A Strange Disappearance | Page 3

woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. "Don't you believe
it," gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. "I tell you if
what I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did carry
her off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her if
it has not done so already. You don't know what you are talking about,
you never saw her--"
"Was she pretty," I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than
one passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed
in some way to give her a shock.
"Ah, I don't know," she muttered; "some might not think so, I always
did; it depended upon the way you looked at her."
For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my veins.

Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in a sort of
brooding way as though she were weighing something in her own mind;
but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it was that
aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharp eye
upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I asked her
how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities of the
girl's disappearance.
"Doesn't Mr. Blake know anything about it?"
The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. "Yes," said she,
"I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn't take much interest
in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me."
"Then he does not know you have come for the police?"
"No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is
not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr.
Blake is a man who never meddles with anything, and--"
"What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this
girl--By the way, what is her name?"
"Emily."
"That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?"
"Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table reading
his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an absent-minded
way, and told me I must manage the servants' affairs without troubling
him."
"And you let it drop?"
"Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to."
I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for
though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if
maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.

We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion
regarded by this scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the most
desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had
accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for
the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to the
woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed
to get me into the house without the knowledge of Mr. Blake.
"O sir, all you have got to do is to follow me right up the back stairs; he
won't notice, or if he does will not ask any questions."
And having by this time reached the basement door, she took out a key
from her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us into the
dwelling.
CHAPTER II
A FEW POINTS
Mrs. Daniels, for that was her name, took me at once up stairs to the
third story back room. As we passed through the halls, I could not but
notice how rich, though sombre were the old fashioned walls and
heavily frescoed ceilings, so different in style and coloring from what
we see now-a-days in our secret penetrations into Fifth Avenue
mansions. Many as are the wealthy houses I have been called upon to
enter in the line of my profession, I had never crossed the threshold of
such an one as this before, and impervious as I am to any foolish
sentimentalities, I felt a certain degree of awe at the thought of invading
with police investigation, this home of ancient Knicker-bocker
respectability. But once in the room of the missing girl, every
consideration fled save that of professional pride and curiosity. For
almost at first blush, I saw that whether Mrs. Daniels was correct or not
in her surmises as to the manner of the girl's disappearance, the fact that
she had disappeared was likely to prove an affair of some importance.
For, let me state the facts in the order