Books: The Mayor\'s Wife
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Anna Katherine Green >> The Mayor\'s Wife
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"I have noticed that shop," I admitted, not knowing whether to give
more or less weight to my suspicions in thus finding the mayor's
house under the continued gaze of another watchful eye.
"You will find two women there," the amiable Mr. Robinson hastened
to explain. "The one with a dark red spot just under her hair is
Bess. But perhaps she doesn't interest you. She always has me.
If it had not been for one fact, I should have suspected her of
having been in some way connected with the strange doings we have
just been considering. She was not a member of the household
during the occupancy of Mrs. Crispin and the Westons, yet these
unusual manifestations went on just the same."
"Yes, I noted that."
"So her connivance is eliminated."
"Undoubtedly. I am still disposed to credit the Misses Quinlan
with the whole ridiculous business. They could not bear to see
strangers in the house they had once called their own, and took the
only means suggested to their crazy old minds to rid the place of
them."
Mr. Robinson shook his head, evidently unconvinced. The temptation
was great to strengthen my side of the argument by a revelation of
their real motive. Once acquainted with the story of the missing
bonds he could not fail to see the extreme probability that the two
sisters, afflicted as they were with dementia, should wish to
protect the wealth which was once so near their grasp, from the
possibility of discovery by a stranger. But I dared not take him
quite yet into my full confidence. Indeed, the situation did not
demand it. I had learned from him what I was most anxious to know,
and was now in a position to forward my own projects without
further aid from him. Almost as if he had read my thoughts, Mr.
Robinson now hastened to remark:
"I find it difficult to credit these poor old souls with any such
elaborate plan to empty the house, even had they possessed the most
direct means of doing so, for no better reason than this one you
state. Had money been somehow involved, or had they even thought
so, it would be different. They are a little touched in the head
on the subject of money; which isn't very strange considering their
present straits. They even show an interest in other people's
money. They have asked me more than once if any of their former
neighbors have seemed to grow more prosperous since leaving
Franklin Street."
"I see; touched, touched!" I laughed, rising in my anxiety to hide
any show of feeling at the directness of this purely accidental
attack. But the item struck me as an important one. Mr. Robinson
gave me a keen look as I uttered the usual commonplaces and
prepared to take my leave.
"May I ask your intentions in this matter?" said he.
"I wish I knew them myself," was my perfectly candid answer. "It
strikes me now that my first step should be to ascertain whether
there exists any secret connection between the two houses which
would enable the Misses Quinlan or their emissaries to gain access
to their old home, without ready detection. I know of none, and--"
"There is none," broke in its now emphatic agent. "A half-dozen
tenants, to say nothing of Mr. Searles himself, have looked it
carefully over. All the walls are intact; there is absolutely no
opening anywhere for surreptitious access."
"Possibly not. You certainly discourage me very much. I had hoped
much from my theory. But we are not done with the matter. Mrs.
Packard's mind must be cleared of its fancies, if it is in my power
to do it. You will hear from me again, Mr. Robinson. Meanwhile,
I may be sure of your good will?"
"Certainly, certainly, and of my cooperation also, if you want it."
"Thank you," said I, and left the office.
His last look was one of interest not untinged by compassion.
CHAPTER XI
BESS
On my way back I took the opposite side of the street from that I
usually approached. When I reached the little shop I paused.
First glancing at the various petty articles exposed in the window,
I quietly stepped in. A contracted and very low room met my eyes,
faintly lighted by a row of panes in the upper half of the door and
not at all by the window, which was hung on the inside with a heavy
curtain. Against two sides of this room were arranged shelves
filled with boxes labeled in the usual way to indicate their
contents. These did not strike me as being very varied or of a
very high order. There was no counter in front, only some tables
on which lay strewn fancy boxes of thread and other useless knick-
knacks to which certain shopkeepers appear to cling though they can
seldom find customers for them. A woman stood at one of these
tables untangling a skein of red yarn. Behind her I saw another
leaning in an abstracted way over a counter which ran from wall to
wall across the extreme end of the shop. This I took to be Bess.
She had made no move at my entrance and she made no move now. The
woman with the skein appeared, on the contrary, as eager to see as
the other seemed indifferent. I had to buy something and I did so
in as matter-of-fact a way as possible, considering that my
attention was more given to the woman in the rear than to the
articles I was purchasing.
"You have a very convenient place here," I casually remarked, as I
handed out my money. With this I turned squarely about and looked
directly at her whom I believed to be Bess.
A voluble answer from the woman at my side, but not the wink of an
eye from the one whose attention I had endeavored to attract.
"I live in the house opposite," I carelessly went on, taking in
every detail of the strange being I was secretly addressing.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in startled tones, roused into speech at last.
"You live opposite; in Mayor Packard's house?"
I approached her, smiling. She had dropped her hands from her chin
and seemed very eager now, more eager than the other woman, to
interest me in what she had about her and so hold me to the shop.
"Look at this," she cried, holding up an article of such cheap
workmanship that I wondered so sensible an appearing woman would
cumber her shelves with it. "I am glad you live over there," for
I had nodded to her question. "I'm greatly interested in that
house. I've worked there as cook and waitress several times."
I met her look; it was sharp and very intelligent.
"Then you know its reputation," I laughingly suggested.
She made a contemptuous gesture. The woman was really very
good-looking, but baffling in her manner, as Mr. Robinson had said,
and very hard to classify. "That isn't what interests me," she
protested. "I've other reasons. You're not a relative of the
family, are you?" she asked impetuously, leaning over the table to
get a nearer view of my face.
"No, nor even a friend. I am in their employ just now as a
companion to Mrs. Packard. Her health is not very good, and the
mayor is away a great deal."
"I thought you didn't belong there. I know all who belong there.
I've little else to do but stare across the street," she added
apologetically and with a deep flush. "Business is very poor in
this shop."
I was standing directly in front of her. Turning quickly about, I
looked through the narrow panes of the door, and found that my eyes
naturally rested on the stoop of the opposite house. Indeed, this
stoop was about all that could be seen from the spot where this
woman stood.
"Another eve bent in constant watchfulness upon us," I inwardly
commented. "We are quite surrounded. The house should certainly
hold treasure to warrant all this interest. But what could this
one-time domestic know of the missing bonds?"
"An old-fashioned doorway," I remarked. "It is the only one of the
kind on the whole street. It makes the house conspicuous, but in
a way I like. I don't wonder you enjoy looking at it. To me such
a house and such a doorway suggest mystery and a romantic past.
If the place is not haunted--and only a fool believes in ghosts
--something strange must have happened there or I should never have
the nervous feeling I have in going about the halls and up and down
the stairways. Did you never have that feeling?"
"Never. I'm not given to feelings. I live one day after another
and just wait."
Not given to feelings! With such eyes in such a face! You should
have looked down when you said that, Bess; I might have believed
you then.
"Wait?" I softly repeated. "Wait for what? For fortune to enter
your little shop-door?"
"No, for my husband to come back," was her unexpected answer,
uttered grimly enough to have frightened that husband away again,
had he been fortunate or unfortunate enough to hear her. "I'm a
married woman, Miss, and shouldn't be working like this. And I
won't be always; my man'll come back and make a lady of me again.
It's that I'm waiting for."
Here a customer came in. Naturally I drew back, for our faces were
nearly touching.
"Don't go," she pleaded, catching me by the sleeve and turning
astonishingly pale for one ordinarily so ruddy. "I want to ask a
favor of you. Come into my little room behind. You won't regret
it." This last in an emphatic whisper.
Amazed at the turn which the conversation had taken and
congratulating myself greatly upon my success in insuring her
immediate confidence, I slipped through the opening she made for me
between the tables serving for a counter and followed her into a
room at the rear, which from its appearance answered the triple
purpose of sleeping-room, parlor and kitchen.
"Pardon my impertinence," said she, as she carefully closed the
door behind us. "It's not my habit to make friends with strangers,
but I've taken a fancy to you and think you can be trusted. Will--"
she hesitated, then burst out, "will you do something for me?"
"If I can," I smiled.
"How long do you expect to stay over there?"
"Oh, that I can't say."
"A month? a week?"
"Probably a week."
"Then you can do what I want. Miss--"
"Saunders," I put in.
"There is something in that house which belongs to me."
I started; this was hardly what I expected her to say.
"Something of great importance to me; something which I must have
and have very soon. I don't want to go there for it myself. I hid
it in a very safe place one day when my future looked doubtful, and
I didn't know where I might be going or what might happen to me.
Mrs. Packard would think it strange if she saw where, and might
make it very uncomfortable for me. But you can get what I want
without trouble if you are not afraid of going about the house at
night. It's a little box with my name on it; and it is hidden--"
"Where?"
"Behind a brick I loosened in the cellar wall. I can describe the
very place. Oh, you think I am asking too much of you--a stranger
and a lady."
"No, I'm willing to do what I can for you. But I think you ought
to tell me what's in the box, so that I shall know exactly what I
am doing."
"I can't tell; I do not dare to tell till I have it again in my own
hand. Then we will look it over together. Do you hesitate? You
needn't; no inconvenience will follow to any one, if you are
careful to rely on yourself and not let any other person see or
handle this box."
"How large is it?" I asked, quite as breathless as herself, as I
realized the possibilities underlying this remarkable request.
"It is so small that you can conceal it under an apron or in the
pocket of your coat. In exchange for it, I will give you all I can
afford--ten dollars."
"No more than that?" I asked, testing her.
"No more at first. Afterward--if it brings me what it ought to, I
will give you whatever you think it is worth. Does that satisfy
you? Are you willing to risk an encounter with the ghost, for just
ten dollars and a promise?"
The smile with which she said this was indescribable. I think it
gave me a more thrilling consciousness of human terror in face of
the supernatural than anything which I had yet heard in this
connection. Surely her motive for remaining in the haunted house
had been extraordinarily strong.
"You are afraid," she declared. "You will shrink, when the time
comes, from going into that cellar at night."
I shook my head; I had already regained both my will-power and the
resolution to carry out this adventure to the end.
"I will go," said I.
"And get me my box?"
"Yes!"
"And bring it to me here as early the next day as you can leave
Mrs. Packard?"
"Yes."
"Oh, you don't know what this means to me."
I had a suspicion, but held my peace and let her rhapsodize.
"No one in all my life has ever shown me so much kindness! Are you
sure you won't be tempted to tell any one what you mean to do?"
"Quite sure."
"And will go down into the cellar and get this box for me, all by
yourself?"
"Yes, if you demand it."
"I do; you will see why some day."
"Very well, you can trust me. Now tell me where I am to find the
brick you designate."
"It's in the cellar wall, about half-way down on the right-hand
side. You will see nothing but stone for a foot or two above the
floor, but after that comes the brick wall. On one of these
bricks you will detect a cross scratched. That's the one. It will
look as well cemented as the rest, but if you throw water against
it, you will find that in a little while you will be able to pry it
out. Take something to do this with, a knife or a pair of
scissors. When the brick falls out, feel behind with your hand and
you will find the box."
"A questionable task. What if I should be seen at it?"
"The ghost will protect you!"
Again that smile of mingled sarcasm and innuendo. It was no common
servant girl's smile, any more than her language was that of the
ignorant domestic.
"I believe the ghost fails to walk since the present tenants came
into the house," I remarked.
"But its reputation remains; you'll not be disturbed."
"Possibly not; a good reason why you might safely undertake the
business yourself. I can find some way of letting you in."
"No, no. I shall never again cross that threshold!" Her whole
attitude showed revolt and bitter determination.
"Yet you have never been frightened by anything there?"
"I know; but I have suffered; that is, for one who has no feelings.
The box will have to remain in its place undisturbed if you won't
get it for me."
"Positively?"
"Yes, Miss; nothing would induce me even to cross the street. But
I want the box."
"You shall have it," said I.
CHAPTER XII
SEARCHINGS
I seemed bound to be the prey of a divided duty. As I crossed the
street, I asked myself which of the two experiments I had in mind
should occupy my attention first. Should I proceed at once with
that close study and detailed examination of the house, which I
contemplated in my eagerness to establish my theory of a secret
passage between it and the one now inhabited by the Misses Quinlan,
or should I wait to do this until I had recovered the box, which
might hold still greater secrets?
I could not decide, so I resolved to be guided by circumstances.
If Mrs. Packard were still out, I did not think I could sit down
till I had a complete plan of the house as a start in the inquiry
which interested me most.
Mrs. Packard was still out,--so much Nixon deigned to tell me in
answer to my question. Whether the fact displeased him or not I
could not say, but he was looking very sour and seemed to resent
the trouble he had been to in opening the door for me. Should I
notice this, even by an attempt to conciliate him? I decided not.
A natural manner was best; he was too keen not to notice and give
his own interpretation to uncalled for smiles or words which
contrasted too strongly with his own marked reticence. I therefore
said nothing as he pottered slowly back into his own quarters in
the rear, but lingered about down-stairs till I was quite sure he
was out of sight and hearing. Then I came back and took up my
point of view on the spot where the big hall clock had stood in the
days of Mr. Dennison. Later, I made a drawing of this floor as it
must have looked at that time. You will find it on the opposite
page.
[transcriber's note: The plan shows the house to have two rows of
rooms with a hall between. In the front each room ends in a bow
window. On the right the drawing-room has two doors opening into
the hall, equally spaced near the front and rear of the room.
Across the hall are two rooms of apparently equal size; a reception
room in front and the library behind it, both rooms having windows
facing on the alley. There is a stairway in the hall just behind
the door to the reception room. The study is behind the drawing-
room. Opposite this is a side hall and the dining-room. The
library and dining-room both open off this hall with the dining
room also having doors to the main hall and kitchen. The side hall
ends with a stoop in the alley. A small room labeled kitchen, etc.
lies behind the dining-room and the hall extends beyond the study
beside the kitchen with the cellar stairs on the kitchen side.
There is a small rectangle in the hall about two-thirds of the way
down the side of the drawing-room which is labeled A.]
Near the place where I stood (marked A on the plan), had occurred
most of the phenomena, which could be located at all. Here the
spectral hand had been seen stopping the clock. Here the shape
had passed encountered by Mr. Weston's cook, and just a few steps
beyond where the library door opened under the stairs Mr. Searles
had seen the flitting figure which had shut his mouth on the
subject of his tenants' universal folly. From the front then
toward the back these manifestations had invariably peeped to
disappear--where? That was what I was to determine; what I am
sure Mayor Packard would wish me to determine if he knew the whole
situation as I knew it from his wife's story and the record I had
just read at the agent's office.
Alas! there were many points of exit from this portion of the hall.
The drawing-room opened near; so did Mayor Packard's study; then
there was the kitchen with its various offices, ending as I knew in
the cellar stairs. Nearer I could see the door leading into the
dining-room and, opening closer yet, the short side hall running
down to what had once been the shallow vestibule of a small side
entrance, but which, as I had noted many times in passing to and
from the dining-room, was now used as a recess or alcove to hold a
cabinet of Indian curios. In which of these directions should I
carry my inquiry? All looked equally unpromising, unless it was
Mayor Packard's study, and that no one with the exception of Mr.
Steele ever entered save by his invitation, not even his wife. I
could not hope to cross that threshold, nor did I greatly desire to
invade the kitchen, especially while Nixon was there. Should I
have to wait till the mayor's return for the cooperation my task
certainly demanded? It looked that way. But before yielding to
the discouragement following this thought, I glanced about me again
and suddenly remembered, first the creaking board, which had once
answered to the so-called spirit's flight, and secondly the fact
which common sense should have suggested before, that if my theory
were true and the secret presence, whose coming and going I had
been considering, had fled by some secret passage leading to the
neighboring house, then by all laws of convenience and natural
propriety that passage should open from the side facing the Quinlan
domicile, and not from that holding Mayor Packard's study and the
remote drawing-room.
This considerably narrowed my field of inquiry, and made me
immediately anxious to find that creaking board which promised to
narrow it further yet.
Where should I seek it? In these rear halls, of course, but I
hated to be caught pacing them at this hour. Nixon's step had not
roused it or I should have noticed it, for I was, in a way,
listening for this very sound. It was not in the direct path then
from the front door to the kitchen. Was it on one side or in the
space about the dining-room door or where the transverse corridor
met the main hall? All these floors were covered in the old-
fashioned way with carpet, which would seem to show that no new
boards had been laid and that the creaking one should still be
here.
I ventured to go as far as the transverse hall,--I was at full
liberty to enter the library. But no result followed this
experiment; my footsteps had never fallen more noiselessly. Where
could the board be? In aimless uncertainty I stepped into the
corridor and instantly a creak woke under my foot. I had located
the direction in which one of the so-called phantoms had fled. It
was down this transverse hall.
Flushed with apparent success, I looked up at the walls on either
side of me. They were gray with paint and presented one unbroken
surface from base-board to ceiling, save where the two doorways
opened, one into the library, the other into the dining-room. Had
the flying presence escaped by either of these two rooms? I knew
the dining-room well. I had had several opportunities for studying
its details. I thought I knew the library; besides, Mr. Searles
had been in the library when the shape advanced upon him from the
hall,--a fact eliminating that room as a possible source of
approach! What then was left? The recess which had once served as
an old-time entrance. Ah, that gave promise of something. It
projected directly toward where the adjacent walls had once held
two doors, between which any sort of mischief might take place.
Say that the Misses Quinlan had retained certain keys. What easier
than for one of them to enter the outer door, strike a light, open
the inner one and flash this light up through the house till steps
or voices warned her of an aroused family, when she had only to
reclose the inside door, put out the light and escape by the outer
one.
But alas! at this point I remembered that this, as well as all
other outside doors, had invariably been protected by bolt, and
that these bolts had never been found disturbed. Veritably I was
busying myself for nothing over this old vestibule. Yet before I
left it I gave it another glance; satisfied myself that its walls
were solid; in fact, built of brick like the house. This on two
sides; the door occupied the third and showed the same unbroken
coat of thick, old paint, its surface barely hidden by the cabinet
placed at right angles to it. Enough of it, however, remained
exposed to view to give me an opportunity of admiring its sturdy
panels and its old-fashioned lock. The door was further secured by
heavy pivoted bars extending from jamb to jamb. An egg-and-dart
molding extended all around the casing, where the inner door had
once hung. All solid, all very old-fashioned, but totally
unsuggestive of any reasonable solution of the mystery I had
vaguely hoped it to explain. Was I mistaken in my theory, and must
I look elsewhere for what I still honestly expected to find?
Undoubtedly; and with this decision I turned to leave the recess,
when a sensation, of too peculiar a nature for me readily to
understand it, caused me to stop short, and look down at my feet in
an inquiring way and afterward to lift the rug on which I had been
standing and take a look at the floor underneath. It was covered
with carpet, like the rest of the hall, but this did not disguise
the fact that it sloped a trifle toward the outside wall. Had not
the idea been preposterous, I should have said that the weight of
the cabinet had been too much for it, causing it to sag quite
perceptibly at the base-board. But this seemed too improbable to
consider. Old as the house was, it was not old enough for its
beams to have rolled. Yet the floor was certainly uneven, and,
what was stranger yet, had, in sagging, failed to carry the base-
board with it. This I could see by peering around the side of the
cabinet. Was it an important enough fact to call for explanation?
Possibly not; yet when I had taken a short leap up and come down on
what was certainly an unstable floor, I decided that I should never
be satisfied till I had seen that cabinet removed and the floor
under it rigidly examined.
Yet when I came to take a look at this projection from the library
window and saw that this floor, like that of the many entrances,
was only the height of one step from the ground, I felt the folly
into which my inquiring spirit had led me, and would have dismissed
the whole subject from my mind if my eyes had not detected at that
moment on one of the tables an unusually thin paper-knife. This
gave me an idea. Carrying it back with me into the recess, I got
down on my knees, and first taking the precaution to toss a little
stick-pin of mine under the cabinet to be reached after in case I
was detected there by Nixon, I insinuated the cutter between the
base-board and the floor and found that I could not only push it in
an inch or more before striking the brick, but run it quite freely
around from one corner of the recess to the other. This was surely
surprising. The exterior of this vestibule must be considerably
larger than the interior would denote. What occupied the space
between? I went upstairs full of thought. Sometime, and that
before long, I would have that cabinet removed.
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