A Strange Disappearance | Page 8

said he; "pardon the rough ways of a somewhat
hardened officer of the law."
She drew up closer to the bureau, still protecting it with her meagre but
energetic form while her eyes rested with almost a savage expression
upon the master of the house as if he, and not the detective, had been
the aggressor whose advances she feared.
Mr. Blake did not return the look.
"If that is all you can show me, I think I will proceed to my
appointment," said he. "The matter does seem to be more serious than I
thought, and if you judge it necessary to take any active measures, why,
let no consideration of my great and inherent dislike to notoriety of any
kind, interfere with what you consider your duty. As for the house, it is
at your command, under Mrs. Daniels' direction. Good morning." And
returning our bows with one singularly impressive for all its elegant
carelessness, he at once withdrew.
Mrs. Daniels took one long deep breath and came from the bureau.
Instantly Mr. Gryce stooped and pulled out the drawer she had so
visibly protected. A white towel met our eyes, spread neatly out at its
full length. Lifting it, we looked beneath. A carefully folded dress of
dark blue silk, to all appearance elegantly made, confronted our rather
eager eyes. Beside it, a collar of exquisite lace--I know enough of such
matters to be a judge--pricked through by a gold breast-pin of a strange
and unique pattern. A withered bunch of what appeared to have been a
bouquet of red roses, surmounted the whole, giving to the otherwise
commonplace collection the appearance of a relic from the tomb.
We both drew back in some amazement, involuntarily glancing up at
Mrs. Daniels.

"I have no explanation to give," said that woman, with a calmness
strangely in contrast to the agitation she had displayed while Mr. Blake
had remained in the room. "That those things rich as they are, really
belonged to the girl, I have no doubt. She brought them when she came,
and they only confirm what I have before intimated: that she was no
ordinary sewing girl, but a woman who had seen better days."
With a low "humph!" and another glance at the dark blue dress and
delicate collar, Mr. Gryce carefully replaced the cloth he had taken
from them, and softly closed the drawer without either of us having laid
a finger upon a single article. Five minutes later he disappeared from
the room.
I did not see him again till occasion took me below, when I beheld him
softly issue from Mr. Blake's private apartment. Meeting me, he smiled,
and I saw that whether he was conscious of betraying it or not, he had
come upon some clue or at the least fashioned for himself some theory
with which he was more or less satisfied.
"An elegant apartment, that," whispered he, nodding sideways toward
the room he had just left, "pity you haven't time to examine it."
"Are you sure that I haven't?" returned I, drawing a step nearer to
escape the eyes of Mrs. Daniels who had descended after me.
"Quite sure;" and we hastened down together into the yard.
But my curiosity once aroused in this way would not let me rest.
Taking an opportunity when Mr. Gryce was engaged in banter with the
girls below, and in this way learning more in a minute of what he
wanted to know than some men would gather in an hour by that or any
other method, I stole lightly back and entered this room.
I almost started in my surprise. Instead of the luxurious apartment I had
prepared myself to behold, a plain, scantily-furnished room opened
before me, of a nature between a library and a studio. There was not
even a carpet on the polished floor, only a rug, which strange to say
was not placed in the centre of the room or even before the fireplace,

but on one side, and directly in front of a picture that almost at first
blush had attracted my attention as being the only article in the room
worth looking at. It was the portrait of a woman, handsome, haughty
and alluring; a modern beauty, with eyes of fire burning beneath high
piled locks of jetty blackness, that were only relieved from being too
intense by the scarlet hood of an opera cloak, that was drawn over them.
"A sister," I thought to myself, "it is too modern for his mother," and I
took a step nearer to see if I could trace any likeness in the chiselled
features of this disdainful brunette, to the more characteristic ones of
the careless gentleman who had stood but a few moments before in my
presence. As I did