The Circular Study | Page 8

place in the antechamber, where he sat
down again and fell almost immediately into his former dazed
condition.
"Humph! mind quite lost, memory uncertain, testimony valueless,"
were the dissatisfied reflections of the disappointed detective as he
replaced Mr. Adams's hat and umbrella on the hall rack. "Has he been
brought to this state by the tragedy which has just taken place here, or
is his present insane condition its precursor and cause?" Mr. Gryce
might have found some answer to this question in his own mind if, at
that moment, the fitful clanging of the front door bell, which had
hitherto testified to the impatience of the curious crowd outside, had
not been broken into by an authoritative knock which at once put an
end to all self-communing.
The coroner, or some equally important person, was at hand, and the
detective's golden hour was over.
CHAPTER IV.
A NEW EXPERIENCE FOR MR. GRYCE.
Mr. Gryce felt himself at a greater disadvantage in his attempt to solve
the mystery of this affair than in any other which he had entered upon
in years. First, the victim had been a solitary man, with no household
save his man-of-all-work, the mute. Secondly, he had lived in a portion
of the city where no neighbors were possible; and he had even lacked,
as it now seemed, any very active friends. Though some hours had
elapsed since his death had been noised abroad, no one had appeared at
the door with inquiries or information. This seemed odd, considering
that he had been for some months a marked figure in this quarter of the
town. But, then, everything about this man was odd, nor would it have

been in keeping with his surroundings and peculiar manner of living for
him to have had the ordinary associations of men of his class.
This absence of the usual means of eliciting knowledge from the
surrounding people, added to, rather than detracted from, the interest
which Mr. Gryce was bound to feel in the case, and it was with a
feeling of relief that a little before midnight he saw the army of
reporters, medical men, officials, and such others as had followed in the
coroner's wake, file out of the front door and leave him again, for a few
hours at least, master of the situation.
For there were yet two points which he desired to settle before he took
his own much-needed rest. The first occupied his immediate attention.
Passing before a chair in the hall on which a small boy sat dozing, he
roused him with the remark:
"Come, Jake, it's time to look lively. I want you to go with me to the
exact place where that lady ran across you to-day."
The boy, half dead with sleep, looked around him for his hat.
"I'd like to see my mother first," he pleaded. "She must be done up
about me. I never stayed away so long before."
"Your mother knows where you are. I sent a message to her hours ago.
She gave a very good report of you, Jake; says you're an obedient lad
and that you never have told her a falsehood."
"She's a good mother," the boy warmly declared. "I'd be as bad--as bad
as my father was, if I did not treat her well." Here his hand fell on his
cap, which he put on his head.
"I'm ready," said he.
Mr. Gryce at once led the way into the street.
The hour was late, and only certain portions of the city showed any real
activity. Into one of these thoroughfares they presently came, and

before the darkened window of one of the lesser shops paused, while
Jake pointed out the two stuffed frogs engaged with miniature swords
in mortal combat at which he had been looking when the lady came up
and spoke to him.
Mr. Gryce eyed the boy rather than the frogs, though probably the
former would have sworn that his attention had never left that
miniature conflict.
"Was she a pretty lady?" he asked.
The boy scratched his head in some perplexity.
"She made me a good deal afraid of her," he said. "She had very
splendid clothes; oh, gorgeous!" he cried, as if on this question there
could be no doubt.
"And she was young, and carried a bunch of flowers, and seemed
troubled? What! not young, and carried no flowers--and wasn't even
anxious and trembling?"
The boy, who had been shaking his head, looked nonplussed.
"I think as she was what you might call troubled. But she wasn't crying,
and when she spoke to me, she put more feeling into her grip than into
her voice. She just dragged me to the drug-store, sir. If she hadn't given
me money first, I should have wriggled away in