to say to me?”

Startled by this evidence of the existence of some hidden skeleton in her own closet, I made an immediate attempt to reassure her.

“Nothing which concerns you personally,” said I. “I simply wish to ask you a question in regard to a small matter connected with Mr. Hasbrouck’s violent death in Lafayette Place, a couple of years ago. You were living in the adjoining house at the time I believe, and it has occurred to me that you might on that account be able to settle a point which has never been fully cleared up.”

Instead of showing the relief I expected, her pallor increased and her fine eyes, which had been fixed curiously upon me, sank in confusion to the floor.

“Great heaven!” thought I. “She looks as if at one more word from me, she would fall at my feet in a faint. What is this I have stumbled upon!”

“I do not see how you can have any question to ask me on that subject,” she began with an effort at composure which for some reason disturbed me more than her previous open display of fear. “Yet if you have,” she continued, with a rapid change of manner that touched my heart in spite of myself, “I shall, of course, do my best to answer you.”

There are women whose sweetest tones and most charming smiles only serve to awaken distrust in men of my calling; but Mrs. Zabriskie was not of this number. Her face was beautiful, but it was also candid in its expression, and beneath the agitation which palpably disturbed her, I was sure there lurked nothing either wicked or false. Yet I held fast by the clue which I had grasped as it were in the dark, and without knowing whither I was tending, much less whither I was leading her, I proceeded to say:

“The question which I presume to put to you as the next door neighbour of Mr. Hasbrouck is this: Who was the woman who on the night of that gentleman’s assassination screamed out so loudly that the whole neighbourhood heard her?”

The gasp she gave answered my question in a way she little realized, and struck as I was by the impalpable links that had led me to the threshold of this hitherto unsolvable mystery, I was about to press my advantage and ask another question, when she quickly started forward and laid her hand on my lips.

Astonished, I looked at her inquiringly, but her head was turned aside, and her eyes, fixed upon the door, showed the greatest anxiety. Instantly I realized what she feared. Her husband was entering the house, and she dreaded lest his ears should catch a word of our conversation.

Not knowing what was in her mind, and unable to realize the importance of the moment to her, I yet listened to the advance of her blind husband with an almost painful interest. Would he enter the room where we were, or would he pass immediately to his office in the rear? She seemed to wonder too, and almost held her breath as he neared the door, paused, and stood in the open doorway, with his ear turned towards us.

As for myself, I remained perfectly still, gazing at his face in mingled surprise and apprehension. For besides its beauty, which was of a marked order, as I have already observed, it had a touching expression which irresistibly aroused both pity and interest in the spectator. This may have been the result of his affliction, or it may have sprung from some deeper cause; but, whatever its source, this look in his face produced a strong impression upon me and interested me at once in his personality. Would he enter; or would he pass on? Her look of silent appeal showed me in which direction her wishes lay, but while I answered her glance by complete silence, I was conscious in some indistinct way that the business I had undertaken would be better furthered by his entrance.

The blind have often been said to possess a sixth sense in place of the one they have lost. Though I am sure we made no noise, I soon perceived that he was aware of our presence. Stepping hastily forward he said, in the high and vibrating tone of restrained passion:

“Zulma, are you there?”

For a moment I thought she did not mean to answer, but knowing doubtless from experience the impossibility of deceiving him, she answered with a cheerful assent, dropping her hand as she did so from before my lips.

He heard the slight rustle which accompanied the movement, and a look I found it hard to comprehend flashed over his features, altering his expression so completely that he seemed another man.

“You have someone with you,” he declared, advancing another step, but with none of the uncertainty which usually accompanies the movements of the blind. “Some dear friend,” he went on, with an almost sarcastic emphasis and a forced smile that had little of gaiety in it.

The agitated and distressed blush which answered him could have but one interpretation. He suspected that her hand had been clasped in mine, and she perceived his thought and knew that I perceived it also.

Drawing herself up, she moved towards him, saying in a sweet womanly tone:

“It is no friend, Constant, not even an acquaintance. The person whom I now present to you is a representative from some detective agency. He is here upon a trivial errand which will soon be finished, when I will join you in the office.”

I knew she was but taking a choice between two evils, that she would have saved her husband the knowledge of my calling as well as of my presence in the house, if her self-respect would have allowed it; but neither she nor I anticipated the effect which this introduction of myself in my business capacity would produce upon him.

“A detective,” he repeated, staring with his sightless eyes, as if, in his eagerness to see, he half hoped his lost sense would return. “He can have no trivial errand here; he has been sent by God Himself to--”

“Let me speak for you,” hastily interposed his wife, springing to his side and clasping his arm with a fervour that was equally expressive of appeal and command. Then turning to me, she explained: “Since Mr. Hasbrouck’s unaccountable death, my husband has been labouring under an hallucination which I have only to mention, for you to recognize its perfect absurdity. He thinks--oh! do not look like that, Constant; you know it is an hallucination which must vanish the moment we drag it into broad daylight--that he--he, the best man in all the world, was himself the assailant of Mr. Hasbrouck.”

“Good God!”

“I say nothing of the impossibility of this being so,” she went on in a fever of expostulation. “He is blind, and could not have delivered such a shot even if he had desired to; besides, he had no weapon. But the inconsistency of the thing speaks for itself, and should assure him that his mind is unbalanced and that he is merely suffering from a shock that was greater than we realized. He is a physician and has had many such instances in his own practice. Why, he was very much attached to Mr. Hasbrouck! They were the best of friends, and though he insists that he killed him, he cannot give any reason for the deed.”