The Mayor's Wife Part 15

I smiled, and put the question which concerned me most nearly.

"Does Nixon stay late when he goes out?"

She threw herself into a chair and took up her embroidery.

"He will to-night," was her answer. "A little grandniece of his is coming on a late train from Pittsburgh. I don't think the train is due till midnight, and after that he's got to take her to his daughter's on Carey Street. It will be one o'clock at least before he can be back."

I hid my satisfaction. Fate was truly auspicious. I would make good use of his absence. There was n.o.body else in the house whose surveillance I feared.

"Pray send for the baby now," I exclaimed. "I am eager to begin our merry evening."

She smiled and rang the bell for Letty, the nurse.

Late that night I left my room and stole softly down-stairs. Mrs.

Packard had ordered a bed made up for herself in the nursery and had retired early. So had Ellen and Letty. The house was therefore clear below stairs, and after I had pa.s.sed the second story I felt myself removed from all human presence as though I were all alone in the house.

This was a relief to me, yet the experience was not a happy one. Ellen had asked permission to leave the light burning in the hall during the mayor's absence, so the way was plain enough before me; but no parlor floor looks inviting after twelve o'clock at night, and this one held a secret as yet unsolved, which did not add to its comfort or take the mysterious threat from the shadows lurking in corners and under stairways which I had to pa.s.s. As I hurried past the place where the clock had once stood, I thought of the nurses' story and of the many frightened hearts which had throbbed on the stairway I had just left and between the walls I was fast approaching; but I did not turn back. That would have been an acknowledgment of the truth of what I was at this very time exerting my full faculties to disprove.

I knew little about the rear of the house and nothing about the cellar.

But when I had found my way into the kitchen and lit the candle I had brought from my room, I had no difficulty in deciding which of the many doors led below. There is something about a cellar door which is unmistakable, but it took me a minute to summon up courage to open it after I had laid my hand on its old-fashioned latch. Why do we so hate darkness and the chill of unknown regions, even when we know they are empty of all that can hurt or really frighten us? I was as safe there as in my bed up-stairs, yet I had to force myself to consider more than once the importance of my errand and the positive result it might have in allaying the disturbance in more than one mind, before I could lift that latch and set my foot on the short flight which led into the yawning blackness beneath me.

But once on my way I took courage. I pictured to myself the collection of useful articles with which the s.p.a.ces before me were naturally filled, and thought how harmless were the sources of the grotesque shadows which bowed to me from every side and even from the cement floor toward the one spot where the stones of the foundation showed themselves clear of all enc.u.mbering objects. As I saw how numerous these articles were, and how small a portion of the wall itself was really visible, I had my first practical fear, and a practical fear soon puts imaginary ones to flight. What if some huge box or case of bottles should have been piled up in front of the marked brick I was seeking? I am strong, but I could not move such an object alone, and this search was a solitary one; I had been forbidden to seek help.

The anxiety this possibility involved nerved me to instant action. I leaped forward to the one clear spot singled out for me by chance and began a hurried scrutiny of the short strip of wall which was all that was revealed to me on the right-hand side. Did it hold the marked brick?

My little candle shook with eagerness and it was with difficulty I could see the face of the brick close enough to determine. But fortune favored, and presently my eye fell on one whose surface showed a ruder, scratched cross. It was in the lowest row and well within reach of my hand. If I could move it the box would soon be in my possession--and what might that box not contain!

Looking about, I found the furnace and soon the gas-jet which made attendance upon it possible. This lit, I could set my candle down, and yet see plainly enough to work. I had shears in my pocket. I have had a man's training in the handling of tools and felt quite confident that I could pry this brick out if it was as easily loosened as Bess had given me to understand. My first thrust at the dusty cement inclosing it encouraged me greatly. It was very friable and so shallow that my scissors'-point picked it at once. In five minutes' time the brick was clear, so that I easily lifted it out and set it on the floor. The small black hole which was left was large enough to admit my hand. I wasted no time thrusting it in, expecting to feel the box at once and draw it out.

But it was farther back than I expected, and while I was feeling about something gave way and fell with a slight, rustling noise down out of my reach. Was it the box? No, for in another instant I had come in contact with its broken edges and had drawn it out; the falling object must have been some extra mortar, and it had gone where? I did not stop to consider then. The object in my hand was too alluring; the size, the shape too suggestive of a package of folded bonds for me to think of anything but the satisfaction of my curiosity and the consequent clearing of a very serious mystery.

Just at this moment, one of intense excitement, I heard, or thought I heard, a stealthy step behind me. Forcing myself to calmness, however, I turned and, holding the candle high convinced myself that I was alone in the cellar.

Carrying the box nearer the light, I pulled off its already loosened string and lifted the cover. In doing this I suffered from no qualms of conscience. My duty seemed very clear to me, and the end, a totally impersonal one, more than justified the means.

A folded paper met my eyes--one--not of the kind I expected; then some letters whose address I caught at a glance. "Elizabeth Brainard"--a discovery which might have stayed my hand at another time, but nothing could stay it now. I opened the paper and looked at it. Alas! it was only her marriage certificate; I had taken all this trouble and all this risk, only to rescue for her the proof of her union with one John Silverthorn Brainard. The same name was on her letters. Why had Bess so strongly insisted on a secret search, and why had she concealed her license in so strange a place?

Greatly sobered, I restored the paper to its place in the box, slipped on the string and prepared to leave the cellar with it. Then I remembered the brick on the floor and the open hole where it had been, and afterward the something which had fallen over within and what this s.p.a.ce might mean in a seemingly solid wall.

More excited now even than I had been at any time before, I thrust my hand in again and tried to sound the depth of this unexpected far-reaching hole; but the size of my arm stood in the way of my experiment, and, drawing out my hand, I looked about for a stick and finding one, plunged that in. To my surprise and growing satisfaction it went in its full length--about three feet. There was a cavity on the other side of this wall of very sizable dimensions. Had I struck the suspected pa.s.sage? I had great hope of it. Nothing else would account for so large a s.p.a.ce on the other side of a wall which gave every indication of being one with the foundation. Catching up my stick I made a rude estimate of its location, after which I replaced the brick, put out the gas, and caught up Bess' box. Trembling, and more frightened now than at my descent at my own footfall and tremulous pursuing shadow, I went up-stairs.

As I pa.s.sed the corridor leading to the converted vestibule which had so excited my interest in the afternoon, I paused and made a hurried calculation. If the stick had been three feet long, as I judged, and my stride was thirty inches, then the place of that hole in the wall below was directly in a line with where I now stood,--in other words, under the vestibule floor, as I had already, suspected.

How was I to verify this without disturbing Mrs. Packard? That was a question to sleep on. But it took me a long time to get to sleep.

CHAPTER XIV. I SEEK HELP

A bad night, a very bad night, but for all that I was down early the next morning. Bess must have her box and I a breath of fresh air before breakfast, to freshen me up a bit and clear my mind for the decisive act, since my broken rest had failed to refresh me.

As I reached the parlor floor Nixon came out of the reception-room.

"Oh, Miss!" he exclaimed, "going out?" surprised, doubtless, to see me in my hat and jacket.

"A few steps," I answered, and then stopped, not a little disturbed; for in moving to open the door he had discovered that the key was not in it and was showing his amazement somewhat conspicuously.

"Mrs. Packard took the key up to her room," I explained, thinking that some sort of explanation was in order. "She is nervous, you know, and probably felt safer with it there."

The slow shake of his head had a tinge of self-reproach in it.

"I was sorry to go out," he muttered. "I was very sorry to go out,"--but the look which he turned upon me the next minute was of a very different sort. "I don't see how you can go out yet," said he, "unless you go by the back way. That leads into Stanton Street; but perhaps you had just as lief go into Stanton Street."

There was impertinence in his voice as well as aggressiveness in his eye, but I smiled easily enough and was turning toward the back with every expectation of going by way of Stanton Street, when Letty came running down the stairs with the key in her hand. I don't think he was pleased, but he opened the door civilly enough and I gladly went out, taking with me, however, a remembrance of the furtive look with which he had noted the small package in my hand. I pa.s.s over the joy with which Bess received the box and its desired contents. I had lost all interest in the matter, which was so entirely personal to herself, and, declining the ten dollars which I knew she could ill afford, made my visit so short that I was able to take a brisk walk down the street and yet be back in time for breakfast.

This, like that of the preceding day, I took alone. Mrs. Packard was well but preferred to eat up-stairs. I did not fret at this; I was really glad, for now I could think and plan my action quite unembarra.s.sed by her presence. The opening under the vestibule floor was to be sounded, and sounded this very morning, but on what pretext? I could not take Mrs. Packard into my counsel, for that would be to lessen the force of the discovery with which I yet hoped to dissipate at one blow the superst.i.tious fears I saw it was otherwise impossible to combat. I might interest Ellen, and I was quite certain that I could interest the cook; but this meant Nixon, also, who was always around and whose animosity to myself was too mysteriously founded for me to trust him with any of my secrets or to afford him any inkling of my real reason for being in the house.

Yet help I must have and very efficient help, too. Should I telegraph to Mayor Packard for some sort of order which would lead to the tearing up of this end of the house? I could not do this without fuller explanations than I could give in a telegram. Besides, he was under sufficient pressure just now for me to spare him the consideration of so disturbing a matter, especially as he had left a subst.i.tute behind whose business it was, not only to relieve Mrs. Packard in regard to the libelous paragraph, but in all other directions to which his attention might be called. I would see Mr. Steele; he would surely be able to think up some scheme by which that aperture might be investigated without creating too much disturbance in the house.

An opportunity for doing this was not long in presenting itself. Mr.

Steele came in about nine o'clock and pa.s.sed at once into the study. The next moment I was knocking at his door, my heart in any mouth, but my determination strung up to the point of daring anything and everything for the end I had in view.

Fortunately he came to the door; I could never have entered without his encouragement. As I met his eye I was ashamed of the color my cheeks undoubtedly showed, but felt reconciled the next minute, for he was not quite disembarra.s.sed himself, though he betrayed it by a little extra paleness rather than by a flush, such as had so disturbed myself.

Both of us were quite natural in a moment, however, and answering his courteous gesture I stepped in and at once opened up my business.

"You must pardon me," said I, "for this infringement upon the usual rules of this office. I have something very serious to say about Mrs.

Packard--oh, she's quite well; it has to do with a matter I shall presently explain--and I wish to make a request."

"Thank you for the honor," he said, drawing up a chair for me.

But I did not sit, neither did I speak for a moment. I was contemplating his features and thinking how faultless they were.

"I hardly know where to begin," I ventured at last. "I am burdened with a secret, and it may all appear puerile to you. I don't know whether to remind you first of Mayor Packard's intense desire to see his wife's former cheerfulness restored--a task in which I have been engaged to a.s.sist--or to plunge at once into my discoveries, which are a little peculiar and possibly important, in spite of my short acquaintance with the people under this roof and the nature of my position here."

"You excite me," were his few quick but sharply accentuated words. "What secret? What discoveries? I didn't know that the house held any that were worth the attention of sensible persons like ourselves."

I had not been looking at him directly, but I looked up at this and was astonished to find that his interest in what I had said was greater than appeared from his tone or even from his manner.

"You know the cause of Mrs. Packard's present uneasiness?" I asked.

"Mayor Packard told me--the paragraph which appeared in yesterday morning's paper. I have tried to find out its author, but I have failed so far."

"That is a trifle," I said. "The real cause--no, I prefer to stand," I put in, for he was again urging me by a gesture to seat myself.

"The real cause--" he repeated.

"--is one you will smile at, but which you must nevertheless respect.

She thinks--she has confided to us, in fact--that she has seen, within these walls, what many others profess to have seen. You understand me, Mr. Steele?"