Free The Affair Next Door by Anna Katherine Green Page A

hide my interest in their unconscious faces.
    "Never!" retorted Isabella. "I would not patronize the thing."
    "Nor you?" I urged, carelessly, turning towards Caroline.
    "No; I have never been inside her shop."
    "Then whose is—" I began and stopped. A detective doing the work I
was, would not give away the object of his questions so recklessly.
    "Then who is," I corrected, "the best person after D'Aubigny? I never
can pay
her
prices. I should think it wicked."
    "O don't ask us," protested Isabella. "We have never made a study of the
best bonnet-maker. At present we wear hats."
    And having thus thrown their youth in my face, they turned away to the
window again, not realizing that the middle-aged lady they regarded with
such disdain had just succeeded in making them dance to her music most
successfully.
    The luncheon I ordered was elaborate, for I was determined that the
Misses Van Burnam should see that I knew how to serve a fine meal, and
that my plates were not always better than my viands.
    I had invited in a couple of other guests so that I should not seem to
have put myself out for two young girls, and as they were quiet people
like myself, the meal passed most decorously. When it was finished, the
Misses Caroline and Isabella had lost some of their consequential airs,
and I really think the deference they have since showed me is due more
to the surprise they felt at the perfection of this dainty luncheon,
than to any considerate appreciation of my character and abilities.
    They left at three o'clock, still without news of Mrs. Van Burnam; and
being positive by this time that the shadows were thickening about this
family, I saw them depart with some regret and a positive feeling of
commiseration. Had they been reared to a proper reverence for their
elders, how much more easy it would have been to see earnestness in
Caroline and affectionate impulses in Isabella.
    The evening papers added but little to my knowledge. Great disclosures
were promised, but no hint given of their nature. The body at the Morgue
had not been identified by any of the hundreds who had viewed it, and
Howard still refused to acknowledge it as that of his wife. The morrow
was awaited with anxiety.
    So much for the public press!
    At twelve o'clock at night, I was again seated in my window. The house
next door had been lighted since ten, and I was in momentary expectation
of its nocturnal visitor. He came promptly at the hour set, alighted
from the carriage with a bound, shut the carriage-door with a slam, and
crossed the pavement with cheerful celerity. His figure was not so
positively like, nor yet so positively unlike, that of the supposed
murderer that I could definitely say, "This is he," or, "This is not
he," and I went to bed puzzled, and not a little burdened by a sense of
the responsibility imposed upon me in this matter.
    And so passed the day between the murder and the inquest.

IX - Developments
*
    Mr. Gryce called about nine o'clock next morning.
    "Well," said he, "what about the visitor who came to see me last night?"
    "Like and unlike," I answered. "Nothing could induce me to say he is the
man we want, and yet I would not dare to swear he was not."
    "You are in doubt, then, concerning him?"
    "I am."
    Mr. Gryce bowed, reminded me of the inquest, and left. Nothing was said
about the hat.
    At ten o'clock I prepared to go to the place designated by him. I had
never attended an inquest in my life, and felt a little flurried in
consequence, but by the time I had tied the strings of my bonnet (the
despised bonnet, which, by the way, I did not return to More's), I had
conquered this weakness, and acquired a demeanor more in keeping with my
very important position as chief witness in a serious police
investigation.
    I had sent for a carriage to take me, and I rode away from my house amid
the shouts of some half dozen boys collected on the curb-stone. But I
did not allow myself to feel dashed by this publicity. On the contrary,
I held my head as