That Affair Next Door

That Affair Next Door, by Anna
Katharine Green

The Project Gutenberg EBook of That Affair Next Door, by Anna
Katharine Green This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: That Affair Next Door
Author: Anna Katharine Green
Release Date: May 26, 2007 [EBook #21617]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THAT
AFFAIR NEXT DOOR ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

That Affair Next Door
By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Author of "The House Of The Whispering Pines," "Initials Only,"
"Dark Hollow," Etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
114-120 East Twenty-third Street New York
PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
COPYRIGHT, 1897
BY
ANNA KATHARINE ROHLFS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
* * * * *
Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes
moved to end of chapter.
* * * * *

CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
MISS BUTTERWORTH'S WINDOW.
PAGE
I.--A DISCOVERY 1
II.--QUESTIONS 14

III.--AMELIA DISCOVERS HERSELF 23
IV.--SILAS VAN BURNAM 36
V.--THIS IS NO ONE I KNOW 41
VI.--NEW FACTS 51
VII.--MR. GRYCE DISCOVERS MISS AMELIA 55
VIII.--THE MISSES VAN BURNAM 68
IX.--DEVELOPMENTS 77
X.--IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 88
XI.--THE ORDER CLERK 98
XII.--THE KEYS 114
XIII.--HOWARD VAN BURNAM 126
XIV.--A SERIOUS ADMISSION 141
XV.--A RELUCTANT WITNESS 155
BOOK II.
THE WINDINGS OF A LABYRINTH.
XVI.--COGITATIONS 163
XVII.--BUTTERWORTH VERSUS GRYCE 170
XVIII.--THE LITTLE PINCUSHION 176
XIX.--A DECIDED STEP FORWARD 187
XX.--MISS BUTTERWORTH'S THEORY 201

XXI.--A SHREWD CONJECTURE 208
XXII.--A BLANK CARD 217
XXIII.--RUTH OLIVER 229
XXIV.--A HOUSE OF CARDS 244
XXV.--"THE RINGS! WHERE ARE THE RINGS?" 255
XXVI.--A TILT WITH MR. GRYCE 260
XXVII.--FOUND 266
XXVIII.--TAKEN ABACK 272
BOOK III.
THE GIRL IN GRAY.
XXIX.--AMELIA BECOMES PEREMPTORY 274
XXX.--THE MATTER AS STATED BY MR. GRYCE 283
XXXI.--SOME FINE WORK 296
XXXII.--ICONOCLASM 311
XXXIII.--"KNOWN, KNOWN, ALL KNOWN" 321
XXXIV.--EXACTLY HALF-PAST THREE 329
XXXV.--A RUSE 335
BOOK IV.
THE END OF A GREAT MYSTERY.
XXXVI.--THE RESULT 341

XXXVII.--"TWO WEEKS!" 345
XXXVIII.--A WHITE SATIN GOWN 350
XXXIX.--THE WATCHFUL EYE 357
XL.--AS THE CLOCK STRUCK 364
XLI.--SECRET HISTORY 368
XLII.--WITH MISS BUTTERWORTH'S COMPLIMENTS 395

THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR.

BOOK I.
MISS BUTTERWORTH'S WINDOW.

I.
A DISCOVERY.
I am not an inquisitive woman, but when, in the middle of a certain
warm night in September, I heard a carriage draw up at the adjoining
house and stop, I could not resist the temptation of leaving my bed and
taking a peep through the curtains of my window.
First: because the house was empty, or supposed to be so, the family
still being, as I had every reason to believe, in Europe; and secondly:
because, not being inquisitive, I often miss in my lonely and single life
much that it would be both interesting and profitable for me to know.
Luckily I made no such mistake this evening. I rose and looked out,
and though I was far from realizing it at the time, took, by so doing, my
first step in a course of inquiry which has ended----

But it is too soon to speak of the end. Rather let me tell you what I saw
when I parted the curtains of my window in Gramercy Park, on the
night of September 17, 1895.
Not much at first glance, only a common hack drawn up at the
neighboring curb-stone. The lamp which is supposed to light our part of
the block is some rods away on the opposite side of the street, so that I
obtained but a shadowy glimpse of a young man and woman standing
below me on the pavement. I could see, however, that the woman--and
not the man--was putting money into the driver's hand. The next
moment they were on the stoop of this long-closed house, and the
coach rolled off.
It was dark, as I have said, and I did not recognize the young
people,--at least their figures were not familiar to me; but when, in
another instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after a
rather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took it
for granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam's eldest son
Franklin, and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its
most punctilious member, should bring a guest at so late an hour into a
house devoid of everything necessary to make the least exacting visitor
comfortable, was a mystery that I retired to bed to meditate upon.
I did not succeed in solving it, however, and after some ten minutes had