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Page 17
"Thompson tells you this story, does he?"
"Yes."
"Well," said I, "it's a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I have got
to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbing it
around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake are
concerned." And I departed to hunt up Thompson.
But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girl
appeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a
shawl. My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety
into the private concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and
discovered--well, such facts as these:
That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to
domestic affairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except
upon occasions of great political importance, when he was always to be
found on the platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the
ordinary observer a man eminently calculated, from his good looks,
fine position, and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only
manifested a distaste for it, but even went so far as to refuse to
participate in the social dinners of his most intimate friends; the
only table to which he would sit down being that of some public
caterer, where he was sure of finding none but his political
associates assembled.
To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out by
the fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place
of amusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in a
man, young--he was not far from thirty-five at that time--rich, and
marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was
if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their
eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some
marked peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would
never treat a man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare
to him, nor would he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in
that divine poet beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr.
Blake's uncle hated all members of the legal profession, and as for
his grandfather--but you have heard what a mania of dislike he had
against that simple article of diet, fish; now his friends were
obliged to omit it from their bills of fare whenever they expected him
to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose to have any pet antipathy--as for
women for instance--he surely had precedent enough in his own family
to back him. However, it was whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a
former political colleague of his who had been with him in
Washington, that he was known at one time to show considerable
attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of his who has since made
such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and straightway losing by
death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble, the Count De
Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about, Madame the
Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all
appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.
Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake's private apartment, I
asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the
most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon
something in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with
my information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I
would have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth
lying at the bottom of this well.
CHAPTER V
A NEW YORK BELLE
Meanwhile all our efforts to obtain information in regard to the fate
or whereabouts of the missing girl, had so far proved utterly futile.
Even the advertisements inserted by Mrs. Daniels had produced no
effect; and frustrated in my scheme I began to despair, when the
accounts of that same Mrs. Daniels' strange and unaccountable
behavior during these days of suspense, which came to me through
Fanny, (the pretty housemaid at Mr. Blake's, whose acquaintance I had
lately taken to cultivating,) aroused once more my dormant energies
and led me to ask myself if the affair was quite as hopeless as it
seemed.
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