That Affair Next Door Part 53

He waited.

Still no answer.

"If you do not know either of these gentlemen," he insinuated at last, "how did you come to leave the rings at their office?"

"I knew their names--I inquired my way--It is all a dream now. Please, please do not ask me questions. O doctor! do you not see I cannot bear it?"

He smiled--I never could smile like that under any circ.u.mstances--and softly patted her hand.

"I see it makes you suffer," he acknowledged, "but I must make you suffer in order to do you any good. If you would tell me all you know about these rings----"

She pa.s.sionately turned away her head.

"I might hope to restore you to health and happiness. You know with what they are a.s.sociated?"

She made a slight motion.

"And that they are an invaluable clue to the murderer of Mrs. Van Burnam?"

Another motion.

"How then, my child, did _you_ come to have them?"

Her head, which was rolling to and fro on the pillow, stopped and she gasped, rather than uttered:

"I was _there_."

He knew this, yet it was terrible to hear it from her lips; she was so young and had such an air of purity and innocence. But more heartrending yet was the groan with which she burst forth in another moment, as if impelled by conscience to unburden herself from some overwhelming load:

"I took them; I could not help it; but I did not keep them; you know that I did not keep them. I am no thief, doctor; whatever I am, I am no thief."

"Yes, yes, I see that. But why take them, child? What were you doing in that house, and whom were you with?"

She threw up her arms, but made no reply.

"Will you not tell?" he urged.

A short silence, then a low "No," evidently wrung from her by the deepest anguish.

Mr. Gryce heaved a sigh; the struggle was likely to be a more serious one than he had antic.i.p.ated.

"Miss Oliver," said he, "more facts are known in relation to this affair than you imagine. Though unsuspected at first, it has secretly been proven that the man who accompanied the woman into the house where the crime took place, was _Franklin_ Van Burnam."

A low gasp from the bed, and that was all.

"You know this to be correct, don't you, Miss Oliver?"

"O must you ask?" She was writhing now, and I thought he must desist out of pure compa.s.sion. But detectives are made out of very stern stuff, and though he looked sorry he went inexorably on.

"Justice and a sincere desire to help you, force me, my child. Were you not the woman who entered Mr. Van Burnam's house at midnight with this man?"

"I entered the house."

"At midnight?"

"Yes."

"And with this man?"

Silence.

"You do not speak, Miss Oliver."

Again silence.

"It was Franklin who was with you at the Hotel D----?"

She uttered a cry.

"And it was Franklin who connived at your change of clothing there, and advised or allowed you to dress yourself in a new suit from Altman's?"

"Oh!" she cried again.

"Then why should it not have been he who accompanied you to the Chinaman's, and afterwards took you in a second hack to the house in Gramercy Park?"

"Known, known, all known!" was her moan.

"Sin and crime cannot long remain hidden in this world, Miss Oliver. The police are acquainted with all your movements from the moment you left the Hotel D----. That is why I have compa.s.sion on you. I wish to save you from the consequences of a crime you saw committed, but in which you took no hand."

"O," she exclaimed in one involuntary burst, as she half rose to her knees, "if you could save me from appearing in the matter at all! If you would let me run away----"

But Mr. Gryce was not the man to give her hope on any such score.

"Impossible, Miss Oliver. You are the only person who can witness for the guilty. If _I_ should let you go, the police would not. Then why not tell at once whose hand drew the hat-pin from your hat and----"

"Stop!" she shrieked; "stop! you kill me! I cannot bear it! If you bring that moment back to my mind I shall go mad! I feel the horror of it rising in me now! Be still! I pray you, for G.o.d's sake, to be still!"

This was mortal anguish; there was no acting in this. Even he was startled by the emotion he had raised, and sat for a moment without speaking. Then the necessity of providing against all further mistakes by fixing the guilt where it belonged, drove him on again, and he said:

"Like many another woman before you, you are trying to shield a guilty man at your own expense. But it is useless, Miss Oliver; the truth always comes to light. Be advised, then, and make a confidant of one who understands you better than you think."

But she would not listen to this.

"No one understands me. I do not understand myself. I only know that I shall make a confidant of no one; that I shall never speak." And turning from him, she buried her head in the bedclothes.

To most men her tone and the action which accompanied it would have been final. But Mr. Gryce possessed great patience. Waiting for just a moment till she seemed more composed, he murmured gently:

"Not if you must suffer more from your silence than from speaking? Not if men--I do not mean myself, child, for I am your friend--will think that _you_ are to blame for the death of the woman whom you saw fall under a cruel stab, and whose rings you have?"