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

by Marion Bryce

  She had fainted, and lay quite still on the threshold, but Paula, who was all energy now, soon had her in the centre of the sitting-room, and was applying to her such restoratives as had been provided against this very emergency. She was holding the poor weary head on her knee, when the wan eyes opened, and looking up, grew wild with a disappointment which Paula was quick to appreciate.

  “You are looking for Margery,” said she. “Margery will come by-and-by; she is not well to-night and I am taking her place, but when she hears you have returned, it will take more than sickness to keep her to her bed. I am Paula, and I love you, too, and welcome you—oh, welcome you so gladly.”

  The yearning look which had crept into the woman’s bleared and faded eyes, deepened and softened strangely.

  “You are the one who told me about Margery,” said she, “and bade me bring my baby here to he buried. I remember, though I seemed to pay no heed then. Night and day through all my pain, I have remembered, and as soon as I could walk, stole away from the hospital. It has killed me, but I shall at least die in my father’s house.”

  Paula stooped and kissed her. “I am going to get your bed ready,” said she. And without any hesitation now, she opened the door that led into those dim inner regions that but a few minutes before had inspired her with such dread.

  She went straight to Jacqueline’s room. “It must all be according to Mrs. Hamlin’s wishes,” she cried, and lit the fire on the hearth, and pulled back the curtains yet farther from the bed, and gave the benefit of her womanly touch to the various objects about her, till cheerfulness seemed to reign in a spot once so peopled with hideous memories. Going back to Jacqueline, she helped her to rise, and throwing her arm about her waist, led her into the hall. But here memory, ghastly accusing memory, stepped in, and catching the wretched woman in its grasp, shook her, body and soul, till her shrieks reverberated through that desolate house. But Paula with gentle persistence urged her on, and smiling upon her like an angel of peace and mercy, led her up step after step of that dreadful staircase, till at last she saw her safely in the room of her early girlhood.

  The sight of it seemed at first to horrify but afterwards to soothe the forlorn being thus brought face to face with her own past. She moved over to the fire and held out her two cramped hands to the blaze, as if she saw an altar of mercy in its welcoming glow. From these she passed tottering and weak to the embroidery-frame, which she looked at for a moment with something almost like a smile; but she hurried by the mirror, and scarcely glanced at a portrait of herself which hung on the wall over her head. To sink on the bed seemed to be her object, and thither Paula accompanied her. But when she came to where it stood, and saw the clothes turned down and the pillows heaped at the head, and the little Bible lying open for her in the midst, she gave a great and mighty sob, and flinging herself down upon her knees, wept with a breaking up of her whole nature, in which her sins, red though they were as crimson, seemed to feel the touch of the Divine love, and vanish away in the oblivion He prepares for all His penitent ones.

  When everything was prepared and Jacqueline was laid quiet in bed, Paula stole out and down the stairs and wended her way to Mrs. Hamlin’s cottage. She found her sitting up, but far from well, and very feeble. At the first sight of Paula’s face, she started erect and seem to forget her weakness in a moment.

  “What is it? she asked; “you look as though you had been gazing on the faces of angels. Has—has my hope come true at last? Has Jacqueline returned? Oh, has my poor, lost, erring child come back?”

  Paula drew near and gently steadied Mrs. Hamlin’s swaying form. “Yes,” she smiled; and with the calmness of one who has entered the gates of peace, whispered in low and reverent tones: “She lies in the bed that you spread for her, with the Bible held close to her breast.”

  There are moments when the world about us seems to pause; when the hopes, fears and experiences of all humanity appear to sway away and leave us standing alone in the presence of our own great hope or scarcely comprehended fear. Such a moment was that which saw Paula re-enter Jacqueline’s presence with Mrs. Hamlin at her side.

  Leaving the latter near the door, she went towards the bed. Why did she recoil and glance back at Mrs. Hamlin with that startled and apprehensive look? The face of Jacqueline was changed—changed as only one presence could change it, though the eyes were clearer than when she left her a few minutes before, and the lips were not without the shadow of a smile.

  “She is dying,” whispered Paula, coming back to Mrs. Hamlin; “dying, and you have waited so long!”

  But the look that met hers from that aged face, was not one of grief; and startled, she knew not why, Paula drew aside, while Mrs. Hamlin crossed the room and quietly knelt down by her darling’s side.

  “Margery!”

  “Jacqueline!”

  The two cries rang through the room, then all was quiet again.

  “You have come back!” were the next words Paula heard. “How could I ever have doubted that you would!”

  “I have been driven back by awful suffering,” was the answer; and another silence fell. Suddenly Jacqueline’s voice was heard. “Love slew me, and now love has saved me!” exclaimed she. And there came no answer to that cry, and Paula felt the shadow of a great awe settle down upon her, and moving nearer to where the aged woman knelt by her darling’s bedside, she looked in her bended face and then in the one upturned on the pillow, and knew that of all the hearts that but an instant before had beat with earth’s deepest emotion in that quiet room, one alone throbbed on to thank God and take courage.

  And the fire which had been kindled to welcome the prodigal back, burned on; and from the hollow depths of the great room below, came the sound of a clock as it struck the hour, seven!

  XLVI. THE MAN CUMMINS.

  “On day and night, but this is wondrous strange.”

  —HENRY V.

  “Shut up in measureless content”

  —OTHELLO.

  The lights were yet shining in Mr. Stuyvesant’s parlors, though the guests were gone, who but a short time before had assembled there to witness the marriage of Cicely’s dear friend, Paula.

  At one end of the room stood Mr. Sylvester and Bertram, the former gazing with the eyes of a bridegroom, at the delicate white-clad figure of Paula, just leaving the apartment with Cicely.

  “I have but one cause for regret,” said Mr. Sylvester as the door closed. “I could have wished that you and Cicely had participated in our joy and received the minister’s benediction at the same moment as ourselves.”

  “Yes,” said Bertram with a short sigh. “But it will come in time. It cannot be but that our efforts must finally succeed. I have just had a new idea; that of putting the watchman on the hunt for Hopgood. They are old friends, and he ought to know all the other’s haunts and possible hiding-places.”

  “If Fanning could have helped us, he would have told us long ago. He knows that Hopgood is missing and that we are ready to pay well for any information concerning him.”

  “But they are old cronies, and possibly Fanning is keeping quiet out of consideration for his friend.”

  “No; I have had a talk with Fanning, and there was no mistaking his look of surprise when told the other had run away under suspicion of being connected with a robbery on the bank’s effects. He knows no more of Hopgood than we do, or his wife does, or the police even. It is a strange mystery, and one to which I fear we shall never obtain the key. But don’t let me discourage you; after a suitable time Mr. Stuyvesant will—”

  He paused, for that gentleman was approaching him.

  “There is a man outside who insists upon seeing me; says he knows there has just been a wedding here, but that the matter he has to communicate is very important, and won’t bear putting off. The name on his card is Cummins; I am afraid I shall have to admit him, that is, if you have no objection?”

  Mr. Sylvester and Bertram at once drew back with ready-acquiescence. They had scarcely taken their
stand at the other end of the apartment, when the man came in. He was of robust build, round, precise and business-like. He had taken off his hat, but still wore his overcoat; his face in spite of a profusion of red whiskers and a decided pair of goggles, was earnest and straightforward. He walked at once up to Mr. Stuyvesant.

  “Your pardon,” said he, in a quick tone. “But I hear you have been somewhat exercised of late over the disappearance of certain bonds from one of the boxes in the Madison Bank. I am a detective, and in the course of my duty have come upon a few facts that may help to explain matters.”

  Mr. Sylvester and Bertram at once started forward; this was a topic that demanded their attention as well as that of the master of the house.

  The man cast them a quick look from behind his goggles, and seeming to recognize them, included them in his next question.

  “What do you think of the watchman, Fanning?”

  “Think? we don’t think,” uttered Mr. Stuyvesant sharply. “he has been in the employ of the bank for twelve years, and we know him to be honest.”

  “Yet he is the man who stole your bonds.”

  “Impossible!”

  “The very man.”

  Mr. Sylvester stepped up to him. “Who are you, and how do you know this?”

  “I have said my name is Cummins, and I know this, because I have wormed myself into the man’s confidence and have got the bonds, together with his confession, here in my pocket! And he drew out the long lost bonds, which he handed to their owner, with a bit of paper on which was inscribed in the handwriting of the watchman, an acknowledgment to the effect that he, alone and unassisted, had perpetrated the robbery which had raised such scandal in the bank and led to the disappearance of Hopgood.”

  “And the man himself?” cried Bertram, when they had all read this. “Where is he?”

  “Oh, I allowed him to escape.”

  Mr. Sylvester frowned.

  “There is something about this I don’t understand,” said he. “How came you to take such an interest in this matter; and why did you let the man escape after acknowledging his crime?”

  With a quick, not undignified action, Cummins stepped back. “Gentlemen,” said he, “it is allowable in a detective in the course of his duty, to resort to means for eliciting the truth, that in any other cause and for any other purpose, would be denominated as unmanly, if not mean and contemptible. When I heard of this robbery, as I did the day after its perpetration, my mind flew immediately to the watchman as the possible culprit. I did not know that he had done the deed, and I did not see how he could have possessed the means of doing it, but I had been acquainted with him for some time, and certain expressions which I had overheard him use—expressions that had passed over the lightly at the time, now recurred to my mind with startling distinctness. ‘If a man knew the combination of the vault door, how easily he could make himself rich from the contents of those boxes!’ was one, I remember; and another, ‘I have worked in the bank for twelve years and have not so much money laid up against a rainy day, as would furnish Mr. Sylvester in cigars for a month.’ The fact that he had no opportunity to learn the combination, was the only stumbling-block in the way of my conclusions. But that obstacle was soon removed. In a talk with the janitor’s wife—a good woman, sirs, but a trifle conceited—I learned that he had once had the very opportunity of which I speak, provided he was smart enough to recognize the fact. The way it came about was this. Hopgood, who always meant to do about the right thing, as I know, was one morning very sick, so sick that when the time came for him to go down and open the vaults for the day, he couldn’t stir from his bed, or at least thought he couldn’t. Twice had the watchman rung for him, and twice had he tried to get up, only to fall back again on his pillow. At last the call became imperative; the clerks would soon be in, and the books were not even in readiness for them. Calling his wife to him, he asked if she thought she could open the vault door provided she knew the combination. She returned a quite eager, ‘yes,’ being a naturally vain woman and moreover a little sore over the fact that her husband never entrusted her with any of his secrets. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘listen to these three numbers that I give you; and turn the knob accordingly,’ explaining the matter in a way best calculated to enlighten her as to what she had to do. She professed herself as understanding perfectly and went off in quite a flutter of satisfaction to accomplish her task. But though he did not know it at the time, it seems that her heart failed her when she got into the hall, and struck with fear lest she should forget the numbers before she got to the foot of the stairs, she came back, and carefully wrote them down on a piece of paper, armed with which she started for the second time to fulfil her task. The watchman was in the bank when she entered, and to his expressions of surprise, she answered that her husband was ill and that she was going to open the vaults. He offered to help her, but she stared at him with astonishment, and waiting till he had walked to the other end of the bank, proceeded to the vault door, and after carefully consulting the paper in her hand, was about to turn the knob as directed, when Hopgood himself came into the room. He was too anxious, he said, to keep in bed, and though he trembled at every step, came forward and accomplished the task himself. He did not see the paper in his wife’s hand, nor notice her when she tore it up and threw the pieces in the waste-basket near-by, but the watchman may have observed her, and as it afterwards proved, did; and thus became acquainted with the combination that unlocked the outer vault doors.”

  “Humph!” broke in Mr. Sylvester, “if this is true, why didn’t Hopgood inform me of the matter when I questioned him so closely?”

  “Because he had forgotten the circumstance. He was in a fever at the time, and having eventually unlocked the vault himself, lost sight of the fact that he had previously sent his wife to do it. He went back to his bed after the clerks came in, and did not get up again till night. He may have thought the whole occurrence part of the delirium which more than once assailed him that day.”

  “I remember his being sick,” said Bertram; “it was two or three days before the robbery.”

  “The very day before,” corrected the man; “but let me tell my story in my own way. Having learned from Mrs. Hopgood of this opportunity which had been given to Fanning, I made up my mind to sift the matter. Being as I have said a friend of his, I didn’t want to peach on him unless he was guilty. To blast an honest man’s reputation, is, I think, one of the meanest tricks of which a fellow can be guilty: but the truth I had to know, and in order to learn it, a deep and delicate game was necessary. Gentlemen, when the police have strong suspicions against a person whose reputation is above reproach and whose conduct affords no opportunity for impeachment, they set a springe for him. One of their number disguises himself, and making the acquaintance of this person, insinuates himself by slow degrees—often at the cost of months of effort—into his friendship and if possible into his confidence. ’Tis a detestable piece of business, but it is all that will serve in some cases, and has at least the merit of being as dangerous as it is detestable. This plan, I undertook with Fanning. Changing my appearance to suit the necessities of the case, I took board in the small house in Brooklyn where he puts up, and being well acquainted with his tastes, knew how to adapt myself to his liking. He was a busy man, and being obliged by his duties to turn night into day, had not much time to bestow upon me or any one else; but heedful of this, I managed to make the most of the spare moments that saw us together, and ere long we were very good comrades, and further on, very good friends. The day when I first ventured to suggest that honesty was all very well as long as it paid, was a memorable one to me. In that cast of the die I was either to win or lose the game I had undertaken. I won. After a feint or two, to see if I were in earnest, he fell into the net, and though he did not commit himself then, it was not long before he came to me, and deliberately requested my assistance in disposing of some bonds which he was smart enough to acquire, but not daring enough to attempt to sell. Of course the who
le story came out, and I was sympathetic enough till I got the bonds into my hands, then—But I leave you to imagine what followed. Enough that I wrung this confession from him, and that in consideration of the doubtful game I had played upon him, let him go where he is by this time beyond the chance of pursuit.”

  “But your duty to your superior; your oath as a member of the force?”

  “My superior is here!” said the man pointing to Mr. Sylvester; “an unconscious one I own, but still my superior; and as for my being a member of the force, that was true five years ago, but not to-day.” And brushing off his whiskers with one hand and taking off his goggles with the other, Hopgood, the janitor, stood before them!

  It was a radiant figure that met Cicely, when she came down stairs with Paula, and a joyous group that soon surrounded the now blushing and embarrassed janitor, with questions and remarks concerning this great and unexpected development of affairs. But the fervor with which Mr. Stuyvesant clasped Bertram’s hand, and the look with which Cicely turned from her young lover to bestow a final kiss upon the departing bride, was worth all the pains and self-denial of the last few weeks—or so the janitor thought, who with a quicker comprehension than usual, had divined the situation and rejoiced in the result. But the most curious thing of all was to observe how, with the taking off of his goggles, Hopgood had relapsed into his old shrinking, easily embarrassed self. The man who but a few minutes before had related in their hearing a clear and succinct narrative, now shrank if a question was put him, and stammered in quite his ancient fashion, when he answered Mr. Sylvester’s shake of the hand, by a hurried: