Lost Man's Lane: A Second Episode in the Life of Amelia Butterworth

by Anna Katharine Green

  XXIV

  THE ENIGMA OF NUMBERS

  "When in our first conversation on this topic I told you that MotherJane was not to be considered in this matter, I meant she was not to beconsidered by you. She was a subject to be handled by the police, and wehave handled her. Yesterday afternoon I made a search of her cabin."Here Mr. Gryce paused and eyed me quizzically. He sometimes does eye me,which same I cannot regard as a compliment, considering how fond he isof concentrating all his wisdom upon small and insignificant objects.

  "I wonder," said he, "what you would have done in such a search as that.It was no common one, I assure you. There are not many hiding-placesbetween Mother Jane's four walls."

  I felt myself begin to tremble, with eagerness, of course.

  "I wish I had been given the opportunity," said I--"that is, if anythingwas to be found there."

  He seemed to be in a sympathetic mood toward me, or perhaps--and this isthe likelier supposition--he had a minute of leisure and thought hecould afford to give himself a little quiet amusement. However that was,he answered me by saying:

  "The opportunity is not lost. You have been in her cabin and have noted,I have no doubt, its extreme simplicity. Yet it contains, or rather didcontain up till last night, distinct evidences of more than one of thecrimes which have been perpetrated in this lane."

  "Good! And you want me to guess where you found them? Well, it's notfair."

  "Ah, and why not?"

  "Because you probably did not find them on your first attempt. You hadtime to look about. I am asked to guess at once and without second trialwhat I warrant it took you several trials to determine."

  He could not help but laugh. "And why do you think it took me severaltrials?"

  "Because there is more than one thing in that room made up of parts."

  "Parts?" He attempted to look puzzled, but I would not have it.

  "You know what I mean," I declared; "seventy parts, twenty-eight, orwhatever the numbers are she so constantly mutters."

  His admiration was unqualified and sincere.

  "Miss Butterworth," said he, "you are a woman after my own heart. Howcame you to think that her mutterings had anything to do with ahiding-place?"

  "Because it did not have anything to do with the amount of money I gaveher. When I handed her twenty-five cents, she cried, 'Seventy,twenty-eight, and now ten!' Ten what? Not ten cents or ten dollars, butten----"

  "Why do you stop?"

  "I do not want to risk my reputation on a guess. There is a quilt on thebed made up of innumerable pieces. There is a floor of neatly laidbrick----"

  "And there is a Bible on the stand whose leaves number many overseventy."

  "Ah, it was in the Bible you found----"

  His smile put mine quite to shame.

  "I must acknowledge," he cried, "that I looked in the Bible, but I foundnothing there beyond what we all seek when we open its sacred covers.Shall I tell my story?"

  He was evidently bursting with pride. You would think that after ahalf-century of just such successes, a man would take his honors morequietly. But pshaw! Human nature is just the same in the old as in theyoung. He was no more tired of compliment or of awakening theastonishment of those he confided in, than when he aroused theadmiration of the force by his triumphant handling of the LeavenworthCase. Of course in presence of such weakness I could do nothing lessthan give him a sympathetic ear. I may be old myself some day. Besides,his story was likely to prove more or less interesting.

  "Tell your story?" I repeated. "Don't you see that I am"--I was going tosay "on pins and needles till I hear it," but the expression is toovulgar for a woman of my breeding; so I altered the words, happilybefore they were spoken, into "that I am in a state of the liveliestcuriosity concerning the whole matter? Tell your story, of course."

  "Well, Miss Butterworth, if I do, it is because I know you willappreciate it. You, like myself, placed weight upon the numbers she isforever running over, and you, like myself, have conceived thepossibility of these numbers having reference to something in the oneroom she inhabits. At first glance the extreme bareness of the spotseemed to promise nothing to my curiosity. I looked at the floor anddetected no signs of any disturbance having taken place in itssymmetrically laid bricks for years. Yet I counted up to seventy one wayand twenty-eight the other, and marking the brick thus selected, beganto pry it out. It came with difficulty and showed me nothing underneathbut green mold and innumerable frightened insects. Then I counted thebricks the other way, but nothing came of it. The floor does not appearto have been disturbed for years. Turning my attention away from thefloor, I began upon the quilt. This was a worse job than the other, andit took me an hour to rip apart the block I settled upon as thesuspicious one, but my labor was entirely wasted. There was no hiddentreasure in the quilt. Then I searched the walls, using the measurementsseventy by twenty-eight, but no result followed these endeavors,and--well, what do you think I did then?"

  "You will tell me," I said, "if I give you one more minute to do it in."

  "Very well," said he. "I see you do not know, madam. Having searchedbelow and around me, I next turned my attention overhead. Do youremember the strings and strings of dried vegetables that decorate thebeams above?"

  "I do," I replied, not stinting any of the astonishment I really felt.

  "Well, I began to count them next, and when I reached the seventiethonion from the open doorway, I crushed it between my fingers and--thesefell out, madam--worthless trinkets, as you will immediately see,but----"

  "Well, well," I urged.

  "They have been identified as belonging to the peddler who was one ofthe victims in whose fate we are interested."

  "Ah, ah!" I ejaculated, somewhat amazed, I own. "And numbertwenty-eight?"

  "That was a carrot, and it held a really valuable ring--a rubysurrounded by diamonds. If you remember, I once spoke to you of thisring. It was the property of young Mr. Chittenden and worn by him whilehe was in this village. He disappeared on his way to the railwaystation, having taken, as many can vouch, the short detour by Lost Man'sLane, which would lead him directly by Mother Jane's cottage."

  "You thrill me," said I, keeping down with admirable self-possession myown thoughts in regard to this matter. "And what of No. ten, beyondwhich she said she could not count?"

  "In ten was your twenty-five-cent piece, and in various othervegetables, small coins, whose value taken collectively would not amountto a dollar. The only numbers which seemed to make any impression on hermind were those connected with these crimes. Very good evidence, MissButterworth, that Mother Jane holds the clue to this matter, even if sheis not responsible for the death of the individuals represented by thisproperty."

  "Certainly," I acquiesced, "and if you examined her after her returnfrom the Knollys mansion last night you would probably have found uponher some similar evidence of her complicity in the last crime of thisterrible series. It would needs have been small, as Silly Rufus neitherindulged in the brass trinkets sold by the old peddler nor the realjewelry of a well-to-do man like Mr. Chittenden."

  "Silly Rufus?"

  "He was the last to disappear from these parts, was he not?"

  "Yes, madam."

  "And as such, should have left some clue to his fate in the hands ofthis old crone, if her motive in removing him was, as you seem to think,entirely that of gain."

  "I did not say it was entirely so. Silly Rufus would be the last personany one, even such a _non compos mentis_ as Mother Jane, would destroyfor hope of gain."

  "But what other motive could she have? And, Mr. Gryce, where could shebestow the bodies of so many unfortunate victims, even if by her greatstrength she could succeed in killing them?"

  "There you have me," said he. "We have not been able as yet to unearthany bodies. Have you?"

  "No," said I, with some little show of triumph showing through mydisdain, "but I can show _you_ where to unearth one."

  He should have been startled, profoundly startled. Why w
asn't he? Iasked this of myself over and over in the one instant he weighed hiswords before answering.

  "You have made some definite discoveries, then," he declared. "You havecome across a grave or a mound which you have taken for a grave."

  I shook my head.

  "No mound," said I. Why should I not play for an instant or more withhis curiosity? He had with mine.

  "Ah, then, why do you talk of unearthing? No one has told you where youcan lay hand on Silly Rufus' body, I take it."

  "No," said I. "The Knollys house is not inclined to give up itssecrets."

  He started, glancing almost remorsefully first at the tip, then at thehead of the cane he was balancing in his hand.

  "It's too bad," he muttered, "but you've been led astray, MissButterworth,--excusably, I acknowledge, quite excusably, but yet in away to give you quite wrong conclusions. The secret of the Knollyshouse--But wait a moment. Then you were not locked up in your room lastnight?"

  "Scarcely," I returned, wavering between the doubts he had awakened byhis first sentence and the surprise which his last could not fail togive me.

  "I might have known they would not be likely to catch you in a trap," heremarked. "So you were up and in the halls?"

  "I was up," I acknowledged, "and in the halls. May I ask where youwere?"

  He paid no heed to the last sentence. "This complicates matters," saidhe, "and yet perhaps it is as well. I understand you now, and in a fewminutes you will understand me. You thought it was Silly Rufus who wasburied last night. That was rather an awful thought, Miss Butterworth. Iwonder, with that in your mind, you look as well as you do this morning,madam. Truly you are a wonderful woman--a very wonderful woman."

  "A truce to compliments," I begged. "If you know as much as your wordsimply of what went on in that ill-omened house last night, you ought toshow some degree of emotion yourself, for if it was not Silly Rufus whowas laid away under the Flower Parlor, who, then, was it? No one forwhom tears could openly be shed or of whose death public acknowledgmentcould be made, or we would not be sitting here talking away at crosspurposes the morning after his burial."

  "Tears are not shed or public acknowledgment made for the subject of ahalf-crazy man's love for scientific investigation. It was no humanbeing whom you saw buried, madam, but a victim of Mr. Knollys' passionfor vivisection."

  "You are playing with me," was my indignant answer; "outrageously andinexcusably playing with me. Only a human being would be laid away insuch secrecy and with such manifestations of feeling as I was witnessto. You must think me in my dotage, or else----"

  "We will take the rest of the sentence for granted," he drylyinterpolated. "You know that I can have no wish to insult yourintelligence, Miss Butterworth, and that if I advance a theory on my ownaccount I must have ample reasons for it. Now can you say the same foryours? Can you adduce irrefutable proof that the body we buried lastnight was that of a man? If you can, there is no more to be said, or,rather, there is everything to be said, for this would give to thetransaction a very dreadful and tragic significance which at present Iam not disposed to ascribe to it."

  Taken aback by his persistence, but determined not to acknowledge defeatuntil forced to it, I stolidly replied: "You have made an assertion, andit is for you to adduce proof. It will be time enough for me to talkwhen your own theory is proved untenable."

  He was not angry: fellow-feeling for my disappointment made himunusually gentle. His voice was therefore very kind when he said:

  "Madam, if you know it to have been a man, say so. I do not wish towaste my time."

  "I do not know it."

  "Very well, then, I will tell you why I think my supposition true. Mr.Knollys, as you probably have already discovered, is a man with a secretpassion for vivisection."

  "Yes, I have discovered that."

  "It is known to his family, and it is known to a very few others, but itis not known to the world at large, not even to his fellow-villagers.'

  "I can believe it," said I.

  "His sisters, who are gentle girls, regard the matter as thegentle-hearted usually do. They have tried in every way to influence himto abandon it, but unsuccessfully so far, for he is not only entirelyunamenable to persuasion, but has a nature of such brutality he couldnot live without some such excitement to help away his life in thisdreary house. All they can do, then, is to conceal these cruelties fromthe eyes of the people who already execrate him for his many roughnessesand the undoubted shadow under which he lives. Time was when I thoughtthis shadow had a substance worth our investigation, but a furtherknowledge of his real fault and a completer knowledge of his sisters'virtues turned my inquiries in a new direction, where I have found, as Ihave told you, actual reason for arresting Mother Jane. Have youanything to say against these conclusions? Cannot you see that all yoursuspicions can be explained by the brother's cruel impulses and thesisters' horror of having those impulses known?"

  I thought a moment; then I cried out boldly: "No, I cannot, Mr. Gryce.The anxiety, the fear, which I have seen depicted on these sisters'faces for days might be explained perhaps by this theory; but the knotof crape on the window-shutter, the open Bible in the room ofdeath--William's room, Mr. Gryce,--proclaim that it was a human being,and nothing less, for whom Lucetta's sobs went up."

  "I do not follow you," he said, moved for the first time from hiscomposure. "What do you mean by a knot of crape, and when was it youobtained entrance into William's room?"

  "Ah," I exclaimed in dry retort; "you are beginning to see that I havesomething as interesting to report as yourself. Did you think me asuperficial egotist, without facts to back my assertions?"

  "I should not have done you that injustice."

  "I have penetrated, I think, deeper than even yourself, into William'scharacter. I think him capable--But do satisfy my curiosity on onepoint first, Mr. Gryce. How came you to know as much as you do aboutlast night's proceedings? You could not have been in the house. DidMother Jane talk after she got back?"

  The tip of his cane was up, and he frowned at it. Then the handle tookits place, and he gave it a good-natured smile.

  "Miss Butterworth," said he, "I have not succeeded in making Mother Janeat any time go beyond her numerical monologue. But you have been moresuccessful." And with a sudden marvellous change of expression, pose,and manner he threw over his head my shawl, which had fallen to thefloor in my astonishment, and, rocking himself to and fro before me,muttered grimly:

  "Seventy! Twenty-eight! Ten! No more! I can count no more! Go."

  "Mr. Gryce, it was you----"

  "Whom you interviewed in Mother Jane's cottage with Mr. Knollys," hefinished. "And it was _I_ who helped to bury what you now declare, to myreal terror and astonishment, to have been a human being. MissButterworth, what about the knot of crape? Tell me."