The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret. Alex. McVeigh MillerЧитать онлайн книгу.
you any acquaintance who can claim these initials, Mr. Lawrence?"
"Let me think. My circle of acquaintance is large, but I cannot recall anyone claiming H. C. as his monogram. My memory may not serve me correctly, though."
"Perhaps your card-receiver may do better, Mr. Lawrence. Will you examine that and let me know?"
"Certainly. Suppose you accompany me, and let us find out at once? I do not feel disposed to let this vexing matter rest."
"With pleasure, as I have a leisure hour at my disposal."
They returned to the house together and entered at once upon their quest.
It was not long before their labors were rewarded with success The detective looked up with a small square of pasteboard in his hand, from which he read aloud triumphantly.
"Harold Colville!"
"'H. C.' Harold Colville!" exclaimed the banker. "Why, really I had forgotten Mr. Colville."
"He visits here then, of course," said the detective.
"He did—at one time—frequently. Latterly he has discontinued his visits. Indeed, it has been four or five months since he called upon us."
"Had he any reason for the cessation of his visits?"
"Yes," said the banker, promptly. "He was a suitor for the hand of my daughter, Lily. She rejected him—being already engaged to Mr. Darling."
"I have seen Mr. Colville," said Shelton. "He is a man of wealth and leisure—dissipated and fast, I have heard."
"You have been correctly informed," was the reply.
"Indeed?" said Mr. Shelton. He laid the card back as he spoke, and rose to take leave.
"Does this discovery throw any light on the mystery?" said the other.
"I will be frank with you, Mr. Lawrence. It does not. The case seems complicated at present, but it is my business to unravel the crooked skein, and I hope to do so. You will suffer me to retain this bit of jewelry for the present. I wish to see if Mr. Colville can furnish the missing half."
"You suspect him, then—" said the banker, breaking off his sentence because perplexed how to end it.
"I suspect him of nothing at present," was the reply. "This trinket may have been stolen from him and lost by another, I have that to find out. If it be proved that Mr. Colville lost this locket in your hall last night, my theory of a projected theft will not hold water. A gentleman of his wealth and position would not need to descend to that phase of crime. Some other object must have actuated him."
He paused, drawing on his gloves.
"There is one thing more," he resumed. "Keep this mutual discovery we have made a dead secret until I give you leave to reveal it. Do not even mention it to your daughter or to Mr. Darling. He does not believe the theory I advanced last night. I read it in his expressive features. He thinks he really saw a spirit. Let him think so still; I am gathering the tangled ends of a fearful mystery in my hands. But if human skill can unravel it I will not fail to do so. Good-day, Mr. Lawrence."
He tripped airily away down the street with the air and manner of a well-bred gentleman. Few who saw the well-dressed man swinging his natty little cane so jauntily and wearing that supremely indifferent air would have supposed him to be the most daring and accomplished detective in the State of New York. So thought Mr. Lawrence as he watched him walk away.
CHAPTER XV
The rage of old Haidee Leveret at finding herself duped and outwitted by such a weak girl as Lily Lawrence was frightful to witness and impossible to describe. She raved, she stormed, she tore her scanty gray locks and blasphemed in the most frightful and blood-curdling terms.
In vain she tried the door-handle, in vain she shook the iron bars in the window. They resisted her most vigorous efforts.
In her terrible rage she fell to breaking and tearing everything in her room that could be destroyed. She threw down the dishes containing Lily's untasted dinner and shivered them into fragments. She tore off the bed-covers and rent them in pieces in the hight of her insane fury. If Lily had fallen into her cruel hands just then she would have killed her remorselessly.
At length, having sated her rage momentarily by wreaking it on those poor inanimate things, she began to quiet down somewhat and to consider the situation.
The enemy had worsted her, that was self-evident. Stratagem had succeeded against brute force and power.
Lily Lawrence had freed herself from captivity, and there was no one to pursue her and bring her back. Old Peter was not likely to return for several hours. If Lily's strength held out she would be safe in her home ere the old man could get back to town and carry the tidings to Doctor Pratt and Harold Colville.
Harold Colville had promised the old couple a most extravagant reward for the safe-keeping of his beautiful prisoner.
Not only did the loss of this trouble the old crone's mind, but also the fact that Lily would betray them all into the hands of the police and that exposure and punishment would follow on the discovery of the nefarious works which she and her husband had wrought for years. A species of abject terror filled her quaking frame at the thought. She thought of the miserly accumulations of her wicked life secreted beneath the roof of the old house, and dreaded lest her greedy eyes should never again be permitted to gloat over that golden hoard.
In the hight of these woful cogitations her thoughts suddenly recurred to the prisoner in the gloomy dungeon beneath her.
Poor Fanny Colville, whose hearing had been strained all day to detect the faintest sound from above, had been a frightened listener to old Haidee's fearful explosion of wrath.
She knew by the violence of the witch's rage that Lily had succeeded in her stratagem and effected her escape. The knowledge filled her with joy, even while she feared that rage would instigate Haidee to yet further cruelties against herself. The desire for life was yet strong in the breast of the poor starving creature, and she shrank in terror while she thought it was probable that old Haidee would kill her in her frantic desire to wreak vengeance upon something. Even while she shivered over her fear she heard the heavy footsteps lumbering down the stairs toward the dungeon.
"What! are you not dead yet, you she-devil?" was the fierce salutation that greeted her ears.
Her enemy advanced, and seizing hold of her crouching body as it lay upon the bed, shook it with the fury of a wild-cat until it seemed as if the poor bones must rattle. "What do you mean by living in this way? Must I kill you at last with my own hands?"
"Spare me," moaned the poor victim between her chattering teeth, "spare me yet a little longer, I am so young, and life is so sweet!"
"Sweet, you fool!" cried the old hag, desisting from sheer weariness, and letting go of the poor skeleton to glare fiercely at her. "What! Life is sweet, chained in a dungeon, in rags, on a crust of bread and a sup of water?"
"Yes, oh, yes!" faltered the poor creature, hoping to gain a little time so that deliverance from her bonds might come.
"Live then, you worm!" cried the old witch, throwing life at her poor victim with a curse. "Live as long as you can since you find it such a luxury!"
The shivering heap of rags and bones did not answer. Stamping about the floor, glaring at the frightened Fanny, her mood changed. She said retrospectively:
"After all you are not such a devil as she! You have not the spirit in your poor, crushed, beaten body! You have never even tried to escape from me and bring me to punishment! Why should I tread on you when you will not even turn like the worm? No, live, live! Never fear but you shall have your crust of bread and sup of water while Haidee remains here to bring it to you."
So saying she went out again, and Fanny wept tears of joy at her departure. But a little while now, she thought gladly, and Lily would be at home. Then to-morrow at the farthest her own deliverance would arrive. She thought of the loved ones she had never expected to see again, of the dear old mother and father in their old home in the country, and the affectionate girl's tears flowed like rain for very joy at the blissful hope of reunion.
Alas!