“In whose shop in New York is she employed?” inquired the officer.
“She’s at No 3‒ Broadway,” naming a store somewhere between Wall Street and Canal.
“Are you wanting her for anything?” she asked, suddenly, looking up sharply as if it just occurred to her that our inquiries were rather pointed.
“Oh, no,” replied my companion, rising; “I was a bit tired, and thought I’d rest my feet before starting out again. I’ll thank you for a glass of water, Mrs. Sullivan. So you won’t undertake the shirts?”
“If I thought I could do the buttonholes—”
“Perhaps your niece could do them on her next visit, if you wanted the job,” I suggested.
“Why, so she could! and would be glad to do something for her old aunt. It’s bright you are to put me in mind of it. Shall I come for the work, sir?”
“I’ll send it round when I get it ready. I suppose your niece intends to visit you next Saturday?”
“Well, ra’ly, I can’t say. It’s too expensive her coming every week; but, she’ll sure be here afore the whole six is complate. Good-mornin’, gintlemen—and they’s heard nothin’ of the murderer, I’ll warrant?”
We responded that nothing had been learned, and descending to the street, it was arranged, as we walked along, that the officer should go to New York and put some detective there on the track of Leesy Sullivan. I informed my companion of the discrepancy between her actual arrival in town and her appearance at her aunt’s. Either the woman had purposely deceived us, or her niece had not gone home for a good many hours after landing at Blankville. I went with him to the depot, where we made a few inquiries which convinced us that she had arrived on Saturday morning, and sat an hour or two in the ladies’ room, and then gone away up town.
There was sufficient to justify our looking further. I took from my own pocket means to defray the expenses of the officer as well as to interest the New York detective, adding that liberal rewards were about to be offered, and waited until I saw him depart on his errand.
Then, turning to go to the office, my heart so sickened at the idea of business and the ordinary routine of living in the midst of such misery, that my footsteps shrunk away from their familiar paths! I could do nothing, just then, for the aid or comfort of the afflicted. The body was to be taken that afternoon to the city for interment, the next day, in the family enclosure at Greenwood; until the hour for its removal, there was nothing more that friendship could perform in the service of the mourners. My usual prescription for mental ailments was a long and vigorous walk; today I felt as if I could breathe only in the wide sunshine, so cramped and chilled were my spirits.
The summer residence of the Morelands lay about a mile beyond the Argyll mansion, out of the village proper, on a hillside, which sloped down to the river. It was surrounded by fine grounds, and commanded one of the loveliest views of the Hudson.
“A spirit in my feet
Led me, who knows how?”
in the direction of this now vacant and solitary place—solitary, I believed, with the exception of the gardener and his wife, who lived in a cottage back of the gardens, and who remained the year round, he to attend to outdoor matters, and she to give housekeeper’s care to the closed mansion.
The place had never looked more beautiful to me, not even in the bloom of its June foliage and flowers, than it did as I approached it on this occasion. The frosts had turned to every gorgeous color the tops of the trees which stood out here and there; back of the house, and extending down toward the southern gate, by which I entered, a grove of maples and elms glowed in the autumn sunshine; the lawn in front sloped down to the water’s edge, which flowed by in a blue and lordly stream, bearing on its broad bosom picturesque white ships. In the garden, through which I was now walking, many brilliant flowers still lingered: asters, gold, pink and purple; chrysanthemums; some dahlias which had been covered from the frost; pansies lurking under their broad leaves. It had been the intention of the young couple to make this their permanent home after their marriage, going to the city only for a couple of the winter months. The very next week, I had heard, Eleanor expected to go down to help Henry in his selection of new furniture.
Here the mansion lay, bathed in the rich sunshine; the garden sparkled with flowers as the river with ripples, so full, as it were, of conscious, joyous life, while the master of all lay in a darkened room awaiting his narrow coffin. Never had the uncertainty of human purposes so impressed me as when I looked abroad over that stately residence and thought of the prosperous future which had come to so awful a standstill. I gathered a handful of pansies—they were Eleanor’s favorites. As I approached the house by the garden, I came nearly upon the portico which extended across its western front before I perceived that it was occupied. Sitting on its outer edge, with one arm half wound around one of its pillars, and her bonnet in the grass at her feet, I beheld the sewing-girl after whom I had dispatched an officer to New York. She did not perceive me, and I had an opportunity of studying the face of the woman who had fallen under my suspicion, when she was unaware that my eye was upon it, and when her soul looked out of it, unveiled, in the security of solitude. The impression which she made upon me was that of despair. It was written
