“Your ignorance is refreshing, Miss Butterworth. If you will ask a certain young girl dressed in gray, upon what object connected with Mr. Van Burnam’s desk she laid her hands yesterday morning, you will have an answer to your first question. The second one is still more easily answered. Mr. Howard Van Burnam did not conceal the rings in the Duane Street office for the reason that he has not been in that office since his wife was killed. Regarding this fact we are as well advised as yourself. Now you change color, Miss Butterworth. But there is no necessity. For an amateur you have made less trouble and fewer mistakes than were to be expected.”
Worse and worse! He was patronizing me now, and for results I had done nothing to bring about. I surveyed him in absolute amazement. Was he amusing himself with me, or was he himself deceived as to the nature and trend of my late investigations. This was a question to settle, and at once; and as duplicity had hitherto proved my best weapon in dealing with Mr. Gryce, I concluded to resort to it in this emergency. Clearing my brow, I regarded with a more amenable air the little Hungarian vase he had taken up on entering the room, and into which he had been talking ever since he thought it worth while to compliment its owner.
“I do not wish,” said I, “to be published to the world as the discoverer of Franklin Van Burnam’s guilt. But I do want credit with the police, if only because one of their number has chosen to look upon my efforts with disdain. I mean you, Mr. Gryce; so, if you are in earnest”—he smiled at the vase most genially—“I will accept your apologies just so far as you honor me with your confidence. I know you are anxious to hear what evidence I have collected, or you would not be wasting time on me this busy morning.”
“Shrewd!” was the short ejaculation he shot into the mouth of the vase he was handling.
“If that term of admiration is intended for me,” I remarked, “I am sure I am only too sensible of the honor. But flattery has never succeeded in making me talk against my better judgment. I may be shrewd, but a fool could see what you are after this morning. Compliment me when I have deserved it. I can wait.”
“I begin to think that what you withhold so resolutely has more than common value, Miss Butterworth. If this is so, I must not be the only one to listen to your explanations. Is not that a carriage I hear stopping? I am expecting Inspector Z⸺. If that is he you have been wise to delay your communications till he came.”
A carriage was stopping, and it was the Inspector who alighted from it. I began to feel my importance in a way that was truly gratifying, and cast my eyes up at the portrait of my father with a secret longing that its original stood by to witness the verification of his prophecy.
But I was not so distracted by these thoughts as not to make one attempt to get something from Mr. Gryce before the Inspector joined us.
“Why do you speak to me of my maid in one breath and of a girl in gray in another? Did you think Lena—”
“Hush!” he enjoined, “we will have ample opportunities to discuss this subject later.”
“Will we?” thought I. “We will discuss nothing till I know more positively what you are aiming at.”
But I showed nothing of this determination in my face. On the contrary, I became all affability as the Inspector entered, and I did the honors of the house in a way I hope my father would have approved of, had he been alive and present.
Mr. Gryce continued to stare into the vase.
“Miss Butterworth,”—it was the Inspector who was speaking—“I have been told that you take great interest in the Van Burnam murder, and that you have even gone so far as to collect some facts in connection with it which you have not as yet given to the police.”
“You have heard correctly,” I returned. “I have taken a deep interest in this tragedy, and have come into possession of some facts in reference to it which as yet I have imparted to no living soul.”
Mr. Gryce’s interest in my poor little vase increased marvellously. Seeing this, I complacently continued:
“I could not have accomplished so much had I indulged in a confidant. Such work as I have attempted depends for its success upon the secrecy with which it is carried on. That is why amateur work is sometimes more effective than professional. No one suspected me of making inquiries, unless it was this gentleman, and he was forewarned of my possible interference. I told him that in case Howard Van Burnam was put under arrest, I should take it upon myself to stir up matters; and I have.”
“Then you do not believe in Mr. Van Burnam’s guilt? Not even in his complicity, I suppose?” ventured the Inspector.
“I do not know anything about his complicity; but I do not believe the stroke given to his wife came from his hand.”
“I see, I see. You believe it the work of his brother.”
I stole a look at Mr. Gryce before replying. He had turned the vase upside down, and was intently studying its label; but he could not conceal his expectation of an affirmative answer. Greatly relieved, I immediately took the position I had resolved upon, and calmly but vigorously observed:
“What I believe, and what I have learned in support of my belief, will sound as well in your ears ten minutes hence as now. Before I give you the result of such inquiries as I have been enabled to make, I require to know what evidence you have yourself collected
