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Page 103
Some block in the traffic checked the crowd and the woman
stopped. The block cleared and the human tide drifted on, but
the woman remained. The crowd edged her over to the wall and she
stood there before the shutter of a shop-window. After a time
the crowd passed, thinned and disappeared, but the woman remained
as though thrown out there by the human eddy.
The woman remained for a long time unmoving against the shutter
of the shop-window. Finally she was awakened into life by a
voice speaking to her. It was a soft, foreign voice that lisped
the liquid accents of the occasional English words:
"Ma pauvre femme!" it said; "come with me. Vous etes malade!"
The woman followed mechanically in a sort of wonder. The person
who had spoken to her was young and beautifully dressed in furs
that covered her to her feet. She had gotten down from a
motorcar that stood beside the curb - one of those modern vehicles,
fitted with splendid trappings.
Beyond the shop-window was a great cafe. The girl entered and
the woman followed. The attendants came forward to welcome the
splendid visitor as one whose arrival at this precise hour of the
evening had become a sort of custom. She gave some directions in
a language which the woman did not understand, and they were
seated at a table.
The waiters brought a silver dish filled with a clear, steaming
soup and served it. The girl threw back her fur coat and the
dazed woman realized how beautiful she was. Her hair was yellow
like ripe corn and there were masses of it banked and clustered
about her head; her eyes were blue, and her voice, soft and
alluring, was like a friendly arm put around the heart.
The miserable woman was so confused by this transformation - by
the sudden swing of the door in the wall that had admitted her
into this new, unfamiliar world - that she was never afterward
able to remember precisely by what introductory words her story
was drawn out. She found herself taken up, comforted and made to
tell it.
Her husband had been a butler in the service of a Mr. Marsh, an
eccentric man who lived in one of the old downtown houses of the
city. He was a retired banker with no family. The man lived
alone. He permitted no servants in the house except the butler.
Meals were sent in on order from a neighboring hotel and served
by the butler as the man directed. He received few visitors in
the house and no tradespeople were permitted to come in. There
seemed no reason for this seclusion except the eccentricities of
the man that had grown more pronounced with advancing years.
It was the custom of the butler to leave the house at eight
o'clock in the evening and return in the morning at seven. On
the morning of the third of February, when the butler entered the
house, as he was accustomed to do at eight o'clock in the
morning, he found his master dead.
The woman continued with her narrative, speaking slowly. Every
detail was vividly impressed upon her memory and she gave it
accurately, precisely.
There was a narrow passage or hall, not more than three feet in
width, leading from the butler's pantry into a little
dining-room. This dining-room the old man had fitted up as a
sort of library. It was farther than any other room from the
noises of the city. His library table was placed with one end
against the left wall of the room and he sat with his back toward
the passage into the butler's pantry. On the morning of the
third of February he was found dead in his chair. He had been
stabbed in the back, on the left side, where the neck joins to
the shoulder. A carving-knife had been used and a single blow
had accomplished the murder.
It was known that on the evening before the old banker had taken
from a safety-deposit vault the sum of $20,000, which it was his
intention to invest in some securities. This money, in bills of
very large denominations, was in the top drawer on the right side
of the desk. The dead man had apparently not been touched after
the crime, but the drawer had been pried open and the money
taken. An ice-pick from the butler's pantry had been used to
force it. The assassin had left no marks, finger-prints or
tell-tale stains. The victim had been instantly killed with the
blow of the knife which lay on the floor beside him.
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