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Page 37
"You dare!" came forth in strange broken tones from Mr. Blake's lips.
I instantly turned towards him. He was gazing with a look that was
half indignant, half menacing at the silent detective who with eyes
drooped and finger directed towards the picture, seemed to be waiting
for him to finish.
"I do not understand an audacity that allows you to--to--" Was this
the haughty gentleman we had known, this hesitating troubled man with
bloodless lips and trembling hands?
"I declared my desire to justify myself," said my principal with a
respectful bow. "This is my justification. Do you note the color of
the woman's hair whose portrait hangs with its face turned to the
wall in your room? Is it like or unlike that of the strand you held
in your hand a few moments ago; a strand taken as I swear, hair by
hair from the comb of the poor creature who occupied the room above.
But that is not all," he continued as Mr. Blake fell a trifle aback;
"just observe the dress in which this woman is painted; blue silk you
see, dark and rich; a wide collar cunningly executed, you can almost
trace the pattern; a brooch; then the roses in the hand, do you see?
Now come with me upstairs."
Too much startled to speak, Mr. Blake, haughty aristocrat as he was,
turned like a little child and followed the detective who with an
assured step and unembarassed mien led the way into the deserted room
above.
"You accuse me of insulting you, when I express disbelief of your
assertion that there was no connection between you and the girl
Emily," said Mr. Gryce as he lit the gas and unlocked that famous
bureau drawer. "Will you do so any longer in face of these?" And
drawing off the towel that lay uppermost, he revealed the neatly
folded dress, wide collar, brooch and faded roses that lay beneath.
"Mrs. Daniels assures us these articles belonged to the sewing-woman
Emily; were brought here by her. Dare you say they are not the ones
reproduced in the portrait below?"
Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. "My God!
My God!" was his only reply, "what are these?" Suddenly he rose, his
whole form quivering, his eyes burning. "Where is Mrs. Daniels?" he
cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. "I must see her at
once. Send the house-keeper here," he ordered as Fanny smiling
demurely made her appearance at the door.
"Mrs. Daniels is out," returned the girl, "went out as soon as ever
you got up from dinner, sir."
"Gone out at this hour?"
"Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir."
Her master frowned. "Send her to me as soon as she returns," he
commanded, and dismissed the girl.
"I don't know what to make of this," he now said in a strange tone,
approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer
with a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be
strangely commingled. "I cannot explain the presence of these articles
in this room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to
make other matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me
to take anyone into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me
to hope any longer to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns."
CHAPTER XI
LUTTRA
"Gentlemen," said he as he ushered us once more into his studio, "you
have presumed, and not without reason I should say, to infer that the
original of this portrait and the woman who has so long occupied the
position of sewing-woman in my house, are one and the same. You will
no longer retain that opinion when I inform you that this picture,
strange as it may appear to you, is the likeness of my wife."
"Wife!" We both were astonished as I take it, but it was my voice
which spoke. "We were ignorant you ever had a wife."
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