The Woman in the Alcove Part 16

"Miss Van Arsdale, a surprise awaited him, and awaited us when he told the result of his search. The name attached to the recommendation had been--'Hiram Sears, Steward.' He did not know of any such man--perhaps you do--but when he reached the house from which the recommendation was dated, he saw that it was one of the great houses of New York, though he could not at the instant remember who lived there. But he soon found out. The first pa.s.ser-by told him. Miss Van Arsdale, perhaps you can do the same. The number was--Eighty-sixth Street."

"--!" I repeated, quite aghast. "Why, Mr. Fairbrother himself! The husband of--"

"Exactly so, and Hiram Sears, whose name you may have heard mentioned at the inquest, though for a very good reason he was not there in person, is his steward and general factotum."

"Oh! and it was he who recommended Wellgood?"

"Yes."

"And did Mr. Jones see him?"

"No. The house, you remember, is closed. Mr. Fairbrother, on leaving town, gave his servants a vacation. His steward he took with him,--that is, they started together. But we hear no mention made of him in our telegrams from Santa Fe. He does not seem to have followed Mr.

Fairbrother into the mountains."

"You say that in a peculiar way," I remarked.

"Because it has struck us peculiarly. Where is Sears now? And why did he not go on with Mr. Fairbrother when he left home with every apparent intention of accompanying him to the Placide mine? Miss Van Arsdale, we were impressed with this fact when we heard of Mr. Fairbrother's lonely trip from where he was taken ill to his mine outside of Santa Fe; but we have only given it its due importance since hearing what has come to us to-day.

"Miss Van Arsdale," continued the inspector, as I looked up quickly, "I am going to show great confidence in you. I am going to tell you what our men have learned about this Sears. As I have said before, it is but forestalling the reporters by a day, and it may help you to understand why I sent you such peremptory orders to stop, when your whole heart was fixed on an attempt by which you hoped to right Mr. Durand. We can not afford to disturb so distinguished a person as the one you have under your eye, while the least hope remains of fixing this crime elsewhere.

And we have such hope. This man, this Sears, is by no means the simple character one would expect from his position. Considering the short time we have had (it was only yesterday that Jones found his way into this office), we have unearthed some very interesting facts in his regard.

His devotion to Mr. Fairbrother was never any secret, and we knew as much about that the day after the murder as we do now. But the feelings with which he regarded Mrs. Fairbrother--well, that is another thing--and it was not till last night we heard that the attachment which bound him to her was of the sort which takes no account of youth or age, fitness or unfitness. He was no Adonis, and old enough, we are told, to be her father; but for all that we have already found several persons who can tell strange stories of the persistence with which his eager old eyes would follow her whenever chance threw them together during the time she remained under her husband's roof; and others who relate, with even more avidity, how, after her removal to apartments of her own, he used to spend hours in the adjoining park just to catch a glimpse of her figure as she crossed the sidewalk on her way to and from her carriage.

Indeed, his senseless, almost senile pa.s.sion for this magnificent beauty became a by-word in some mouths, and it only escaped being mentioned at the inquest from respect to Mr. Fairbrother, who had never recognized this weakness in his steward, and from its lack of visible connection with her horrible death and the stealing of her great jewel.

Nevertheless, we have a witness now--it is astonis.h.i.+ng how many witnesses we can scare up by a little effort, who never thought of coming forward themselves--who can swear to having seen him one night shaking his fist at her retreating figure as she stepped haughtily by him into her apartment house. This witness is sure that the man he saw thus gesticulating was Sears, and he is sure the woman was Mrs.

Fairbrother. The only thing he is not sure of is how his own wife will feel when she hears that he was in that particular neighborhood on that particular evening, when he was evidently supposed to be somewhere else." And the inspector laughed.

"Is the steward's disposition a bad one." I asked, "that this display of feeling should impress you so much?"

"I don't know what to say about that yet. Opinions differ on this point.

His friends speak of him as the mildest kind of a man who, without native executive skill, could not manage the great household he has in charge. His enemies, and we have unearthed a few, say, on the contrary, that they have never had any confidence in his quiet ways; that these were not in keeping with the fact or his having been a California miner in the early fifties.

"You can see I am putting you very nearly where we are ourselves. Nor do I see why I should not add that this pa.s.sion of the seemingly subdued but really hot-headed steward for a woman, who never showed him anything but what he might call an insulting indifference, struck us as a clue to be worked up, especially after we received this answer to a telegram we sent late last night to the nurse who is caring for Mr. Fairbrother in New Mexico."

He handed me a small yellow slip and I read:

"The steward left Mr. Fairbrother at El Moro. He has not heard from him since.

"ANNETTA LA SERRA

"For Abner Fairbrother."

"At El Moro?" I cried. "Why, that was long enough ago."

"For him to have reached New York before the murder. Exactly so, if he took advantage of every close connection."

XIV. TRAPPED

I caught my breath sharply. I did not say anything. I felt that I did not understand the inspector sufficiently yet to speak. He seemed to be pleased with my reticence. At all events, his manner grew even kinder as he said:

"This Sears is a witness we must have. He is being looked for now, high and low, and we hope to get some clue to his whereabouts before night.

That is, if he is in this city. Meanwhile, we are all glad--I am sure you are also--to spare so distinguished a gentleman as Mr. Grey the slightest annoyance."

"And Mr. Durand? What of him in this interim?"

"He will have to await developments. I see no other way, my dear."

It was kindly said, but my head drooped. This waiting was what was killing him and killing me. The inspector saw and gently patted my hand.

"Come," said he, "you have head enough to see that it is never wise to force matters." Then, possibly with an intention of rousing me, he remarked: "There is another small fact which may interest you. It concerns the waiter, Wellgood, recommended, as you will remember, by this Sears. In my talk with Jones it leaked out as a matter of small moment, and so it was to him, that this Wellgood was the waiter who ran and picked up the diamond after it fell from Mr. Grey's hand."

"Ah!"

"This may mean nothing--it meant nothing to Jones--but I inform you of it because there is a question I want to put to you in this connection.

You smile."

"Did I?" I meekly answered. "I do not know why."

This was not true. I had been waiting to see why the inspector had so honored me with all these disclosures, almost with his thoughts. Now I saw. He desired something in return.

"You were on the scene at this very moment," he proceeded, after a brief contemplation of my face, "and you must have seen this man when he lifted the jewel and handed it back to Mr. Grey. Did you remark his features?"

"No, sir; I was too far off; besides, my eyes were on Mr. Grey." "That is a pity. I was in hopes you could satisfy me on a very important point."

"What point is that, Inspector Dalzell?"

"Whether he answered the following description." And, taking up another paper, he was about to read it aloud to me, when an interruption occurred. A man showed himself at the door, whom the inspector no sooner recognized than he seemed to forget me in his eagerness to interrogate him. Perhaps the appearance of the latter had something to do with it; he looked as if he had been running, or had been the victim of some extraordinary adventure. At all events, the inspector arose as he entered, and was about to question him when he remembered me, and, casting about for some means of ridding himself of my presence without injury to my feelings, he suddenly pushed open the door of an adjoining room and requested me to step inside while he talked a moment with this man.

Of course I went, but I cast him an appealing look as I did so. It evidently had its effect, for his expression changed as his band fell on the doork.n.o.b. Would he snap the lock tight, and so shut me out from what concerned me as much as it did any one in the whole world? Or would he recognize my anxiety--the necessity I was under of knowing just the ground I was standing on--and let me hear what this man had to report?

I watched the door. It closed slowly, too slowly to latch. Would he catch it anew by the k.n.o.b? No; he left it thus, and, while the crack was hardly perceptible, I felt confident that the least shake of the floor would widen it and give me the opportunity I sought. But I did not have to wait for this. The two men in the office I had just left began to speak, and to my unbounded relief were sufficiently intelligible, even now, to warrant me in giving them my fullest attention.

After some expressions of astonishment on the part of the inspector as to the plight in which the other presented himself, the latter broke out:

"I've just escaped death! I'll tell you about that later. What I want to tell you now is that the man we want is in town. I saw him last night, or his shadow, which is the same thing. It was in the house in Eighty-sixth Street,--the house they all think closed. He came in with a key and--"

"Wait! You have him?"

"No. It's a long story, sir--"

"Tell it!"

The tone was dry. The inspector was evidently disappointed.

"Don't blame me till you hear," said the other. "He is no common crook.

This is how it was: You wanted the suspect's photograph and a specimen of his writing. I knew no better place to look for them than in his own room in Mr. Fairbrother's house. I accordingly got the necessary warrant and late last evening undertook the job. I went alone I was always an egotistical chap, more's the pity--and with no further precaution than a pa.s.sing explanation to the officer I met at the corner, I hastened up the block to the rear entrance on Eighty-seventh Street. There are three doors to the Fairbrother house, as you probably know. Two on Eighty-sixth Street (the large front one and a small one connecting directly with the turret stairs), and one on Eighty-seventh Street. It was to the latter I had a key. I do not think any one saw me go in. It was raining, and such people as went by were more concerned in keeping their umbrellas properly over their heads than in watching men skulking about in doorways.