DETECTIVE EBENEZER GRYCE - Complete Murder-Mysteries Collection: 11 Novels in One Volume
an expression of patient endurance, she walked in, leaving the door open behind her in a courteous way I cannot sufficiently commend.”
I could not help frowning. Honest as the man appeared, this was evidently anything but a sore subject with him. Observing me frown, he softened his manner.
“Not seeing any other way of keeping her under my eye, except by entering the room, I followed her in, and took a seat in a remote corner. She flashed one look at me as I did so, and commenced pacing the floor in a restless kind of way I’m not altogether unused to. At last she stopped abruptly, right in the middle of the room. ‘Get me a glass of water!’ she gasped; ‘I’m faint again—quick! on the stand in the corner.’ Now in order to get that glass of water it was necessary for me to pass behind a dressing mirror that reached almost to the ceiling; and I naturally hesitated. But she turned and looked at me, and—Well, gentlemen, I think either of you would have hastened to do what she asked; or at least”—with a doubtful look at Mr. Gryce—“have given your two ears for the privilege, even if you didn’t succumb to the temptation.”
“Well, well!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, impatiently.
“I am going on,” said he. “I stepped out of sight, then, for a moment; but it seemed long enough for her purpose; for when I emerged, glass in hand, she was kneeling at the grate full five feet from the spot where she had been standing, and was fumbling with the waist of her dress in a way to convince me she had something concealed there which she was anxious to dispose of. I eyed her pretty closely as I handed her the glass of water, but she was gazing into the grate, and didn’t appear to notice. Drinking barely a drop, she gave it back, and in another moment was holding out her hands over the fire. ‘Oh, I am so cold!’ she cried, ‘so cold.’ And I verily believe she was. At any rate, she shivered most naturally. But there were a few dying embers in the grate, and when I saw her thrust her hand again into the folds of her dress I became distrustful of her intentions and, drawing a step nearer, looked over her shoulder, when I distinctly saw her drop something into the grate that clinked as it fell. Suspecting what it was, I was about to interfere, when she sprang to her feet, seized the scuttle of coal that was upon the hearth, and with one move emptied the whole upon the dying embers. ‘I want a fire,’ she cried, ‘a fire!’ ‘That is hardly the way to make one,’ I returned, carefully taking the coal out with my hands, piece by piece, and putting it back into the scuttle, till—”
“Till what?” I asked, seeing him and Mr. Gryce exchange a hurried look.
“Till I found this!” opening his large hand, and showing me a broken-handled key.
Chapter X.
Mr. Gryce Receives New Impetus
“There’s nothing ill
Can dwell in such a temple.”
Tempest.
This astounding discovery made a most unhappy impression upon me. It was true, then. Eleanore the beautiful, the lovesome, was—I did not, could not finish the sentence, even in the silence of my own mind.
“You look surprised,” said Mr. Gryce, glancing curiously towards the key. “Now, I ain’t. A woman does not thrill, blush, equivocate, and faint for nothing; especially such a woman as Miss Leavenworth.”
“A woman who could do such a deed would be the last to thrill, equivocate, and faint,” I retorted. “Give me the key; let me see it.”
He complacently put it in my hand. “It is the one we want. No getting out of that.”
I returned it. “If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her.”
He stared with great amazement. “You have strong faith in the women,” he laughed. “I hope they will never disappoint you.”
I had no reply for this, and a short silence ensued, first broken by Mr. Gryce. “There is but one thing left to do,” said he. “Fobbs, you will have to request Miss Leavenworth to come down. Do not alarm her; only see that she comes. To the reception room,” he added, as the man drew off.
No sooner were we left alone than I made a move to return to Mary, but he stopped me.
“Come and see it out,” he whispered. “She will be down in a moment; see it out; you had best.”
Glancing back, I hesitated; but the prospect of beholding Eleanore again drew me, in spite of myself. Telling him to wait, I returned to Mary’s side to make my excuses.
“What is the matter—what has occurred?” she breathlessly asked.
“Nothing as yet to disturb you much. Do not be alarmed.” But my face betrayed me.
“There is something!” said she.
“Your cousin is coming down.”
“Down here?” and she shrank visibly.
“No, to the reception room.”
“I do not understand. It is all dreadful; and no one tells me anything.”
“I pray God there may be nothing to tell. Judging from your present faith in your cousin, there will not be. Take comfort, then, and be assured I will inform you if anything occurs which you ought to know.”
Giving her a look of encouragement, I left her crushed against the crimson pillows of the sofa on which she sat, and rejoined Mr. Gryce. We had scarcely entered the reception room when Eleanore Leavenworth came in.
More languid than she was an hour before, but haughty still, she slowly advanced, and, meeting my eye, gently bent her head.
“I have been summoned here,” said she, directing herself exclusively to Mr. Gryce, “by an individual whom I take to be in your employ. If so, may I request you to make your wishes known at once, as I am quite exhausted, and am in great need of rest.”
“Miss Leavenworth,” returned Mr. Gryce, rubbing his hands together and staring in quite a fatherly manner at the door-knob, “I am very sorry to trouble you, but the fact is I wish to ask you——”
But here she stopped him. “Anything in regard to the key which that man has doubtless told you he saw me drop into the ashes?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Then I must refuse to answer any questions concerning it. I have nothing to say on the subject, unless it is this:”—giving him a look full of suffering, but full of a certain sort of courage, too—“that he was right if he told you I had the key in hiding about my person, and that I attempted to conceal it in the ashes of the grate.”
“Still, Miss——”
But she had already withdrawn to the door. “I pray you to excuse me,” said she. “No argument you could advance would make any difference in my determination; therefore it would be but a waste of energy on your part to attempt any.” And, with a flitting glance in my direction, not without its appeal, she quietly left the room.
For a moment Mr. Gryce stood gazing after her with a look of great interest, then, bowing with almost exaggerated homage, he hastily followed her out.
I had scarcely recovered from the surprise occasioned by this unexpected movement when a quick step was heard in the hall, and Mary, flushed and anxious, appeared at my side.
“What is it?” she inquired. “What has Eleanore been saying?”
“Alas!” I answered, “she has not said anything. That is the trouble, Miss Leavenworth. Your cousin preserves a reticence upon certain points very painful to witness. She ought to understand that if she persists in doing this, that——”
“That what?” There was no mistaking the deep anxiety prompting this question.
“That