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Page 5
I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ----- Precinct Station, when
the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in,
whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I
asked her what she wanted.
"A detective," she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of
the various men scattered through the room. "I don't wish anything
said about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night,
and"--she stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--"and I want
some one to look her up," she went on at last with the most intense
emphasis.
"A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say
our house?"
She looked at me keenly before replying. "You are a young man," said
she; "isn't there some one here more responsible than yourself that I
can talk to?"
I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then
passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him
aside, she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He
listened nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I
knew indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his
face--but you know what Gryce's face is. I was about to walk off,
convinced he had got hold of something he would prefer to manage
himself, when the Superintendent came in.
"Where is Gryce?" asked he; "tell him I want him."
Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he
whispered, "Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and
send me word if you want me; I will be here for two hours."
I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I
reapproached the woman. "Where do you come from," said I, "I am to go
back with you and investigate the affair it seems."
"Did he say so?" she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with
his back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.
I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. "I come from No.
---- Second Avenue: Mr. Blake's house," she whispered, uttering a
name so well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce's movement of
sudden interest "A girl--one who sewed for us--disappeared last night
in a way to alarm us very much. She was taken from her room--"
"Yes," she cried vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity,
"taken from her room; she never went of her own accord; and she must
be found if I spend every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in
the bank against my old age."
Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so
vehement, I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of
hers that she felt her abduction so keenly.
"No," she replied, "not a relative, but," she went on, looking every
way but in my face, "a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they
call it, of mine; I--I--She must be found," she again reiterated.
We were by this time in the street.
"Nothing must be said about it," she now whispered, catching me by the
arm. "I told him so," nodding back to the building from which we had
just issued, "and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks
knowing anything about it, can't it?"
"What?" I asked.
"Finding the girl."
"Well," said I, "we can tell you better about that when we know a few
more of the facts. What is the girl's name and what makes you think
she didn't go out of the house-door of her own accord?"
"Why, why, everything. She wasn't the person to do it; then the looks
of her room, and--They all got out of the window," she cried
suddenly, "and went away by the side gate into ------ Street."
"They? Who do you mean by they?"
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