The Dead Letter · Part I · Chapter 1 8 (1/3)

VIII

The Haunted Grave

When I returned to my boardinghouse that same evening, I found a telegram awaiting me from Mr. Burton, asking me to come down to the city in the morning. I went down by the earliest train, and, soon after, ringing the bell at the door of his private residence in Twenty-third street, a servant ushered me into the library, where I found the master of the house so absorbed in thought, as he sat before the grate with his eyes bent upon the glowing coals, that he did not observe my entrance until I spoke his name. Springing to his feet, he shook me heartily by the hand; we had already become warm personal friends.

“You are early,” he said, “but so much the better. We will have the more time for business.”

“Have you heard anything?” was my first question.

“Well, no. Don’t hope that I have called you here to satisfy you with any positive discoveries. The work goes on slowly. I was never so baffled but once before; and then, as now, there was a woman in the case. A cunning woman will elude the very Prince of Lies, himself, to say nothing of honest men like us. She has been after the child.”

“She has?”

“Yes. And has taken it away with her. And now I know no more of her whereabouts than I did before. There! You must certainly feel like trusting your case to some sharper person to work up”⁠—he looked mortified as he said it.

Before I go further I must explain to my reader just how far the investigation into the acts and hiding-place of Leesy Sullivan had proceeded. Of course we had called upon her aunt in Blankville, and approached the question of the child with all due caution. She had answered us frankly enough, at first⁠—that Leesy had a cousin who lived in New York, whom she was much attached to, and who was dead, poor thing! But the moment we intruded the infant into the conversation, she flew into a rage, asked if “we’d come there to insult a respectable widdy, as wasn’t responsible for what others did?” and wouldn’t be coaxed or threatened into any further speech on the subject, fairly driving us out of the room and (I regret to add) down the stairs with the broomstick. As we could not summon her into court and compel her to answer, at that time, we were compelled to “let her alone.” One thing, however, became apparent at the interview⁠—that there was shame or blame, or at least a family quarrel, connected with the child.

After that, in New York, Mr. Burton ascertained that there had been a cousin, who had died, but whether she had been married, and left a babe, or not, was still a matter of some doubt.

He had spent over a week searching for Leesy Sullivan, in the vicinity of Blankville, at every intermediate station between that and New York, and throughout the city itself, assisted by scores of detectives, who all of them had her photograph, taken from a likeness which Mr. Burton had found in her deserted room at her boarding-place. This picture must have been taken more than a year previous, as it looked younger and happier; the face was soft and round, the eyes melting with warmth and light, and the rich, dark hair dressed with evident care. Still, Leesy bore resemblance enough to her former self, to make her photograph an efficient aid. Yet not one trace of her had been chanced upon since I, myself, had seen her fly away at the mention of the word which I had purposely uttered, and disappear over the wooded hill. We had nearly made up our minds that she had committed suicide; we had searched the shore for miles in the vicinity of Moreland villa, and had fired guns over the water; but if she had hidden herself in those cold depths, she had done it most effectually.

The gardener’s wife, at the villa, had kept vigilant watch, as I had requested, but she had never anything to report⁠—the sewing-girl came no more to haunt the piazza or the summerhouse. Finally, Mr. Burton had given over active measures, relying simply upon the presence of the child in New York, to bring back the protectress into his nets, if indeed she was still upon earth. He said rightly, that if she were concealed and had any knowledge of the efforts made to discover her, the surest means of hastening her reappearance would be to apparently relinquish all pursuit. He had a person hired to watch the premises of the nurse constantly; a person who took a room next to hers in the tenement-house where she resided, apparently employed in knitting children’s fancy woolen garments, but really for the purpose of giving immediate notification should the guardian of the infant appear upon the scene. In the meantime he was kept informed of the sentiments of the nurse, who had avowed her intention of throwing the babe upon the authorities, if its board was not paid at the end of the month. “Hard enough,” she avowed it was, “to get the praties for the mouths of her own chilther; and the little girl was growing large now. The milk wouldn’t do at all, at all, but she must have her praties and her bit bread wid the rest.”

In answer to these complaints, the wool-knitter had professed such an interest in the innocent little thing, that, sooner than allow it to go to the alms-house, or to the orphan-asylum, or any other such place, she would take it to her own room, and share her portion with it, when the nurse’s month was up, until it was certain that the aunt was not coming to see after it, she said.

With this understanding between them, the two women got along finely together; little Nora, just toddling about, was a pretty child, and her aunt had not spared stitches in making up her clothes, which were of good material, and ornamented with lavish tucks and embroidery. She was often, for half a day at a time, in the room with the new tenant, when her nurse was out upon errands, or at work; and the former sometimes took her out in her arms for a breath of air upon the better streets. Mr. Burton had seen little Nora several times; he thought she resembled Miss Sullivan, though not strikingly. She had the same eyes, dark and bright.

Two days before Mr. Burton telegraphed for me to come down to New York, Mrs. Barber, the knitting detective, was playing with the child in her own room. It was growing toward night, and the nurse was out getting her Saturday afternoon supplies at Washington Market; she did not expect her back for at least an hour. Little Nora was in fine spirits, being delighted with a blue-and-white hood which her friend had manufactured for her curly head. As they frolicked together, the door opened, a young woman came in, caught the child to her breast, kissed it, and cried. “An‑nee⁠—an‑nee,” lisped the baby⁠—and Mrs. Barber, slipping out, with the excuse that she would go for the nurse, who was at a neighbor’s, jumped into a car, and rode up to Twenty-third street. In half an hour Mr. Burton was at the tenement-house; the nurse had not yet returned from market, and the bird had flown, carrying the baby with her. He was sufficiently annoyed at this denouement. In the arrangements made, the fact of the nurse being away had not been contemplated; there was no one to keep on the track of the fugitive while the officer was notified. One of the children said that the lady had left some money for mother; there was, lying on the table, a sum which more than covered the arrears due, and a note of thanks. But the baby, with its little cloak and its new blue hood, had vanished. Word was dispatched to the various offices, and the night spent in looking for the two; but there is no place like a great city for eluding pursuit; and up to the hour of my arrival at Mr. Burton’s he had learned nothing.

All this had fretted the detective; I could see it, although he did not say as much. He who had brought hundreds of accomplished rogues to justice did not like to be foiled by a woman. Talking on the subject with me, as we sat before the fire in his library, with closed doors, he said the most terrible antagonist he had yet encountered had been a woman⁠—that her will was a match for his own, yet he had broken with ease the spirits of the boldest men.

“However,” he added, “Miss Sullivan is not a woman of that stamp. If she has committed a crime, she has done it in a moment of passion, and remorse will kill her, though the vengeance of the law should never overtake her. But she is subtle and elusive. It is not reason that makes her cunning, but feeling. With man it would be reason; and as I could follow the course of his argument, whichever path it took, I should soon overtake it. But a woman, working from a passion, either of hate or love, will sometimes come to such novel conclusions as to defy the sharpest guesses of the intellect. I should like, above all things, a quiet conversation with that girl. And I will have it, some day.”

The determination with which he avowed himself, showed that he had no idea of giving up the case. A few other of his observations I will repeat:

He said that the blow which killed Henry Moreland was given by a professional murderer, a man, without conscience or remorse, probably a hireling. A woman may have tempted, persuaded, or paid him to do the deed; if so, the guilt rested upon her in its awful weight; but no woman’s hand, quivering with passion, had driven that steady and relentless blow. It was not given by the hand of jealousy⁠—it was too coldly calculated, too firmly executed⁠—no passion, no thrill of feeling about it.

“Then you think,” said I, “that Leesy Sullivan robbed the family whose happiness she was about to destroy, to pay some villain to commit the murder?”

“It looks like it,” he answered, his eye dropping evasively.

I felt that I was not fully in the detective’s confidence; there was something working powerfully in his mind, to which he gave me no clue; but I had so much faith in him that I was not offended by his reticence. Anxious as I was, eager, curious⁠—if it suits to call such a devouring fire of longing as I felt, curiosity⁠—he must have known that I perceived his reservations; if so, he had his own way of conducting matters, from which he could not diverge for my passing benefit. Twelve o’clock came, as we sat talking before the fire, which gave a genial air to the room, though almost unnecessary, the “squaw winter” of the previous morning being followed by another balmy and sunlit day. Mr. Burton rung for lunch to be brought in where we were; and while we sipped the strong coffee, and helped ourselves to the contents of the tray, the servant being dismissed, my host made a proposition which had evidently been on his mind all the morning.

I was already so familiar with his personal surroundings, as to know that he was a widower, with two children; the eldest, a boy of fifteen, away at school; the second, a girl of eleven, of delicate health, and educated at home, so far as she studied at all, by a day-governess. I had never seen this daughter⁠—Lenore, he called her⁠—but I could guess, without particular shrewdness, that his heart was wrapped up in her. He could not mention her name without a glow coming into his face; her frail health appeared to be the anxiety of his life. I could hear her, now, taking a singing-lesson in a distant apartment, and as her pure voice rose clear and high, mounting and mounting with airy steps the difficult scale, I listened delightedly, making a picture in my mind of the graceful little creature such a voice should belong to.

Her father was listening, too, with a smile in his eye, half forgetful of his coffee. Presently he said, in a low voice, speaking at first with some reluctance,

“I sent for you today, more particularly to make you the confidential witness of an experiment than anything else. You hear my Lenore singing now⁠—has she not a sweet voice? I have told you how delicate her health is. I discovered, by chance, some two or three years since, that she had peculiar attributes. She is an excellent clairvoyant. When I first discovered it, I made use of her rare faculty to assist me in my more important labors; but I soon discovered that it told fearfully upon her health. It seemed to drain the slender stream of vitality nearly dry. Our physician told me that I must desist, entirely, all experiments of the kind with her. He was peremptory about it, but he had only need to caution me. I would sooner drop a year out of my shortening future than to take one grain from that increasing strength which I watch from day to day with deep solicitude. She is my only girl, Mr. Redfield, and the image of her departed mother. You must not wonder if I am foolish about my Lenore. For eighteen months I have not exercised my power over her to place her in the trance state, or whatever it is, in which, with the clue in her hand, she will unwind the path to more perplexed labyrinths than those of the fair one’s bower. And I tell you, solemnly, that if, by so doing, she could point out pots of gold, or the secrets of diamond mines, I would not risk her slightest welfare, by again exhausting her recruiting energies. Nevertheless, so deeply am I interested in the tragedy to which you have called my attention⁠—so certain am I that I am on the eve of the solution of the mystery⁠—and such an act of justice and righteousness do I deem it that it should be exposed in its naked truth before those who have suffered from the crime⁠—that I have resolved to place Lenore once more in the clairvoyant state, for the purpose of ascertaining the hiding-place of Leesy Sullivan, and I have sent for you to witness the result.”

This announcement took away the remnant of my appetite. Mr. Burton rung to have the tray removed, and to bid the servant tell Miss Lenore, as soon as she had lunched, to come to the library. We had but a few minutes to wait. Presently we heard a light step; her father cried, “Come in!” in answer to her knock, and a lovely child entered, greeting me with a mingled air of grace and timidity⁠—a vision of sweetness and beauty more perfect than I could have anticipated. Her golden hair waved about her slender throat, in glistening tendrils. Seldom do we see such hair, except upon the heads of infants⁠—soft, lustrous, fine, floating at will, and curled at the end in little shining rings. Her eyes were a celestial blue⁠—celestial, not only because of the pure heavenliness of their color, but because you could not look into them without thinking of angels. Her complexion was the most exquisite possible, fair, with a flush as of sunset-light on the cheeks⁠—too transparent for perfect health, showing the wandering of the delicate veins in the temples. Her blue dress, with its fluttering sash, and the little jacket of white cashmere which shielded her neck and arms, were all dainty, and in keeping with the wearer. She did not have the serene air of a seraph, though she looked like one; nor the listless manner of an invalid. She gave her father a most winning, childish smile, looking full of joy to think he was at home, and had sent for her. She was so every way charming that I held out my arms to kiss her, and she, with the instinct of children, who perceive who their real lovers are, gave me a willing yet shy embrace. Mr. Burton looked pleased as he saw how satisfactory was the impression made by his Lenore.

Placing her in a chair before him, he put a photograph of Miss Sullivan in her hand.

“Father wants to put his little girl to sleep again,” he said, gently.

An expression of unwillingness just crossed her face; but she smiled, instantly, looking up at him with the faith of affection which would have placed her life in his keeping, and said, “Yes, papa,” in assent.