That Affair Next Door, Page 2

  I.

  A DISCOVERY.

  I am not an inquisitive woman, but when, in the middle of a certain warmnight in September, I heard a carriage draw up at the adjoining houseand stop, I could not resist the temptation of leaving my bed and takinga peep through the curtains of my window.

  First: because the house was empty, or supposed to be so, the familystill being, as I had every reason to believe, in Europe; and secondly:because, not being inquisitive, I often miss in my lonely and singlelife much that it would be both interesting and profitable for me toknow.

  Luckily I made no such mistake this evening. I rose and looked out, andthough I was far from realizing it at the time, took, by so doing, myfirst step in a course of inquiry which has ended----

  But it is too soon to speak of the end. Rather let me tell you what Isaw when I parted the curtains of my window in Gramercy Park, on thenight of September 17, 1895.

  Not much at first glance, only a common hack drawn up at the neighboringcurb-stone. The lamp which is supposed to light our part of the block issome rods away on the opposite side of the street, so that I obtainedbut a shadowy glimpse of a young man and woman standing below me on thepavement. I could see, however, that the woman--and not the man--wasputting money into the driver's hand. The next moment they were on thestoop of this long-closed house, and the coach rolled off.

  It was dark, as I have said, and I did not recognize the youngpeople,--at least their figures were not familiar to me; but when, inanother instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after arather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took itfor granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam's eldest son Franklin,and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its mostpunctilious member, should bring a guest at so late an hour into a housedevoid of everything necessary to make the least exacting visitorcomfortable, was a mystery that I retired to bed to meditate upon.

  I did not succeed in solving it, however, and after some ten minutes hadelapsed, I was settling myself again to sleep when I was re-aroused by afresh sound from the quarter mentioned. The door I had so lately heardshut, opened again, and though I had to rush for it, I succeeded ingetting to my window in time to catch a glimpse of the departing figureof the young man hurrying away towards Broadway. The young woman was notwith him, and as I realized that he had left her behind him in thegreat, empty house, without apparent light and certainly without anycompanion, I began to question if this was like Franklin Van Burnam. Wasit not more in keeping with the recklessness of his more easy-naturedand less reliable brother, Howard, who, some two or three years back,had married a young wife of no very satisfactory antecedents, and who,as I had heard, had been ostracized by the family in consequence?

  Whichever of the two it was, he had certainly shown but littleconsideration for his companion, and thus thinking, I fell off to sleepjust as the clock struck the half hour after midnight.

  Next morning as soon as modesty would permit me to approach the window,I surveyed the neighboring house minutely. Not a blind was open, nor ashutter displaced. As I am an early riser, this did not disturb me atthe time, but when after breakfast I looked again and still failed todetect any evidences of life in the great barren front beside me, Ibegan to feel uneasy. But I did nothing till noon, when going into myrear garden and observing that the back windows of the Van Burnam housewere as closely shuttered as the front, I became so anxious that Istopped the next policeman I saw going by, and telling him mysuspicions, urged him to ring the bell.

  No answer followed the summons.

  "There is no one here," said he.

  "Ring again!" I begged.

  And he rang again but with no better result.

  "Don't you see that the house is shut up?" he grumbled. "We have hadorders to watch the place, but none to take the watch off."

  "There is a young woman inside," I insisted. "The more I think over lastnight's occurrence, the more I am convinced that the matter should belooked into."

  He shrugged his shoulders and was moving away when we both observed acommon-looking woman standing in front looking at us. She had a bundlein her hand, and her face, unnaturally ruddy though it was, had a scaredlook which was all the more remarkable from the fact that it was one ofthose wooden-like countenances which under ordinary circumstances arecapable of but little expression. She was not a stranger to me; that is,I had seen her before in or about the house in which we were at thatmoment so interested; and not stopping to put any curb on my excitement,I rushed down to the pavement and accosted her.

  "Who are you?" I asked. "Do you work for the Van Burnams, and do youknow who the lady was who came here last night?"

  The poor woman, either startled by my sudden address or by my mannerwhich may have been a little sharp, gave a quick bound backward, and wasonly deterred by the near presence of the policeman from attemptingflight. As it was, she stood her ground, though the fiery flush, whichmade her face so noticeable, deepened till her cheeks and brow werescarlet.

  "I am the scrub-woman," she protested. "I have come to open the windowsand air the house,"--ignoring my last question.

  "Is the family coming home?" the policeman asked.

  "I don't know; I think so," was her weak reply.

  "Have you the keys?" I now demanded, seeing her fumbling in her pocket.

  She did not answer; a sly look displaced the anxious one she hadhitherto displayed, and she turned away.

  "I don't see what business it is of the neighbors," she muttered,throwing me a dissatisfied scowl over her shoulder.

  "If you've got the keys, we will go in and see that things are allright," said the policeman, stopping her with a light touch.

  She trembled; I saw that she trembled, and naturally became excited.Something was wrong in the Van Burnam mansion, and I was going to bepresent at its discovery. But her next words cut my hopes short.

  "I have no objection to _your_ going in," she said to the policeman,"but I will not give up my keys to _her_. What right has she in ourhouse any way." And I thought I heard her murmur something about ameddlesome old maid.

  The look which I received from the policeman convinced me that my earshad not played me false.

  "The lady's right," he declared; and pushing by me quitedisrespectfully, he led the way to the basement door, into which he andthe so-called cleaner presently disappeared.

  I waited in front. I felt it to be my duty to do so. The variouspassers-by stopped an instant to stare at me before proceeding on theirway, but I did not flinch from my post. Not till I had heard that theyoung woman whom I had seen enter these doors at midnight was well, andthat her delay in opening the windows was entirely due to fashionablelaziness, would I feel justified in returning to my own home and itsaffairs. But it took patience and some courage to remain there. Severalminutes elapsed before I perceived the shutters in the third story open,and a still longer time before a window on the second floor flew up andthe policeman looked out, only to meet my inquiring gaze and rapidlydisappear again.

  Meantime three or four persons had stopped on the walk near me, thenucleus of a crowd which would not be long in collecting, and I wasbeginning to feel I was paying dearly for my virtuous resolution, whenthe front door burst violently open and we caught sight of the tremblingform and shocked face of the scrub-woman.

  "She's dead!" she cried, "she's dead! Murder!" and would have said morehad not the policeman pulled her back, with a growl which sounded verymuch like a suppressed oath.

  He would have shut the door upon me had I not been quicker thanlightning. As it was, I got in before it slammed, and happily too; forjust at that moment the house-cleaner, who had grown paler everyinstant, fell in a heap in the entry, and the policeman, who was not theman I would want about me in any trouble, seemed somewhat embarrassed bythis new emergency, and let me lift the poor thing up and drag herfarther into the hall.

  She had fainted, and should have had something done for her, but anxiousthough I always am to be of help
where help is needed, I had no soonergot within range of the parlor door with my burden, than I beheld asight so terrifying that I involuntarily let the poor woman slip from myarms to the floor.

  In the darkness of a dim corner (for the room had no light save thatwhich came through the doorway where I stood) lay the form of a womanunder a fallen piece of furniture. Her skirts and distended arms alonewere visible; but no one who saw the rigid outlines of her limbs coulddoubt for a moment that she was dead.

  At a sight so dreadful, and, in spite of all my apprehensions, sounexpected, I felt a sensation of sickness which in another moment mighthave ended in my fainting also, if I had not realized that it wouldnever do for me to lose my wits in the presence of a man who had nonetoo many of his own. So I shook off my momentary weakness, and turningto the policeman, who was hesitating between the unconscious figure ofthe woman outside the door and the dead form of the one within I criedsharply:

  "Come, man, to business! The woman inside there is dead, but this one isliving. Fetch me a pitcher of water from below if you can, and then gofor whatever assistance you need. I'll wait here and bring this womanto. She is a strong one, and it won't take long."

  "You'll stay here alone with that----" he began.

  But I stopped him with a look of disdain.

  "Of course I will stay here; why not? Is there anything in the dead tobe afraid of? Save me from the living, and I undertake to save myselffrom the dead."

  But his face had grown very suspicious.

  "You go for the water," he cried. "And see here! Just call out for someone to telephone to Police Headquarters for the Coroner and adetective. I don't quit this room till one or the other of them comes."

  Smiling at a caution so very ill-timed, but abiding by my invariablerule of never arguing with a man unless I see some way of getting thebetter of him, I did what he bade me, though I hated dreadfully to leavethe spot and its woful mystery, even for so short a time as wasrequired.

  "Run up to the second story," he called out, as I passed by theprostrate figure of the cleaner. "Tell them what you want from thewindow, or we will have the whole street in here."

  So I ran up-stairs,--I had always wished to visit this house, but hadnever been encouraged to do so by the Misses Van Burnam,--and making myway into the front room, the door of which stood wide open, I rushed tothe window and hailed the crowd, which by this time extended far outbeyond the curb-stone.

  "An officer!" I called out, "a police officer! An accident has occurredand the man in charge here wants the Coroner and a detective from PoliceHeadquarters."

  "Who's hurt?" "Is it a man?" "Is it a woman?" shouted up one or two; and"Let us in!" shouted others; but the sight of a boy rushing off to meetan advancing policeman satisfied me that help would soon be forthcoming,so I drew in my head and looked about me for the next necessity--water.

  I was in a lady's bed-chamber, probably that of the eldest Miss VanBurnam; but it was a bed-chamber which had not been occupied for somemonths, and naturally it lacked the very articles which would have beenof assistance to me in the present emergency. No _eau de Cologne_ onthe bureau, no camphor on the mantel-shelf. But there was water in thepipes (something I had hardly hoped for), and a mug on the wash-stand;so I filled the mug and ran with it to the door, stumbling, as I did so,over some small object which I presently perceived to be a little roundpin-cushion. Picking it up, for I hate anything like disorder, I placedit on a table near by, and continued on my way.

  The woman was still lying at the foot of the stairs. I dashed the waterin her face and she immediately came to.

  Sitting up, she was about to open her lips when she checked herself; afact which struck me as odd, though I did not allow my surprise tobecome apparent.

  Meantime I stole a glance into the parlor. The officer was standingwhere I had left him, looking down on the prostrate figure before him.

  There was no sign of feeling in his heavy countenance, and he had notopened a shutter, nor, so far as I could see, disarranged an object inthe room.

  The mysterious character of the whole affair fascinated me in spite ofmyself, and leaving the now fully aroused woman in the hall, I washalf-way across the parlor floor when the latter stopped me with ashrill cry:

  "Don't leave me! I have never seen anything before so horrible. The poordear! The poor dear! Why don't he take those dreadful things off her?"

  She alluded not only to the piece of furniture which had fallen upon theprostrate woman, and which can best be described as a cabinet withclosets below and shelves above, but to the various articles of_bric-a-brac_ which had tumbled from the shelves, and which now lay inbroken pieces about her.

  "He will do so; they will do so very soon," I replied. "He is waitingfor some one with more authority than himself; for the Coroner, if youknow what that means."

  "But what if she's alive! Those things will crush her. Let us take themoff. I'll help. I'm not too weak to help."

  "Do you know who this person is?" I asked, for her voice had morefeeling in it than I thought natural to the occasion, dreadful as itwas.

  "I?" she repeated, her weak eyelids quivering for a moment as she triedto sustain my scrutiny. "How should I know? I came in with the policemanand haven't been any nearer than I now be. What makes you think I knowanything about her? I'm only the scrub-woman, and don't even know thenames of the family."

  "I thought you seemed so very anxious," I explained, suspicious of hersuspiciousness, which was of so sly and emphatic a character that itchanged her whole bearing from one of fear to one of cunning in amoment.

  "And who wouldn't feel the like of that for a poor creature lyingcrushed under a heap of broken crockery!"

  Crockery! those Japanese vases worth hundreds of dollars! that ormuluclock and those Dresden figures which must have been more than a coupleof centuries old!

  "It's a poor sense of duty that keeps a man standing dumb and staringlike that, when with a lift of his hand he could show us the like ofher pretty face, and if it's dead she be or alive."

  As this burst of indignation was natural enough and not altogetheruncalled for from the standpoint of humanity, I gave the woman a nod ofapproval, and wished I were a man myself that I might lift the heavycabinet or whatever it was that lay upon the poor creature before us.But not being a man, and not judging it wise to irritate the onerepresentative of that sex then present, I made no remark, but only tooka few steps farther into the room, followed, as it afterwards appeared,by the scrub-woman.

  The Van Burnam parlors are separated by an open arch. It was to theright of this arch and in the corner opposite the doorway that the deadwoman lay. Using my eyes, now that I was somewhat accustomed to thesemi-darkness enveloping us, I noticed two or three facts which hadhitherto escaped me. One was, that she lay on her back with her feetpointing towards the hall door, and another, that nowhere in the room,save in her immediate vicinity, were there to be seen any signs ofstruggle or disorder. All was as set and proper as in my own parlor whenit has been undisturbed for any length of time by guests; and though Icould not see far into the rooms beyond, they were to all appearance inan equally orderly condition.

  Meanwhile the cleaner was trying to account for the overturned cabinet.

  "Poor dear! poor dear! she must have pulled it over on herself! Buthowever did she get into the house? And what was she doing in this greatempty place?"

  The policeman, to whom these remarks had evidently been addressed,growled out some unintelligible reply, and in her perplexity the womanturned towards me.

  But what could I say to her? I had my own private knowledge of thematter, but she was not one to confide in, so I stoically shook my head.Doubly disappointed, the poor thing shrank back, after looking first atthe policeman and then at me in an odd, appealing way, difficult tounderstand. Then her eyes fell again on the dead girl at her feet, andbeing nearer now than before, she evidently saw something that startledher, for she sank on her knees with a little cry and began examining thegirl's skirts.
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  "What are you looking at there?" growled the policeman. "Get up, can'tyou! No one but the Coroner has right to lay hand on anything here."

  "I'm doing no harm," the woman protested, in an odd, shaking voice. "Ionly wanted to see what the poor thing had on. Some blue stuff, isn'tit?" she asked me.

  "Blue serge," I answered; "store-made, but very good; must have comefrom Altman's or Stern's."

  "I--I'm not used to sights like this," stammered the scrub-woman,stumbling awkwardly to her feet, and looking as if her few remainingwits had followed the rest on an endless vacation. "I--I think I shallhave to go home." But she did not move.

  "The poor dear's young, isn't she?" she presently insinuated, with anodd catch in her voice that gave to the question an air of hesitationand doubt.

  "I think she is younger than either you or myself," I deigned to reply."Her narrow pointed shoes show she has not reached the years ofdiscretion."

  "Yes, yes, so they do!" ejaculated the cleaner, eagerly--too eagerlyfor perfect ingenuousness. "That's why I said 'Poor dear!' and spoke ofher pretty face. I am sorry for young folks when they get into trouble,aint you? You and me might lie here and no one be much the worse for it,but a sweet lady like this----"

  This was not very flattering to me, but I was prevented from rebukingher by a prolonged shout from the stoop without, as a rush was madeagainst the front door, followed by a shrill peal of the bell.

  "Man from Headquarters," stolidly announced the policeman. "Open thedoor, ma'am; or step back into the further hall if you want me to doit."

  Such rudeness was uncalled for; but considering myself too important awitness to show feeling, I swallowed my indignation and proceeded withall my native dignity to the front door.