“Young ladies, what do you think of this?” I inquired, taking the bonnet out and carefully placing it on my head.
I myself consider it a very becoming article of headgear, but their eyebrows went up in a scarcely complimentary fashion.
“You don’t like it?” I remarked. “Well, I think a great deal of young girls’ taste; I shall send it back to Madame More’s tomorrow.”
“I don’t think much of Madame More,” observed Isabella, “and after Paris—”
“Do you like La Mole better?” I inquired, bobbing my head to and fro before the mirror, the better to conceal my interest in the venture I was making.
“I don’t like any of them but D’Aubigny,” returned Isabella. “She charges twice what La Mole does—”
Twice! What are these girls’ purses made of, or rather their father’s!
“But she has the chic we are accustomed to see in French millinery. I shall never go anywhere else.”
“We were recommended to her in Paris,” put in Caroline, more languidly. Her interest was only half engaged by this frivolous topic.
“But did you never have one of La Mole’s hats?” I pursued, taking down a hand-mirror, ostensibly to get the effect of my bonnet in the back, but really to hide my interest in their unconscious faces.
“Never!” retorted Isabella. “I would not patronize the thing.”
“Nor you?” I urged, carelessly, turning towards Caroline.
“No; I have never been inside her shop.”
“Then whose is—” I began and stopped. A detective doing the work I was, would not give away the object of his questions so recklessly.
“Then who is,” I corrected, “the best person after D’Aubigny? I never can pay her prices. I should think it wicked.”
“O don’t ask us,” protested Isabella. “We have never made a study of the best bonnet-maker. At present we wear hats.”
And having thus thrown their youth in my face, they turned away to the window again, not realizing that the middle-aged lady they regarded with such disdain had just succeeded in making them dance to her music most successfully.
The luncheon I ordered was elaborate, for I was determined that the Misses Van Burnam should see that I knew how to serve a fine meal, and that my plates were not always better than my viands.
I had invited in a couple of other guests so that I should not seem to have put myself out for two young girls, and as they were quiet people like myself, the meal passed most decorously. When it was finished, the Misses Caroline and Isabella had lost some of their consequential airs, and I really think the deference they have since showed me is due more to the surprise they felt at the perfection of this dainty luncheon, than to any considerate appreciation of my character and abilities.
They left at three o’clock, still without news of Mrs. Van Burnam; and being positive by this time that the shadows were thickening about this family, I saw them depart with some regret and a positive feeling of commiseration. Had they been reared to a proper reverence for their elders, how much more easy it would have been to see earnestness in Caroline and affectionate impulses in Isabella.
The evening papers added but little to my knowledge. Great disclosures were promised, but no hint given of their nature. The body at the Morgue had not been identified by any of the hundreds who had viewed it, and Howard still refused to acknowledge it as that of his wife. The morrow was awaited with anxiety.
So much for the public press!
At twelve o’clock at night, I was again seated in my window. The house next door had been lighted since ten, and I was in momentary expectation of its nocturnal visitor. He came promptly at the hour set, alighted from the carriage with a bound, shut the carriage-door with a slam, and crossed the pavement with cheerful celerity. His figure was not so positively like, nor yet so positively unlike, that of the supposed murderer that I could definitely say, “This is he,” or, “This is not he,” and I went to bed puzzled, and not a little burdened by a sense of the responsibility imposed upon me in this matter.
And so passed the day between the murder and the inquest.
IX
Developments
Mr. Gryce called about nine o’clock next morning.
“Well,” said he, “what about the visitor who came to see me last night?”
“Like and unlike,” I answered. “Nothing could induce me to say he is the man we want, and yet I would not dare to swear he was not.”
“You are in doubt, then, concerning him?”
“I am.”
Mr. Gryce bowed, reminded me of the inquest, and left. Nothing was said about the hat.
At ten o’clock I prepared to go to the place designated by him. I had never attended an inquest in my life, and felt a little flurried in consequence, but by the time I had tied the strings of my bonnet (the despised bonnet, which, by the way, I did not return to More’s), I had conquered this weakness, and acquired a demeanor more in keeping with my very important position as chief witness in a serious police investigation.
I had sent for a carriage to take me, and I rode away from my house amid the shouts of some half dozen boys collected on the curbstone. But I did not allow myself to feel dashed by this publicity. On the contrary, I held my head as erect as nature intended, and my back kept the line my good health warrants. The path of duty has its thorny passages, but it is for strong minds like mine to ignore them.
Promptly at ten o’clock I entered the room reserved for the inquest, and was ushered to the seat appointed me. Though never a self-conscious woman, I could not but be aware of the many eyes that followed me, and endeavored so to demean myself that there should be no question as to my respectable standing in the community. This I considered due to
