The Holladay Case Part 13

"I fear I can't promise you anything," said Mr. Royce slowly, after a moment's thought. "Of course, it's none of my business: for Miss Holladay must arrange her household to suit herself; yet, if you don't get back with your old mistress, I may, perhaps, be able to find you a position somewhere else. Suppose you come back in three or four days, and I'll see what I can do."

"All right, sir; and thank you," she said, and left the office.

I had some work of my own to keep me busy that night, so devoted no thought to Frances Holladay and her affairs, but they were recalled to me with renewed force next morning.

"Did you get Miss Holladay's signature to that conveyance?" Mr. Graham chanced to ask his partner in the course of the morning.

"No, sir," answered Mr. Royce, with just a trace of embarra.s.sment. "I called at the house last night, but she sent down word that she was too ill to see me or to transact any business."

"Nothing serious, I hope?" asked the other quickly.

"No, sir; I think not. Just a trace of nervousness probably."

But when he called again at the house that evening, he received a similar message, supplemented with the news imparted by the butler, a servant of many years' standing in the family, that Miss Holladay had suddenly decided to leave the city and open her country place on Long Island. It was only the end of March, and so a full two months and more ahead of the season; but she was feeling very ill, was not able to leave her room, indeed, and believed the fresh air and quiet of the country would do more than anything else to restore her shattered nerves. So the whole household, with the exception of her maid, a cook, house-girl, and under-butler, were to leave the city next day in order to get the country house ready at once.

"I don't wonder she needs a little toning up," remarked our chief sympathetically. "She has gone through a nerve-trying ordeal, especially for a girl reared as she has been. Two or three months of quiet will do her good. When does she expect to leave?"

"In about a week, I think. The time hasn't been definitely set. It will depend upon how the arrangements go forward. It won't be necessary, will it, to bother her with any details of business? That conveyance, for instance----"

"Can wait till she gets back. No, we won't bother her at all."

But it seemed that she had either improved or changed her mind, for two days later a note, which her maid had written for her, came to Mr.

Graham, asking him to call upon her in the course of the next twenty-four hours, as she wished to talk over some matters of business with him. It struck me as singular that she should ask for Mr. Graham, but our senior called a cab, and started off at once without comment.

An hour later, the door opened, and he entered the office with a most peculiar expression of countenance.

"Well, that beats me!" he exclaimed, as he dropped into his chair.

Our junior wheeled around toward him without speaking, but his anxiety was plain enough.

"To think that a girl as level-headed as Frances Holladay has always been, should suddenly develop such whimsicalities. Yet, I couldn't but admire her grasp of things. Here have I been thinking she didn't know anything about her business and didn't care, but she seems to have kept her eyes open."

"Well?" asked Mr. Royce, as the other paused.

"Well, she started out by reminding me that her property had been left to her absolutely, to do as she pleased with; a point which I, of course, conceded. She then went on to say that she knew of a number of bequests her father had intended to make before his death, and which he would have made if he had not been cut off so suddenly; that the bequests were of such a nature that he did not wish his name to appear in them, and that she was going to undertake to carry them out anonymously."

"Well?" asked our junior again.

"Well," said Mr. Graham slowly, "she asked me to dispose at once of such of her securities as I thought best, in order that I might place in her hands by to-morrow night one hundred thousand dollars in cash--a cool hundred thousand!"

CHAPTER VIII

The Mysterious Maid

"A hundred thousand dollars!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Royce, and sat staring at his chief.

"A hundred thousand dollars! That's a good deal for a girl to give away in a lump, but she can afford it. Of course, we've nothing to do but carry out her instructions. I think both of us can guess what she intends doing with the money."

The other nodded. I believed that I could guess, too. The money, of course, was intended for the other woman--she was not to suffer for her crime, after all. Miss Holladay seemed to me in no little danger of becoming an accessory after the fact.

"She seems really ill," continued our senior. "She looks thinner and quite careworn. I commended her resolution to seek rest and quiet and change of scene."

"When does she go, sir?" asked Mr. Royce, in a subdued voice.

"The day after to-morrow, I think. She did not say definitely. In fact, she could talk very little. She's managed to catch cold--the grip, I suppose--and was very hoa.r.s.e. It would have been cruelty to make her talk, and I didn't try."

He wheeled around to his desk, and then suddenly back again.

"By the way," he said, "I saw the new maid. I can't say I wholly approve of her."

He paused a minute, weighing his words.

"She seems careful and devoted," he went on, at last, "but I don't like her eyes. They're too intense. I caught her two or three times watching me strangely. I can't imagine where Miss Holladay picked her up, or why she should have picked her up at all. She's French, of course--she speaks with a decided accent. About the money, I suppose we'd better sell a block of U. P. bonds. They're the least productive of her securities."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Mr. Royce, and the chief called up a broker and gave the necessary orders. Then he turned to other work, and the day pa.s.sed without any further reference to Miss Holladay or her affairs.

The proceeds of the sale were brought to the office early the next afternoon, a small packet neatly sealed and docketed--one hundred thousand-dollar bills. Mr. Graham turned it over in his hand thoughtfully.

"You'll take it to the house, of course, John," he said to his partner. "Lester 'd better go with you."

So Mr. Royce placed the package in his pocket, a cab was summoned, and we were off. The trip was made without incident, and at the end of half an hour we drew up before the Holladay mansion.

It was one of the old-styled brownstone fronts which lined both sides of the avenue twenty years ago; it was no longer in the ultra-fashionable quarter, which had moved up toward Central Park, and shops of various kinds were beginning to encroach upon the neighborhood; but it had been Hiram Holladay's home for forty years, and he had never been willing to part with it. At this moment all the blinds were down and the house had a deserted look. We mounted the steps to the door, which was opened at once to our ring by a woman whom I knew instinctively to be the new maid, though she looked much less like a maid than like an elderly working-woman of the middle cla.s.s.

"We've brought the money Miss Holladay asked Mr. Graham for yesterday," said Mr. Royce. "I'm John Royce, his partner," and without answering the woman motioned us in. "Of course we must have a receipt for it," he added. "I have it ready here, and she need only attach her signature."

"Miss Holladay is too ill to see you, sir," said the maid, with careful enunciation. "I will myself the paper take to her and get her signature."

Mr. Royce hesitated a moment in perplexity. As for me, I was ransacking my memory--where had I heard that voice before? Somewhere, I was certain--a voice low, vibrant, repressed, full of color. Then, with a start, I remembered! It was Miss Holladay's voice, as she had risen to welcome our junior that morning at the coroner's court! I shook myself together--for that was nonsense!

"I fear that won't do," said Mr. Royce at last. "The sum is a considerable one, and must be given to Miss Holladay by me personally in the presence of this witness."

It was the maid's turn to hesitate; I saw her lips tighten ominously.

"Very well, sir," she said. "But I warn you, she is most nervous and it has been forbidden her to talk."

"She will not be called upon to talk," retorted Mr. Royce curtly; and without answering, the woman turned and led the way up the stair and to her mistress's room.

Miss Holladay was lying back in a great chair with a bandage about her head, and even in the half-light I could see how changed she was. She seemed much thinner and older, and coughed occasionally in a way that frightened me. Not grief alone, I told myself, could have caused this breakdown; it was the secret weighing upon her. My companion noted the change, too, of course--a greater change, perhaps, than my eyes could perceive--and I saw how moved and shocked he was.

"My dear Miss Holladay," he began, but she stopped him abruptly with a little imperative motion of the hand.

"Pray do not," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "Pray do not."

He stopped and pulled himself together. When he spoke again, it was in quite a different tone.