A Strange Disappearance Read online

  Produced by Lisa Bennett

  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 thatLeavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has comeunder my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects,at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promisenot to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as theaffair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it."

  The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledgedby us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious andunprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course exceptingMr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but arouse ourdeepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around which wewere sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so dear toa detective's heart, we gave with alacrity the required promise; andsettling himself back with the satisfied air of a man who has a goodstory to tell that does not entirely lack certain points redounding tohis own credit, he began:

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

  "A detective," she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces ofthe various men scattered through the room. "I don't wish anything saidabout it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night, and"--shestopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--"and I want some one tolook 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 sayour house?"

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

  I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just thenpassing. 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 listenednonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I knewindicated strong and surprised interest, though from his face--but youknow what Gryce's face is. I was about to walk off, convinced he hadgot hold of something he would prefer to manage himself, when theSuperintendent 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 wordif you want me; I will be here for two hours."

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

  "Did he say so?" she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with hisback 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 sowell 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 toalarm us very much. She was taken from her room--" "Yes," she criedvehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity, "taken from herroom; she never went of her own accord; and she must be found if I spendevery dollar of the pittance I have laid up in the bank against my oldage."

  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 thatshe felt her abduction so keenly.

  "No," she replied, "not a relative, but," she went on, looking every waybut in my face, "a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they callit, 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 thearm. "I told him so," nodding back to the building from which we hadjust issued, "and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folksknowing 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 fewmore of the facts. What is the girl's name and what makes you think shedidn'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 ofher room, and--They all got out of the window," she cried suddenly, "andwent 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 mighthave 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 sodistant. "He did'nt seem to doubt it at all."

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

  "Yes, and he said, 'Very likely.' And well he might, for I heard the mentalking 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 andthe 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 tocome from this girl's room."

  "Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear themwhen they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it came fromher 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, anyof you, to hint at anything else o--"

  "Come, come," I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my toocommunicative face, "I haven't said anything, we will take it forgranted 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 gotup and went to her door.
The noise I made unlocking my own must havestartled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited amoment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and Icalled again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it. 'What isit?' she asked. 'O,' said I, 'I thought I heard talking here and I wasfrightened,' 'It must have been next door,' said she. I begged pardonand went back to my room. There was no more noise, but when in themorning we broke into her room and found her gone, the window open andsigns 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 hadcarried 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 ladderrunning up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they tookher."

  "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 whatI say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did carry heroff, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her ifit 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 onepasser-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed insome way to give her a shock.

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

  For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through myveins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in asort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her ownmind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it wasthat aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharpeye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I askedher how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities ofthe 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 interestin 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 isnot necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr. Blakeis a man who never meddles with anything, and--"

  "What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that thisgirl--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 tablereading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in anabsent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants' affairswithout 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, forthough by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which ifmaintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.

  We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansionregarded by this scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the mostdesirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who hadaccompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch forthe signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to thewoman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed toget 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 keyfrom her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us intothe dwelling.