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Anna Katharine Green >> Initials Only
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Fascinated by the question, Sweetwater died a hundred deaths in his
awakened fancy, as he followed the sharp short instructions which
fell with cool precision from the other's lips. A hundred deaths,
I say, but with no betrayal of his folly. The anxiety he showed was
that of one eager to please, which may explain why on the conclusion
of his task, Mr. Brotherson gave him one of his infrequent smiles
and remarked, as he buried the model under its cover, "You're handy
and you're quiet at your job. Who knows but that I shall want you
again. Will you come if I call you?"
"Won't I?" was the gay retort, as the detective thus released,
stooped for the book still lying on the floor. "Paolo and Francesca,"
he read, from the back, as he laid it on the table. "Poetry?" he
queried.
"Rot," scornfully returned the other, as he moved to take down a
bottle and some glasses from a cupboard let into another portion of
the wall.
Sweetwater taking advantage of the moment, sidled towards the shelf
where that empty space still gaped with the tell-tale hole at the
back. He could easily have replaced the missing book before Mr.
Brotherson turned. But the issue was too doubtful. He was dealing
with no absent-minded fool, and it behooved him to avoid above all
things calling attention to the book or to the place on the shelf
where it belonged.
But there was one thing he could do and did. Reaching out a finger
as deft as Brotherson's own, he pushed a second volume into the
place of the one that was gone. This veiled the auger-hole
completely; a fact which so entirely relieved his mind that his old
smile came back like sunshine to his lips, and it was only by a
distinct effort that he kept the dancing humour from his eyes as he
prepared to refuse the glass which Brotherson now brought forward:
"None of that!" said he. "You mustn't tempt me. The doctor has
shut down on all kinds of spirits for two months more, at least.
But don't let me hinder you. I can bear to smell the stuff. My
turn will come again some day."
But Brotherson did not drink. Setting down the glass he carried,
he took up the book lying near, weighed it in his hand and laid it
down again, with an air of thoughtful inquiry. Then he suddenly
pushed it towards Sweetwater. "Do you want it?" he asked.
Sweetwater was too taken aback to answer immediately. This was a
move he did not understand. Want it, he? What he wanted was to
see it put back in its place on the shelf. Did Brotherson suspect
this? The supposition was incredible; yet who could read a mind
so mysterious?
Sweetwater, debating the subject, decided that the risk of adding
to any such possible suspicion was less to be dreaded than the
continued threat offered by that unoccupied space so near the hole
which testified so unmistakably of the means he had taken to spy
upon this suspected man's privacy. So, after a moment of awkward
silence, not out of keeping with the character he had assumed, he
calmly refused the present as he had the glass.
Unhappily he was not rewarded by seeing the despised volume
restored to its shelf. It still lay where its owner had pushed
it, when, with some awkwardly muttered thanks, the discomfited
detective withdrew to his own room.
XVIII
WHAT AM I TO DO NOW
Early morning saw Sweetwater peering into the depths of his closet.
The hole was hardly visible. This meant that the book he had pushed
across it from the other side had not been removed.
Greatly re-assured by the sight, he awaited his opportunity, and as
soon as a suitable one presented itself, prepared the hole for
inspection by breaking away its edges and begriming it well with
plaster and old dirt. This done, he left matters to arrange
themselves; which they did, after this manner.
Mr. Brotherson suddenly developed a great need of him, and it became
a common thing for him to spend the half and, sometimes, the whole
of the evening in the neighbouring room. This was just what he had
worked for, and his constant intercourse with the man whose secret
he sought to surprise should have borne fruit. But it did not.
Nothing in the eager but painstaking inventor showed a distracted
mind or a heavily-burdened soul. Indeed, he was so calm in all his
ways, so precise and so self-contained, that Sweetwater often
wondered what had become of the fiery agitator and eloquent
propagandist of new and startling doctrines.
Then, he thought he understood the riddle. The model was reaching
its completion, and Brotherson's extreme interest in it and the
confidence he had in its success swallowed up all lesser emotions.
Were the invention to prove a failure--but there was small hope of
this. The man was of too well-poised a mind to over-estimate his
work or miscalculate its place among modern improvements. Soon he
would reach the goal of his desires, be praised, feted, made much
of by the very people he now professedly scorned. There was no
thoroughfare for Sweetwater here. Another road must be found; some
secret, strange and unforeseen method of reaching a soul inaccessible
to all ordinary or even extraordinary impressions.
Would a night of thought reveal such a method? Night! the very
word brought inspiration. A man is not his full self at night.
Secrets which, under the ordinary circumstances of everyday life,
lie too deep for surprise, creep from their hiding-places in the
dismal hours of universal quiet, and lips which are dumb to the
most subtle of questioners break into strange and self-revealing
mutterings when sleep lies heavy on ear and eye and the forces of
life and death are released to play with the rudderless spirit.
It was in different words from these that Sweetwater reasoned, no
doubt, but his conclusions were the same, and as he continued to
brood over them, he saw a chance--a fool's chance, possibly, (but
fools sometimes win where wise men fail) of reaching those depths
he still believed in, notwithstanding his failure to sound them.
Addressing a letter to his friend in Twenty-ninth Street, he awaited
reply in the shape of a small package he had ordered sent to the
corner drug-store. When it came, he carried it home in a state of
mingled hope and misgiving. Was he about to cap his fortnight of
disappointment by another signal failure; end the matter by
disclosing his hand; lose all, or win all by an experiment as daring
and possibly as fanciful as were his continued suspicions of this
seemingly upright and undoubtedly busy man?
He made no attempt to argue the question. The event called for the
exercise of the most dogged elements in his character and upon these
he must rely. He would make the effort he contemplated, simply
because he was minded to do so. That was all there was to it. But
any one noting him well that night, would have seen that he ate
little and consulted his watch continually. Sweetwater had not yet
passed the line where work becomes routine and the feelings remain
totally under control.
Brotherson was unusually active and alert that evening. He was
anxious to fit one delicate bit of mechanism into another, and he
was continually interrupted by visitors. Some big event was on in
the socialistic world, and his presence was eagerly demanded by one
brotherhood after another. Sweetwater, posted at his loop-hole,
heard the arguments advanced by each separate spokesman, followed
by Brotherson's unvarying reply: that when his work was done and he
had proved his right to approach them with a message, they might
look to hear from him again; but not before. His patience was
inexhaustible, but he showed himself relieved when the hour grew
too late for further interruption. He began to whistle--a token
that all was going well with him, and Sweetwater, who had come to
understand some of his moods, looked forward to an hour or two of
continuous work on Brotherson's part and of dreary and impatient
waiting on his own. But, as so many times before, he misread the
man. Earlier than common--much earlier, in fact, Mr. Brotherson
laid down his tools and gave himself up to a restless pacing of the
floor. This was not usual with him. Nor did he often indulge
himself in playing on the piano as he did to-night, beginning with
a few heavenly strains and ending with a bang that made the
key-board jump. Certainly something was amiss in the quarter where
peace had hitherto reigned undisturbed. Had the depths begun to
heave, or were physical causes alone responsible for these unwonted
ebullitions of feeling?
The question was immaterial. Either would form an excellent
preparation for the coup planned by Sweetwater; and when, after
another hour of uncertainty, perfect silence greeted him from his
neighbour's room, hope had soared again on exultant wing, far above
all former discouragements.
Mr. Brotherson's bed was in a remote corner from the loop-hole made
by Sweetwater; but in the stillness now pervading the whole building,
the latter could hear his even breathing very distinctly. He was in
a deep sleep.
The young detective's moment had come.
Taking from his breast a small box, he placed it on a shelf close
against the partition. An instant of quiet listening, then he
touched a spring in the side of the box and laid his ear, in haste,
to his loop-hole.
A strain of well-known music broke softly, from the box and sent its
vibrations through the wall.
It was answered instantly by a stir within; then, as the noble air
continued, awakening memories of that fatal instant when it crashed
through the corridors of the Hotel Clermont, drowning Miss Challoner's
cry if not the sound of her fall, a word burst from the sleeping man's
lips which carried its own message to the listening detective.
It was Edith! Miss Challoner's first name, and the tone bespoke a
shaken soul.
Sweetwater, gasping with excitement, caught the box from the shelf
and silenced it. It had done its work and it was no part of
Sweetwater's plan to have this strain located, or even to be thought
real. But its echo still lingered in Brotherson's otherwise
unconscious ears; for another "Edith!" escaped his lips, followed
by a smothered but forceful utterance of these five words, "You know
I promised you--"
Promised her what? He did not say. Would he have done so had the
music lasted a trifle longer? Would he yet complete his sentence?
Sweetwater trembled with eagerness and listened breathlessly for
the next sound. Brotherson was awake. He was tossing in his bed.
Now he has leaped to the floor. Sweetwater hears him groan, then
comes another silence, broken at last by the sound of his body
falling back upon the bed and the troubled ejaculation of "Good God!"
wrung from lips no torture could have forced into complaint under
any daytime conditions.
Sweetwater continued to listen, but he had heard all, and after some
few minutes longer of fruitless waiting, he withdrew from his post.
The episode was over. He would hear no more that night.
Was he satisfied? Certainly the event, puerile as it might seem to
some, had opened up strange vistas to his aroused imagination. The
words "Edith, you know I promised you--" were in themselves
provocative of strange and doubtful conjectures. Had the sleeper
under the influence of a strain of music indissolubly associated
with the death of Miss Challoner, been so completely forced back
into the circumstances and environment of that moment that his mind
had taken up and his lips repeated the thoughts with which that
moment of horror was charged? Sweetwater imagined the scene--saw
the figure of Brotherson hesitating at the top of the stairs--saw
hers advancing from the writing-room, with startled and uplifted
hand--heard the music--the crash of that great finale--and
decided, without hesitation, that the words he had just heard were
indeed the thoughts of that moment. "Edith, you know I promised
you--" What had he promised? What she received was death! Had
this been in his mind? Would this have been the termination of the
sentence had he wakened less soon to consciousness and caution?
Sweetwater dared to believe it. He was no nearer comprehending the
mystery it involved than he had been before, but he felt sure that
he had been given one true and positive glimpse into this harassed
soul which showed its deeply hidden secret to be both deadly and
fearsome; and happy to have won his way so far into the mystic
labyrinth he had sworn to pierce, he rested in happy unconsciousness
till morning when--
Could it be? Was it he who was dreaming now, or was the event of
the night a mere farce of his own imagining? Mr. Brotherson was
whistling in his room, gaily and with ever increasing verve, and the
tune which filled the whole floor with music was the same grand
finale from William Tell which had seemed to work such magic in the
night. As Sweetwater caught the mellow but indifferent notes
sounding from those lips of brass, he dragged forth the music-box
he held hidden in his coat pocket, and flinging it on the floor
stamped upon it.
"The man is too strong for me," he cried. "His heart is granite;
he meets my every move. What am I to do now?"
XIX
THE DANGER MOMENT
For a day Sweetwater acknowledged himself to be mentally crushed,
disillusioned and defeated. Then his spirits regained their poise.
It would take a heavy weight indeed to keep them down permanently.
His opinion was not changed in regard to his neighbour's secret
guilt. A demeanour of this sort suggested bravado rather than
bravery to the ever suspicious detective. But he saw, very plainly
by this time, that he would have to employ more subtle methods yet
ere his hand would touch the goal which so tantalisingly eluded him.
His work at the bench suffered that week; he made two mistakes. But
by Saturday night he had satisfied himself that he had reached the
point where he would be justified in making use of Miss Challoner's
letters. So he telephoned his wishes to New York, and awaited the
promised developments with an anxiety we can only understand by
realising how much greater were his chances of failure than of
success. To ensure the latter, every factor in his scheme must
work to perfection. The medium of communication (a young, untried
girl) must do her part with all the skill of artist and author
combined. Would she disappoint them? He did not think so. Women
possess a marvellous adaptability for this kind of work and this
one was French, which made the case still more hopeful.
But Brotherson! In what spirit would he meet the proposed advances?
Would he even admit the girl, and, if he did, would the interview
bear any such fruit as Sweetwater hoped for? The man who could
mock the terrors of the night by a careless repetition of a strain
instinct with the most sacred memories, was not to be depended upon
to show much feeling at sight of a departed woman's writing. But
no other hope remained, and Sweetwater faced the attempt with heroic
determination.
The day was Sunday, which ensured Brotherson's being at home.
Nothing would have lured Sweetwater out for a moment, though he had
no reason to expect that the affair he was anticipating would come
off till early evening.
But it did. Late in the afternoon he heard the expected steps go
by his door--a woman's steps. But they were not alone. A man's
accompanied them. What man? Sweetwater hastened to satisfy
himself on this point by laying his ear to the partition.
Instantly the whole conversation became audible. "An errand? Oh,
yes, I have an errand!" explained the evidently unwelcome intruder,
in her broken English. "This is my brother Pierre. My name is
Celeste; Celeste Ledru. I understand English ver well. I have
worked much in families. But he understands nothing. He is all
French. He accompanies me for--for the--what you call it? les
convenances. He knows nothing of the beesiness."
Sweetwater in the darkness of his closet laughed in his gleeful
appreciation.
"Great!" was his comment. "Just great! She has thought of
everything--or Mr. Gryce has."
Meanwhile, the girl was proceeding with increased volubility.
"What is this beesiness, monsieur? I have something to sell--so
you Americans speak. Something you will want much--ver sacred,
ver precious. A souvenir from the tomb, monsieur. Will you give
ten--no, that is too leetle--fifteen dollars for it? It is worth
--Oh, more, much more to the true lover. Pierre, tu es bete.
Teins-tu droit sur ta chaise. M. Brotherson est un monsieur comme
il faut."
This adjuration, uttered in sharp reprimand and with but little of
the French grace, may or may not have been understood by the
unsympathetic man they were meant to impress. But the name which
accompanied them--his own name, never heard but once before in
this house, undoubtedly caused the silence which almost reached the
point of embarrassment, before he broke it with the harsh remark:
"Your French may be good, but it does not go with me. Yet is it
more intelligible than your English. What do you want here? What
have you in that bag you wish to open; and what do you mean by the
sentimental trash with which you offer it?"
"Ah, monsieur has not memory of me," came in the sweetest tones of
a really seductive voice. "You astonish me, monsieur. I thought
you knew--everybody else does--Oh, tout le monde, monsieur,
that I was Miss Challoner's maid--near her when other people were
not--near her the very day she died."
A pause; then an angry exclamation from some one. Sweetwater thought
from the brother, who may have misinterpreted some look or gesture on
Brotherson's part. Brotherson himself would not be apt to show
surprise in any such noisy way.
"I saw many things--Oh many things--" the girl proceeded with an
admirable mixture of suggestion and reserve. "That day and other
days too. She did not talk--Oh, no, she did not talk, but I saw
--Oh, yes, I saw that she--that you--I'll have to say it,
monsieur, that you were tres bons amis after that week in Lenox."
"Well?" His utterance of this word was vigorous, but not tender.
"What are you coming to? What can you have to show me in this
connection that I will believe in for a moment?"
"I have these--is monsieur certaine that no one can hear? I
wouldn't have anybody hear what I have to tell you, for the world
--for all the world."
"No one can overhear."
For the first time that day Sweetwater breathed a full, deep breath.
This assurance had sounded heartfelt. "Blessings on her cunning
young head. She thinks of everything."
"You are unhappy. You have thought Miss Challoner cold;--that she
had no response for your ver ardent passion. But--" these words were
uttered sotto voce and with telling pauses "--but--I--know--ver
much better than that. She was ver proud. She had a right; she was
no poor girl like me--but she spend hours--hours in writing letters
she--nevaire send. I saw one, just once, for a leetle minute; while
you could breathe so short as that; and began with Cheri, or your
English for that, and ended with words--Oh, ver much like these:
You may nevaire see these lines, which was ver interesting, veree so,
and made one want to see what she did with letters she wrote and
nevaire mail; so I watch and look, and one day I see them. She had
a leetle ivory box--Oh, ver nice, ver pretty. I thought it was
jewels she kept locked up so tight. But, non, non, non. It was
letters--these letters. I heard them rattle, rattle, not once but
many times. You believe me, monsieur?"
"I believe you to have taken every advantage possible to spy upon
your mistress. I believe that, yes."
"From interest, monsieur, from great interest."
"Self-interest."
"As monsieur pleases. But it was strange, ver strange for a grande
dame like that to write letters--sheets on sheets--and then not
send them, nevaire. I dreamed of those letters--I could not help
it, no; and when she died so quick--with no word for any one, no
word at all, I thought of those writings so secret, so of the heart,
and when no one noticed--or thought about this box, or--or the key
she kept shut tight, oh, always tight in her leetle gold purse, I
--Monsieur, do you want to see those letters?" asked the girl, with
a gulp. Evidently his appearance frightened her--or had her acting
reached this point of extreme finish? "I had nevaire the chance to
put them back. And--and they belong to monsieur. They are his
--all his--and so beautiful! Ah, just like poetry."
"I don't consider them mine. I haven't a particle of confidence in
you or in your story. You are a thief--self-convicted; or you're
an agent of the police whose motives I neither understand nor care
to investigate. Take up your bag and go. I haven't a cent's worth
of interest in its contents."
She started to her feet. Sweetwater heard her chair grate on the
painted floor, as she pushed it back in rising. The brother rose
too, but more calmly. Brotherson did not stir. Sweetwater felt
his hopes rapidly dying down--down into ashes, when suddenly her
voice broke forth in pants:
"And Marie said--everybody said--that you loved our great lady;
that you, of the people, common, common, working with the hands,
living with men and women working with the hands, that you had soul,
sentiment--what you will of the good and the great, and that you
would give your eyes for her words, si fines, si spirituelles, so
like des vers de poete. False! false! all false! She was an
angel. You are--read that!" she vehemently broke in, opening
her bag and whisking a paper down before him. "Read and understand
my proud and lovely lady. She did right to die. You are hard
--hard. You would have killed her if she had not--"
"Silence, woman! I will read nothing!" came hissing from the strong
man's teeth, set in almost ungovernable anger. "Take back this
letter, as you call it, and leave my room."
"Nevaire! You will not read? But you shall, you shall. Behold
another! One, two, three, four!" Madly they flew from her hand.
Madly she continued her vituperative attack. "Beast! beast! That
she should pour out her innocent heart to you, you! I do not want
your money, Monsieur of the common street, of the common house. It
would be dirt. Pierre, it would be dirt. Ah, bah! je m'oublie tout
a fait. Pierre, il est bete. Il refuse de les toucher. Mais il
faut qu'il les touche, si je les laisse sur le plancher. Va-t'en!
Je me moque de lui. Canaille! L'homme du peuple, tout a fait
du peuple!"
A loud slam--the skurrying of feet through the hall, accompanied
by the slower and heavier tread of the so-called brother, then
silence, and such silence that Sweetwater fancied he could catch
the sound of Brotherson's heavy breathing. His own was silenced
to a gasp. What a treasure of a girl! How natural her indignation!
What an instinct she showed and what comprehension! This high and
mighty handling of a most difficult situation and a most difficult
man, had imposed on Brotherson, had almost imposed upon himself.
Those letters so beautiful, so spirituelle! Yet, the odds were that
she had never read them, much less abstracted them. The minx! the
ready, resourceful, wily, daring minx!
But had she imposed on Brotherson? As the silence continued,
Sweetwater began to doubt. He understood quite well the importance
of his neighbour's first movement. Were he to tear those letters
into shreds! He might be thus tempted. All depended on the strength
of his present mood and the real nature of the secret which lay
buried in his heart.
Was that heart as flinty as it seemed? Was there no place for doubt
or even for curiosity, in its impenetrable depths? Seemingly, he
had not moved foot or hand since his unwelcome visitors had left.
He was doubtless still staring at the scattered sheets lying before
him; possibly battling with unaccustomed impulses; possibly weighing
deeds and consequences in those slow moving scales of his in which
no man could cast a weight with any certainty how far its even
balance would be disturbed.
There was a sound as of settling coal. Only at night would one
expect to hear so slight a sound as that in a tenement full of noisy
children. But the moment chanced to be propitious, and it not only
attracted the attention of Sweetwater on his side of the wall, but
it struck the ear of Brotherson also. With an ejaculation as bitter
as it was impatient, he roused himself and gathered up the letters.
Sweetwater could hear the successive rustlings as he bundled them
up in his hand. Then came another silence--then the lifting of a
stove lid.
Sweetwater had not been wrong in his secret apprehension. His
identification with his unimpressionable neighbour's mood had shown
him what to expect. These letters--these innocent and precious
outpourings of a rare and womanly soul--the only conceivable open
sesame to the hard-locked nature he found himself pitted against,
would soon be resolved into a vanishing puff of smoke.
But the lid was thrust back, and the letters remained in hand.
Mortal strength has its limits. Even Brotherson could not shut
down that lid on words which might have been meant for him, harshly
as he had repelled the idea.
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