In this work he was actuated by no pernicious motives. Upright and humane, with a generous heart which pitied the innocent injured, his conscience would allow him no rest if he permitted crime, which he could see walking where others could not, to flourish unmolested in the sunshine made for better uses. He attached himself to the secret detective-police; only working up such cases as demanded the benefit of his rare powers.
Thus much of Mr. Burton had the chief of police revealed to me, during a brief interview in the morning; and this information, it may be supposed, had not lessened the fascinations which he had for me. The first thing he said, after the greetings of the day, when he came to my room, was,
“I have ascertained that our sewing-girl has one visitor, who is a constant one. There is a middle-aged woman, a nurse, who brings a child, now about a year old, every Sunday to spend half the day with her, when she does not go up to Blankville. On such occasions it is brought in the evening, some time during the week. It passes, so says the landlady, for the child of a cousin of Miss Sullivan’s, who was married to a worthless young fellow, who deserted her within three months, and went off to the west; the mother died at its birth, leaving it entirely unprovided for, and Miss Sullivan, to keep it out of the charity-hospital, hired this woman to nurse it with her own baby, for which she pays her twelve shillings a week. She was, according to her story to the landlady, very much attached to her poor cousin, and could not cast off the little one for her sake.”
“All of which may be true—”
“Or false—as the case may turn.”
“It certainly will not be difficult to ascertain if such a cousin really married and died, as represented. The girl has not returned to her work yet, I suppose?”
“She has not. Her absence gives the thing a bad look. Some connection she undoubtedly has with the case; as for how deeply she was involved in it, we will only know when we find out. Whoever the child’s mother may have been, it seems evident, from the tenor of the landlady’s story, that Miss Sullivan is much attached to it; it is safe to presume that, sooner or later, she will return to look after it. In her anxiety to reach the nest, she will fly into the trap. I have made arrangements by which I shall be informed if she appears at any of her former haunts, or at the house of the nurse. And now, I believe, I will go up to Blankville with you for a single day. I wish to see the ground of the tragedy, including Mr. Argyll’s residence, the lawn, the library from which the money was abstracted, etc. A clear picture of these, carried in my mind, may be of use to me in unexpected ways. If we hear nothing of her in the village, I will return to the city, and await her reappearance here, which will be sure to occur within a month.”
“Why within a month?”
“Women risk themselves, always, where a little child demands it. When the nurse finds the baby abandoned by its protector, and the wages unpaid, she will throw the charge upon the authorities. To prevent this, the girl will be back here to see after it. However, I hope we shall not be a month getting at what we want. It will be curious if we don’t finish the whole of this melancholy business before that. And, by the way, you and young Argyll had quite a hide-and-seek race the other night!” and when I looked my astonishment at this remark, he only laughed. “It’s my profession, you know,” was his only explanation.
VI
Two Links in the Chain
We went up to Blankville that evening, arriving late. I confess that I felt a thrill as of cold steel, and peered over my shoulder as we walked up the hill from the depot; but my companion was guilty of no such weakness. He kept as sharp a lookout as the light of a setting moon would permit, but it was only with a view to making himself familiar with the premises. We passed the Argyll mansion on our way to my boarding-place; it was too late to call; the lights were extinguished, except the faint one always left burning in the hall, and in two or three of the chambers. A rush of emotion oppressed me, as I drew near it; I would fain have laid my head against the pillars of the gateway and wept—tears such as a man may shed without reproach, when the woman he loves suffers. A growing anxiety possessed me to hear of Eleanor, no report of her mental or physical condition having reached me since that piercing shriek had announced the parting of her heartstrings when the strain of final separation came. I would have gone to the door a moment, to make inquiries, had I not inferred that a knock at that late hour must startle the family into nervous anticipations. The wan glimmer of the sinking moon struck under the branches of the silent
