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Page 11
"Is this description true?" Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs.
Daniels, though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl's
head which was covered with a little cap.
"Sufficiently so," returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however.
Then with a sudden display of energy, "Emily's figure is not what you
would call plump. I have seen her--" She broke off as if a little
startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.
"Wait a moment," interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. "You said the
girl's hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?"
"O, yes sir;" replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons
on her cap.
"Let me see your hair."
She took off her cap with a smile.
"Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other
girls I suppose?"
"Two, sir;" returned Mrs. Daniels.
"How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily's?"
"Yes, sir; about like Fanny's."
Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of
his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.
"We will now proceed to the yard," said he. But at that moment the
door of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into
the hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the
house. He was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At
the sight we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots
of her gray hair.
Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud,
reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the
light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his
face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I
involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great
man's privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped forward.
"Mr. Blake, I believe," said he, bowing in that deferential way he
knows so well how to assume.
The gentleman, startled as it evidently seemed from a reverie, looked
hastily up. Meeting Mr. Gryce's bland smile, he returned the bow, but
haughtily, and as it appeared in an abstracted way.
"Allow me to introduce myself," proceeded my superior. "I am Mr. Gryce
from the detective bureau. We were notified this morning that a girl
in your employ had disappeared from your house last night in a
somewhat strange and unusual way, and I just stepped over with my man
here, to see if the matter is of sufficient importance to inquire
into. With many apologies for the intrusion, I stand obedient to your
orders."
With a frown expressive of annoyance, Mr. Blake glanced around and
detecting Mrs. Daniels, said: "Did you consider the affair so
serious as that?"
She nodded, seeming to find it difficult to speak.
He remained looking at her with an expression of some doubt. "I can
hardly think," said he, "such extreme measures were necessary; the
girl will doubtless come back, or if not--" His shoulders gave a
slight shrug and he took out his gloves.
"The difficulty seems to be," quoth Mr. Gryce eyeing those gloves with
his most intent and concentrated look, "that the girl did not go
alone, but was helped away, or forced away, by parties who had
previously broken into your house."
"That is a strange circumstance," remarked Mr. Blake, but still
without any appearance of interest, "and if you are sure of what you
say, demands, perhaps, some inquiry. I would not wish to put anything
in the way of justice succoring the injured. But--" again he gave
that slight shrug of the shoulders, indicative of doubt, if not
indifference.
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