The Spruce Street Tragedy; or, Old Spicer Handles a Double Mystery

For a moment neither spoke. At length Cora, whose curiosity was greatly excited, asked:

"Where have I seen you before, sir?"

"Don't you remember, my dear?" returned the old man.

"No, I confess that I do not."

"Ah! how humiliating that is! To think that while I have had you so constantly in my mind, you have not given to me even so much as a passing thought."

"Good gracious! how could I, when I don't know you from Adam?"

"There! now that's an unkind thrust at my age. True, I am somewhat older than yourself, but if you only have a little patience, and don't get drawn into any serious scrapes – like murder, for instance – you may see the time when you will be as old-looking as I am."

Cora's face suddenly blanched, and she stared helplessly at her visitor. But he looked so innocent and unconscious that she at length mustered courage to ask:

"Why do you take the trouble to allude to serious scrapes? Do you think I am likely to be drawn into anything of the kind?"

"You lead a somewhat irregular life, do you not, my dear?" said Old Spicer.

"What do you mean by that?" asked the girl, quickly.

"You go to theaters, balls and parties, eat late suppers, and see a good deal of gentlemen's society, don't you?"

"Why – yes."

"The gentlemen of your acquaintance are not all saints, I take it?"

Cora gave a somewhat boisterous laugh.

"Anything but that," she said.

"Well, there it is. Haven't you ever heard the old saw, that you can't handle pitch without being defiled?"

"Yes, I have heard something like that."

"Well, probably you've never thought much about it, but I assure you it's true – both of pitch and persons."

"I hope you haven't come to preach me a sermon."

"Do I look like a preacher?"

"I hadn't thought much about it before, but I'm blessed if you don't. But then, you might be anything else that's grave and terrible. A judge, or a – a – "

"Well, a what?"

"Oh, never mind. Who are you, any way?"

"Let me ask you a question first."

"Drive on. What is it?"

Old Spicer took a pocket-handkerchief from his pocket and quietly spread it on her lap.

"Did you ever see that before?" he asked.

Cora Bell's face instantly became ashy pale, and had she not clutched at the table by her side, she must have sunk to the floor.

"Ah! I see you know it," said the detective, in his quiet, matter-of-fact tones.

"I knew it! I knew it!" she murmured, excitedly.

"I saw you did," he repeated.

But without paying any attention to his remark, she went on:

"I knew I was right the moment I thought of it. You're a detective."

Then, with a reckless – an almost despairing air:

"Well, what do you want of me, any way?"

Old Spicer regarded her in silence for a moment; and then, as if communing with himself, he murmured aloud:

"So pretty! and so young! Not above twenty-one or twenty-two, I should say. Sad, very sad. Enough to make a strong man weep."

"Oh! what is it – what is it that's so horrible?" gasped Cora, in an agony of terror.

"Ah! my poor girl, your own heart – your own conscience must tell you."

Cora started to her feet.

"Hear me, sir!" she cried. "I know nothing at all about it. I had nothing whatever to do with it."

Old Spicer quietly picked up the handkerchief, which had fallen to the floor, and holding it in one hand, while he pointed to it significantly with the other, said:

"That tells a different story, my dear."

"I know what you mean – yes, that's my handkerchief," she said, "but he took it that evening without my permission – that, and at least half a dozen others that I bought for him that day."

"And you didn't know what he was going to do with them?"

"Of course not. I never dreamed of what was going to happen."

"He said nothing at all to you about it then?"

"Yes, on the Saturday before he told me that he knew an old woman in the place he came from who had between thirty and forty thousand dollars in her house, and that he was going to get it."

"Ah, indeed? And what did you say to that, my dear?"