A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
BY
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I A NOVEL CASE
CHAPTER II A FEW POINTS
CHAPTER III THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER
CHAPTER IV THOMPSON''S STORY
CHAPTER V A NEW YORK BELLE
CHAPTER VI A BIT OF CALICO
CHAPTER VII THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS
CHAPTER VIII A WORD OVERHEARD
CHAPTER IX A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS
CHAPTER X THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE''S STUDIO
CHAPTER XI LUTTRA
CHAPTER XII A WOMAN''S LOVE
CHAPTER XIII A MAN''S HEART
CHAPTER XIV MRS. DANIELS
CHAPTER XV A CONFAB
CHAPTER XVI THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS
CHAPTER XVII THE CAPTURE
CHAPTER XVIII LOVE AND DUTY
CHAPTER XIX EXPLANATIONS
CHAPTER XX THE BOND THAT UNITES
A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
CHAPTER I
A NOVEL CASE
"Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in
that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which
has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in
some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if
you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties
concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience
regarding it."
The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally
acknowledged by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious
and unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course
excepting Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but
arouse our deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around
which we were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so
dear to a detective''s heart, we gave with alacrity the required
promise; and settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man
who has a good story to tell that does not entirely lack certain
points redounding to his own credit, he began:
I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ----- Precinct Station, when
the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in,
whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I
asked her what she wanted.
"A detective," she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of
the various men scattered through the room. "I don''t wish anything
said about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night,
and"--she stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--"and I want
some one to look her up," she went on at last with the most intense
emphasis.
"A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say
our house?"
She looked at me keenly before replying. "You are a young man," said
she; "isn''t there some one here more responsible than yourself that I
can talk to?"
I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then
passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him
aside, she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He
listened nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I
knew indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his
face--but you know what Gryce''s face is. I was about to walk off,
convinced he had got hold of something he would prefer to manage
himself, when the Superintendent came in.
"Where is Gryce?" asked he; "tell him I want him."
Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he
whispered, "Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and
send me word if you want me; I will be here for two hours."
I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I
reapproached the woman. "Where do you come from," said I, "I am to go
back with you and investigate the affair it seems."
"Did he say so?" she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with
his back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.
I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. "I come from No.
---- Second Avenue: Mr. Blake''s house," she whispered, uttering a
name so well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce''s movement of
sudden interest "A girl--one who sewed for us--disappeared last night
in a way to alarm us very much. She was taken from her room--"
"Yes," she cried vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity,
"taken from her room; she never went of her own accord; and she must
be found if I spend every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in
the bank against my old age."
Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so
vehement, I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of
hers that she felt her abduction so keenly.
"No," she replied, "not a relative, but," she went on, looking every
way but in my face, "a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they
call it, of mine; I--I--She must be found," she again reiterated.
We were by this time in the street.
"Nothing must be said about it," she now whispered, catching me by the
arm. "I told him so," nodding back to the building from which we had
just issued, "and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks
knowing anything about it, can''t it?"
"What?" I asked.
"Finding the girl."
"Well," said I, "we can tell you better about that when we know a few
more of the facts. What is the girl''s name and what makes you think
she didn''t go out of the house-door of her own accord?"
"Why, why, everything. She wasn''t the person to do it; then the looks
of her room, and--They all got out of the window," she cried
suddenly, "and went away by the side gate into ------ Street."
"They? Who do you mean by they?"
"Why, whoever they were who carried her off."
I could not suppress the "bah!" that rose to my lips. Mr. Gryce might
have been able to, but I am not Gryce.
"You don''t believe," said she, "that she was carried off?"
"Well, no," said I, "not in the sense you mean."
She gave another nod back to the police station now a block or so
distant. "He did''nt seem to doubt it at all."
I laughed. "Did you tell him you thought she had been taken off in
this way?"
"Yes, and he said, ''Very likely.'' And well he might, for I heard the
men talking in her room, and--"
"You heard men talking in her room--when?"
"O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep
and the noise they made whispering, woke me."
"Wait," I said, "tell me where her room is, hers and yours."
"Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor."
"Who are you?" I now inquired. "What position do you occupy in Mr.
Blake''s house?"
"I am the housekeeper."
Mr. Blake was a bachelor.
"And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to
come from this girl''s room."
"Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear
them when they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it
came from her room; and more astonished than I could say,--She is a
good girl," she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant
eyes, "a--a--as good a girl as this whole city can show; don''t you
dare, any of you, to hint at anything else o--"
"Come, come," I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too
communicative face, "I haven''t said anything, we will take it for
granted she is as good as gold, go on."
The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf.
"Where was I?" said she. "O, I heard voices and was surprised and got
up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have
startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a
moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and
I called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it.
''What is it?'' she asked. ''O,'' said I, ''I thought I heard talking here
and I was frightened,'' ''It must have been next door,'' said she. I
begged pardon and went back to my room. There was no more noise, but
when in the morning we broke into her room and found her gone, the
window open and signs of distress and struggle around, I knew I had
not been mistaken; that there were men with her when I went to her
door, and that they had carried her off--"
This time I could not restrain myself.
"Did they drop her out of the window?" I inquired.
"O," ...
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