A Strange Disappearance

“Excellently.”

“Been out much? Had any visitors?”

She shook her head. “Never went out and never had any visitors.”

I own I was nonplussed, “Well,” said I, “no more of this at present. I must first find out if she left this house alone or in company with others.” And without further parley I stepped out upon the roof of the extension.

As I did so I debated with myself whether the case warranted me or not in sending for Mr. Gryce. As yet there was nothing to show that the girl had come to any harm. A mere elopement with or without a lover to help her, was not such a serious matter that the whole police force need be stirred up on the subject; and if the woman had money, as she said, ready to give the man who should discover the whereabouts of this girl, why need that money be divided up any more than was necessary. Yet Gryce was not one to be dallied with. He had said, send for him if the affair seemed to call for his judgment, and somehow the affair did promise to be a trifle complicated. I was yet undetermined when I reached the edge of the roof.

It was a dizzy descent, but once made, escape from the yard beneath would be easy. A man could take that road without difficulty; but a woman! Baffled at the idea I turned thoughtfully back, when I beheld something on the roof before me that caused me to pause and ask myself if this was going to turn out to be a tragedy after all. It was a drop of congealed blood. Further on towards the window was another, and yes, further still, another and another. I even found one upon the very window ledge itself. Bounding into the room, I searched the carpet for further traces. It was the worst one in the world to find anything upon of the nature of which I was seeking, being a confused pattern of mingled drab and red, and in my difficulty I had to stoop very low.

“What are you looking for?” cried Mrs. Daniels.

I pointed to the drop on the window sill. “Do you see that?” I asked.

She uttered an exclamation and bent nearer. “Blood!” cried she, and stood staring, with rapidly paling cheeks and trembling form. “They have killed her and he will never—”

As she did not finish I looked up.

“Do you think it was her blood?” she whispered in a horrified tone.

“There is every reason to believe so,” rejoined I, pointing to a spot where I had at last discovered not only one crimson drop but many, scattered over the scarcely redder roses under my feet.

“Ah, it is worse than I thought,” murmured she. “What are you going to do? What can we do?

“I am going to send for another detective,” returned I; and stepping to the window I telegraphed at once to the man Harris to go for Mr. Gryce.

“The one we saw at the Station?”

I bowed assent.

Her face lost something of its drawn expression. “O I am glad; he will do something.”

Subduing my indignation at this back thrust, I employed my time in taking note of such details as had escaped my previous attention. They were not many. The open writing-desk—in which, however I found no letters or written documents of any kind, only a few sheets of paper, with pen, ink, etc.; the brush and hairpins scattered on the bureau as though the girl had been interrupted while arranging her hair (if she had been interrupted); and the absence of any great pile of work such as one would expect to see in a room set apart for sewing, were all I could discover. Not much to help us, in case this was to prove an affair of importance as I began to suspect.

With Mr. Gryce’s arrival, however, things soon assumed a better shape. He came to the basement door, was ushered in by your humble servant, had the whole matter as far as I had investigated it, at his finger-ends in a moment, and was up-stairs and in that room before I, who am called the quickest man in the force as you all know, could have time to determine just what difference his presence would make to me in a pecuniary way in event of Mrs. Daniels’ promises amounting to anything. He did not remain there long, but when he came down I saw that his interest was in no wise lessened.

“What kind of a looking girl was this?” he asked, hurrying up to Mrs. Daniels who had withdrawn into a recess in the lower hall while all this was going on. “Describe her to me, hair, eyes, complexion, etc.; you know.”

“I—I—don’t know as I can,” she stammered reluctantly, turning very red in the face. “I am a poor one for noticing. I will call one of the girls, I—” She was gone before we realized she had not finished her sentence.

“Humph!” broke from Mr. Gryce’s lips as he thoughtfully took down a vase that stood on a bracket near by and looked into it.

I did not venture a word.

When Mrs. Daniels came back she had with her a trim-looking girl of prepossessing appearance.

“This is Fanny,” said she; “she knows Emily well, being in the habit of waiting on her at table; she will tell you what you want to hear. I have explained to her,” she went on, nodding towards Mr. Gryce with a composure such as she had not before displayed; “that you are looking for your niece who ran away from home some time ago to go into some sort of service.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” quoth that gentleman, bowing with mock admiration to the gas-fixture. Then carelessly shifting his glance to the cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.

The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied:

“O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed the spoons with it. As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair, which was the blackest I ever see. She had no flesh at all, and as for her figure—” Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person, and gave a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.

“Is this description true?” Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs. Daniels, though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl’s head which was covered with a little cap.

“Sufficiently so,” returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however. Then with a sudden display of energy, “Emily’s figure is not what you would call plump. I have seen her—” She broke off as if a little startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.

“Wait a moment,” interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. “You said the girl’s hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?”

“O, yes sir;” replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons on her cap.

“Let me see your hair.”

She took off her cap with a smile.

“Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other girls I suppose?”

“Two, sir;” returned Mrs. Daniels.

“How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily’s?”

“Yes, sir; about like Fanny’s.”

Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.

“We will now proceed to the yard,” said he. But at that moment the door of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into the hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the house. He was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At the sight we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots of her gray hair.

Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud, reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great man’s privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped forward.

“Mr. Blake, I believe,” said he, bowing in that deferential way he knows so well how to assume.

The gentleman, startled as it evidently seemed from a reverie, looked hastily up. Meeting Mr. Gryce’s bland smile, he returned the bow, but haughtily, and as it appeared in an abstracted way.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” proceeded my superior. “I am Mr. Gryce from the detective bureau. We were notified this morning that a girl in your employ had disappeared from your house last night in a somewhat strange and unusual way, and I just stepped over with my man here, to see if the matter is of sufficient importance to inquire into. With many apologies for the intrusion, I stand obedient to your orders.”

With a frown expressive of annoyance, Mr. Blake glanced around and detecting Mrs. Daniels, said: “Did you consider the affair so serious as that?”

She nodded, seeming to find it difficult to speak.

He remained looking at her with an expression of some doubt. “I can hardly think,” said he, “such extreme measures were necessary; the girl will doubtless come back, or if not—” His shoulders gave a slight shrug and he took out his gloves.

“The difficulty seems to be,” quoth Mr. Gryce eyeing those gloves with his most intent and concentrated look, “that the girl did not go alone, but was helped away, or forced away, by parties who had previously broken into your house.”

“That is a strange circumstance,” remarked Mr. Blake, but still without any appearance of interest, “and if you are sure of what you say, demands, perhaps, some inquiry. I would not wish to put anything in the way of justice succoring the injured. But—” again he gave that slight shrug of the shoulders, indicative of doubt, if not indifference.

Mrs. Daniels trembled, and took a step forward. I thought she was going to speak, but instead of that she drew back again in her strange hesitating way.