To return to the detective-office. Our errand at once received attention from the person in charge, who sent a messenger after the chief. He also informed us that several of their best men had gone up to Blankville that afternoon to confer with the authorities there. The public welfare demanded, as well as the interest of private individuals, that the guilty should be ferreted out, if possible. The apparent impunity with which the crime had been committed was startling, making everyone feel it a personal matter to aid in discouraging any more such practices; besides, the police knew that their efforts would be well rewarded.
While we sat talking with the official, I noticed the only other inmate of the room, who made a peculiar impression upon me for which I could not account.
He was a large man, of middle age, with a florid face and sandy hair. He was quietly dressed in the ordinary manner of the season, and with nothing to mark him from a thousand other men of similar appearance, unless it was the expression of his small, blue-gray eyes, whose glance, when I happened to encounter it, seemed not to be looking at me but into me. However, he turned it away, and occupied himself with looking through the window at the passersby. He appeared to be a stranger, awaiting, like ourselves, the coming of the chief.
Desiring to secure the services of the particular detective whom Mr. Moreland had recommended, I asked the subordinate in attendance, if he could inform me where Mr. Burton was to be found.
“Burton? I don’t know of anyone of that name, I think—if I may except my stage experience with Mr. Toodles,” he added, with a smile, called up by some passing vision of his last visit to the theater.
“Then there is no Mr. Burton belongs to your force?”
“Not that I am acquainted with. He may be one of us, for all that. We don’t pretend to know our own brothers here. You can ask Mr. Browne when he comes in.”
All this time the stranger by the window sat motionless, absorbed in looking upon the throng of persons and vehicles in the street beneath; and now I, having nothing else to do, regarded him. I felt a magnetism emanate from him, as from a manufactory of vital forces; I felt, instinctively, that he was possessed of an iron will and indomitable courage; I was speculating, according to my dreamy habit, upon his characteristics, when the chief appeared, and we, that is, James and myself, laid our case before him—at the same time I mentioned that Mr. Moreland had desired me to ask for Mr. Burton to be detailed to aid our investigations.
“Ah! yes,” said Mr. Browne, “there are not many outsiders who know that person. He is my right hand, but I don’t let the left know what he doeth. Mr. Moreland had his services once, I remember, in tracking some burglars who had entered his banking-house. Poor young Moreland! I’ve seen him often! Shocking affair, truly. We mustn’t rest till we know more about it. I only hope we may be of service to his afflicted father. Burton is just here, fortunately,” and he beckoned to the very stranger sitting in the window, who had overheard the inquiries made for him without the slightest demonstration that such a being had any existence as far as he was concerned, and who now slowly arose, and approached us. We four went into an inner room, where we were introduced to each other, and drawing up our chairs in a close circle, we began, in low voices, the discussion of our business.
Mr. Browne was voluble when he heard that a robbery had been committed in Mr. Argyll’s house. He had no doubt, he said, that the two crimes were connected, and it would be strange, indeed, if nothing could be discovered relating to either of them. He hoped that the lesser crime would be the means of betraying the greater. He trusted the rogue, whoever he or she might be, had, in this imprudent act, done something to betray himself. He had hopes of the five-hundred dollar bill.
Mr. Burton said very little, beyond asking two or three questions; but he was a good listener. Much of the time he sat with his eyes fixed upon James, who did a good deal of the talking. I could not, for the life of me, tell whether James was conscious of those blue-gray eyes; if he was, they did not much disturb him; he made his statements in a calm and lucid manner, gazing into Mr. Burton’s face with a clear and open look. After a while, the latter began to grow uneasy; powerful as was his physical and mental frame, I saw a trembling of both; he forced himself to remain quiet in his chair—but to me he had the air of a lion, who sees its prey but a little distance off, and who trembles with restraint. The light in his eye narrowed down to one gleam of concentrated fire—a steely, glittering point—he watched the rest of us and said little. If I had been a guilty man I should have shrunk from that observation, through the very walls, or out of a five-story window, if there had been no other way; it struck me that it would have been unbearable to any accusing conscience; but my own mind being burdened with no weightier sins than a few boyish follies—saving the selfishness and earthliness which make a part of all human natures—I felt quite free, breathing easily, while I noticed, with interest, the silent change going on in the detective.
More and more like a lion about to spring, he grew; but whether his prey was near at
