Gryce

“ Sweetwater threw back one side of the coat, then the other, felt in the pockets and smiled. But Gryce, and not ignorant Father Dobbins, should have seen that smile. There was comedy in it, and there was the deepest tragedy also; for the marks of stitches forcibly cut were to be seen under one of the pockets—stitches which must have held something as narrow as an umbrella-band and no longer than the little strip at which Mr. Gryce had been looking one night in a melancholy little short of prophetic. ”

“ Mr. Gryce benevolently followed. "Why, she is asleep," protested Miss Firman, turning on the detective with a suspicious look.
Mr. Gryce, with a glance toward the bed he saw before him, bowed with seeming perplexity.
"She certainly appears to be," said he, "and yet I am positive she spoke but an instant ago; I can even tell you the words she used."
"What were they?" asked the spinster, with something like a look of concern.
"She said: 'Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? Clemmens or Orcutt? I cannot remember.'"
"You don't say so! Poor ma! She was dreaming. ”

“ Gryce, and found them too weighty for the telephone."
"I see, I see! Sit down, Sweetwater, and tell me how they ran. I haven't as much confidence in my own dreams as I hope to have in yours. Speak up! Mention names, if you want to. No echo follows confidences uttered in this room."
"I know that; but for the present perhaps it will be best for me to follow your lead, and when I have to speak of a certain person, say X as you do. X, Mr. Gryce, is the man who for reasons we do not yet understand brought up the discarded bow from the cellar and stored it somewhere within reach on the floor above. ”

“ This with no apparent concern.
“We think we have,” rejoined Mr. Gryce with some solemnity. “The river gives up its prey now and then, Mr. Blake.”
Still only that look of natural surprise.
“Indeed! You do not mean to say she has drowned herself? I am sorry for that, a girl who had once lived in my house. What trouble could she have had to drive her to such an act?”
Mr. Gryce advanced a step nearer the gentleman.
“That is what we have come here to learn,” said he with a deliberation that yet was not lacking in the respect due to a man so universally esteemed as Mr. Blake. ”

“ Gryce possessed great patience. Waiting for just a moment till she seemed more composed, he murmured gently:
"Not if you must suffer more from your silence than from speaking? Not if men—I do not mean myself, child, for I am your friend—will think that you are to blame for the death of the woman whom you saw fall under a cruel stab, and whose rings you have?" ”

“ Gryce had no fear of any such embarrassing end to his inquisition as that. He had noticed the young couple who had betrayed their alarm so ingenuously to every eye, and had already decided within himself that the man was just such a fool as might in a moment of vacuity pick up a bow and arrow to test his skill at a given mark. Such things had been and such results had followed. The man was a gawk and the woman a ninny; a few questions and their guiltiness would appear—that is, if they should be found near enough the tapestry to warrant his suspicion. ”

“ Gryce recalled one of its expressions. "There are so many," wrote she, "to whom my death would be more than welcome." So many! Many is a strong word; many means more than one, more than two; many means three at least. Now where were the three? Hildreth, of course, was one, Mansell might very properly be another, but who was the third? To Mr. Gryce, but one name suggested itself in reply. ”

“ He answered in quite an off-hand manner while the Inspector stood by, but when that gentleman had withdrawn towards the door, Mr. Gryce remarked with more earnestness than he had yet used:
"You have saved me from committing a folly, Miss Butterworth. If I had arrested Franklin Van Burnam to-day, and to-morrow all these facts had come to light, I should never have held up my head again. As it is, there will be numerous insinuations uttered by men on the force, and many a whisper will go about that Gryce is getting old, that Gryce has seen his best days." ”

“ Or had he noticed the rugs hanging in an unaccustomed way on either side of the damaged casings? Neither, apparently, for he simply turned away with a meek look, wholly mechanical, and taking up his hat again, left the antechamber and proceeded softly upstairs.
"I will follow him," whispered Mr. Gryce. "Don't be afraid, ma'am. This whistle will bring a man in from the street at once."
"I am not afraid. I would be ashamed——"
But it was useless for her to finish this disclaimer. Mr. Gryce was already in the hall. ”

“ Blake,” observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my superior at that moment, “no man who is a true citizen and a Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands it.”
“And do you mean to say that I have been followed,” inquired he, clenching his hand and looking steadily, but with a blanching cheek, first at Mr. Gryce then at me.
“It was indispensable,” quoth that functionary gently.
The outraged gentleman riveted his gaze upon me. “In town and out of town?” demanded he. ”

“ Gryce felt that he was playing a great card in thus enlisting her despair in our service, did not comfort me. I am not fond of games in which real hearts take the place of painted ones; and, besides, I was not ready to acknowledge that my own capacity for ferreting out this mystery was quite exhausted, or that I ought to remain idle while Lucetta bent under a task so much beyond her strength. ”

“ Percy Gryce’s future as combined with her own. The Gryces were from Albany, and but lately introduced to the metropolis, where the mother and son had come, after old Jefferson Gryce’s death, to take possession of his house in Madison Avenue—an appalling house, all brown stone without and black walnut within, with the Gryce library in a fire-proof annex that looked like a mausoleum. Lily, however, knew all about them: young Mr. Gryce’s arrival had fluttered the maternal breasts of New York, and when a girl has no mother to palpitate for her she must needs be on the alert for herself. ”

“ A shriek from my whistle mingled with a simultaneous cry of agony from Loreen. We heard Mr. Gryce rush from behind us, but we ourselves found it impossible to stir, paralyzed as we were by the sight of the old man's demoniacal delight. He was leaping to and fro over the turf, holding up his fingers in the red sunset glare.
"Six!" he shrieked. "Six! and room for two more! Oh, it's a merry life I lead! Flowers and fruit and love-making" (oh, how I cringed at that!) , "and now and then a little spice like this! But where is my pretty Lucetta? ”

“ Gryce. "The job I have undertaken cannot be carried on alone."
The quick look the two sisters interchanged did not escape me, or the quiet air of resignation which was settling slowly over Loreen.
"Must they go into the cellar too?" she asked.
Mr. Gryce smiled his most fatherly smile as he said:
"My dear young ladies, these men are interested in but one thing; they are searching for a clue to the disappearances that have occurred in this lane. As they will not find this in your cellar, nothing else that they may see there will remain in their minds for a moment."
Lucetta said no more. ”

“ Gryce did not despair. He had seen with what ease he could look from the broad, rear window near which he stood, into the rooms where rows upon rows of girls were already at work. Only a narrow court divided him from these girls, and as the three stories of which the factory was composed were all brilliantly lighted, he should have little difficulty in picking out from among them the middle-aged woman who held in her closed and mysterious hand the key to that formidable affair threatening the honor of one of New York's most prominent men. ”

“ Blake looked surprised, but he immediately stepped to the door and shut it. Then coming back, he looked at Mr. Gryce more closely and a change took place in his manner.
“I think I have seen you before,” said he.
Mr. Gryce bowed with just the suspicion of a smile. “I have had the honor of consulting you before in this very house,” observed he.
A look of full recognition passed over the dignified countenance of the man before us.
“I remember,” said he, shrugging his shoulders in the old way. “You are interested in some servant girl or other who ran away from this house a week or so ago. ”

“ And presently his imagination, up to all sorts of tricks in these days, was able to see himself and his personality on the nerves of Mr Gryce, in exact replica of Mr Gryce on the nerves of Richard Marcus ... saw the irritation in the curve of his own stolid ill-tempered shoulders—the antagonism aroused by his out-thrust underlip and the butting carriage of his head.... “Always that boy! and a loyal Englishman has no option but to live in the same house, breathing the same air, eat and sit in the same room, tread the same carpet—it’s a disgrace!” ”

“ Gryce said nothing but approached with hastening steps the door which Sweetwater had left open behind him, and took a quick survey of the fenced-in plateau, the bridge and the towering trees beyond, toward which she seemed to be making.
"She cannot escape," was his ready conclusion; and he shouted to Sweetwater to go easy. ”

“ Blake stooped forward and lifted it with a hand that visibly trembled. “Where did you get this?” asked he at last, clenching it to his breast with sudden passion.
“From out of the comb which the girl had been using the night before.”
The imperious man flung it hastily from him.
“We waste our time,” said he, looking Mr. Gryce intently in the face. “All that you have said does not account for your presence here nor the tone you have used while addressing me. What are you keeping back? I am not a man to be trifled with.”
Mr. Gryce rose to his feet. ”

“ Gryce's ears, for he did not return. And yet from the way his shoulders shook as he disappeared around the corner of the house, I judge that he was not entirely ignorant of the subterfuge by which I hoped to force this blundering booby of ours to change the boots he wore for one of the pairs into which I had driven those little tacks.
XXXII RELIEF
The plan succeeded. Mr. Gryce's plans usually do. William went immediately to his room, and in a little while came down and hastened into the cellar. ”

“ Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a quick leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force he could not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge strength of an unusually developed muscular organization. ”

“ May I tell you why this was everything to me? Why, the happiness of having received her last sigh is so great, that I have no room for resentment against you for this intrusion, and hardly feel the shame of being found in this place, with my dead darling lying in her miserable rags on this hideous pallet!"
"You may tell us," assented Mr. Gryce, replacing the coverlet over the face upon which was fast settling that look of peace which is Death's last gift to the living. [289]
Mr. Gillespie's tone grew deeper; it could hardly have grown more tender or more solemn. ”

“ Glancing up, with a gesture of manifest shrinking from the portrait which Sweetwater still held, Mr. Gryce allowed his glance to run over the wonderful landscape laid out to his view, and said with breaks and halts bespeaking his deep emotion:
"If my death here and now, following fast upon that of this unhappy Frenchwoman, would avail to wipe out the evidence I have so laboriously collected against this man, I should welcome it with gratitude. I shrink from ending my career with the shattering of so fine an image, in the public eye. ”

“ It's this, Mr. Gryce: A certain gentleman we know has been contemplating matrimony; but since this accident happened at the museum,—that is, within the last two days,—the engagement has been broken off."
"So! But I thought he had not got so far as an engagement. You mean young Correy——"
"No, Mr. Gryce, I do not. I mean—the other."
"The other! Well, that's worth listening to. Engaged, eh, and now all of a sudden free again? At whose instance, Sweetwater, his or hers? Did you hear?" ”

“ The accents of heartfelt sorrow are not to be mistaken. The air of severity with which Mr. Gryce had hitherto surveyed this supposed criminal softened into a look more in keeping with his native benevolence, but he had no reply ready, and the silence became painful. Indeed, the situation was not an easy one for even so experienced a man as Mr. Gryce to handle, and, noting his embarrassment, I bounded into the room and took my place at his side, much as Sweetwater had done.
Mr. Gillespie scarcely remarked this new inroad upon his privacy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gryce's lips, the District Attorney muttered a quick exclamation, and sat down heavily in his chair.
"No coincidence that," he cried, with forced vivacity. "The couplet is too little known."
"Exactly," came from Mr. Gryce in dry confirmation. "Mrs. Taylor, as well as her friends can judge, is a woman of thirty-five or thirty-eight. If she went to Switzerland as a girl, this would make her visit coincident, so far as we can calculate from our present knowledge, with that of Carleton Roberts. ”