A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

By Anna Katharine Green



OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

   The House of the Whispering Pines   Miss Hurd. An Enigma
   Leavenworth Case                    That Affair Next Door
   Strange Disappearance               Lost Man's Lane
   Sword of Damocles                   Agatha Webb
   Hand and Ring                       One of My Sons
   The Mill Mystery                    Defence of the Bride,
   Behind Closed Doors                   and Other Poems
   Cynthia Wakeham's Money             Risifi's Daughter. A Drama
   Marked "Personal"                   The Golden Slipper
   To the Minute



CONTENTS

     CHAPTER I       A NOVEL CASE
     CHAPTER II      A FEW POINTS
     CHAPTER III     THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER
     CHAPTER IV      THOMPSON'S STORY
     CHAPTER V       A NEW YORK BELLE
     CHAPTER VI      A BIT OF CALICO
     CHAPTER VII     THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS
     CHAPTER VIII    A WORD OVERHEARD
     CHAPTER IX      A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS
     CHAPTER X       THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE'S STUDIO
     CHAPTER XI      LUTTRA
     CHAPTER XII     A WOMAN'S LOVE
     CHAPTER XIII    A MAN'S HEART
     CHAPTER XIV     MRS. DANIELS
     CHAPTER XV      A CONFAB
     CHAPTER XVI     THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS
     CHAPTER XVII    THE CAPTURE
     CHAPTER XVIII   LOVE AND DUTY
     CHAPTER XIX     EXPLANATIONS
     CHAPTER XX      THE BOND THAT UNITES




A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE



CHAPTER I. A NOVEL CASE


"Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that
Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come
under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects,
at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise
not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the
affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it."

The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged
by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and
unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting
Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but arouse our
deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around which we
were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so dear to
a detective's heart, we gave with alacrity the required promise; and
settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man who has a good
story to tell that does not entirely lack certain points redounding to
his own credit, he began:

I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ----- Precinct Station, when
the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in,
whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I
asked her what she wanted.

"A detective," she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of
the various men scattered through the room. "I don't wish anything said
about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night, and"--she
stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--"and I want some one to
look her up," she went on at last with the most intense emphasis.

"A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say
our house?"

She looked at me keenly before replying. "You are a young man," said
she; "isn't there some one here more responsible than yourself that I
can talk to?"

I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then
passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him aside,
she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He listened
nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I knew
indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his face--but you
know what Gryce's face is. I was about to walk off, convinced he had
got hold of something he would prefer to manage himself, when the
Superintendent came in.

"Where is Gryce?" asked he; "tell him I want him."

Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he whispered,
"Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and send me word
if you want me; I will be here for two hours."

I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I reapproached
the woman. "Where do you come from," said I, "I am to go back with you
and investigate the affair it seems."

"Did he say so?" she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with his
back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.

I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. "I come from No.----
Second Avenue: Mr. Blake's house," she whispered, uttering a name so
well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce's movement of sudden interest
"A girl--one who sewed for us--disappeared last night in a way to
alarm us very much. She was taken from her room--" "Yes," she cried
vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity, "taken from her
room; she never went of her own accord; and she must be found if I spend
every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in the bank against my old
age."

Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so vehement,
I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of hers that
she felt her abduction so keenly.

"No," she replied, "not a relative, but," she went on, looking every way
but in my face, "a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they call
it, of mine; I--I--She must be found," she again reiterated.

We were by this time in the street.

"Nothing must be said about it," she now whispered, catching me by the
arm. "I told him so," nodding back to the building from which we had
just issued, "and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks
knowing anything about it, can't it?"

"What?" I asked.

"Finding the girl."

"Well," said I, "we can tell you better about that when we know a few
more of the facts. What is the girl's name and what makes you think she
didn't go out of the house-door of her own accord?"

"Why, why, everything. She wasn't the person to do it; then the looks of
her room, and--They all got out of the window," she cried suddenly, "and
went away by the side gate into ------ Street."

"They? Who do you mean by they?"

"Why, whoever they were who carried her off."

I could not suppress the "bah!" that rose to my lips. Mr. Gryce might
have been able to, but I am not Gryce.

"You don't believe," said she, "that she was carried off?"

"Well, no," said I, "not in the sense you mean."

She gave another nod back to the police station now a block or so
distant. "He did'nt seem to doubt it at all."

I laughed. "Did you tell him you thought she had been taken off in this
way?"

"Yes, and he said, 'Very likely.' And well he might, for I heard the men
talking in her room, and--"

"You heard men talking in her room--when?"

"O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep and
the noise they made whispering, woke me."

"Wait," I said, "tell me where her room is, hers and yours."

"Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor."

"Who are you?" I now inquired. "What position do you occupy in Mr.
Blake's house?"

"I am the housekeeper."

Mr. Blake was a bachelor.

"And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to
come from this girl's room."

"Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear them
when they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it came from
her room; and more astonished than I could say,--She is a good girl,"
she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant eyes,
"a--a--as good a girl as this whole city can show; don't you dare, any
of you, to hint at anything else o--"

"Come, come," I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too
communicative face, "I haven't said anything, we will take it for
granted she is as good as gold, go on."

The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf.
"Where was I?" said she. "O, I heard voices and was surprised and got
up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have
startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a
moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and I
called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it. 'What is
it?' she asked. 'O,' said I, 'I thought I heard talking here and I was
frightened,' 'It must have been next door,' said she. I begged pardon
and went back to my room. There was no more noise, but when in the
morning we broke into her room and found her gone, the window open and
signs of distress and struggle around, I knew I had not been mistaken;
that there were men with her when I went to her door, and that they had
carried her off--"

This time I could not restrain myself.

"Did they drop her out of the window?" I inquired.

"O," said she, "we are building an extension, and there is a ladder
running up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they took
her."

"Indeed! she seems at least to have been a willing victim," I remarked.

The woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. "Don't you believe it,"
gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. "I tell you if what
I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did carry her
off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her if
it has not done so already. You don't know what you are talking about,
you never saw her--"

"Was she pretty," I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one
passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed in
some way to give her a shock.

"Ah, I don't know," she muttered; "some might not think so, I always
did; it depended upon the way you looked at her."

For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my
veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in a
sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her own
mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it was
that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharp
eye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I asked
her how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities of
the girl's disappearance.

"Doesn't Mr. Blake know anything about it?"

The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. "Yes," said she,
"I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn't take much interest
in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me."

"Then he does not know you have come for the police?"

"No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is
not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr. Blake
is a man who never meddles with anything, and--"

"What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this
girl--By the way, what is her name?"

"Emily."

"That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?"

"Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table
reading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an
absent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants' affairs
without troubling him."

"And you let it drop?"

"Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to."

I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for
though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if
maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.

We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion
regarded by this scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the most
desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had
accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for
the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to the
woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed to
get me into the house without the knowledge of Mr. Blake.

"O sir, all you have got to do is to follow me right up the back stairs;
he won't notice, or if he does will not ask any questions."

And having by this time reached the basement door, she took out a key
from her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us into
the dwelling.



CHAPTER II. A FEW POINTS


Mrs. Daniels, for that was her name, took me at once up stairs to the
third story back room. As we passed through the halls, I could not but
notice how rich, though sombre were the old fashioned walls and heavily
frescoed ceilings, so different in style and coloring from what we see
now-a-days in our secret penetrations into Fifth Avenue mansions. Many
as are the wealthy houses I have been called upon to enter in the line
of my profession, I had never crossed the threshold of such an one as
this before, and impervious as I am to any foolish sentimentalities,
I felt a certain degree of awe at the thought of invading with police
investigation, this home of ancient Knicker-bocker respectability. But
once in the room of the missing girl, every consideration fled save that
of professional pride and curiosity. For almost at first blush, I saw
that whether Mrs. Daniels was correct or not in her surmises as to the
manner of the girl's disappearance, the fact that she had disappeared
was likely to prove an affair of some importance. For, let me state
the facts in the order in which I noticed them. The first thing that
impressed me was, that whatever Mrs. Daniels called her, this was no
sewing girl's room into which I now stepped. Plain as was the furniture
in comparison with the elaborate richness of the walls and ceiling,
there were still scattered through the room, which was large even for
a thirty foot house, articles of sufficient elegance to make the
supposition that it was the abode of an ordinary seamstress open to
suspicion, if no more.

Mrs. Daniels, seeing my look of surprise, hastened to provide some
explanation. "It is the room which has always been devoted to sewing,"
said she; "and when Emily came, I thought it would be easier to put up
a bed here than to send her upstairs. She was a very nice girl and
disarranged nothing."

I glanced around on the writing-case lying open on a small table in the
centre of the room, on the vase half full of partly withered roses, on
the mantel-piece, the Shakespeare, and Macaulay's History lying on the
stand at my right, thought my own thoughts, but said nothing.

"You found the door locked this morning?" asked I, after a moment's
scrutiny of the room in which three facts had become manifest: first,
that the girl had not occupied the bed the night before; second, that
there had been some sort of struggle or surprise,--one of the curtains
being violently torn as if grasped by an agitated hand, to say nothing
of a chair lying upset on the floor with one of its legs broken; third,
that the departure, strange as it may seem, had been by the window.

"Yes," returned she; "but there is a passageway leading from my room
to hers and it was by that means we entered. There was a chair placed
against the door on this side but we easily pushed it away."

I stepped to the window and looked out. Ah, it would not be so very
difficult for a man to gain the street from that spot in a dark night,
for the roof of the newly-erected extension was almost on a level with
the window.

"Well," said she anxiously, "couldn't she have been got out that way?"

"More difficult things have been done," said I; and was about to step
out upon the roof when I bethought to inquire of Mrs. Daniels if any of
the girl's clothing was missing.

She immediately flew to the closets and thence to bureau drawers which
she turned hastily over. "No, nothing is missing but a hat and cloak
and--" She paused confusedly.

"And what?" I asked.

"Nothing," returned she, hurriedly closing the bureau drawer; "only some
little knick-knacks."

"Knick-knacks!" quoth I. "If she stopped for knick-knacks, she couldn't
have gone in any very unwilling frame of mind." And somewhat disgusted,
I was about to throw up the whole affair and leave the room. But the
indecision in Mrs. Daniels' own face deterred me.

"I don't understand it," murmured she, drawing her hand across her eyes.
"I don't understand it. But," she went on with even an increase in her
old tone of heart-felt conviction, "no matter whether we understand it
or not, the case is serious; I tell you so, and she must be found."

I resolved to know the nature of that must, used as few women in her
position would use it even under circumstances to all appearance more
aggravated than these.

"Why, must?" said I. "If the girl went of her own accord as some things
seem to show, why should you, no relative as you acknowledge, take the
matter so to heart as to insist she shall be followed and brought back?"

She turned away, uneasily taking up and putting down some little matters
on the table before her. "Is it not enough that I promise to pay for
all expenses which a search will occasion, without my being forced to
declare just why I should be willing to do so? Am I bound to tell you I
love the girl? that I believe she has been taken away by foul means,
and that to her great suffering and distress? that being fond of her and
believing this, I am conscientious enough to put every means I possess
at the command of those who will recover her?"

I was not satisfied with this but on that very account felt my
enthusiasm revive.

"But Mr. Blake? Surely he is the one to take this interest if anybody."

"I have before said," returned she, paling however as she spoke, "that
Mr. Blake takes very little interest in his servants."

I cast another glance about the room. "How long have you been in this
house?" asked I.

"I was in the service of Mr. Blake's father and he died a year ago."

"Since when you have remained with Mr. Blake himself?"

"Yes sir."

"And this Emily, when did she come here?"

"Oh it must be eleven months or so ago."

"An Irish girl?"

"O no, American. She is not a common person, sir."

"What do you mean by that? That she was educated, lady-like, pretty, or
what?"

"I don't know what to say. She was educated, yes, but not as you would
call a lady educated. Yet she knew a great many things the rest of us
did'nt. She liked to read, you see, and--O sir, ask the girls about her,
I never know what to say when I am questioned."

I scanned the gray-haired woman still more intently than I had yet done.
Was she the weak common-place creature she seemed, or had she really
some cause other than appeared for these her numerous breaks and
hesitations.

"Where did you get this girl?" I inquired. "Where did she live before
coming here?"

"I cannot say, I never asked her to talk about herself. She came to me
for work and I liked her and took her without recommendation."

"And she has served you well?"

"Excellently."

"Been out much? Had any visitors?"

She shook her head. "Never went out and never had any visitors."

I own I was nonplussed, "Well," said I, "no more of this at present.
I must first find out if she left this house alone or in company with
others." And without further parley I stepped out upon the roof of the
extension.

As I did so I debated with myself whether the case warranted me or not
in sending for Mr. Gryce. As yet there was nothing to show that the girl
had come to any harm. A mere elopement with or without a lover to help
her, was not such a serious matter that the whole police force need
be stirred up on the subject; and if the woman had money, as she said,
ready to give the man who should discover the whereabouts of this girl,
why need that money be divided up any more than was necessary. Yet Gryce
was not one to be dallied with. He had said, send for him if the affair
seemed to call for his judgment, and somehow the affair did promise to
be a trifle complicated. I was yet undetermined when I reached the edge
of the roof.

It was a dizzy descent, but once made, escape from the yard beneath
would be easy. A man could take that road without difficulty; but a
woman! Baffled at the idea I turned thoughtfully back, when I beheld
something on the roof before me that caused me to pause and ask myself
if this was going to turn out to be a tragedy after all. It was a drop
of congealed blood. Further on towards the window was another, and
yes, further still, another and another. I even found one upon the very
window ledge itself. Bounding into the room, I searched the carpet for
further traces. It was the worst one in the world to find anything
upon of the nature of which I was seeking, being a confused pattern of
mingled drab and red, and in my difficulty I had to stoop very low.

"What are you looking for?" cried Mrs. Daniels.

I pointed to the drop on the window sill. "Do you see that?" I asked.

She uttered an exclamation and bent nearer. "Blood!" cried she, and
stood staring, with rapidly paling cheeks and trembling form. "They have
killed her and he will never--"

As she did not finish I looked up.

"Do you think it was her blood?" she whispered in a horrified tone.

"There is every reason to believe so," rejoined I, pointing to a spot
where I had at last discovered not only one crimson drop but many,
scattered over the scarcely redder roses under my feet.

"Ah, it is worse than I thought," murmured she. "What are you going to
do? What can we do?

"I am going to send for another detective," returned I; and stepping to
the window I telegraphed at once to the man Harris to go for Mr. Gryce.

"The one we saw at the Station?"

I bowed assent.

Her face lost something of its drawn expression. "O I am glad; he will
