The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow
Page 21
XXI
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"Elvira Brown."
"Elvira Brown? That the name on the package?"
"Yes."
"And the address?"
The name of a small town in the Catskills was given him.
"Thank you. Very good work." And Mr. Gryce hung up the receiver. Then hestood thinking.
"Elvira Brown! A very fair alias--that is, the _Brown_ end. But what am Ito think of _Elvira_? And what am I to think of the _Brown_, now that Iremember that the woman who has chosen to hide her identity under anothername is a Frenchwoman. Something queer! Let me see if I can call up thestation-master at the place she's gone."
A long-distance connection proving practicable, he found himself after alittle while in communication with the man he wanted.
"I'm Gryce, of the New York police. A woman in whom we're greatlyinterested has just entered your town under the name of Elvira Brown."
_"Elvira Brown!"_
Mr. Gryce was startled at the tone in which this was repeated, evenmaking due allowance for the medium through which it came.
"Yes. What's there strange about that?"
"Only this: That's the name of a woman who has lived in these mountainsfor forty years, and who died here three days ago. To-day we're goingto bury her."
This _was_ a blow to the detective's expectations. What awful mistake hadhe made? Or had it been made by the man detailed to steal the name fromthe package--or by the woman in the shop, or by all these combined? Hecould not stop to ask; but he caught at the first loose end whichpresented itself.
"Well, it isn't she we're after, that's certain. The one we want ismiddle-aged, and plain in looks and dress. If she came into your town, itwas yesterday or possibly the night before. You wouldn't be apt to noticeher, unless your attention was caught by her lameness. Do you rememberany such person?"
"No, and I don't think anyone like that passed through my station. We'reoff the main road, and our travelers are few. I would have noticed thearrival of a woman like that."
Mr. Gryce, with an exclamation of chagrin, hung up the receiver. He feltcompletely balked.
But old as he was, he still had some of the tenacity of youth. He was notwilling to accept defeat without one more effort. Going downtown asusual, he wandered again into the little dry-goods shop to see if thepackage had been sent.
Yes, it had gone, but the expressman had had some trouble with a drunkenman who actually took the package out of his hands and didn't give itback without a squabble. Strange how men can drink till they can't see,and so early in the morning, at that!
Mr. Gryce's vigorous hunch dismissed summarily this expression of opinionas altogether feminine. But he had something to say about the packageitself, which kept the good woman waiting, though a customer or twodemanded her attention.
"You'll think me a fussy old man," said he, "but I've worried about thatpackage all night. She needs a new dress so much, and I'm afraid youdidn't have the right address. I remember it now--it was--was----"
"Barford on the Hudson," she finished promptly. Evidently she begrudgedthe time she was wasting on his imbecilities.
"That's it; that's it. 'Way up in the Catskills, isn't it?"
"I don't know. Those people are waiting, sir. I shall really----"
"One moment! I want to buy something more for her. But I'll send itmyself this time; I won't bother you again. Another dress, somethingbright and prettier than anything she has. She'll forgive me. She'll beglad to have it."
"I don't know, sir." The woman was really very much embarrassed. She washonest to the core, and though she enjoyed seeing her goods disappearfrom the shelves, it wasn't in her heart to take advantage of a man soold as this. "I'm afraid she wouldn't be pleased. You see, it isn't afortnight since she bought and made up the one I sold her first, and shethought that a great extravagance. Now with the gray----"
"Are you speaking of the blue one?"
"No, it wasn't blue."
"What color was it? Haven't you a bit left to show me? I should knowbetter what to do, then."
She pointed to a bolt of striped wool--a little gaudy for a woman whosetaste they had both been speaking of as inclined to the plain and somber.
"That? But that's bright enough. I've never seen her in that."
"She didn't like it. But something made her take it. She wore it when shecame in last."
"She did! Then I'm satisfied. Thankee all the same. Just give me a pairof gloves for her, and I'll be getting on."
She picked out a pair for him, and he trotted away, mumbling cheerily tohimself as he passed between the counters. But once in his taxi again,he concentrated all his thought on that bolt of striped dress-goods. Thecolors were crimson and black, with a dot here and there of some lightershade! He took pains to fix it in his mind, for this was undoubtedly thedress she fled in--an important clue to him, if this hunt should resolveitself into a chase with doubling and redoubling of the escaping quarry.
He spent the next two hours in acquainting himself with the location andsome of the conditions of the town he now meant to visit. Though he couldnot understand Madame Duclos' reason for taking the name of a woman sowell known as this Elvira Brown, there was something in this circumstanceand the fact that the person so styled had been at that moment at thepoint of death, which called, as he felt, for personal investigation. Hehardly felt fit for any such purely speculative expedition as this;especially as he must do without the companionship, to say nothing of theassistance, of Sweetwater, whom he hardly felt justified in withdrawingfrom the task he had given him. So he picked out a fellow named Perry;and together they took the West Shore into Greene County, where theystopped at a station from which a branch road ran to the small townwhither the package addressed to Elvira Brown had preceded them.
Accidents frequently determine our course, as well as turn us from theone we had mapped out for ourselves. By accident I mean, in this case, anactual one which had occurred on the branch road I have mentioned, bywhich the trains were held up and further progress in that direction madeimpossible. When this came to the knowledge of Mr. Gryce, he found itnecessary to choose between trusting himself to an automobile for therest of the journey, or of remaining all night in the town where thetrain had stopped. A glance at the hills towering up between him and hisgoal decided him to wait for the running of the trains next day; andafter an inquiry or two, he left the station on foot for the hotel towhich he had been recommended.
A philosopher, in many regards, Mr. Gryce quieted himself, under theirritation of this annoyance, with the thought that in this world we donot always know just what is best for us; and that the few hours of restthus forced upon him by the seemingly unfortunate break in his plansmight prove in the end to be the best thing that could happen to him. Heaccordingly took a good room, enjoyed a good dinner and then sat down inthe lobby to have an equally good smoke. He chose a chair which gave hima prospect of the river, and for a long time, while vaguely listening tothe talk about him, he feasted his eyes on the view and allowed some ofits calm to enter his perturbed spirit. But gradually, as he looked andsmoked, he found his attention caught, first by what a man was saying inhis rear, and secondly by something he saw intervening between himselfand the flow of shining river which had hitherto filled his eye.
The sentence which had roused him was one quite foreign to his thoughtsand seemingly of little importance to him or to anyone about. It was inconnection with a factory on the other side of the river, which wasrunning overtime, and had not help enough to fill its orders.
"It's women we want," he heard shouted out. "Young women, middle-agedwomen, any sort of women who are anxious for steady work and good wages."
The emphasis with which this announcement was made perhaps gave it point;at all events this one brief sentence sank into Mr. Gryce's ear just ashe began to notice a woman who sat with her back to him on the hotelpiazza.
He was not thinking of Madame Duclos at that moment; nor was there theleast thing about
this woman to recall his secret quarry to mind. Yetonce his eyes had fallen on her, they remained there for several minutes.
Why?
Perhaps because she sat so unnaturally still. In all the time he staredat her simple bonnet and decently clothed shoulders, the silhouette shemade against the silver band of the river did not change by an iota. Hehad been agaze upon the landscape too, but he was sure that he had notsat as still as this, and when, after an interval during which he hadturned to see what kind of man it was who had spoken so vigorously, hewheeled back into place and glanced out again through his window, she wasthere yet, hat, shoulders and all, immovable as an image and almost asrigid.
Well, and what of it? There was surely nothing very remarkable in socommonplace a fact; yet during the ensuing half-hour, during which hegave, or tried to give, the greater part of his attention to thepolitical talk which followed the statements he had heard made in regardto the needs of a certain factory, his eye would turn riverward from timeto time and always with a view to see if this woman had moved. And notonce did he detect the least change in her attitude.
"She will sit there all night," he muttered to himself; and after a whilehis curiosity mounted to such a pitch that he got up and went out on thepiazza for one of his short strolls.