Afternoon Tea Mysteries, Volume Two: A Collection of Cozy Mysteries (Four thrilling novels in one volume!)

by Marion Bryce

  “Can you ask?” murmured the young man, with a shocked look at his uncle’s changed expression.

  “As to this other matter, we will let it rest for to-night. To-morrow’s revelations may be more favorable than we expect. At all events let us try and get a little rest now; I am sure we are both in a condition to need it.”

  Bertram rose. “I am at your command,” said he, and moved to go. Suddenly he turned, and the two men stood face to face. “I have no wish,” pursued he, “to be relieved of my burden at the expense of any one else. If it is to be borne by any one, let it be carried by him who is young and stalwart enough to sustain it.” And his hand went out involuntarily towards his uncle.

  Mr. Sylvester took that hand and eyed his nephew long and earnestly. Bertram thought he was going to speak, and nerved himself to meet with fortitude whatever might be said. But the lips which Mr. Sylvester had opened, closed firmly, and contenting himself with a mere wring of his nephew’s hand, he allowed him to go. The slip of paper remained upon the table unopened.

  That night as Paula lay slumbering on her pillow, a sound passed through the house. It was like a quick irrepressible cry of desolation, and the poor child hearing it, started, thinking her name had been called. But when she listened, all was still, and believing she had dreamed, she turned her face upon her pillow, and softly murmuring the name that was dearest to her in all the world, fell again into a peaceful sleep.

  But he whose voice had uttered that cry in the dreary emptiness of the great parlors below, slept not.

  XXXVI. MORNING.

  “Two maidens by one fountain’s, joyous brink,

  And one was sail and one had cause for sadness.”

  Cicely Stuyvesant waiting for her father at the foot of the stairs, on the morning after these occurrences, was a pretty and a touching spectacle. She had not slept very well the night before, and her brow showed signs of trouble and so did her trembling lips. She held in her hand a letter which she twirled about with very unsteady fingers. The morning was bright, but she did not seem to observe it; the air was fresh, but it did not seem to invigorate her. A rose-leaf of care lay on the tremulous waters of her soul, and her sensitive nature thrilled under it.

  “Why does he not come?” she whispered, looking again at the letter’s inscription.

  It was in Mr. Sylvester’s handwriting, and ought not to have occasioned her any uneasiness, but her father had intimated a wish the night before, that she should not come down into the parlor if Bertram called, and—Her thoughts paused there, but she was anxious about the letter and wished her father would hasten.

  Let us look at the little lady. She had been so bright and lovesome yesterday at this time. Never a maiden in all this great city of ours had shown a sweeter or more etherial smile. At once radiant and reserved, she flashed on the eye and trembled from the grasp like some dainty tropical creature as yet unused to our stranger clime. Her father had surveyed her with satisfaction, and her lover—oh, that we were all young again to experience that leap of the heart with which youth meets and recognizes the sweet perfections of the woman it adores! But a mist had obscured the radiance of her aspect, and she looks very sad as she stands in her father’s hall this morning, leaning her cheek against the banister, and thinking of the night when three years ago, she lingered in that very spot, and watched the form of the young musician go by her and disappear in the darkness of the night, as she then thought forever. Joy had come to her by such slow steps and after such long waiting. Hope had burst upon her so brilliantly, and with such a speedy promise of culmination. She thrilled as she thought how short a time ago it was, since she leaned upon Bertram’s arm and dropped her eyes before his gaze.

  The appearance of her father at length aroused her. Flushing slightly, she held the letter towards him.

  “A letter for you, papa. I thought you might like to read it before you went out.”

  Mr. Stuyvesant, who for an hour or more had been frowning over his morning paper with a steady pertinacity that left more than the usual amount of wrinkles upon his brow, started at the wistful tone of this announcement from his daughter’s lips, and taking the letter from her hand, stepped into the parlor to peruse it. It was, as the handwriting declared, from Mr. Sylvester, and ran thus:

  “DEAR MR. STUYVESANT:

  “I have heard of your loss and am astounded. Though the Bank is not liable for any accident to trusts of this nature, both Bertram and myself are determined to make every effort possible, to detect and punish the man who either through our negligence, or by means of the opportunities afforded him under our present system of management, has been able to commit this robbery upon your effects. We therefore request that you will meet us at the bank this morning at as early an hour as practicable, there to assist us in making such inquiries and instituting such measures, as may be considered necessary to the immediate attainment of the object desired.

  “Respectfully yours,

  “EDWARD SYLVESTER.”

  “Is it anything serious?” asked his daughter, coming into the parlor and looking up into his face with a strange wistfulness he could not fail to remark.

  Mr. Stuyvesant gave her a quick glance, shook his head with some nervousness and hastily pocketed the epistle. “Business,” mumbled he, “business.” And ignoring the sigh that escaped her lips, began to make his preparations for going at once down town.

  He was always an awkward man at such matters, and it was her habit to afford him what assistance she could. This she now did, lending her hand to help him on with his overcoat, going on tip-toe to tie his muffler, and bending her bright head to see that his galoshes were properly fastened; her charming face with its far away look, shining strangely sweet in the dim hall, in contrast with his severe and antiquated countenance.

  He watched her carefully but with seeming indifference till all was done and he stood ready to depart, then in an awkward enough way—he was not accustomed to bestow endearments—drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead; after which he turned about and departed without a word to season or explain this unwonted manifestation of tenderness.

  A kiss was an unusual occurrence in that confiding but undemonstrative household, and the little maiden trembled. “Something is wrong,” she murmured half to herself half to the dim vista of the lonely parlor, where but a night or so ago had stood the beloved form of him, who, bury the thought as she would, had become, if indeed he had not always been, the beginning and the ending of all her maidenly dreams: “what? what?” And her young heart swelled painfully as she realized like many a woman before her, that whatever might be her doubts, fears, anguish or suspense, nothing remained for her but silence and a tedious waiting for others to recognize her misery and speak.

  Meanwhile how was it with her dearest friend and confident, Paula? The morning, as I have already declared, was bright and exceptionally beautiful. Sunshine filled the air and freshness invigorated the breeze. Cicely was blind to it all, but as Paula looked from her window preparatory to going below, a close observer might have perceived that the serenity of the cloudless sky was reflected in her beaming eyes, that peace brooded above her soul and ruled her tender spirit. She had held a long conversation with Miss Belinda, she had prayed, she had slept and she had risen with a confirmed love in her heart for the man who was at once the admiration of her eyes and the well-spring of her deepest thoughts and wildest longings. “I will show him so plainly what the angels have told me,” whispered she, “that he will have no need to ask.” And she wound her long locks into the coil that she knew he best liked and fixed a rose at her throat, and so with a smile on her lip went softly down stairs. O the timid eager step of maidenhood when drawing toward the shrine of all it adores! Could those halls and lofty corridors have whispered their secret, what a story they would have told of beating heart and tremulous glance, eager longings, and maidenly shrinkings, as the lovely form, swaying with a thousand hopes and fears, glided from landing to landing, carrying with it love a
nd joy and peace. And trust! As she neared the bronze .mage that had always awakened such vague feelings of repugnance on her part, and found its terrors gone and its smile assuring, she realized that her breast held nothing but faith in him, who may have sinned in his youth, but who had repented in his manhood, and now stood clear and noble in her eyes. The assurance was too sweet, the flood of feeling too overwhelming. With a quick glance around her, she stopped and flung her arms about the hitherto repellent bronze, pressing her young breast against the cold metal with a fervor that ought to have hallowed its sensuous mould forever. Then she hurried down.

  Her first glance in to the dining-room brought her a disappointment. Mr. Sylvester had already breakfasted and gone; only Aunt Belinda sat at the table. With a slightly troubled brow, Paula advanced to her own place at the board.

  “Mr. Sylvester has urgent business on hand to-day,” quoth her aunt. “I met him going out just as I came down.”

  Her look lingered on Paula as she said this, and if it had not been for the servants, she would doubtless have given utterance to some further expression on the matter, for she had been greatly struck by Mr. Sylvester’s appearance and the sad, firm, almost lofty expression of his eye, as it met hers in their hurried conversation.

  “He is a very busy man,” returned Paula simply, and was silent, struck by some secret dread she could not have explained. Suddenly she rose; she had found an envelope beneath her plate, addressed to herself. It was bulky and evidently contained a key. Hastening behind the curtains of the window, she opened it. The key was to that secret study of his at the top of the house, which no one but himself had ever been seen to enter, and the words that enwrapped it were these:

  “If I send you no word to the contrary, and if I do not come back by seven o’clock this evening, go to the room of which this is the key, open my desk, and read what I have prepared for your eyes.

  “E. S.”

  XXXVII. THE OPINION OF A CERTAIN NOTED DETECTIVE.

  “But still there clung

  One hope, like a keen sword un starting threads uphung,”

  —REVOLT OF ISLAM.

  “Facts are stubborn things.”

  —ELLIOTT.

  Meanwhile Mr. Stuyvesant hasted on his way down town and ere long made his appearance at the bank, he found Mr. Sylvester and Bertram seated in the directors’ room, with a portly smooth-faced man whose appearance was at once strange and vaguely familiar.

  “A detective, sir,” explained M.r Sylvester rising with forced composure; “a man upon whose judgment I have been told we may rely. Mr. Gryce, Mr. Stuyvesant.”

  The latter gentleman nodded, cast a glance around the room, during which his eye rested for a moment on Bertram’s somewhat pale countenance, and nervously took a seat.

  “A mysterious piece of business, this,” came from the detective’s lips in an easy tone, calculated to relieve the tension of embarrassment into which the entrance of Mr. Stuyvesant seemed to have thrown all parties. “What were the numbers of the bonds found missing, if you please?”

  Mr. Stuyvesant told him.

  “You are positively assured these bonds were all in the box when you last locked it?”

  “I am.”

  “When was that, sir? On what day and at what hour of the day, if you please?

  “Tuesday, at about three o’clock, I should say.”

  “The box was locked by you? There is no doubt about that fact?”

  “None in the least.”

  “Where were you standing at the time?”

  “In front of the vault door. I had taken out the box myself as I am in the habit of doing, and had stepped there to put it back.”

  “Was any one near you then?”

  “Yes. The cashier was at his desk and the teller had occasion to go to the safe while I stood there. I do not remember seeing any one else in my immediate vicinity.”

  “Do you remember ever going to the vaults and not finding some one near you at the time or at least in full view of your movements?”

  “No.”

  “I have informed Mr. Gryce,” interposed Mr. Sylvester, with a ring in his deep voice that made Mr. Stuyvesant start, “that our chief desire at present is to have his judgment upon the all important question, as to whether this theft was committed by a stranger, or one in the employ and consequently in the confidence of the bank.”

  Mr. Stuyvesant bowed, every wrinkle in his face manifesting itself with startling distinctness as he slowly moved his eyes and fixed them on the inscrutable countenance of the detective.

  “You agree then with these gentlemen,” continued the latter, who had a way of seeming more interested in everything and everybody present than the person he was addressing, “that it would be difficult if not impossible for any one unconnected with the bank, to approach the vaults during business hours and abstract anything from them without detection?”

  “And do these gentleman both assert that?” queried Mr. Stuyvesant, with a sharp look from uncle to nephew.

  “I believe they do,” replied the detective, as both the gentlemen bowed, Bertram with an uncontrollable quiver of his lip, and Mr. Sylvester with a deepening of the lines about his mouth, which may or may not have been noticed by this man who appeared to observe nothing.

  “I should be loth to conclude that the robbery was committed by any one but a stranger,” remarked Mr. Stuyvesant; “but if these gentlemen concur in the statement you have just made, I am bound to acknowledge that I do not myself see how the theft could have been perpetrated by an outsider. Had the box itself been missing, it would be different. I remember my old friend Mr. A—, the president of the police department, telling me of a case where a box containing securities to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars, was abstracted in full daylight from the vaults of one of our largest banks; an act requiring such daring, the directors for a long time refused to believe it possible, until a detective one day showed them another box of theirs which he had succeeded in abstracting in the same way.* [*A fact.] But the vaults in that instance were in a less conspicuous portion of the bank than ours, besides to approach an open vault, snatch a box from it and escape, is a much simpler matter than to remain long enough to open a box and choose from its contents such papers as appeared most marketable. If a regular thief could do such a thing, it does not seem probable that he would. Nevertheless the most acute judgment is often at fault in these matters, and I do not pretend to have formed an opinion.”

  The detective who had listened to these words with marked attention, bowed his concurrence and asked if the bonds mentioned by. Mr. Stuyvesant were all that had been found missing from the bank. If any of the other boxes had been opened, or if the contents of the safe itself had ever been tampered with.

  “The contents of the safe are all correct,” came in deep tones from Mr. Sylvester. “Mr. Folger, my nephew and myself went through them this morning. As for the boxes I cannot say, many of them belong to persons travelling; some of them have been left here by trustees of estates, consequently often lie for weeks in the vaults untouched. If however any of them have been opened, we ought to be able to see it. Would you like an examination made of their condition?”

  The detective nodded.

  Mr. Sylvester at once turned to Mr. Stuyvesant. “May I ask you to mention what officer of the bank you would like to have go to the vaults?”

  That gentleman started, looked uneasily about, but meeting Bertram’s eye, nervously dropped his own and muttered the name of Folger.

  Mr. Sylvester suppressed a sigh, sent for the paying-teller, and informed him of their wishes. He at once proceeded to the vaults. While he was gone, Mr. Gryce took the opportunity to make the following remark.

  “Gentlemen,” said he, “let us understand ourselves. What you want of me, is to tell you whether this robbery has been committed by a stranger or by some one in your employ. Now to decide this question it is necessary for me to ask first, whether you have ever had reason to doubt the honesty
of any person connected with the bank?”

  “No,” came from Mr. Sylvester with sharp and shrill distinctness. “Since I have had the honor of conducting the affairs of this institution, I have made it my business to observe and note the bearing and character of each and every man employed under me, and I believe them all to be honest.”

  The glance of the detective while it did not perceptibly move from the large screen drawn across the room at the back of Mr. Sylvester, seemed to request the opinions of the other two gentlemen on this point.

  Bertram observing it, subdued the rapid beatings of his heart and spoke with like distinctness. “I have been in the bank the same length of time as my uncle,” said he, “and most heartily endorse his good opinion of the various persons in our employ.”

  “And Mr. Stuyvesant?” the immovable glance seemed to say.

  “Men are honest in my opinion till they are proved otherwise,” came in short stem accents from the director’s lips.

  The detective drew back in his chair as if he considered that point decided, and yet Bertram’s eye which had clouded at Mr. Stuyvesant’s too abrupt assertion, did not clear again as might have been expected.

  “There is one mere question I desire to settle,” continued the detective, and that is, whether this robbery could have been perpetrated after business hours, by some one in collusion with the person who is here left in charge?”

  “No;”again came from Mr. Sylvester, with impartial justice. “The watchman—who by the way has been in the bank for twelve years—could not help a man to find entrance to the vaults. His simple duty is to watch over the bank and give alarm in case of fire or burglary. It would necessitate a knowledge of the combination by which the vault doors are opened, to do what you suggest, and that is possessed by but three persons in the bank.”