Dead Letter — The Haunted Grave, part 2

Committing his darling to the housekeeper's charge, with many instructions and warnings, and a lingering look which betrayed his anxiety, Mr. Burton was soon ready, and we departed, taking a stage for Fulton Ferry a little after one o'clock.

About an hour and a quarter brought us to the brick house on Court street, far out toward the suburbs, which had the number indicated upon it.

No one questioned our coming, it being a tenement-house, and we ascended a long succession of stairs, until we came to the fourth floor, and stood before the door on the left-hand side.

I trembled a little with excitement.

My companion, laying his hand firmly on the knob, was arrested by finding the door locked.

At this he knocked; but there was no answer to his summons.

Amid the assortment of keys which he carried with him, he found one to fit the lock; in a moment the door stood open, and we entered to meet--blank solitude!

The room had evidently been deserted but a short time, and by some one expecting to return.

There was a fire covered down in the stove, and three or four potatoes in the oven to be baked for the humble supper.

There was no trunk, no chest, no clothing in the room, only the scant furniture which Lenore had described, a few dishes in the cupboard, and some cooking utensils, which had been rented, probably, with the room.

On the table were two things confirmatory of the occupants--a bowl, containing the remains of a child's dinner of bread-and-milk, and a piece of embroidery--a half-finished collar.

At Mr. Burton's request I went down to the shop on the first floor, and inquired in what direction the young woman with the child had gone, and how long she had been out.

"She went, maybe, half an hour ago; she took the little girl out for a walk, I think.

She told me she'd be back before supper, when she stopped to pay for a bit of coal, and to have it carried up."

I returned with this information.

"I'm sorry, now, that we inquired," said the detective; "that fellow will be sure to see her first, and tell her that she has had callers;

that will frighten her at once.

I must go below, and keep my watch from there."

"If you do not care for a second person to watch with you, I believe I will go on to Greenwood.

We are so near it, now, and I would like to visit poor Henry's grave."

"I do not need you at all now; only, do not be absent too long.

When I meet this Leesy Sullivan, whom I have not yet seen, you remember, I want a long talk with her.

The last object I have is to frighten her; I shall seek to soothe her instead.

If I can once meet her face to face, and voice to voice, I believe I can tame the antelope, or the lioness, whichever she turns out to be.

I do not think I shall have to coerce her--not even if she is guilty.

If she is guilty she will give herself up.

I may even take her home to dinner with us," he added, with a smile.

"Don't shudder, Mr. Redfield; we often dine in company with murderers--sometimes when we have only our friends and neighbors with us.

I assure you I have often had that honor!"

His grim humor was melancholy to me--but who could wonder that a man of Mr. Burton's peculiar experience should be touched with cynicism?

Besides, I felt that there was more in the inner meaning of his words than appeared upon their outer surface.

I left him, sitting in a sheltered corner of the shop below, in a position where he could command the street and the entrance-hall without being himself observed, and making himself friendly with the busy little man behind the counter, of whom he had already purchased a pint of chestnuts.

It would be as well that I should be out of the way.

Miss Sullivan knew me, and might take alarm at some distant glimpse of me, while Mr. Burton's person must be unknown to her, unless she had been the better detective of the two, and marked him when he was ignorant of her vicinity.

Stepping into a passing car, in a few minutes I had gone from the city of the living to the city of the dead.

Beautiful and silent city!

There the costly and gleaming portals, raised at the entrance of those mansions, tell us the name and age of the inhabitants, but the inhabitants themselves we never behold.

Knock as loud and long as we may at those marble doors, cry, entreat, implore, they hold themselves invisible.

Nevermore are they "at home" to us.

We, who once were never kept waiting, must go from the threshold now, without a word of welcome.

City of the dead--to which that city of the living must soon remove--who is there that can walk thy silent streets without a prescience of the time when he, too, will take up his abode in thee for ever?

Strange city of solitude!

where thousands whose homes are ranged side by side, know not one the other, and give no greeting to the pale new-comers.

With meditations like these, only far too solemn for words, I wandered through the lovely place, where, still, summer seemed to linger, as if loth to quit the graves she beautified.

With Eleanor and Henry in my heart, I turned in the direction of the family burial-plot, wishing that Eleanor were with me on that glorious day, that she might first behold his grave under such gentle auspices of light, foliage and flowers--for I knew that she contemplated a pilgrimage to this spot, as soon as her strength would warrant the attempt.

I approached the spot by a winding path; the soft plash of a fountain sounded through a little thicket of evergreens, and I saw the gleam of the wide basin into which it fell; a solitary bird poured forth a mournful flood of lamentation from some high branch not far away.

It required but little aid of fancy to hear in that "melodious madness" the cry of some broken heart, haunting, in the form of this bird, the place of the loved one's sleep.

There were other wanderers than myself in the cemetery; a funeral train was coming through the gate as I passed in, and I met another within a few steps; but in the secluded path where I now walked I was alone.

With the slow steps of one who meditates sad things, I approached Henry's grave.

Gliding away by another devious path, I saw a female figure.

"It is some other mourner, whom I have disturbed from her vigil by some of these tombs," I thought--"or, perchance, one who was passing further on before reaching the goal of her grief,"--and with this I dismissed her from my mind, having had, at the best, only an indistinct glimpse of the woman, and the momentary flutter of her garments as she passed beyond a group of tall shrubs and was lost to view.

The next moment I knelt by the sod which covered that young and noble form.

Do not think me extravagant in my emotions.

I was not so--only overpowered, always, by intense sympathy with the sufferers by that calamity.

I had so mused upon Eleanor's sorrow that I had, as it were, made it mine.

I bowed my head, breathing a prayer for her, then leaning against the trunk of a tree whose leaves no longer afforded shade to the carefully-cultivated family inclosure, my eyes fell upon the grave.

There were beautiful flowers fading upon it, which some friendly hand had laid there within a week or two.

Ten or fifteen minutes I may have passed in reverie; then, as I arose to depart, I took up a fading bud or two and a sprig of myrtle, placing them in my vest-pocket to give Eleanor on my return.

As I stooped to gather them, I perceived the imprint of a child's foot, here and there, all about the grave--a tiny imprint, in the fresh mold, as of some toddling babe whose little feet had hardly learned to steady themselves.

There were one or two marks of a woman's slender shoe; but it was the infant feet which impressed me.

It flashed upon me what female figure it was which I had seen flitting away as I approached; now that I recalled it, I even recognized the tall, slender form, with the slight stoop of the shoulders, of which I had obtained but a half-glance.

I

hastily pursued the path she had taken; but my haste was behind hers by at least a quarter of an hour.

I realized that I would only lose time by looking for her in those winding avenues, every one of which might be taking me from instead of toward the fugitives; so I turned back to the gate and questioned the keeper if he had seen a tall young woman with a little child pass out in the last half-hour.

He had seen several children and women go out in that time; and as I could not tell how this particular one was dressed, I could not arouse his recollection to any certainty on the point.

"She was probably carrying the child," I said; "she had a consumptive look, and was sad-looking, though her face was doubtless hidden in her vail."

"It's quite likely," he responded; "mostly the women that do come here look sad, and many of them keep their vails down.

However, it's my impression there hasn't no child of that age been past here, lately.

I

noticed one going in about two o'clock, and if it's _that_ one, she hasn't come out yet."

So while Mr. Burton sat in the shop in Court street keeping watch, I sat at the gates of Greenwood; but no Leesy Sullivan came forth; and when the gates were closed for the night, I was obliged to go away disappointed.

The girl began to grow some elusive phantom in my mind.

I could almost doubt that there was any such creature, with black, wild eyes and hectic cheeks, whom I was pursuing; whom I chanced upon in strange places, at unexpected times, but could never find when I sought her--who seemed to blend herself in this unwarrantable way with the tragedy which wrung some other hearts.

What had she to do with Henry's grave?

A feeling of dislike, of mortal aversion, grew upon me--I could not pity her any more--this dark spirit who, having perchance wrought this irremediable woe, could not now sink into the depths where she belonged, but must haunt and hover on the edges of my trouble, fretting me to follow her, only to mock and elude.

Before leaving the cemetery I offered two policemen a hundred dollars if they should succeed in detaining the woman and child whose description I gave them, until word could be sent to the office of the detective-police; and I left them, with another on guard at the gates, perambulating the grounds, peering into vaults and ghostly places in search of her.

When I got out at the house on Court street, I found my friend quite tired of eating chestnuts and talking to the little man behind the counter.

"Well," said he, "the potatoes will be roasted to death before their owner returns.

We have been led another wild-goose chase."

"I have seen her," I answered.

"What?"

"And lost her.

I believe she is a little snaky, she has such a slippery way with her."

"Tut!

tut!

so has a frightened deer!

But how did it happen?"

I told him, and he was quite downcast at the unlucky fortune which had sent me to the cemetery at that particular time.

It was evident that she had seen me, and was afraid to return to this new retreat, for fear she was again tracked.

"However," said he, "I'm confident we'll have her now before long.

I

_must_ go home to-night to see my Lenore; I promised her, and she will make herself sick sitting up."

"Go; and let me remain here.

I will stay until it is perfectly apparent that she does not expect to return."

"It will spoil the dinner.

But, now that we have sacrificed so much, a few hours more of inconvenience--" "Will be willingly endured.

I will get some bread and cheese and a glass of beer of your friend, the penny-grocer, and remain at my post."

"You need not stay later than twelve; which will bring you home about two, at the slow rate of midnight travel.

I shall sit up for you.

_Au revoir.

_" I changed my mind about supping at the grocer's as the twilight deepened into night.

The dim light of the hall and staircase, part of them in total darkness, enabled me to steal up to the deserted room unperceived by any one of the other inmates of the great building.

Here I put fresh coal on the fire, and by the faint glow which soon came from the open front of the stove, I found a chair, and placing it so that it would be in the shadow upon the opening of the door, I seated myself to await the return of the occupants.

The odor of roasting potatoes, given forth at the increased heat, admonished me that I had partaken of but a light lunch since an early and hasty breakfast; drawing forth one from the oven, I made a frugal meal upon it, and then ordered my soul to patience.

I sat long in the twilight of the room; I could hear the bells of the city chiming the passing hours;

the grocer and variety-storekeepers closing the shutters of their shops; the shuffling feet of men coming home, to such homes as they had in the dreary building, until nearly all the noises of the street and house died away.

Gazing on the fire, I wondered where that strange woman was keeping that little child through those unwholesome hours.

Did she carry it in her arms while she hovered, like a ghost, amid the awful quiet of drooping willows and gleaming tombstones?

Did she rock it to sleep on her breast, in the fearful shadow of some vault, with a row of coffins for company?

Or was she again fleeing over deserted fields, crouching in lonely places, fatigued, distressed, panting under the weight of the innocent babe who slumbered on a guilty bosom, but driven still, on, on, by the lash of a dreadful secret?

I made wild pictures in the sinking embers, as I mused; were I an artist I would reproduce them in all their lurid light and somber shadow; but I am not.

The close air of the place, increased in drowsiness by the gas from the open doors of the stove, the deep silence, and my own fatigue, after the varying journeys and excitements of the day, at last overcame me; I remember hearing the town clock strike eleven, and after that I must have slumbered.

As I slept, I continued my waking dreams; I thought myself still gazing in the smoldering fire; that the sewing-girl came in without noise, sat down before it, and silently wept over the child who lay in her arms;

that Lenore came out of the golden embers, with wings tipped with ineffable brightness, looking like an angel, and seemed to comfort the mourner, and finally took her by the hand, and passing me, so that I felt the motion of the air swept by her wings and garments, led her out through the door, which closed with a slight noise.

At the noise made by the closing door, I awoke.

As I gathered my confused senses about me, I was not long in coming to the conclusion that I had, indeed, heard a sound and felt the air from an open door--some one had been in the room.

I looked at my watch by a match which I struck, for the fire had now entirely expired.

It was one o'clock.

Vexed beyond words that I had slumbered, I rushed out into the empty passages, where, standing silent, I listened for any footstep.

There was not the echo of a sound abroad.

The halls were wrapped in darkness.

Quietly and swiftly I felt my way down to the street; not a soul to be seen in any direction.

Yet I felt positive that Leesy Sullivan, creeping from her shelter, had returned to her room at that midnight hour, had found me there, _sleeping_, and had fled.

Soon a car, which now ran only at intervals of half an hour, came along, and I gave up my watch for the night, mortified at the result.

It was three o'clock when I reached Mr. Burton's door.

He opened it before I could ring the bell.

"No success?

I was afraid of it.

You see I have kept up for you; and now, since the night is so far spent, if you are not too worn-out, I wish you would come with me to a house not very far from here.

I want to show you how some of the fast young men of New York spend the hours in which they ought to be in bed."

"I am wide awake, and full of curiosity; but how did you find your little daughter?"

"Drooping a little, but persisting that she was not ill nor tired, and delighted with the flowers."

"Then you did not forget the bouquet?"

"No, I never like to disappoint Lenore."

Locking the door behind us, we again descended to the deserted street.