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Anna Katharine Green >> Initials Only
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The pause which followed told little; but when Sweetwater heard the
man within move with characteristic energy to the door, turn the
key and step back again to his place at the table, he knew that
the danger moment had passed and that those letters were about to
be read, not casually, but seriously, as indeed their contents
merited.
This caused Sweetwater to feel serious himself. Upon what result
might he calculate? What would happen to this hardy soul, when the
fact he so scornfully repudiated, was borne in upon him, and he saw
that the disdain which had antagonised him was a mere device--a
cloak to hide the secret heart of love and eager womanly devotion?
Her death--little as Brotherson would believe it up till now--had
been his personal loss the greatest which can befall a man. When
he came to see this--when the modest fervour of her unusual nature
began to dawn upon him in these self-revelations, would the result
be remorse, or just the deadening and final extinction of whatever
tenderness he may have retained for her memory?
Impossible to tell. The balance of probability hung even.
Sweetwater recognised this, and clung, breathless, to his loop-hole.
Fain would he have seen, as well as heard.
Mr. Brotherson read the first letter, standing. As it soon became
public property, I will give it here, just as it afterwards appeared
in the columns of the greedy journals:
"Beloved:
"When I sit, as I often do, in perfect quiet under the stars,
and dream that you are looking at them too, not for hours as I
do, but for one full moment in which your thoughts are with me as
wholly as mine are with you, I feel that the bond between us,
unseen by the world, and possibly not wholly recognised by
ourselves, is instinct with the same power which links together
the eternities.
"It seems to have always been; to have known no beginning, only a
budding, an efflorescence, the visible product of a hidden but
always present reality. A month ago and I was ignorant, even, of
your name. Now, you seem the best known to me, the best understood,
of God's creatures. One afternoon of perfect companionship--one
flash of strong emotion, with its deep, true insight into each
other's soul, and the miracle was wrought. We had met, and
henceforth, parting would mean separation only, and not the
severing of a mutual bond. One hand, and one only, could do that
now. I will not name that hand. For us there is nought ahead but
life.
"Thus do I ease my heart in the silence which conditions impose
upon us. Some day I shall hear your voice again, and then-"
The paper dropped from the reader's hand. It was several minutes
before he took up another.
This one, as it happened, antedated the other, as will appear on
reading it:
"My friend:
"I said that I could not write to you--that we must wait. You
were willing; but there is much to be accomplished, and the
silence may be long. My father is not an easy man to please, but
he desires my happiness and will listen to my plea when the right
hour comes. When you have won your place--when you have shown
yourself to be the man I feel you to be, then my father will
recognise your worth, and the way will be cleared, despite the
obstacles which now intervene.
"But meantime! Ah, you will not know it, but words will rise
--the heart must find utterance. What the lip cannot utter, nor
the looks reveal, these pages shall hold in sacred trust for you
till the day when my father will place my hand in yours, with
heart-felt approval.
"Is it a folly? A woman's weak evasion of the strong silence of
man? You may say so some day; but somehow, I doubt it--I doubt
it."
The creaking of a chair;--the man within had seated himself. There
was no other sound; a soul in turmoil wakens no echoes. Sweetwater
envied the walls surrounding the unsympathetic reader. They could
see. He could only listen.
A little while; then that slight rustling again of the unfolding
sheet. The following was read, and then the fourth and last:
"Dearest:
"Did you think I had never seen you till that day we met in Lenox?
I am going to tell you a secret--a great, great secret--such a
one as a woman hardly whispers to her own heart.
"One day, in early summer, I was sitting in St. Bartholomew's
Church on Fifth Avenue, waiting for the services to begin. It
was early and the congregation was assembling. While idly
watching the people coming in, I saw a gentleman pass by me up
the aisle, who made me forget all the others. He had not the
air of a New Yorker; he was not even dressed in city style, but
as I noted his face and expression, I said way down in my heart,
'That is the kind of man I could love; the only man I have ever
seen who could make me forget my own world and my own people.'
It was a passing thought, soon forgotten. But when in that hour
of embarrassment and peril on Greylock Mountain, I looked up into
the face of my rescuer and saw again that countenance which so
short a time before had called into life impulses till then
utterly unknown, I knew that my hour was come. And that was why
my confidence was so spontaneous and my belief in the future so
absolute.
"I trust your love which will work wonders; and I trust my own,
which sprang at a look but only gathered strength and permanence
when I found that the soul of the man I loved bettered his outward
attractions, making the ideal of my foolish girlhood seem as
unsubstantial and evanescent as a dream in the glowing noontide."
"My Own:
"I can say so now; for you have written to me, and I have the
dancing words with which to silence any unsought doubt which might
subdue the exuberance of these secret outpourings.
"I did not expect this. I thought that you would remain as silent
as myself. But men's ways are not our ways. They cannot exhaust
longing in purposeless words on scraps of soulless paper, and I am
glad that they cannot. I love you for your impatience; for your
purpose, and for the manliness which will win for you yet all that
you covet of fame, accomplishment and love. You expect no reply,
but there are ways in which one can keep silent and yet speak.
Won't you be surprised when your answer comes in a manner you have
never thought of?"
XX
CONFUSION
In his interest in what was going on on the other side of the wall,
Sweetwater had forgotten himself. Daylight had declined, but in the
darkness of the closet this change had passed unheeded. Night
itself might come, but that should not force him to leave his post
so long as his neighbour remained behind his locked door, brooding
over the words of love and devotion which had come to him, as it
were from the other world.
But was he brooding? That sound of iron clattering upon iron!
That smothered exclamation and the laugh which ended it! Anger and
determination rang in that laugh. It had a hideous sound which
prepared Sweetwater for the smell which now reached his nostrils.
The letters were burning; this time the lid had been lifted from
the stove with unrelenting purpose. Poor Edith Challoner's touching
words had met, a different fate from any which she, in her ignorance
of this man's nature,--a nature to which she had ascribed untold
perfections--could possibly have conceived.
As Sweetwater thought of this, he stirred nervously in the darkness,
and broke into silent invective against the man who could so insult
the memory of one who had perished under the blight of his own
coldness and misunderstanding. Then he suddenly started back
surprised and apprehensive. Brotherson had unlocked his door, and
was coming rapidly his way. Sweetwater heard his step in the hall
and had hardly time to bound from his closet, when he saw his own
door burst in and found himself face to face with his redoubtable
neighbour, in a state of such rage as few men could meet without
quailing, even were they of his own stature, physical vigour and
prowess; and Sweetwater was a small man.
However, disappointment such as he had just experienced brings with
it a desperation which often outdoes courage, and the detective,
smiling with an air of gay surprise, shouted out:
"Well, what's the matter now? Has the machine busted, or tumbled
into the fire or sailed away to lands unknown out of your open
window?"
"You were coming out of that closet," was the fierce rejoinder.
"What have you got there? Something which concerns me, or why
should your face go pale at my presence and your forehead drip
with sweat? Don't think that you've deceived me for a moment as
to your business here. I recognised you immediately. You've
played the stranger well, but you've a nose and an eye nobody could
forget. I have known all along that I had a police spy for a
neighbour; but it didn't faze me. I've nothing to conceal, and
wouldn't mind a regiment of you fellows if you'd only play a
straight game. But when it comes to foisting upon me a parcel of
letters to which I have no right, and then setting a fellow like
you to count my groans or whatever else they expected to hear, I
have a right to defend myself, and defend myself I will, by God!
But first, let me be sure that my accusations will stand. Come
into this closet with me. It abuts on the wall of my room and has
its own secret, I know. What is it? I have you at an advantage
now, and you shall tell."
He did have Sweetwater at an advantage, and the detective knew it
and disdained a struggle which would have only called up a crowd,
friendly to the other but inimical to himself. Allowing Brotherson
to drag him into the closet, he stood quiescent, while the
determined man who held him with one hand, felt about with the
other over the shelves and along the partitions till he came to
the hole which had offered such a happy means of communication
between the two rooms. Then, with a laugh almost as bitter in tone
as that which rang from Brotherson's lips, he acknowledged that
business had its necessities and that apologies from him were in
order; adding, as they both stepped out into the rapidly darkening
room:
"We've played a bout, we two; and you've come out ahead. Allow me
to congratulate you, Mr. Brotherson. You've cleared yourself so
far as I am concerned. I leave this ranch to-night."
The frown had come back to the forehead of the indignant man who
confronted him.
"So you listened," he cried; "listened when you weren't sneaking
under my eye! A fine occupation for a man who can dove-tail a
corner like an adept. I wish I had let you join the brotherhood
you were good enough to mention. They would know how to appreciate
your double gifts and how to reward your excellence in the one, if
not in the other. What did the police expect to learn about me that
they should consider it necessary to call into exercise such
extraordinary talents?"
"I'm not good at conundrums. I was given a task to perform, and I
performed it," was Sweetwater's sturdy reply. Then slowly, with
his eye fixed directly upon his antagonist, "I guess they
thought you a man. And so did I until I heard you burn those
letters. Fortunately we have copies."
"Letters!" Fury thickened the speaker's voice, and lent a savage
gleam to his eye. "Forgeries! Make believes! Miss Challoner never
wrote the drivel you dare to designate as letters. It was concocted
at Police Headquarters. They made me tell my story and then they
found some one who could wield the poetic pen. I'm obliged to them
for the confidence they show in my credulity. I credit Miss
Challoner with such words as have been given me to read here to-day?
I knew the lady, and I know myself. Nothing that passed between us,
not an event in which we were both concerned, has been forgotten by
me, and no feature of our intercourse fits the language you have
ascribed to her. On the contrary, there is a lamentable
contradiction between facts as they were and the fancies you have
made her indulge in. And this, as you must acknowledge, not only
proves their falsity, but exonerates Miss Challoner from all possible
charge of sentimentality."
"Yet she certainly wrote those letters. We had them from Mr.
Challoner. The woman who brought them was really her maid. We
have not deceived you in this."
"I do not believe you."
It was not offensively said; but the conviction it expressed was
absolute. Sweetwater recognised the tone, as one of truth, and
inwardly laid down his arms. He could never like the man; there
was too much iron in his fibre; but he had to acknowledge that
as a foe he was invulnerable and therefore admirable to one who
had the good sense to appreciate him.
"I do not want to believe you." Thus did Brotherson supplement
his former sentence. "For if I were to attribute those letters to
her, I should have to acknowledge that they were written to another
man than myself. And this would be anything but agreeable to me.
Now I am going to my room and to my work. You may spend the rest
of the evening or the whole night, if you will, listening at that
hole. As heretofore, the labour will be all yours, and the
indifference mine."
With a satirical play of feature which could hardly be called a
smile, he nodded and left the room.
XXI
A CHANGE
"It's all up. I'm beaten on my own ground." Thus confessed
Sweetwater, in great dejection, to himself. "But I'm going to
take advantage of the permission he's just given me and continue
the listening act. Just because he told me to and just because he
thinks I won't. I'm sure it's no worse than to spend hours of
restless tossing in bed, trying to sleep."
But our young detective did neither.
As he was putting his supper dishes away, a messenger boy knocked
at his door and handed him a note. It was from Mr. Gryce and ran
thus:
"Steal off, if you can, and as soon as you can, and meet me in
Twenty-ninth Street. A discovery has been made which alters the
whole situation."
XXII
O. B. AGAIN
"What's happened? Something very important. I ought to hope so
after this confounded failure."
"Failure? Didn't he read the letters?"
"Yes, he read them. Had to, but--"
"Didn't weaken? Eh?"
"No, he didn't weaken. You can't get water out of a millstone.
You may squeeze and squeeze; but it's your fingers which suffer, not
it. He thinks we manufactured those letters ourselves on purpose
draw him."
"Humph! I knew we had a reputation for finesse, but I didn't know
that it ran that high."
"He denies everything. Said she would never have written such
letters to him; even goes so far to declare that if she did write
them--(he must be strangely ignorant of her handwriting) they were
meant for some other man than himself. All rot, but--" A hitch of
the shoulder conveyed Sweetwater's disgust. His uniform good nature
was strangely disturbed.
But Mr. Gryce's was not. The faint smile with which he smoothed
with an easy, circling movement, the already polished top of his
ever present cane conveyed a secret complacency which called up a
flash of discomfiture to his greatly irritated companion.
"He says that, does he? You found him on the whole tolerably
straightforward, eh? A hard nut; but hard nuts are usually sound
ones. Come, now! prejudice aside, what's your honest opinion of the
man you've had under your eye and ear for three solid weeks? Hasn't
there been the best of reasons for your failure? Speak up, my boy.
Squarely, now."
"I can't. I hate the fellow. I hate any one who makes me look
ridiculous. He--well, well, if you'll have it, sir, I will say
this much. If it weren't for that blasted coincidence of the two
deaths equally mysterious, equally under his eye, I'd stake my life
on his honesty. But that coincidence stumps me and--and a sort of
feeling I have here."
It is to be hoped that the slap he gave his breast, at this point,
carried off some of his superfluous emotion. "You can't account
for a feeling, Mr. Gryce. The man has no heart. He's as hard as
rocks."
"A not uncommon lack where the head plays so big a part. We can't
hang him on any such argument as that. You've found no evidence
against him?"
"N--no." The hesitating admission was only a proof of Sweetwater's
obstinacy.
"Then listen to this. The test with the letters failed, because
what he said about them was true. They were not meant for him.
Miss Challoner had another lover."
"Only another? I thought there were a half-dozen, at least."
"Another whom she favoured. The letters found in her possession
--not the ones she wrote herself, but those which were written to
her over the signature O. B. were not all from the same hand.
Experts have been busy with them for a week, and their reports are
unanimous. The O. B. who wrote the threatening lines acknowledged
to by Orlando Brotherson, was not the O. B. who penned all of those
love letters. The similarity in the writing misled us at first,
but once the doubt was raised by Mr. Challoner's discovery of an
allusion in one of them which pointed to another writer than Mr.
Brotherson, and experts had no difficulty in reaching the decision
I have mentioned."
"Two O. B.s! Isn't that incredible, Mr. Gryce?"
"Yes, it is incredible; but the incredible is not the impossible.
The man you've been shadowing denies that these expressive effusions
of Miss Challoner were meant for him. Let us see, then, if we can
find the man they were meant for."
"The second O. B.?"
"Yes."
Sweetwater's face instantly lit up.
"Do you mean that I--after my egregious failure--am not to be
kept on the dunce's seat? That you will give me this new job?"
"Yes. We don't know of a better man. It isn't your fault, you said
it yourself, that water couldn't be squeezed out of a millstone."
"The Superintendent--how does he feel about it?"
"He was the first one to mention you."
"And the Inspector?"
"Is glad to see us on a new tack."
A pause, during which the eager light in the young detective's eye
clouded over. Presently he remarked:
"How will the finding of another O. B. alter Mr. Brotherson's
position? He still will be the one person on the spot, known to
have cherished a grievance against the victim of this mysterious
killing. To my mind, this discovery of a more favoured rival,
brings in an element of motive which may rob our self-reliant
friend of some of his complacency. We may further, rather than
destroy, our case against Brotherson by locating a second O.B."
Mr. Gryce's eyes twinkled.
"That won't make your task any more irksome," he smiled. "The
loop we thus throw out is as likely to catch Brotherson as his
rival. It all depends upon the sort of man we find in this second
O. B.; and whether, in some way unknown to us, he gave her cause
for the sudden and overwhelming rush of despair which alone supports
this general theory of suicide."
"The prospect grows pleasing. Where am I to look for my man?"
"Your ticket is bought to Derby, Pennsylvania. If he is not employed
in the great factories there, we do not know where to find him. We
have no other clew."
"I see. It's a short journey I have before me."
"It'll bring the colour to your cheeks."
"Oh, I'm not kicking."
"You will start to-morrow."
"Wish it were to-day."
"And you will first inquire, not for O. B., that's too indefinite;
but for a young girl by the name of Doris Scott. She holds the
clew; or rather she is the clew to this second O. B."
"Another woman!"
"No, a child;--well, I won't say child exactly; she must be sixteen."
"Doris Scott."
"She lives in Derby. Derby is a small place. You will have no
trouble in finding this child. It was to her Miss Challoner's last
letter was addressed. The one--"
"I begin to see."
"No, you don't, Sweetwater. The affair is as blind as your hat;
nobody sees. We're just feeling along a thread. O. B.'s letters
--the real O. B., I mean, are the manliest effusions possible.
He's no more of a milksop than this Brotherson; and unlike your
indomitable friend he seems to have some heart. I only wish he'd
given us some facts; they would have been serviceable. But the
letters reveal nothing except that he knew Doris. He writes in
one of them: 'Doris is learning to embroider. It's like a fairy
weaving a cobweb!' Doris isn't a very common name. She must be
the same little girl to whom Miss Challoner wrote from time to time."
"Was this letter signed O. B.?"
"Yes; they all are. The only difference between his letters and
Brotherson's is this: Brotherson's retain the date and address;
the second O. B.'s do not."
"How not? Torn off, do you mean?"
"Yes, or rather, neatly cut away; and as none of the envelopes
were kept, the only means by which we can locate the writer is
through this girl Doris."
"If I remember rightly Miss Challoner's letter to this child was
free from all mystery."
"Quite so. It is as open as the day. That is why it has been
mentioned as showing the freedom of Miss Challoner's mind five
minutes before that fatal thrust."
Sweetwater took up the sheet Mr. Gryce pushed towards him and
re-read these lines:
"Dear Little Doris:
"It is a snowy night, but it is all bright inside and I feel no
chill in mind or body. I hope it is so in the little cottage in
Derby; that my little friend is as happy with harsh winds blowing
from the mountains as she was on the summer day she came to see
me at this hotel. I like to think of her as cheerful and beaming,
rejoicing in tasks which make her so womanly and sweet. She is
often, often in my mind.
"Affectionately your friend,
"EDITH A. CHALLONER."
"That to a child of sixteen!"
"Just so."
"D-o-r-i-s spells something besides Doris."
"Yet there is a Doris. Remember that O. B. says in one of his
letters, 'Doris is learning to embroider.'"
"Yes, I remember that."
"So you must first find Doris."
"Very good, sir."
"And as Miss Challoner's letter was directed to Derby, Pennsylvania,
you will go to Derby."
"Yes, sir."
"Anything more?"
"I've been reading this letter again."
"It's worth it."
"The last sentence expresses a hope."
"That has been noted."
Sweetwater's eyes slowly rose till they rested on Mr. Gryce's face:
"I'll cling to the thread you've given me. I'll work myself through
the labyrinth before us till I reach HIM."
Mr. Gryce smiled; but there was more age, wisdom and sympathy for
youthful enthusiasm in that smile than there was confidence or hope.
BOOK III
THE HEART OF MAN
XXIII
DORIS
"A young girl named Doris Scott?"
The station-master looked somewhat sharply at the man he was
addressing, and decided to give the direction asked.
"There is but one young girl in town of that name," he declared,
"and she lives in that little house you see just beyond the works.
But let me tell you, stranger," he went on with some precipitation--
But here he was called off, and Sweetwater lost the conclusion of
his warning, if warning it was meant to be. This did not trouble
the detective. He stood a moment, taking in the prospect; decided
that the Works and the Works alone made the town, and started for
the house which had been pointed out to him. His way lay through
the chief business street, and greatly preoccupied by his errand,
he gave but a passing glance to the rows on rows of workmen's
dwellings stretching away to the left in seemingly endless
perspective. Yet in that glance he certainly took in the fact
that the sidewalks were blocked with people and wondered if it
were a holiday. If so, it must be an enforced one, for the
faces showed little joy. Possibly a strike was on. The anxiety
he everywhere saw pictured on young faces and old, argued some
trouble; but if the trouble was that, why were all heads turned
indifferently from the Works, and why were the Works themselves
in full blast?
These questions he may have asked himself and he may not. His
attention was entirely centred on the house he saw before him
and on the possible developments awaiting him there. Nothing else
mattered. Briskly he stepped out along the sandy road, and after
a turn or two which led him quite away from the Works and its
surrounding buildings, he came out upon the highway and this house.
It was a low and unpretentious one, and had but one distinguishing
feature. The porch which hung well over the doorstep was unique
in shape and gave an air of picturesqueness to an otherwise simple
exterior; a picturesqueness which was much enhanced in its effect
by the background of illimitable forest, which united the foreground
of this pleasing picture with the great chain of hills which held
the Works and town in its ample basin.
As he approached the doorstep, his mind involuntarily formed an
anticipatory image of the child whose first stitches in embroidery
were like a fairy's weaving to the strong man who worked in ore and
possibly figured out bridges. That she would prove to be of the
anemic type, common among working girls gifted with an imagination
they have but scant opportunity to exercise, he had little doubt.
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