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Page 21
The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go
with him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my
window from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I
supposed upon his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a
long, dull waiting for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses
of Mrs. Daniels' troubled face as she appeared at one window or
another of the old-fashioned mansion before me. She seemed, too, to
be unusually restless, opening the windows and looking out with
forlorn cranings of her neck as if she too were watching for her
master. Indeed I have no doubt from what I afterwards learned, that
she was in a state of constant suspense during these days. Her
frequent appearance at the station house, where she in vain sought for
some news of the girl in whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed
this. Only the day before I gave myself up to my unreserved espionage
of Mr. Blake, she had had an interview with Mr. Gryce in which she
had let fall her apprehensions that the girl was dead, and asked
whether if that were the case, the police would be likely to come into
a knowledge of the fact. Upon being assured that if she had not been
privately made way with, there was every chance in their favor, she
had grown a little calmer, but before going away had so far forgotten
herself as to intimate that if some result was not reached before
another fortnight had elapsed, she should take the matter into her
own hands and--She did not say what she would do, but her looks were
of a very menacing character. It was no wonder, then, that her
countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she trod the halls
of that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich with bronzes and
the glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing suggestions of
loss and wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze from the
windows for the coming of one whose footsteps were ever delayed. She
happened to be looking out, when after a longer stroll than usual the
master of the house returned. As he made his appearance at the corner,
I saw her hurriedly withdraw her head and hide herself behind the
curtain, from which position she watched him as with tired steps and
somewhat dejected mien, he passed up the steps and entered the house.
Not till the door closed upon him, did she venture to issue forth and
with a hurried movement shut the blinds and disappear. This anxiety
on her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough was I when on the next
day I found myself well enough to renew my operations. To ferret out
this mystery, if mystery it was,--I still found myself forced to
admit the possibility of there being none--had now become the one
ambition of my life; and all because it was not only an unusually
blind one, but of a nature that involved danger to my position as
detective, I entered upon it with a zest rare even to me who love my
work and all it involves with an undivided passion.
To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake
shortly after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship
to me that bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience,
a long and wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all
probability at the end but reiterated disappointment. But for once
the fates had willed it otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at
the failure of his own attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart
to prosecute them than usual I cannot say, but we had scarcely
entered upon the lower end of the Bowery, before he suddenly turned
with a look of disgust, and gazing hurriedly about him, hailed a
Madison Avenue car that was rapidly approaching. I was at that moment
on the other side of the way, but I hurried forward too, and signaled
the same car. But just as I was on the point of entering it I
perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with his eyes upon a girl
that was hurrying past him with a basket on her arm, regain the
sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop her. Of
course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him too
closely after my late conspicuous attempt to enter it with him. But
from my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the
girl, who from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of
any one of the shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the
four corners within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for
a few moments, saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking.
Reckless at this sight of the consequences which might follow his
detection of the part I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was
suddenly disconcerted by observing him hurriedly separate from the
girl and turn towards me with intention as it were to regain the
corner he had left. Weighing in an instant the probable good to be
obtained by following either party, I determined to leave Mr. Blake
for one day to himself, and turn my attention to the girl he had
addressed, especially as she was tall and thin and bore herself with
something like grace.
Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain
attempt to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown
five years older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now
flitting before me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her
dress to its minutest details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged
and uncouth it was. That Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen,
clad in a black alpaca frock, a striped shawl and a Bowery hat
trimmed with feathers, I could easily understand; but that this
creature with her faded calico dress, dingy cape thrown carelessly
over her head, and ragged basket, should arrest his attention, was a
riddle to me. I hastened forward with intent to catch a glimpse of
her countenance if possible; but she seemed to have acquired wings to
her feet since her interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd of
hooting urchins that were rushing from Centre Street after a broken
wagon and runaway horse, she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I
soon saw that my only hope of overtaking her lay in running. I
accordingly quickened my steps when those same hooting youngsters
getting in the way of my feet, I tripped up and--well, I own I
retired from that field baffled. Not entirely so, however. Just as I
was going down, I caught sight of the girl tearing away from a box of
garbage on the curb-stone; and when order having been restored, by
which lofty statement I mean to say when your humble servant had
regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the fact that she had effectually
disappeared, I hurried to that box and succeeded in finding hanging
to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a piece of the old calico
frock of nameless color which I had been following a moment before.
Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory day's work,
I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till--But with
all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.
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