That Affair at Elizabeth, Burton Egbert Stevenson [chromebook ebook reader .txt] 📗

saw the perspiration start out across his forehead.

"Present!" echoed Mr. Royce. "I should say they were—the church was crowded. And we were waiting there in the minister's study, worrying because it was so late, when word came——"

"Don't!" protested Curtiss, with a despairing gesture. "I'd never thought of that. I've been thinking only of myself. Of course the papers will have it!" and he groaned again.

"Well, there's no use worrying about it," interposed Mr. Royce. "What is done is done. The thing is to find Miss Lawrence, and if anybody can find her, Lester can. I'm sure that five minutes' talk with her will straighten out the whole tangle. There's been an absurd mistake of some sort."

"No doubt," I assented, though in my heart I did doubt it very much. At any rate, the five minutes' talk could do no harm.

"Now you go away somewhere for a day or two, and leave this thing in our hands," added our junior. "What you need is rest. Don't worry any more than you can help. Let us know where you are, and we'll wire you as soon as we have any information. That's good advice, isn't it, Lester?"

"Very good," I said. "I hope Mr. Curtiss will follow it."

"No, no," he protested. "I can't go away—I must stay here—I couldn't stand it to go away."

"May I speak to you frankly, Mr. Curtiss?" I asked quietly.

"Please do," he said. "Speak as frankly as you like."

"Well, then," I began, "you'll pardon me for saying it, but I don't believe you can help us any, just at present. Besides, you need to pull yourself together."

"That's true," he agreed, and glanced at his trembling hands.

"Take my advice," I went on earnestly, "and Mr. Royce's advice. Leave Elizabeth for a little while. There isn't much chance of my finding Miss Lawrence for a day or two. You must get your calmness and self-possession back, for you'll need them."

"Yes," he said hoarsely; "yes, I'll need them. Very well, I'll do as you say, Mr. Lester. Only it's deuced selfish of me to throw my troubles on your shoulders this way."

"Selfish nothing!" cried our junior. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know," answered Curtiss helplessly.

"Go to one of the beaches near New York. The sea-air and surf will do you good. Let us know where you are; then, if we want you, we won't have any trouble finding you, and you can get back here in an hour or two."

"There's one thing Mr. Curtiss can do," I said. "A photograph of Miss Lawrence might prove a great help."

"Why, of course," he assented, and thrust his hand into an inner pocket. But, after an instant's hesitation, he drew it out empty. "I can't give you that one," he said; "I must keep that one. I'll send you another. You're at the Sheridan?"

"Yes."

"I'll leave it there for you. But please don't use it unless you absolutely have to."

"I won't use it at all, if I can avoid it," I assured him. "I promise you that it won't go out of my hands."

"Thank you," he said. "I knew you'd understand. As soon as you have any news you'll wire me?"

"The very moment. I want you to rely on us."

"I will."

"And not worry."

"I'll try not to," and he was gone.

As the door closed behind him, Mr. Royce looked at me with a somewhat guilty countenance.

"You see, I've got you into it again, Lester," he began. "I hope you don't mind."

"I don't. Rather the contrary."

"It's a little out of our line," he added. "But for a friend—and I certainly pity the poor fellow—we lawyers have to do peculiar things sometimes."

"I've done more peculiar ones than this," I said. "This is, at bottom, merely a matter of finding an important witness who is missing."

"Thank you, Lester," he said, and held out his hand. "I didn't want to seem to be imposing on you."

"You're not," I assured him again, and rose. "Now I think I'd better be getting to work."

"Can I be of any help?" he asked, rising too. "If not, I'll take the four-ten back to New York. I think Curtiss needs a little looking after. I'll hunt him up and take him with me. Besides, my wife is so wrought-up over this affair that she wants to get home."

"Very well," I assented. "Curtiss will need some one to protect him from the reporters. It's a wonder they haven't treed him before this."

"They tried to," said Mr. Royce, smiling grimly. "I succeeded in keeping them off. He was too preoccupied to notice. There's nothing else I can do?"

"No, I think not. If I need you, I'll wire."

"You won't need me," and he smiled again. "You know I'm no good at this kind of work."

"I know you'll be working harder than I will, keeping up with things at the office."

"Don't worry about that. You intend to stay here?"

"Yes; but only for a day or two, I trust. I can't think it a very difficult task to find a young woman who has run away in broad daylight in her wedding finery. Somebody must have seen her—that is, if she ran away at all."

"No doubt," he agreed. "Of course you'll find her—it's not about that I'm worrying so much; it's about her motive for doing such a thing. It seems preposterous to suppose that any woman in her right mind would run away half an hour before her wedding. Curtiss saw her at ten o'clock and found her happy, yet an hour later she had taken this desperate step. I wonder, Lester, if you realise just how desperate it was?"

"Yes," I said; "I think I do."

"Well, I'm free to confess I didn't until I saw its effect on my wife. Why, Lester, it was suicidal—it means social ostracism—no less. Even if it doesn't altogether ruin her life, it will always shadow it. It's something she can never outlive."

"Yes," I said again; "it's all that."

"And yet she was a thoughtful, self-controlled, well-balanced woman, who would foresee all this—who would realise the consequences more clearly than we can do. Lester—what was it drove her to it?"

"Ah, if I only knew! But I'm going to find out!"

"I hope you will—and yet I fear it, too. I'm afraid to think of it—I'm afraid to try to guess the secret—I'm afraid I'll unearth some grisly, loathsome skeleton, which should never have seen the light! But I'm sure of one thing," he added, his face hardening. "I think you suspected, too."

"What was that?"

"Whatever the secret is, Mrs. Lawrence knows it."

"Yes," I agreed, "I believe she does."

"And had a hand in her daughter's disappearance."

"Yes," I said again, "I think that very likely."

He stood for a moment longer, looking at me as though half-inclined to say something more; then he shook hands abruptly and left the room.

As I turned to sit down again, I noticed, in the chair from which I had arisen, something white crushed into one corner of the seat. I picked it up. It was a handkerchief of dainty lace and it was damp—with tears?

CHAPTER VI An Astonishing Request

I sat down again and examined my find more closely. I am no connoisseur of lace, yet even I could appreciate the handkerchief's exquisite beauty. But how came it here, crushed into a corner of this chair? Whose was it? Some instinct—or was it merely a delusive hope?—told me that it belonged to Marcia Lawrence—that it was she who had left it here—that the tears which dampened it were her tears, tears of bitter, bitter sorrow for dead hopes and a future which had changed from gold to grey. She had stolen into the library for a moment's peace, that she might face her sorrow and decide what she must do. She had left it——

But I shook myself together impatiently. All this was merely theorising; I must lay my foundation first, get my facts; then perhaps it might be possible to build a theory which would prove the right one. Thus far in the investigation, I felt that I had been met with evasion rather than with frankness; I suspected that an attempt was being made to puzzle and bewilder me; I could see that my presence in the house was unwelcome to Mrs. Lawrence. Well, my stay would be a short one; I dropped the handkerchief into my pocket, opened the door, and stepped out into the hall.

The front door was open and two men were tugging an immense palm through it. Another was engaged in taking down the wreaths of smilax. By the tenderness with which he handled them I recognised the decorator. He stopped and looked at me inquiringly as I went toward him.

"I've come down from New York," I explained, "at the request of Mr. Curtiss to assist him in finding Miss Lawrence. You, I believe, are the last person who is known to have seen her. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Go ahead," he said, beaming with self-importance. "I'll be glad to tell you anything I know, sir."

"Do you remember what time it was when you called Miss Lawrence down to have a last look at the decorations?"

"It must have been nearly half-past eleven, sir. I remember hearing a clock strike eleven and thinking it'd take me about half an hour to get through."

"Did you notice anything peculiar in her behaviour?"

"Peculiar? No, sir. She was very kind and said some nice things about my work."

"She did not seem sad nor depressed?"

"Oh, no, sir; quite the contrary."

"When she left you, did she return upstairs?"

"I think so, sir. At least, she started for the stairs. I stepped into the dining-room for a moment to make sure everything was all right, and when I came out again she was gone."

"Was there any one else in the hall?"

"No, sir; I think not; not just at that moment, though of course people were passing back and forth through it all the time."

"Did you notice a man loitering about—a stranger—middle-aged, dark-complexioned, with a dark beard or moustache—rather striking in appearance—perhaps a little dissolute?"

"No, sir," he answered, with a stare of surprise. "I didn't see any stranger about the whole morning—nobody I didn't know."

I confess I was rather disappointed; I had hoped that my shot would tell.

"And you heard no unusual noise—no scream, nor anything of that sort."

"No, sir; though I was so busy and worried I dare say I wouldn't have heard a cannon-shot."

"When did you learn that something was wrong?"

"I heard Mrs. Lawrence asking if any one had seen her daughter. Then she sent some of the servants to look for her."

"What time was that?"

"About ten minutes after I had spoken to her."

"Yes—what then?"

"Well, I didn't pay much attention, at first; but when the bridesmaids came, they raised such a hullabaloo that I couldn't help but take notice."

"What did Mrs. Lawrence do?"

"Why, she tried to quiet them—I must say she was the coolest one in the house—except one."

"Who was that?"

"Miss Lawrence's maid. She just sat there on the stairs and glowered and grinned and chewed her nails and never said a word. She gave me the creeps. I could swear she knew all about it and was glad of it."

I repressed a chuckle of satisfaction. Here was better luck than I had expected.

"How was Miss Lawrence dressed when you saw her?" I asked.

"All in rustly white. I judged it was her wedding-dress."

"And you say she seemed quite as usual?"

"Yes, sir; only, of course, excited, as any woman would be—though calm, too, and with a sort of deep glow in her eyes when she looked at you. I can't describe it, sir; but I remember thinking that the man who was to get her was a mighty lucky fellow. Did you know her, sir?"

"No," I said; "I've never seen her."

"Ah," he added, closing his eyes for an instant, "if you'd seen her then, you'd never forget it. I never will. I never saw another woman to touch her!" and he turned away to his work, with the vision he had conjured up evidently still before him.

As I started along the hall, I saw through the open front door a mail-carrier coming up the walk. I hastened to meet him—this was another fortunate chance.

"How many deliveries do you make a day out here?" I asked, as he came up the steps with a bundle of letters in his hand—I could guess the belated congratulations which were among them!

"Only two—morning and afternoon," he answered.

"What time in the morning?"

"About nine o'clock, usually."

"It was about that time this morning?"

"Yes, sir; maybe ten minutes after nine."

"Who took the mail?"

"I put it in the box here in the vestibule, as I always do," he said, and suited the action to the word.

I watched him as he