The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ rest. The first occupied his immediate attention. Passing before a chair in the hall on which a small boy sat dozing, he roused him with the remark:

      “Come, Jake, it’s time to look lively. I want you to go with me to the exact place where that lady ran across you to-day.”

      The boy, half dead with sleep, looked around him for his hat.

      “I’d like to see my mother first,” he pleaded. “She must be done up about me. I never stayed away so long before.”

      “Your mother knows where you are. I sent a message to her hours ago. She gave a very good report of you, Jake; says you’re an obedient lad and that you never have told her a falsehood.”

      “She’s a good mother,” the boy warmly declared. “I’d be as bad—as bad as my father was, if I did not treat her well.” Here his hand fell on his cap, which he put on his head.

      “I’m ready,” said he.

      Mr. Gryce at once led the way into the street.

      The hour was late, and only certain portions of the city showed any real activity. Into one of these thoroughfares they presently came, and before the darkened window of one of the lesser shops paused, while Jake pointed out the two stuffed frogs engaged with miniature swords in mortal combat at which he had been looking when the lady came up and spoke to him.

      Mr. Gryce eyed the boy rather than the frogs, though probably the former would have sworn that his attention had never left that miniature conflict.

      “Was she a pretty lady?” he asked.

      The boy scratched his head in some perplexity.

      “She made me a good deal afraid of her,” he said. “She had very splendid clothes; oh, gorgeous!” he cried, as if on this question there could be no doubt.

      “And she was young, and carried a bunch of flowers, and seemed troubled? What! not young, and carried no flowers—and wasn’t even anxious and trembling?”

      The boy, who had been shaking his head, looked nonplussed.

      “I think as she was what you might call troubled. But she wasn’t crying, and when she spoke to me, she put more feeling into her grip than into her voice. She just dragged me to the drug-store, sir. If she hadn’t given me money first, I should have wriggled away in spite of her. But I likes money, sir; I don’t get too much of it.”

      Mr. Gryce by this time was moving on. “Not young,” he repeated to himself. “Some old flame, then, of Mr. Adams; they’re apt to be dangerous, very dangerous, more dangerous than the young ones.”

      In front of the drug-store he paused. “Show me where she stood while you went in.”

      The boy pointed out the identical spot. He seemed as eager as the detective.

      “And was she standing there when you came out?”

      “Oh, no, sir; she went away while I was inside.”

      “Did you see her go? Can you tell me whether she went up street or down?”

      “I had one eye on her, sir; I was afraid she was coming into the shop after me, and my arm was too sore for me to want her to clinch hold on it again. So when she started to go, I took a step nearer, and saw her move toward the curbstone and hold up her hand. But it wasn’t a car she was after, for none came by for several minutes.”

      The fold between Mr. Gryce’s eyes perceptibly smoothed out.

      “Then it was some cabman or hack-driver she hailed. Were there any empty coaches about that you saw?”

      The boy had not noticed. He had reached the limit of his observations, and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more from him. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one of his assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to the ill-omened house where the tragedy itself had occurred.

      “Any one waiting for me?” he inquired of Styles, who came to the door.

      “Yes, sir; a young man; name, Hines. Says he’s an electrician.”

      “That’s the man I want. Where is he?”

      “In the parlor, sir.”

      “Good! I’ll see him. But don’t let any one else in. Anybody upstairs?”

      “No, sir, all gone. Shall I go up or stay here?”

      “You’d better go up. I’ll look after the door.”

      Styles nodded, and went toward the stairs, up which he presently disappeared. Mr. Gryce proceeded to the parlor.

      A dapper young man with an intelligent eye rose to meet him. “You sent for me,” said he.

      The detective nodded, asked a few questions, and seeming satisfied with the replies he received, led the way into Mr. Adams’s study, from which the body had been removed to an upper room. As they entered, a mild light greeted them from a candle which, by Mr. Gryce’s orders, had been placed on a small side table near the door. But once in, Mr. Gryce approached the larger table in the centre of the room, and placing his hand on one of the buttons before him, asked his companion to be kind enough to blow out the candle. This he did, leaving the room for a moment in total darkness. Then with a sudden burst of illumination, a marvellous glow of a deep violet color shot over the whole room, and the two men turned and faced each other both with inquiry in their looks, so unexpected was this theatrical effect to the one, and so inexplicable its cause and purpose to the other.

      “That is but one slide,” remarked Mr. Gryce. “Now I will press another button, and the color changes to—pink, as you see. This one produces green, this one white, and this a bilious yellow, which is not becoming to either of us, I am sure. Now will you examine the connection, and see if there is anything peculiar about it?”

      Mr. Hines at once set to work. But beyond the fact that the whole contrivance was the work of an amateur hand, he found nothing strange about it, except the fact that it worked so well.

      Mr. Gryce showed disappointment.

      “He made it, then, himself?” he asked.

      “Undoubtedly, or some one else equally unacquainted with the latest method of wiring.”

      “Will you look at these books over here and see if sufficient knowledge can be got from them to enable an amateur to rig up such an arrangement as this?”

      Mr. Hines glanced at the shelf which Mr. Gryce had pointed out, and without taking out the books, answered briefly:

      “A man with a deft hand and a scientific turn of mind might, by the aid of these, do all you see here and more. The aptitude is all.”

      “Then I’m afraid Mr. Adams had the aptitude,” was the dry response. There was disappointment in the tone. Why, his next words served to show. “A man with a turn for mechanical contrivances often wastes much time and money on useless toys only fit for children to play with. Look at that bird cage now. Perched at a height totally beyond the reach СКАЧАТЬ