by Anne Austin
“I do not know,—” she began to say.
But I mercilessly interrupted her.
“But I know,” said I, with an emphasis on the pronoun, “and know so much that I am sure the company within would be glad to hear what I could tell them. Mr. Harrington, for instance, who I hear is of a very honorable family in England, would be pleased to learn—”
“Hush!” she whispered, seizing my wrist with a hand of steel. “If I must tell you I will, but no more words from you, do you hear, no more words.”
I took out my notebook and thrust it into her hand.
“Write,” I, commanded; “her full address, mind you, that I may find her before the day is over.”
She gave me a strange glance but took the book and pencil without a word.
“There!” she cried, hurriedly writing a line and passing the book back to me. “And now go; our time for further conversation will come later.”
But I did not stir. I read aloud the line she had given me and then said:
“Madam, this address is either a true or a false one. Which, I shall soon know. For upon leaving here, I shall proceed immediately to the telegraph-office, from which I shall telegraph to the police station nearest to this address, for the information I desire. I shall receive an answer within the hour; and if I find you have deceived me I shall not hesitate to return here, and so suitably accompanied that you will not only open to me, but rectify whatever mistake you may have made. Your guests will not be gone in an hour,” I ruthlessly added.
Her face, which had been pale, turned ghastly. Glancing up at a clock which stood a few feet from the recess in which we stood, she gave an involuntary shudder and looked about for Guy.
“Your son, fertile as he is in resources, cannot help you,” I remarked. “There is no pit of darkness here; besides I have learned a lesson, madam; and not death itself would deter me now from doing my duty by this innocent child. So if you wish to change this address—”
I stopped; a strain of music had risen from the parlor. It was Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Mrs. Pollard started, cast a hurried look above and tore the notebook out of my hands.
“You are a fiend,” she hissed, and hurriedly scratching out the words she had written, she wrote another number and name. “You will find she is there,” she cried, “and since I have complied with your desire, you will have no need to return here till you bring the young girl home.”
The emphasis she placed on the last word startled me. I looked at her and wondered if Medea wore such a countenance when she stabbed her children to the heart. But it flashed and was gone, and the next moment she had moved away from my side and I had stepped to the door. As I opened it to pass out I caught one glimpse of the bride as she came down the stairs. She looked exquisite in her simple white dress, and her face was wreathed in smiles.
XXV. The Final Blow
It was a deadly blow! A blow like that
Which swooping unawares from out the night,
Dashes a man from some high starlit peak
Into a void of cold and hurrying waves.
The distrust which I felt for Mrs. Pollard was so great that I was still uncertain as to whether she had given me the right address. I therefore proceeded to carry out my original design and went at once to the telegraph-office. The message I sent was peremptory and in the course of half an hour this answer was returned.
Person described, found. Condition critical. Come at once.
There was a train that left in fifteen minutes. Though I had just come from Boston, I did not hesitate to return at once. By six o’clock of that day I stood before the house to which I had been directed. My first sight of it struck me like death. God, what was I about to encounter! What sort of a spot was this, and what was the doom that had befallen the child committed to my care. Numb with horror, I rang the door-bell with difficulty, and when I was admitted by a man in the guise of an officer, I felt something like an instantaneous relief, though I saw by his countenance that he had any thing but good news to give me.
“Are you the gentleman who telegraphed from S——?” he asked.
I bowed, not feeling able to speak.
“Relative or friend?” he went on.
“Friend,” I managed to reply.
“Do you guess what has happened?” he inquired.
“I dare not,” I answered, with a fearful look about me on walls that more than confirmed my suspicions.
“Miss Merriam is dead,” he answered.
I drew a deep breath. It was almost a relief.
“Come in,” he said, and opened the door of a room at our right. When we were seated and I had by careful observation made sure we were alone, I motioned for him to go on. He immediately complied. “When we received your telegram, we sent a man here at once. He had some difficulty in entering and still more in finding the young lady, who was hidden in the most remote part of the house. But by perseverance and some force he at last obtained entrance to her room where he found—pardon my abruptness, it will be a mercy to you for me to cut the story short—that he had been ordered here too late; the young lady had taken poison and was on the point of death.”
The horror in my face reflected itself faintly in his.
“I do not know how she came to this house,” he proceeded; “but she must have been a person of great purity and courage; for though she died almost immediately upon his entrance, she had time to say that she had preferred death to the fate that threatened her, and that no one would mourn her for she had no friends in this country, and her father would never hear how she died.”
I sprang wildly to my feet.
“Did she mention no names?” I asked.
“Did she not say who brought her to this hell of hells, or murmur even with her dying breath, one word that would guide us in fixing this crime upon the head of her who is guilty of it?”
“No,” answered the officer, “no; but you are right in thinking it was a woman, but what woman, the creature below evidently does not know.”
Feeling that the situation demanded thought, I composed myself to the best of my ability.
“I am the Rev. David Barrows of S——,” said I, “and my interest in this young girl is purely that of a humanitarian. I have never seen her. I do not even know how long she has been in this country. But I learned that a girl by the name of Grace Merriam had been beguiled from her boarding-place here in this city, and fearing that some terrible evil had befallen her, I telegraphed to the police to look her up.”
The officer bowed.
“The number of her boarding-place?” asked he.
I told him, and not waiting for any further questions, demanded if I might not see the body of the young girl.
He led me at once to the room in which it lay, and stood respectfully at the door while I went in alone. The sight I saw has never left me. Go where I will, I see ever before me that pure young face, with its weary look hushed in the repose of death. It haunts me, it accuses me. It asks me where is the noble womanhood that might have blossomed from this sweet bud, had it not been for my pusillanimity and love of life? But when I try to answer, I am stopped by that image of death, with its sealed lips and closed eyes never to open again—never, never, whatever my longing, my anguish, or my despair.
But the worst shock was to come yet. As I left the room and went stumbling down the stairs, I was met by the officer and led again into the apartment I had first entered on the ground floor.
“There is some one here,” he began, “whom you may like to question.”
Thinking it to be the woman of the house, I advanced, though somewhat reluctantly, when a sight met my eyes that made me fall back in astonishment and dread. It was the figure of a woman dressed all in gray, with a dark-blue veil drawn tightly over her features.
“Good God!” I murmured, “who is this?”
“The woman who brought her here,” observed the officer. “Farrell, there, has just found her.”
And then I perceived dar
kly looming in the now heavy dusk the form of another man, whose unconscious and business-like air proclaimed him to be a member of the force.
“Her name is Sophie Preston,” the officer continued, motioning to the woman to throw up her veil. “She is a hard character, and some day will have to answer for her many crimes.”
Meanwhile, I stood rooted to the ground; the name, the face were strange, and neither that of her whom I had inwardly accused of this wrong.
“I should like to ask the woman—” I commenced, but here my eyes fell upon her form. It was tall and it was full, but it was not by any means handsome. A fearful possibility crossed my mind. Approaching the woman closely, I modified my question.
“Are you the person who took this young lady from her boarding place?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” was the reply, uttered in smooth but by no means cultivated tones.
“And by what arts did you prevail upon this young and confiding creature to leave her comfortable home and go out into the streets with you?”
She did not speak, she smiled. O heaven! what depths of depravity opened before me in that smile!
“Answer!” the officer cried.
“Well, sir, I told her,” she now replied, “that I was such and such a relative, grandmother, I think I said; and being a dutiful child—”
But I was now up close to her side, and, leaning to her very ear I interrupted her.
“Tell me on which side of the hall was the parlor into which you went.”
“The right,” she answered, without the least show of hesitation.
“Wrong,” I returned; “you have never been there.”
She looked frightened.
“O, sir,” she whispered, “hush! hush! If you know—” And there she stopped; and instantly cried aloud, in a voice that warned me I should make nothing by pressing my suspicions at this time and in this place, “I lured the young lady from her home and I brought her here. If it is a criminal act I shall have to answer for it. We all run such risks now and then.”
To me, with my superior knowledge of all the mysteries which lay behind this pitiful tragedy, her meaning was evident. Whether she had received payment sufficient for the punishment possibly awaiting her, or whether she had been frightened into assuming the responsibility of another, she was evidently resolved to sustain her role of abductress to the end.
The look she gave me at the completion of her words intensified this conviction, and not feeling sufficiently sure of my duty to dispute her at the present time, I took advantage of her determination, and outwardly, if not inwardly, accepted her confession as true.
I therefore retreated from her side, and being anxious to avoid the coroner, who was likely to enter at any minute, I confined myself to asking a few leading questions, which being answered in a manner seemingly frank, I professed myself satisfied with the result, and hastily withdrew.
XXVI. A Feline Touch
Thou hast not half the power to do me harm,
as I have to be hurt.
—OTHELLO.
The tumult in my mind and heart were great, but my task was not yet completed, and till it was I could neither stop to analyze my emotions nor measure the depths of darkness into which I had been plunged by an occurrence as threatening to my peace as it was pitiful to my heart. Mrs. Pollard was to be again, interviewed, and to that formidable duty every thing bowed, even my need of rest and the demand which my whole body made for refreshment.
It was eight o’clock when I stood for the second time that day at her door; and, contrary to my expectations, I found as little difficulty in entering as I had before. Indeed, the servant was even more affable and obliging than he had been in the afternoon, and persisted in showing me into a small room off the parlor, now empty of guests, and going at once for Mrs. Pollard.
“She will see you, sir, I am sure,” was his last remark as he went out of the door, “for, though she is so very tired, she told me if you called to ask you to wait.”
I looked around on the somewhat desolate scene that presented itself, and doubtingly shook my head. This seeming submission on the part of a woman so indomitable as she, meant something. Either she was thoroughly frightened or else she meditated some treachery. In either case I needed all my self-command. Happily, the scene I had just quitted was yet vividly impressed upon my mind, and while it remained so, I felt as strong and unassailable as I had once felt weak and at the mercy of my fears.
I did not have to wait long. Almost immediately upon the servant’s call, Mrs. Pollard entered the room and stood before me. Her first glance told me all. She was frightened.
“Well?” she said, in a hard whisper, and with a covert look around as if she feared the very walls might hear us. “You have found the girl and you have come to ask for money. It is a reasonable request, and if you do not ask too much you shall have it. I think it will heal all wounds.”
My indignation flared up through all my horror and dismay.
“Money?” I cried, “money? what good will money do the dead; you have killed her, madam.”
“Killed her?” No wonder she grew pale, no wonder she half gasped. “Killed her?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I returned, not giving her time to think, much less speak. “Lured by you to a den of evil, she chose to die rather than live on in disgrace. The woman who lent you her clothes has been found, and—I see I have reached you at last,” I broke in. “I thought God’s justice would work.”
“I—I—” She had to moisten her lips before she could speak. “I don’t understand what you mean. You say I lured her, that is a lie. I never took her to this den of evil as you call it.”
“But you knew the street and number of the house, and you gave her into the hand of the woman who did take her there.”
“I knew the number of the house but I did not know it was a den of evil. I thought it was a respectable place, cheaper than the one she was in. I am sorry—”
“Madam,” I interrupted, “you will find it difficult to make the world believe you so destitute of good sense as not to know the character of the house to which such a woman as you entrusted her with would be likely to lead her. Besides, how will you account for the fact that, you wore a dress precisely like that of this creature when you enticed Miss Merriam away from her home. Is there any jury who will believe it to be a coincidence, especially when they learn that you kept your veil down in the presence of every one there?”
“But what proof have you that it was I who went for Miss Merriam? The word of this woman whom you yourself call a creature?”
“The word of the landlady, who described Miss Merriam’s visitor as tall and of a handsome figure, and my own eyesight, which assured me that the woman who came with her to her place of death was not especially tall nor of a handsome figure. Besides, I talked to the latter, and found she could tell me nothing of the interior of the house where Miss Merriam boarded. She did not even know if the parlors were on the right or the left side of the hall.”
“Indeed!” came in Mrs. Pollard’s harshest and most cutting tones. But the attempted sarcasm failed. She was shaken to the core, and there was no use in her trying to hide it. I did not, therefore, seek to break the silence which followed the utterance of this bitter exclamation; for the sooner she understood the seriousness of her position the sooner I should see what my own duty was. Suddenly she spoke, but not in her former tones. The wily woman had sounded the depths of the gulf upon the brink of which she had inadvertently stumbled, and her voice, which had been harsh? and biting, now took on all the softness which hypocrisy could give it.
But her words were sarcastic as ever.
“I asked you a moment ago,” said she, “what money you wanted. I do not ask that now, as the girl is dead and a clergyman is not supposed to take much interest in filthy lucre. But you want something, or you would not be here. Is it revenge? It is a sentiment worthy of your cloth, and I can easily understand the desire you may have to indulge in it.”
“Madam,” I cried, “can you think of no other motive than a desire for vengeance or gain? Have you never heard of such a thing as justice?”
“And do you intend—” she whispered.
“There will be an inquest held,” I continued. “I shall be called as a witness, and so doubtless will you. Are you prepared to answer all and every question that will be put you?”
“An inquest?” Her face was quite ghastly now. “And have you taken pains to publish abroad my connection with this girl?”
“Not yet.”
“She is known, however, to be a grandchild of Mr. Pollard?”
“No,” said I.
“What is known?” she inquired.
“That she was Mr. Pollard’s protégée.”
“And you, you alone, hold the key to her real history?”
“Yes,” I assented, “I.”
She advanced upon me with all the venom of her evil nature sparkling in her eye. I met the glance unmoved. For a reason I will hereafter divulge, I no longer felt any fear of what either she or hers might do.
“I alone know her history and what she owes to you,” I repeated. She instantly fell back. Whether she understood me or not, she saw that her hold upon me was gone, that the cowardice she had been witness to was dead, and that she, not I, must plead for mercy.
“Mr. Barrows,” said she; “what is this girl to you that you should sacrifice the living to her memory?”
“Mrs. Pollard,” I returned with equal intensity, “shall I tell you? She is the victim of my pusillanimity. That is what she is to me, and that is what makes her memory more to me than the peace or good name of her seemingly respectable murderers.”
Was it the word I used or did some notion of the effect which a true remorse can have upon a conscientious soul, pierce her cold heart at last? I cannot tell; I only know that she crouched for an instant as if a blow had fallen upon her haughty head, then rising erect again—she was a proud woman still and would be to her death, whatever her fate or fortune—she gave me an indescribable look, and in smothered tones remarked: