A Strange Disappearance by Anna Katharine Green (books under 200 pages TXT) 📖

entirely unintelligible, I took it for granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if that failed, strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate with Mrs. Blake. An hour passed; the doors of their rooms remained unclosed. A half hour more dragged its slow minutes away, and no sound had come from their precincts save now and then a mumbled word of parley between the father and son, a short command to the daughter, or a not-to-be-restrained oath of annoyance from one or both of the heavy-limbed brutes as something was said or done to disturb them in their indolent repose. At last my impatience was to be no longer restrained. Rising, I took a bold resolution. If the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain. Taking my letter in the hand, I deliberately proceeded to the door marked with the ominous red cross and knocked.

A surprised snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful adventure, I awaited with as much apparent unconcern as possible, the quick advance of that light foot which seemed to be ready to perform all the biddings of these hardened wretches, much as it shrunk from following in the ways of their infamy.

“Ah miss,” said I, as the door opened revealing in the gap her white face clouded with some new and sudden apprehension, “I beg your pardon but I am an old man, and I got a letter to-day and my eyes are so weak with the work I’ve been doing that I cannot read it. It is from some one I love, and would you be so kind as to read off the words for me and so relieve an old man from his anxiety.”

The murmur of suspicion behind her, warned her to throw wide open the door. “Certainly,” said she, “if I can,” taking the paper in her hand.

“Just let me get a squint at that first,” said a sullen voice behind her; and the youngest of the two Schoenmakers stepped forward and tore the paper out of her grasp.

“You are too suspicious,” murmured she, looking after him with the first assumption of that air of power and determination which I had heard so eloquently described by the man who loved her. “There is nothing in those lines which concerns us; let me have them back.”

“You hold your tongue,” was the brutal reply as the rough man opened the folded paper and read or tried to read what was written within. “Blast it! it’s French,” was his slow exclamation after a moment spent in this way. “See,” and he thrust it towards his father who stood frowning heavily a few feet off.

“Of course, it’s French,” cried the girl. “Would you write a note in English to father there? The man’s friends are French like himself, and must write in their own language.”

“Here take it and read it out,” commanded her father; “and mind you tell us what it means. I’ll have nothing going on here that I don’t understand.”

“Read me the French words first, miss,” said I. “It is my letter and I want to know what my friend has to say to me.”

Nodding at me with a gentle look, she cast her eyes on the paper and began to read:

“Calmez vous, mon amie, il vous aime et il vous cherche. Dans quatre heures vous serez heureuse. Allons du courage, et surtout soyez maitre de vous meme.”

“Thanks!” I exclaimed in a calm matter-of-fact way as I perceived the sudden tremor that seized her as she recognized the handwriting and realized that the words were for her. “My friend says he will pay my week’s rent and bids me be at home to receive him,” said I, turning upon the two ferocious faces peering over her shoulder, with a look of meek unsuspiciousness in my eye, that in a theatre would have brought down the house.

“Is that what those words say, you?” asked the father, pointing over her shoulder to the paper she held.

“I will translate for you word by word what it says,” replied she, nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had visited her, from flashing fitfully across it. “Calmez vous, mon amie. Do not be afraid, my friend. Il vous aime et il vous cherche. He loves you and is hunting for you. Dans quatre heures vous serez heureuse. In four hours you will be happy. Allons du courage, et surtout soyez maitre de vous meme. Then take courage and above all preserve your self-possession. It is the French way of expressing one’s self,” observed she. “I am glad your friend is disposed to help you,” she continued, giving me back the letter with a smile. “I am afraid you needed it.”

In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks to her and shuffled slowly back. The fact is I had no words; I was utterly dumbfounded. Half way through that letter, with whose contents you must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my whole chance of expected reward to have stopped her. Read out such words as those before these men! Was she crazy? But how naturally at the conclusion did she with a word make its language seem consistent with the meaning I had given it. With a fresh sense of my obligation to her, I hurried to my room, there to count out the minutes of another long hour in anxious expectation of her making that endeavor to communicate with me, which her new hopes and fears must force her to feel almost necessary to her existence. At length, my confidence in her was rewarded. Coming out into the hall, she hurried past my door, her finger on her lip. I immediately rose and stood on the threshold with another paper in my hand, which I had prepared against this opportunity. As she glided back, I put it in her hand, and warning her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual occupation. The words I had written were as follows:

At or as near the time as possible of your brother’s going out, you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with your shawl over your head. Leave the skirt and shawl behind you, and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs. You are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid down. Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no; but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without bloodshed and without shame to one you know.

Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not soften toward it. Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one inquiring look. But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward on the floor, and would listen to no appeal. My resolve had its effect. Bowing her head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand on her heart, looked up and glided from the room. I took up that paper and tore it into bits.

And now for the first time since I had been in the house, I closed the door of my room. I had a part to perform that rendered the dropping of my disguise indispensable. The old French artist had finished his work, and henceforth must merge into Q. the detective. Shortly before two o’clock