The House Opposite: A Mystery

“My name is Fortescue, and I am a doctor. My office is vis-à-vis to your building, so, probably on account of my proximity, I was called in to see the victim, and have naturally become much interested in this very mysterious affair.”

“Indeed!” he remarked.

This was not encouraging, but I persisted.

“A very remarkable case, isn’t it?” I said, trying to appear at ease.

“A most unpleasant business,” he replied curtly.

My obstinacy was now aroused, so I drew a chair up and sat down.

“Mr. Stuart, I hope you won’t think me very impertinent if I ask you whether you have any reason to be dissatisfied with your two servants?”

He now looked thoroughly alarmed.

“No; why do you ask?”

“You probably know that the identity of the dead man has never been established?” I continued.

“On the contrary,” interrupted Mr. Stuart, “I am just reading an account of how it has been ascertained that the body is that of a man called Greywood.”

“Oh,” I replied airily, “that is only a bit of yellow journalism. If you read to the end, you will find that they admit that the police place no credence in their story. I have just been talking to Mr. Merritt about it–”

“Merritt, the detective, you mean?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Well, he must be an interesting man. I should like to see him.”

“Why, you have seen him,” I said; “he was the short, clean-shaven man who stood beside me, and afterwards followed you out.”

“Really!” he exclaimed; “I wish I had known that; I have always taken a great interest in the man. He has cleared up some pretty mysterious crimes.”

“I am sure he would be only too delighted to meet you. He’s quite a nice fellow, too, and terribly keen about this murder,” I added, bringing the conversation back to the point I wanted discussed.

“Yes?” said Mr. Stuart. “Of course, I am interested in it, too; but I confess that to have a thing like that occur in a building where one lives is really most unpleasant. I have been pestered to death by reporters.”

“Well, I assure you I am not one,” I said, with a laugh; “but, all the same, I should like to ask you a few questions.”

“What are they?” he cautiously inquired.

“Do your butler and his wife get along well together?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, in his turn. I told him what had just happened. He smiled.

“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything. Celestin is insanely jealous of his wife, whom he regards as the most fascinating of her sex, and has a habit of watching her, I believe, so as to guard against a possible lover.”

“Do they quarrel much?”

“Not lately, I am glad to say. About a year ago it got so bad that I was forced to tell them that if I heard them doing so again, I should dismiss them both.”

“Dear me, was it as bad as that?”

“Why, yes. One evening, when I came home, I heard shrieks coming from the kitchen, and, on investigating, found Celestin busily engaged in chastising his wife!”

“Really?”

“Yes, and the funniest thing is, that she did not seem to mind it much, although she must have been black and blue from the beating he gave her. It was some trouble about a cousin, I believe; but, as they are both excellent servants, I thought it best not to inquire too particularly into the business.”

“And have they been on amicable terms since then?”

“Oh, yes. And, curiously enough, their behaviour to each other is positively lover-like. Even in the old days, she would flirt and he would beat her, and then they would bill and coo for a month. At least, so I judged from the little I saw of them.”

I was now anxious to be off, but he seemed to have overcome his aversion or distrust, and detained me for some time longer, discussing the tragedy.

When I reached the Rosemere, I found McGorry sitting in his private office, and remarkably glad to see me. I offered him a cigar, and we sat down to a comfortable smoke. At first, we talked of nothing but the murder, but at last I managed to bring the conversation around to gossip about the different people in the building. This was no easy matter, for the fellow considered it either impolitic or disloyal to discuss his tenants, but, luckily, when I broached the subject of the Argots, he unbosomed himself. He assured me that they were most objectionable people, and he couldn’t see why Mr. Stuart wanted to employ Dagos, as he called them. He told me that the woman was always having men hanging around, and that her husband was very violent and jealous.

“But they have stopped quarrelling, I hear.”

“Stopped, is it?” he exclaimed with fine scorn. “I suppose Mr. Stuart told you that. Little he knows about it. They darsn’t make a noise when he’s about. But Argot’s been terrible to her lately. Why, they made such a row that I had to go in there the other day and tell him if he didn’t shut up I’d complain to Mr. Stuart. He glared at me, but they’ve been quieter since then. I guess she’s a bad lot, and deserves what she gets, or else she wouldn’t stand it.”

“I say, McGorry, you have seen nothing of a straw hat, have you?”

“Lord! Hasn’t Mr. Merritt been bothering me to death about that hat? No, I haven’t found one.”

That was all I could get out of him. Not much, but still something.

Returning to my office, I sat for a long time pondering over all I had seen and heard that morning, and the longer I thought the more likely did it seem that the corpse was that of some lover of Madame Argot’s whom her husband had killed in an attack of jealous frenzy. I had never for a moment considered the possibility of the body being Greywood’s, and Merritt thought the objections to its being that of the vanished Brown equally insurmountable. I was, therefore, forced to believe in the presence on that fatal Tuesday of yet another man. That he had not entered by the front door was certain; very well, then, he must have come in by the back one. Of course, that there should have been three people answering to the same description in the building at the time when the murder occurred seemed an incredible conglomeration of circumstances, but had not the detective himself suggested such a possibility? The most serious objections to the supposition that Argot had murdered the man were: first, the smallness of the wound, and, secondly, the distance of the place where the body was found from Stuart’s apartment. The first difficulty I disposed of easily. Merritt had failed to convince me that a hat-pin had caused the fellow’s death, and I thought it much more likely that the ornament found on the corpse was a simple bauble which had nothing to do with the tragedy. Now, a small stiletto—or, hold, I had it—a skewer! A skewer was a much more likely weapon than a hat-pin, anyhow, besides being just the sort of a thing a butler would find ready to his hand.

The next objection was more difficult to meet, yet it did not seem impossible that, having killed the man, Argot should, with his wife’s connivance, have secreted him in one of the closets which his master never opened, and then (having procured a duplicate key) have carried the body, in the wee small hours of the morning, up the three flights of stairs, and laid it in the empty apartment.

Thoroughly satisfied with this theory, I went off to lunch.

CHAPTER X

THE MISSING HAT

THAT very evening, as I was sitting quietly in my office, trying to divert my mind from the murder by reading, my boy came in and told me that there was a lady in the waiting-room who wanted to see me. There was something so peculiar about the way he imparted this very commonplace information that my curiosity was aroused; but I refrained from questioning him, and curtly bade him show the lady in.

When she appeared I was no longer surprised at his manner, for a more strange and melodramatic figure I have seldom seen, even on the stage. The woman was tall and draped, or rather shrouded, in a long, black cloak, and a thick black veil was drawn down over her face. Her costume, especially considering the excessive heat, and that the clock pointed to 9.15, was alone enough to excite comment; but to a singularity in dress she added an even greater singularity of manner. She entered the room hesitatingly, and paused near the threshold to glance apprehensively about her, as if fearing the presence of some hidden enemy. The woman must be mad, I thought, as I motioned her to a chair and sat down opposite to her.

With a theatrical gesture, she threw back her veil, and to my astonishment I recognised the handsome, rotund features of—Madame Argot! She smiled, evidently enjoying my bewilderment.

“Meestair Docteur, I no disturb you?” she inquired.

“Certainly not, madame; what can I do for you?”

“Ah, meestair,” she whispered, looking towards the door, “I so afraid zat my ’usban’ ’e come back and fin’ me gone; ’e terribly angry!”

“Why should he be angry?” I asked.

“He no like me to speak viz you. He no vant me to show you zis,” she answered, pointing mysteriously to her left shoulder.

“What is it that he doesn’t want me to see?”

“I go show you,” and, opening her dress, she disclosed two terrible bruises, each as large as the palm of my hand; “and zat is not all,” she continued, and, as she turned round, I saw that a deep gash disfigured one of her shoulder-blades.

I was really shocked.

“How did this happen?” I inquired.

“Oh, I fall,” she said, smiling coquettishly at me.

“A very queer fall,” I muttered.

The wound was several days old and not serious, but, owing to neglect, had got into a very bad condition.

“Ah, zat is better,” she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, when I had thoroughly cleansed the cut. I was just preparing to bandage it up, when she stopped me.

“No, meestair; not zat! My ’usban’, ’e see zat, ’e know I come here, and zen ’e angry. Ze vashin’ and ze salve zey make me better!”

“But look here, my good woman,” I exclaimed, indignantly; “do you mean to say that your husband is such a brute that he objects to your having your wound dressed—a wound that you got in such a peculiar way, too?”

Her manner changed instantly; she drew herself haughtily up, and began buttoning up her dress.

“My ’usban’ ’e no brute; ’e verra nice man; ’e love’ me verra much.”

“Really!”

“Yes,” she asserted, “’e love me much, oh oui, je vous assure qu’il m’adore!” and she tossed her head and looked at me through the thick lashes of her half-closed eyes; “’e man, you know, ’e sometime jealous,” she continued, smiling, as if his jealousy were a feather in her cap.

“Well, Madame Argot; that cut should be looked after, and, as it is in such a place that you cannot properly attend to it yourself, you must come in here every day, and I will dress it for you. Your husband cannot carry his devotion so far as to object to your covering it with a clean piece of linen, so I advise you to do that.”

“Alla right, meestair, and zank you verra much. I come again ven I can, ven my ’usban’ ’e go out sometime,” and, after carefully wrapping herself up again, she sallied forth with infinite precautions.

Of course, the woman is a silly fool, and eaten up with vanity, but she had been pretty roughly handled, and that she should consider such treatment a tribute to her charms, seemed to me perfectly incomprehensible.

After reading for some time longer, I decided to go to bed, and, therefore, went into the front room to turn the lights out. Having done so, I lingered near the window, for the temperature here was at least several degrees cooler than the room I had just left. Although it was still early, the street appeared to be completely deserted, not a footfall was to be heard. As I stood there, half hidden by the curtain, a queer muffled noise fell upon my ears. It seemed to come from outside, and I moved nearer to the window, so as to try and discover what it could be. As I did so, a white face, not a foot away, peered suddenly into mine. I was so startled that I fell back a step, and before I recovered myself the creature was gone. I rushed out into the hall, and, unfastening the front door as quickly as I could, dashed into the street. Not a soul was in sight! The slight delay had given the fellow a chance to escape. Who could it have been? I wondered. A burglar, tempted by my open window? Or Argot, perhaps? This latter supposition was much the more alarming. What if he had seen his wife come out of my office? I thought of the murdered man, and shuddered. Notwithstanding the heat, I shut and bolted the window, and, as an extra precaution, also locked the door which connected the front room with my office and bedroom. I had no mind to be the next victim of an insane man’s jealousy. All night long I was haunted by that white face! More and more it appeared to me to resemble Argot, till at last I determined to see Mr. Merritt and ask him if we had not sufficient grounds to warrant the Frenchman’s arrest.

But when the morning came, things looked very different. Fred’s second letter (which I have inserted in the place where it rightly belongs in the development of this story) arrived, and the thought of May Derwent’s illness put everything else out of my mind. I might as well confess at once, that with me it had been a case of love at first sight, and that from the day I saw her at the Rosemere the dearest wish of my heart was to have her for my wife. And now she was ill and another man—a man who also loved her—had been summoned by her to fill the place I coveted. The consciousness of his devotion would uphold her during her illness, and his company help to while away the weary hours of convalescence. And here was I, tied to my post, and forced to abandon the field to another without even a struggle. For I felt it would be little short of murder to desert my patients while the thermometer stood high in the nineties and most of the other doctors were out of town. But if I could not go to my lady, she should, at any rate, have something of mine to bear her company. Rushing out to a nearby florist’s I bought out half his stock. Of course, my gift had to go to her anonymously, but, even so, it was a comfort to me to think that, perhaps, my roses might be chosen to brighten her sick room. At all events, they would serve to remind her that there were other men in the world who loved her besides the one who was with her at that moment.

The afternoon edition of the New York Bugle contained the announcement that Mrs. Greywood had arrived in town that morning, and, on being shown the body of the Rosemere victim, had emphatically denied that it was that of her son. She thinks that the latter has gone off cruising, which he has been expecting to do for some time past; and that, of course, would explain his not having been heard from. The possibility of May Derwent’s having been, even indirectly implicated in the murder, was thus finally disposed of. But I had been so sure, from the very first, of the ultimate result of their investigations, that Mrs. Greywood’s statement was hardly a relief to me. Of course, I was very glad that no detective would now have an excuse for prying into my darling’s affairs. Otherwise, I was entirely indifferent to their suspicions.

But these various occurrences helped to obliterate the memory of the events of the previous night, and, as I had no time to hunt up the detective, I decided to think no more about my strange adventure.

I was rather late in leaving the hospital that afternoon, and when I reached home my boy told me that several patients were already waiting for me. I hurried into my office and sat down at my desk, on which a number of letters had accumulated. I was looking these over when I heard the door open, and, glancing up, my eyes fell upon—Argot! I stared at him for a moment in silence. Could this reserved and highly respectable person be my visitor of the night before? Never, I concluded. He stood respectfully near the door, till I motioned him to a seat. He sat gingerly down on the very edge of the chair, and, laying his hat on my desk, pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. I waited for him to begin, which he seemed to find some difficulty in doing. At last he said:

“Meestair, I come about a verra sad zing.”

“Yes?” I inquired.

“You ’ave seen my vife?”

I did not answer at once; then, as I was uncertain how much he knew, I decided that it would be safest to confine myself to a bare nod.

“She is a verra fine woman, not?” he demanded, with visible pride.

“Very much so,” I assented. What could he be leading up to, I wondered?

“But, helas,” he continued, “she is a little—” here he touched his forehead significantly, while he gazed at me less keenly from under his bushy brows.

“Really, you surprise me,” was all I said.

“She quite wild some time,” he insisted.

“Indeed?”

“Yes; she do some strange zings; she verra good vife—sough—verra good cook.” He paused.

“What are you telling me all this for? What do you want me to do about it?” I inquired.

“Eh bien, Meestair; it is because she vant to come to see you, and she like you to be sorry, so she ’ave t’rowed herself down and ’ave ’urt ’erself. She lika ze mens too much,” he added, fiercely, while a malignant expression flitted across his face.

It no longer seemed to me impossible that this middle-aged butler and the apparition of the night before could be identical, and there and then I determined that in future a pistol should repose in the top drawer of my desk.

“Perhaps your wife is slightly hysterical,” I suggested.

Now, for the first time, my eyes left his face, and happened to fall on his hat, which was lying brim upwards at my elbow. My astonishment, when I noticed that the initials A. B. were printed in large letters on the inner band, was so great that I could hardly control myself. I looked for the maker’s name—Halstead, Chicago, I made out. Could this be the missing hat? It seemed incredible. Argot would never dare display so openly such a proof of his guilt! But if he were demented (which I firmly believed him to be) would not this flaunting of his crime be one of the things one might expect of an insane man? I had been so startled that it was some minutes before I dared raise my eyes, fearing that their expression would betray me. I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about during that time, but the next sentence I caught was: “She vill, she vill come, but you jus’ say, nonsense, zat is nossing, and zen she go.”

“Very well,” I assured him, anxious to get rid of the fellow. “I quite understand;” and, rising from my chair, I dismissed him with a nod.

My office was still full of people, and I think that seeing those other patients was about the most difficult thing I ever did. But at last even that ordeal was over, and I was able to start out in search of the detective. I had a good deal of difficulty in finding him, and, after telephoning all over creation, at last met him accidentally, not far from the Rosemere. I was so excited that I hailed him from a long way off, pointing significantly the while to my hat. By Jove, you should have seen him sprint! I had no idea those short legs of his could make such good time. We met almost directly in front of my door.

“What is it?” he panted.

Without answering, I took him by the elbow and led him into the house. He sank exhausted into one of my office chairs.

“What’s up?” he repeated.

“Well,” I began slowly, for I meant to enjoy my small triumph to the full, “I only wanted to ask you if you have yet found the missing hat?”

“No; have you?”

“No; I can’t say I have.” His face fell perceptibly. “But I know where a straw hat bearing the name of a Chicago hatter, and with the initials, ‘A. B.,’ stamped on the inside band, can be found,” I added.

“You don’t say so? Where is it?” He spoke quietly, but I noticed that his eyes glistened.

“I don’t quite know where it is at this moment, but when I last saw it, it was on this desk.”

“On this desk, and you allowed it—” He paused, speechless with disgust.

“Certainly, I allowed it to be taken away, if that is what you mean. However, you can easily get it again. It is not far off. But, I assure you, I have no intention of appearing in the character of the corpse in another sensational tragedy.”

“Who brought it here?” demanded Mr. Merritt.

“Well, do you think that Argot would be a likely person?” I asked.

“Argot!” He was evidently surprised.

“Yes, Argot.” And I told him all that I had lately discovered about the couple, and of their separate visits to me. Neither did I fail to mention the strange apparition of the night before, which had caused me so much uneasiness.

He seemed much impressed, and stared gravely before him for some minutes.

“You are really not at all sure that the white face belonged to Argot, are you?”

“No,” I acknowledged.

“Well, Doctor,” he continued, after a slight pause, “it’s a queer thing that, just as you have succeeded in persuading me that a hat-pin is hardly a masculine weapon, and that, therefore, I ought to look for a murderess, and not a murderer, you, on the other hand, should have come to the conclusion that a man is the perpetrator of this crime.”

“Ah! but you see, Mr. Merritt, I don’t believe the victim was killed by a hat-pin. I think he was pierced through the heart by a skewer, which, in a kitchen, Argot would have found under his hand.”

“Well, Doctor, you may be right. Live and learn, I always say. I shall at once call on the Argots, and have a look at this hat.”

“Don’t you think you had better have him arrested, first, and question him afterwards? I am convinced he is insane, and likely to become violent at any moment; we don’t want any more murders, you know.”

“That is all very well, Doctor; but I can’t have the fellow arrested till I have something to go on. The hat you saw may not be the one we want; or, again, Argot may have found it.”

“Well, if you insist on bearding him, let me go with you.”

“Certainly not. You are young, and—well, not uncalculated to arouse his marital jealousy, while I,” patting his portly person, “am not likely to cause him any such anxieties. Even age and fat have their uses, sometimes.”

“But he may try to cut your throat,” I objected.

“One of my men will be just outside, and will probably get to me before he has quite finished me.” He had risen, and stood with his hand on the door-knob.

“Look here, Doctor, I’d like to bet you that Argot is innocent, and that a woman, and a mighty pretty woman, too, is the guilty party.”

“All right, Mr. Merritt; I’ll take you. I bet you fifty dollars that a man committed this crime.”

“Done!” exclaimed the detective, and, pulling out his pocket-book, he recorded the bet with great care. He looked at me for a moment longer with one of those quiet enigmatic smiles of his, and departed.

I watched him cross the street and enter the back door of the Rosemere. A moment afterwards a shabby-looking man came slouching along and stopped just outside, apparently absorbed in watching something in the gutter. The detective remained only a minute or so in the building, and when he came out he gave me a slight nod, which I interpreted as a sign that Argot was not at home. He took not the slightest notice of the tramp, and, turning north, trotted briskly up town.

As I watched him disappear, I wondered what made him so sure of the Frenchman’s innocence, and I tried vainly to guess who the woman could be whom he now had in mind. Miss Derwent, I was glad to say, was out of the question. He himself had proved to me by the most convincing arguments that Mrs. Atkins could not be guilty. And who else was there to suspect? For the criminal must have been an inmate of the building. That was one of the few facts which the detective claimed was established beyond a doubt.

CHAPTER XI

MADAME ARGOT’S MAD HUSBAND

AFTER my interview with the detective, I went out to visit some patients, and on my way home I met young Atkins, whom I had not seen since the preceding Thursday. Although we had met but once, he recognised me immediately, and greeted me most cordially. I was, however, shocked to see what havoc a short week had wrought in his looks. His face was drawn and pale, and he appeared nervous and ill at ease. Notwithstanding he had been walking in the opposite direction, he at once turned back, and we sauntered towards Madison Avenue together. Our chief topic of conversation was naturally the murder, and we both remarked how strange it was that the identity of the victim had not yet been established.