Why should not a man on a tedious job amuse himself? Piloting her over to the small room in the rear, he pointed down at the boards. She gave one look and then stepped gingerly in.
‘Just look!’ she cried; ‘a whole string of marks going straight from door to window. They have no shape, have they – just blotches? I wonder why one of them is so much larger than the rest?’
This was no new question. It was one which everybody who went into the room was sure to ask, there was such a difference in the size and appearance of the mark nearest the window. The reason – well, minds were divided about that, and no one had a satisfactory theory. The detective therefore kept discreetly silent.
This did not seem to offend Miss Strange. On the contrary it gave her an opportunity to babble away to her heart’s content.
‘One, two, three, four, five, six,’ she counted, with a shudder at every count. ‘And one of them bigger than the others.’ She might have added, ‘It is the trail of one foot, and strangely, intermingled at that,’ but she did not, though we may be quite sure that she noted the fact. ‘And where, just where did the old wallet fall? Here? Or here?’
She had moved as she spoke, so that in uttering the last ‘here’, she stood directly before the window. The surprise she received there nearly made her forget the part she was playing. From the character of the light in the room, she had expected, on looking out, to confront a nearby wall, but not a window in that wall. Yet that was what she saw directly facing her from across the old-fashioned alley separating this house from its neighbour; twelve unshuttered and uncurtained panes through which she caught a darkened view of a room almost as forlorn and devoid of furniture as the one in which she then stood.
When quite sure of herself, she let a certain portion of her surprise appear.
‘Why, look!’ she cried, ‘if you can’t see right in next door! What a lonesome-looking place! From its desolate appearance I should think the house quite empty.’
‘And it is. That’s the old Shaffer homestead. It’s been empty for a year.’
‘Oh, empty!’ And she turned away, with the most inconsequent air in the world, crying out as her name rang up the stair, ‘There’s Arthur calling. I suppose he thinks I’ve been here long enough. I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, officer. I really shouldn’t have slept a wink tonight, if I hadn’t been given a peep at these rooms, which I had imagined so different’. And with one additional glance over her shoulder, that seemed to penetrate both windows and the desolate space beyond, she ran quickly out and down in response to her brother’s reiterated call.
‘Drive quickly! – as quickly as the law allows, to Hiram Brown’s office in Duane Street.’
Arrived at the address named, she went in alone to see Mr Brown. He was her father’s lawyer and a family friend.
Hardly waiting for his affectionate greeting, she cried out quickly. ‘Tell me how I can learn anything about the old Shaffer house in Seventeenth Street. Now, don’t look so surprised. I have very good reasons for my request and – and – I’m in an awful hurry.’
‘But –’
‘I know, I know; there’s been a dreadful tragedy next door to it; but it’s about the Shaffer house itself I want some information. Has it an agent, a –’
‘Of course it has an agent, and here is his name.’
Mr Brown presented her with a card on which he had hastily written both name and address.
She thanked him, dropped him a mocking curtsey full of charm, whispered ‘Don’t tell father’, and was gone.
Her manner to the man she next interviewed was very different. As soon as she saw him she subsided into her usual society manner. With just a touch of the conceit of the successful debutante, she announced herself as Miss Strange of Seventy-second Street. Her business with him was in regard to the possible renting of the Shaffer house. She had an old lady friend who was desirous of living downtown.
In passing through Seventeenth Street, she had noticed that the old Shaffer house was standing empty and had been immediately struck with the advantages it possessed for her elderly friend’s occupancy. Could it be that the house was for rent? There was no sign on it to that effect, but – etc.
His answer left her nothing to hope for.
‘It is going to be torn down,’ he said.
‘Oh, what a pity!’ she exclaimed. ‘Real colonial, isn’t it! I wish I could see the rooms inside before it is disturbed. Such doors and such dear old-fashioned mantelpieces as it must have! I just dote on the Colonial. It brings up such pictures of the old days; weddings, you know, and parties; all so different from ours and so much more interesting.’
Is it the chance shot that tells? Sometimes. Violet had no especial intention in what she said save as a prelude to a pending request, but nothing could have served her purpose better than that one word, wedding. The agent laughed and giving her his first indulgent look remarked genially:
‘Romance is not confined to those ancient times. If you were to enter that house today you would come across evidences of a wedding as romantic as any which ever took place in all the seventy odd years of its existence. A man and a woman were married there the day before yesterday who did their first courting under its roof forty years ago. He has been married twice and she once in the interval; but the old love held firm and now at the age of sixty and over they have come together to finish their days in peace and happiness. Or so we will hope.’
‘Married! Married in that house and on the day that –’
She
