The Mayor's Wife Part 12

This finished the report.

"So Mr. Searles has had his own experiences of these Mysteries!" I exclaimed.

"As you see. Perhaps that is why he is so touchy on the subject."

"Did he ever give you any fuller account of his experience than is detailed here?"

"No; he won't talk about it."

"He tried to let the house, however."

"Yes, but he did not succeed for a long time. Finally the mayor took it."

Refolding the paper, I handed it back to Mr. Robinson. I had its contents well in mind.

"There is one fact to which I should like to call your attention," said I. "The manifestations, as here recorded, have all taken place in the lower part of the house. I should have had more faith in them, if they had occurred above stairs. There are no outlets through the roof."

"Nor any visible ones below. At least no visible one was ever found open."

"What about the woman, Bess?" I asked. "How do you account for her persistency in clinging to a place her employers invariably fled from?

She seems to have been always on hand with an offer of her services."

"Bess is not a young woman, but she is a worker of uncommon ability, very rigid and very stoical. She herself accounts for her willingness to work in this house by her utter disbelief in spirits, and the fact that it is the one place in the world which connects her with her wandering and worthless husband. Their final parting occurred during Mr.

Dennison's tenancy, and as she had given the wanderer the Franklin Street address, you could not reason her out of the belief that on his return he would expect to find here there. That is what she explained to Mr. Searles."

"You interest me, Mr. Robinson. Is she a plain woman? Such a one as a man would not be likely to return to?"

"No, she is a very good-looking woman, refined and full of character, but odd, very odd,--in fact, baffling."

"How baffling?"

"I never knew her to look any one directly in the eye. Her manner is abstracted and inspires distrust. There is also a marked incongruity between her employment and her general appearance. She looks out of place in her working ap.r.o.n, yet she is not what you would call a lady."

"Did her husband come back?"

"No, not to my knowledge."

"And where is she now?"

"Very near you, Miss Saunders, when you are at your home in Franklin Street. Not being able to obtain a situation in the house itself, she has rented the little shop opposite, where you can find her any day selling needles and thread."

"I have noticed that shop," I admitted, not knowing whether to give more or less weight to my suspicions in thus finding the mayor's house under the continued gaze of another watchful eye.

"You will find two women there," the amiable Mr. Robinson hastened to explain. "The one with a dark red spot just under her hair is Bess. But perhaps she doesn't interest you. She always has me. If it had not been for one fact, I should have suspected her of having been in some way connected with the strange doings we have just been considering. She was not a member of the household during the occupancy of Mrs. Crispin and the Westons, yet these unusual manifestations went on just the same."

"Yes, I noted that."

"So her connivance is eliminated."

"Undoubtedly. I am still disposed to credit the Misses Quinlan with the whole ridiculous business. They could not bear to see strangers in the house they had once called their own, and took the only means suggested to their crazy old minds to rid the place of them."

Mr. Robinson shook his head, evidently unconvinced. The temptation was great to strengthen my side of the argument by a revelation of their real motive. Once acquainted with the story of the missing bonds he could not fail to see the extreme probability that the two sisters, afflicted as they were with dementia, should wish to protect the wealth which was once so near their grasp, from the possibility of discovery by a stranger. But I dared not take him quite yet into my full confidence.

Indeed, the situation did not demand it. I had learned from him what I was most anxious to know, and was now in a position to forward my own projects without further aid from him. Almost as if he had read my thoughts, Mr. Robinson now hastened to remark:

"I find it difficult to credit these poor old souls with any such elaborate plan to empty the house, even had they possessed the most direct means of doing so, for no better reason than this one you state.

Had money been somehow involved, or had they even thought so, it would be different. They are a little touched in the head on the subject of money; which isn't very strange considering their present straits. They even show an interest in other people's money. They have asked me more than once if any of their former neighbors have seemed to grow more prosperous since leaving Franklin Street."

"I see; touched, touched!" I laughed, rising in my anxiety to hide any show of feeling at the directness of this purely accidental attack. But the item struck me as an important one. Mr. Robinson gave me a keen look as I uttered the usual commonplaces and prepared to take my leave.

"May I ask your intentions in this matter?" said he.

"I wish I knew them myself," was my perfectly candid answer. "It strikes me now that my first step should be to ascertain whether there exists any secret connection between the two houses which would enable the Misses Quinlan or their emissaries to gain access to their old home, without ready detection. I know of none, and--"

"There is none," broke in its now emphatic agent. "A half-dozen tenants, to say nothing of Mr. Searles himself, have looked it carefully over.

All the walls are intact; there is absolutely no opening anywhere for surrept.i.tious access."

"Possibly not. You certainly discourage me very much. I had hoped much from my theory. But we are not done with the matter. Mrs. Packard's mind must be cleared of its fancies, if it is in my power to do it. You will hear from me again, Mr. Robinson. Meanwhile, I may be sure of your good will?"

"Certainly, certainly, and of my cooperation also, if you want it."

"Thank you," said I, and left the office.

His last look was one of interest not untinged by compa.s.sion.

CHAPTER XI. BESS

On my way back I took the opposite side of the street from that I usually approached. When I reached the little shop I paused. First glancing at the various petty articles exposed in the window, I quietly stepped in. A contracted and very low room met my eyes, faintly lighted by a row of panes in the upper half of the door and not at all by the window, which was hung on the inside with a heavy curtain. Against two sides of this room were arranged shelves filled with boxes labeled in the usual way to indicate their contents. These did not strike me as being very varied or of a very high order. There was no counter in front, only some tables on which lay strewn fancy boxes of thread and other useless knick-knacks to which certain shopkeepers appear to cling though they can seldom find customers for them. A woman stood at one of these tables untangling a skein of red yarn. Behind her I saw another leaning in an abstracted way over a counter which ran from wall to wall across the extreme end of the shop. This I took to be Bess. She had made no move at my entrance and she made no move now. The woman with the skein appeared, on the contrary, as eager to see as the other seemed indifferent. I had to buy something and I did so in as matter-of-fact a way as possible, considering that my attention was more given to the woman in the rear than to the articles I was purchasing.

"You have a very convenient place here," I casually remarked, as I handed out my money. With this I turned squarely about and looked directly at her whom I believed to be Bess.

A voluble answer from the woman at my side, but not the wink of an eye from the one whose attention I had endeavored to attract.

"I live in the house opposite," I carelessly went on, taking in every detail of the strange being I was secretly addressing.

"Oh!" she exclaimed in startled tones, roused into speech at last. "You live opposite; in Mayor Packard's house?"

I approached her, smiling. She had dropped her hands from her chin and seemed very eager now, more eager than the other woman, to interest me in what she had about her and so hold me to the shop.

"Look at this," she cried, holding up an article of such cheap workmans.h.i.+p that I wondered so sensible an appearing woman would c.u.mber her shelves with it. "I am glad you live over there," for I had nodded to her question. "I'm greatly interested in that house. I've worked there as cook and waitress several times."

I met her look; it was sharp and very intelligent.

"Then you know its reputation," I laughingly suggested.

She made a contemptuous gesture. The woman was really very good-looking, but baffling in her manner, as Mr. Robinson had said, and very hard to cla.s.sify. "That isn't what interests me," she protested. "I've other reasons. You're not a relative of the family, are you?" she asked impetuously, leaning over the table to get a nearer view of my face.