 | CHAPTER LII.
HIDING, WATCHING, AND HALF DISCERNING. The Wetherel affair |  |
52. CHAPTER LII.
HIDING, WATCHING, AND HALF DISCERNING.
“It is I—let me in,” called the voice of Alice Dinneford through the keyhole.
“I have been shopping for her. Let me in.”
“Oh, you child, how you scared me!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford. Opening
the door, she admitted a bounding, laughing young lady, who showed in
her countenance not a trace of her late disappointment in love matters, who
had forgotten completely the adventure of losing Count Poloski in the new adventure
of recovering Nestoria, and who bore in her hand, of all winter presents
in the world, a gorgeous fan!
“Oh, you darling!” she cried, embracing the restored pet. “Oh, you
precious little speck of a thing! I had forgotten how little you were. And
your hair is lovelier than ever,” she went on fingering it. “There, there is
your present of welcome,” she laughed, brandishing the fan. “Isn't it
sweet?”
“I painted it myself,” quietly responded Nestoria, after one glance at the
gewgaw. “I am glad you picked it out for me. It seems as if you were led
to remember me in a strange way. But how good of you to think of buying
anything for me! Dear Alice, I thank you.”
“Life is just as full of special providences as it can stick,” observed the
wondering Mrs. Dinneford. “It is splendid with them, like a bird with featlers.
How beautiful and charitable it was of our Heavenly Father to guide
Alice, all unwitting of what she did, to buy a piece of your own handiwork as
the fittest and loveliest gift she could find for you! As Tupper says, Is it not
also His doing when an aphis creepeth on a rosebud?”
Meantime the process of attiring continued. When it was finished, and
Nestoria stood up fresh and trim in an unworn dress, with its suitable adornments,
she had gained in beauty. No wonder that women are dandies and
love fine raiment; the dreariest economist must admit that it is becoming.
Even Nestoria, almost an inhabitant of other worlds by reason of sorrows and
concealments, remained so far human as that she could discern how much
finer she was because of finer apparel. As she turned from the glass to her
two friends there was an arch smile on her lips, which was partly a confession
of satisfaction with her own appearance, and partly a grateful response to their
looks of admiration. In truth they were inexpressibly exultant over their renovated
seraph. Mrs. Dinneford wanted to pick the girl up, and kiss her in
her arms like an infant. Alice fluttered around her as a butterfly flutters
around a flower. Loving hands pulled and straightened the serious little alpaca
relieving finery. At last they all sat down, wearied with their excitements,
and loved each other in quiet.
But silence could not long prevail in a heaven upon earth populated mainly
by Dinnefords. Alice, a most curious young woman, and violently interested
in mysteries, was wild to hear Nestoria's story. After looking at her with
eager eyes for a few seconds, she broke out with, “And now tell us all about
it. Do! You would feel so much better for telling us all about it!”
“No,” interposed Mrs. Dinneford, as inquisitive as her daughter, but able
through riper years to summon up some forbearance. “When Nestoria's conscience
tells her to speak, she will do so. Until then we will wait.”
“You are very noble, Mrs. Dinneford,” replied the girl, her eyes filling
with sparkles of gratitude. “It seems to me of late that everybody is sublimely
good or sublimely wicked. I never imagined human nature in such
strong lights as I have seen it in during the last three months. Once I thought
there were few passions and no mysteries. Now everybody is terrible in my
eyes; everybody is capable of something fearful. It is a very different world,
and a much more awful world than I believed it.”
“Nestoria, how you have grown!” stared Alice. “Well, I have had to
grow myself,” she added with a sigh, remembering the Poloski folly. “I will
tell you about it some day. But it's horrid, this growing.”
“We will call you Nettie,” said Mrs. Dinneford. “You shall be Miss Nettie,
and nothing more. If you will keep within doors, or wear a deep veil
when you do go out, you will not be noticed, I hope. Walter thinks that the
police will hardly take it into their wooden heads to look for you here.”
“These concealments!” sighed Nestoria. “Oh, these concealments! Well,
I have almost done with them. If light does not come of itself soon, I will
let it. I think I can promise you that I shall soon be able to force myself to
speak. In a month, at the longest. Yes, in a month.”
A woful tremor crisped the faces of all three women. Both Mrs. Dinneford
and Alice said in their hearts that, when their guest should break silence
concerning the Wetherel affair, it would be to denounce Edward Wetherel as
the assassin of his uncle, or at least as privy to the assassination. No, it is not
quite true that they said it; the thing seemed to be whispered to them, as by
some goblin; and they, on their parts, strove hard to close their ears against
the horrible suggestion.
Thus commenced Nestoria's life in the Dinneford house. It was a life of
seclusion; she passed most of her time in her own room, painting, or reading,
or chatting with her hosts; she hardly ever sat, even for a moment, in the
parlor, and never went out except by evening. The servants knew no more
of her than that here was a guest. It is reasonable to suppose that Lehming
was the only person outside of the family who was aware of the girl's retreat.
By the way, this gentle creature, unfitted through fragile health to cope
with assailant fellow men of a rude and hearty morale, was graciously spared
all difficulties with Mr. Sweet. The detective did indeed search Nestoria's
abandoned room, and was exceedingly miffed, even to blasphemy, at not finding
her. But he was a dullish man, as has perhaps already been made apparent;
he was no bloodhound, but rather a bulldog, with a poor nose for a
scent. He went at Imogen Eleonore about her missing friend with such petulant
vim that she became more jealous than ever, and would not tell him what
little she did know concerning Nettie Fulton. Then he quarrelled with her,
threatened her vaguely with the law, lost her confidence, scared her, set her a-crying,
chance of blasting open the Wetherel mystery. Strong and coarse, he undertook
to drive a woman, and almost of necessity failed.
You can't drive a woman any more than you can drive a hen. She is too
suspicious, timorous, hysterical, and when desperate, too wild. This way she
dodges and that way she flutters, now making a rush between your legs, and
then cut-cut-ca-da-cut over your shoulder, and away cackling into some untraversable
puddle, where she is badly off, to be sure, but you don't want to
chase her. Well, Mr. Sweet was so bewildered by Imogen Eleonore's spasmodic
ignorance and paroxysmal denials that he lost his faith in this Nettie
Fulton as a key to his “case,” and decided that he had wasted his valuable
time in watching the tenement-house. So, feeling that he had been somewhat
ridiculous, and not wishing to “make a cussed ass of himself” any further, he
forbore from catechising Lehming, and in fact kept out of his way. Imogen
Eleonore, we may as well add, he wrathfully abandoned and left in uncourted
desolation.
One word of explanation here concerning detectives. It may be imagined
by some persons that I do injustice to this noble caste by presenting Mr. Sweet
as an example of their abilities. I modestly but firmly, and sorrowfully also,
believe the contrary. I believe that American detectives, and especially those
of New York city, are usually models either of eminent dishonesty or of eminent
incapacity. Just consider the vast morasses and Pontine marshes of undrained,
uncleared crime, which send up their horrible malaria on the island
of Manhattan. Look at the Nathan murder and the long series of other
murders which are set down as so much “dead stock” on the police books of
that single municipality. Our assassins and burglars are seemingly under as
little restraint as if they were a legalized class, the representatives of a “vested
interest,” or an exceptional judicature like the Holy Inquisition. Men whose
every footstep leaves a trace of blood, and from whose pockets drop stolen
bonds and greenbacks, walk under the noses of the men whose business it is
to see them and catch them, with an insolent impunity which is enough to
drive industry to other shores and make us rue our freedom. Of course the
fault in the matter rests on loftier heads than those of Mr. Sweet and his comrades.
A people which suffers itself to be ruled politically by its non-taxpayers,
and which degrades its judiciary by making it look for power and honor
to ward meetings and other similar sources of popular favor—such a people
must necessarily have inferior magistrates and officers of justice, from the
highest to the lowest.
From this festering subject (which lends, by the way, a groundwork of probability
and even of naturalness to our story) we must return to Nestoria. She
had not been a day in her new refuge before she had heard the tale of Alice's
broken engagement. That frank and sociable sufferer could not dam up her
woes and mortifications. On the first opportunity she talked them out as
freely as a swollen brook babbles forth its unaccustomed foam and “riliness.”
So Nestoria knew all about Count Poloski, and held him in fear and abomination.
She had disagreeable impressions even of his personal appearance. In
spite of Alice's declaration that the man was slender, and blond, handsome,
she pictured him as a stalwart creature of dark, saturnine, and forbidding
aspect. It must be remembered that she had seen him but once, and then only
at a considerable distance and by moonlight. On the night when she had met
Edward Wethere upon the beach near Sea Lodge, the Count had been merely a
cloud.
She learned that he was in the habit of passing the house frequently, on the
lookout, as it was supposed, for Alice. One lonesome day, while the Dinnefords
were out on one of those shopping ebullitions which serve to our ladies
in place of the Eleusinian mysteries, or the weeping for Tammuz, Nestoria
placed herself at a window in the parlor and watched the passers by, wondering
whether she would recognize the discarded lover if she should see him.
Unknown to her the chambermaid was polishing the door-plate and the door
was open. The Count, who happened to be close at hand, bounded up the steps
behind the woman, and, in spite of her hasty remonstrance, forced an entrance.
Nestoria, gazing just then in another direction, did not witness this adroit
and sudden escalade. The opening of a door and the sound of a footstep in
the parlor were her first intimations that a stranger was near her. She turned
with a start of terror, and probably with an intent to fly; but the moment she
looked in the visitor's face she seemed to be fascinated; she stood stock still,
pale, silent, and staring. Poloski did not know who she was, and at first took
little note of her; he just glanced at her, and then glared about the room
eagerly, undoubtedly seeking for Alice. His lost betrothed being nowhere
visible, he turned once more toward Nestoria, and then he seemed to observe
the strange way in which she gazed at him, for his eyes opened with an expression
of wonder and mistrust.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” he said, bowing civilly. “I regret that I have
alarmed you by my intrusion. May I ask if Miss Dinneford is at home?”
Nestoria did not answer, and continued to stare at him. She was evidently
agitated by violent and conflicting emotions, and her appearance was
very singular, startling, and even imposing. Her eyes were dilated and flashing;
her face changed rapidly from white to crimson, and back again; her
very neck was blotched with crimson spots and streakings; all the blood in
her veins was in wild tumult.
“I demand to see Miss Dinneford,” resumed Poloski, evidently somewhat
confounded by this odd reception, but nevertheless resolved to carry his point
if possible.
“Who are you?” asked Nestoria. Her utterance was as strange and abnormal
as her silence. The voice was not like hers; it was unnaturally harsh,
strident, and abrupt; it seemed to burst violently through choking obstacles.
“I am Count Poloski, at your service,” replied the visitor, not forgetting
his habitual civilities, though he was broadly amazed.
“Oh!” gasped Nestoria in such a tone as rarely quivers through human
speech, however often it may be heard in worlds of vaster emotions than ours.
She was conscious of dizziness, of a humming and whirling of the whole room,
of some one departing in a rapid, ghostly, inaudible way, and then of nothing
more. The shock of a great hope, following on the shock of a great terror,
had been more than she could bear without swooning.
When she recovered her senses, she found herself laid upon a sofa, with
the chambermaid putting water to her lips, and no one else present.
“Was that Count Poloski?” were her first words, uttered in a faint voice,
but very eagerly. “Why didn't you call the police?”
The girl, who knew nothing against the Count except that he had been denied
the house, stared in confusion and mumbled some vague excuses.
“Never mind,” continued Nestoria. “I think I am well now. Help me
to my room.”
| CHAPTER LII.
HIDING, WATCHING, AND HALF DISCERNING. The Wetherel affair | |