Dead Letter — Mr. Burton, the Detective, part 2

Shut up in the private parlor which I obtained at the Metropolitan, the subject of the murder was again broached and thoroughly discussed.

Mr. Burton won my confidence so inevitably that I felt no hesitation in unvailing to him the domestic hearth of Mr. Argyll, whenever the habits or circumstances of the family were consulted in their bearing upon the mystery.

And when he said to me, fixing his eye upon me, but speaking gently, "You, too, loved the young lady,"--I neither blushed nor grew angry.

That penetrating eye had read the secret of my heart, which had never been spoken or written, yet I did not feel outraged that he had dared to read it out to me.

If he could find any matter against me in that holiest truth of my existence, he was welcome to it.

"Be it so," I said; "that is with myself, and no one else."

"There are others who love her," he continued, "but there is a difference in the quality of love.

There is that which sanctifies, and something, called by the same name, which is an excuse for infinite perfidy.

In my experience I have found the love of woman and the love of money at the bottom of most mischief--the greed of gain is by far the commonest and strongest; and when the two are combined, there is motive enough for the darkest tragedy.

But you spoke of a young woman, of whom you have suspicions."

I told Mr. Burton that in this matter I trusted to his discretion; that I had not brought it to notice before Mr. Browne, because I shrunk from the danger of fixing a ruinous suspicion upon a person who might be perfectly innocent; yet that circumstances were such as to demand investigation, which I was sure he was the person to carry on.

I then gave him a careful account of every thing I had seen or learned about the sewing-girl.

He agreed with me that she ought to be placed under secret surveillance.

I told him that the officer from Blankville would be in after tea, when we could consult together and dispose of the discussion before the arrival of James and Mr. Browne--and I then rung the bell, ordering a light supper in our room.

The Blankville official had nothing to report of Miss Sullivan, except that she had not arrived either at her boarding-house or at the shop where she was employed, and her character stood high at both places.

She had been represented to him as a "strictly proper" person, very reserved, in poor health, with a sad appearance, and an excellent workwoman--that no gentlemen were ever known to call to see her, and that she never went out after returning to her boarding-house at the close of work-hours.

We then requested him to say nothing about her to his brother officers, and to keep the matter from the newspapers, as we should regret doing an irreparable injury to one who might be guiltless.

It seemed as if the Fates were in favor of the guilty.

Mr. Browne, punctually at eight o'clock, reported that there was none of the money paid out to James Argyll at Mr. Argyll's order, which the bank would identify--not even its own bill of five hundred dollars, which was a recent issue.

They had paid out such a bill on the draft, but the number was not known to them.

"However," said Mr. Browne, "bills of that denomination are not common, and we shall be on the lookout for them, wherever offered."

"But even should the robber be discovered, there is no proof that it would establish any connection with the murder.

It may have been a coincidence," remarked James.

"I have often noticed that one calamity is sure to be followed by another.

If there is a railroad disaster, a powder-mill explosion, a steamer destroyed by fire, before the horror of the first accident has done thrilling our nerves, we are pretty certain to be startled by another catastrophe."

"I, too," said Mr. Burton, "have remarked the succession of events--echoes, as it were, following the clap of thunder.

And I have usually found that, like the echoes, there was a natural cause for them."

James moved uneasily in his chair, arose, pulled aside the curtain, and looked out into the night.

I had often noticed that he was somewhat superstitious; perhaps he saw the eyes of Henry Moreland looking down at him from the starry hights; he twitched the curtains together with a shiver, and came back to us.

"It is not impossible," he said, keeping his face in the shadow, for he did not like us to see how the night had affected him, "that some one of the clerks in Mr. Moreland's banking-house--perhaps some trusted and responsible person--was detected by Henry, in making false entries, or some other dishonesty--and that to save himself the disgrace of betrayal and dismissal, he has put the discoverer out of the way.

The whole business of the establishment ought to be thoroughly overhauled.

It appears that Henry went directly to the cars from the office; so that if any trouble had arisen between him and one of the employees, there would have been no opportunity for his consulting his father, who was not at the place all that afternoon."

"Your suggestion is good," said Mr. Browne, "and must be attended to."

"The whereabouts of every one of the employees, down to the porter, at the time of the murder, are already accounted for.

They were all in the city," said Mr. Burton, with precision.

Shortly after, the party separated for the night.

An urgent invitation came from Mr. Moreland for James and myself to stop at his house during our stay in the city; but we thought it better not to disturb the quiet of the house of mourning with the business which we wished to press forward, and returned an answer to that effect.

It was nearly ten o'clock when James recollected that we had not been to the offices of the daily journals with the advertisements which ought to appear in the morning.

It was the work of a few minutes for me to write one out, which we then copied on three or four sheets of paper, and finding an errand-boy below, we dispatched him with two of the copies to as many journals, and ourselves hurried off with the others.

I went to one establishment and my companion to another, in order to hasten proceedings, knowing that it was doubtful if we could get them inserted at that late hour.

Having succeeded to my satisfaction with my own errand, I thought I would walk over to the next street and meet James, whom, having a little further than I to go, I would probably meet, returning.

As I neared the building to which he had gone, and which was brilliantly lighted up for its night-work, I saw James come out on the pavement, look around him an instant, and then start off in a direction opposite to that which would lead back to Broadway and his hotel.

He had not observed me, who chanced to be in shadow at the moment; and I, without any particular motive which I could analyze, started after him, thinking to overtake him and offer to join him in a walk.

He went, however, at so rapid a pace, that I still remained behind.

Our course lay through Nassau and Fulton streets, to the Brooklyn ferry.

I

quickened my pace almost to a run, as James passed into the ferry-house, for I saw that a boat was about to start; but I had a vexatious delay in finding small change, so that I got through just in time to see the boat move off, James himself having to take a flying leap to reach it after it was under way.

At that hour there was a boat only every fifteen minutes; of course I gave up the pursuit; and sitting down at the end of the bridge, I allowed the cool wind from the bay and river to blow against my hot face, while I gazed out on the dark waters, listening to their incessant moaning about the piers, and watching where they glimmered beneath the lights of the opposite shore.

The blue and red lamps of the moving vessels, in my present mood, had a weird and ghastly effect; the thousands of masts of the moored shipping stood up naked against the sky, like a forest of blighted, skeleton pines.

Sadness, the deepest I had ever felt in my life, fell upon me--sadness too deep for any expression.

The shifting water, slipping and sighing about the works of men which fretted it; the unapproachable, glittering sky; the leafless forest, the wind fresh from its ocean solitudes--these partially interpreted it, but not wholly.

Their soul, as far as the soul of Nature goes, was in unison with mine; but in humanity lies a still deeper deep, rises a higher hight.

I was as much alone as if nearly a million fellow-creatures were not so encircling me.

I thought of the many tragedies over which these waters had closed; of the secrets they had hidden; of the many lives sucked under these ruthless bridges; of the dark creatures who haunted these docks at evil hours--but most I thought of a distant chamber, where a girl, who yesterday was as full of love and beauty as a morning rose is full of dew and perfume--whose life ran over with light--whose step was imperial with the happiness of youth--lay, worn and pallid, upon her weary bed, breathing sighs of endless misery.

I thought of the funeral procession which to-morrow, at noon, should come by this road and travel these waters, to that garden of repose, whose white tombstones I knew, although I could not see them, gleamed now under the "cold light of stars."

[Illustration: BAFFLED.

Page 64. ] Thus I sat, wrapped in musings, until a policeman, who, it is likely, had long had his eye upon me, wondering if I were a suspicious character, called out--"Take care of your legs, young man!"

and I sprung to my feet, as the return boat came into her slip, drifting up and bumping sullenly against the end of the bridge where my legs had been dangling.

I waited until, among the not numerous passengers, I perceived James hurrying by, when I slipped my hand into his arm quietly, saying, "You led me quite a race--what in the world have you been across to Brooklyn for?"

He jumped at my voice and touch; then grew angry, as people are apt to do when they are startled or frightened, after the shock is over.

"What business is that of yours, sir?

How dare you follow me?

If you have taken upon yourself the office of spy, let me know it."

"I beg your pardon," I answered, withdrawing from his arm, "I walked over to the H---- office to meet you, and saw you walk off in this direction.

I had no particular object in following you, and perhaps ought not to have done it."

"I spoke too hastily," he said, almost immediately.

"Forget it, Richard.

You pounced upon me so unexpectedly, you gave me a nervous shock--irritated my combativeness, I suppose.

I thought, of course, you had returned to the hotel, and feeling too restless to go back to my little bedroom, there, I determined to try the effect of a ride across the river.

The bracing air has toned me up.

I believe I can go back and sleep"--offering his arm again, which I took, and we slowly retraced our steps to the Metropolitan.

I will not pain the heart of my reader by forcing him to be one of the mournful procession which followed Henry Moreland to his untimely grave.

At two o'clock of Tuesday, all was over.

The victim was hidden away from the face of the earth--smiling, as if asleep, dreaming of his Eleanor, he was consigned to that darkness from whence he should never awaken and find her--while the one who had brought him low walked abroad under the sunlight of heaven.

To give that guilty creature no peace was the purpose of my heart.

James resolved to return to Blankville by the five o'clock train.

He looked sick, and said that he felt so--that the last trying scene had "used him up;" and then, his uncle would surely want one of us to assist him at home.

To this I assented, intending myself to stay in the city a day or two, until Mr. Burton was prepared to go out to Blankville with me.

After such of the friends from the village as had come down to attend the funeral, had started for home in the afternoon cars, I went to my room to have another interview with the detective.

In the mean time, I had heard some of the particulars of Mr. Burton's history, which had greatly increased the interest I already felt in him.

He had chosen his present occupation out of a consciousness of his fitness for it.

He was in independent circumstances, and accepted no salary for what was with him a labor of love; seldom taking any of the liberal sums pressed upon him by grateful parties who had benefited by his skill, except to cover expenses to which long journeys, or other necessities of the case, might have subjected him.

He had been in the "profession" but a few years.

Formerly he had been a forwarding-merchant, universally esteemed for integrity, and carrying about him that personal influence which men of strong will and unusual discrimination exercise over those with whom they come in contact.

But that he had any extraordinary powers, of the kind which had since been developed, he was as ignorant as others.

An accident, which revealed these to him, shaped the future course of his life.

One wild and windy night the fire-bells of New York rung a fierce alarm; the flames of a large conflagration lighted the sky; the firemen toiled manfully, as was their wont, but the air was bitter and the pavements sleety, and the wintry wind "played such fantastic tricks before high heaven" as made the angel of mercy almost despair.

Before the fire could be subdued, four large warehouses had been burned to the ground, and in one of them a large quantity of uninsured merchandise for which Mr. Burton was responsible.

The loss, to him, was serious.

He barely escaped failure by drawing in his business to the smallest compass, and, by the exercise of great prudence, he managed to save a remnant of his fortune, with which, as soon as he could turn it to advantage, he withdrew from his mercantile career.

His mind was bent on a new business, which unfitted him for any other.

The fire was supposed to be purely accidental; the insurance companies, usually cautious enough, had paid over their varying amounts of insurance to those fortunate losers, who were not, like Mr. Burton, unprepared.

These losers were men of wealth, and the highest position as business firms--high and mighty potentates, against whom to breathe a breath of slander, was to overwhelm the audacious individual in the ruins of his own presumption.

Mr. Burton had an inward conviction that these men were guilty of arson.

He knew it.

His mind perceived their guilt.

But he could make no allegation against them upon such unsubstantial basis as this.

He went to work, quietly and singly, to gather up the threads in the cable of his proof; and when he had made it strong enough to hang them twice over--for two lives, that of a porter and a clerk, had been lost in the burning buildings--he threatened them with exposure, unless they made good to him the loss which he had sustained through their villainy.

They laughed at him from their stronghold of respectability.

He brought the case into court.

Alas!

for the pure, white statue of Justice which beautifies the desecrated chambers of the law.

Banded together, with inexhaustible means of corruption at their command, the guilty were triumphant.

During this experience, Mr. Burton had got an inside view of life, in the marts, on exchange, in the halls of justice, and in the high and low places where men do congregate.

It was as if, with the thread in his hand, which he had picked out, he unraveled the whole web of human iniquity.

Burning with a sense of his individual wrongs, he could not look calmly on and see others similarly exposed; he grew fascinated with his labor of dragging the dangerous secrets of a community to the light.

The more he called into play the peculiar faculties of his mind, which made him so successful a hunter on the paths of the guilty, the more marvelous became their development.

He was like an Indian on the trail of his enemy--the bent grass, the broken twig, the evanescent dew--which, to the uninitiated, were "trifles light as air," to him were "proofs strong as Holy Writ."

In this work he was actuated by no pernicious motives.

Upright and humane, with a generous heart which pitied the innocent injured, his conscience would allow him no rest if he permitted crime, which he could see walking where others could not, to flourish unmolested in the sunshine made for better uses.

He attached himself to the secret detective-police; only working up such cases as demanded the benefit of his rare powers.

Thus much of Mr. Burton had the chief of police revealed to me, during a brief interview in the morning; and this information, it may be supposed, had not lessened the fascinations which he had for me.

The first thing he said, after the greetings of the day, when he came to my room, was, "I have ascertained that our sewing-girl has one visitor, who is a constant one.

There is a middle-aged woman, a nurse, who brings a child, now about a year old, every Sunday to spend half the day with her, when she does not go up to Blankville.

On such occasions it is brought in the evening, some time during the week.

It passes, so says the landlady, for the child of a cousin of Miss Sullivan's, who was married to a worthless young fellow, who deserted her within three months, and went off to the west; the mother died at its birth, leaving it entirely unprovided for, and Miss Sullivan, to keep it out of the charity-hospital, hired this woman to nurse it with her own baby, for which she pays her twelve shillings a week.

She was, according to her story to the landlady, very much attached to her poor cousin, and could not cast off the little one for her sake."

"All of which may be true--" "Or false--as the case may turn."

"It certainly will not be difficult to ascertain if such a cousin really married and died, as represented.

The girl has not returned to her work yet, I suppose?"

"She has not.

Her absence gives the thing a bad look.

Some connection she undoubtedly has with the case; as for how deeply she was involved in it, we will only know when we find out.

Whoever the child's mother may have been, it seems evident, from the tenor of the landlady's story, that Miss Sullivan is much attached to it; it is safe to presume that, sooner or later, she will return to look after it.

In her anxiety to reach the nest, she will fly into the trap.

I have made arrangements by which I shall be informed if she appears at any of her former haunts, or at the house of the nurse.

And now, I believe, I will go up to Blankville with you for a single day.

I wish to see the ground of the tragedy, including Mr. Argyll's residence, the lawn, the library from which the money was abstracted, etc. A clear picture of these, carried in my mind, may be of use to me in unexpected ways.

If we hear nothing of her in the village, I will return to the city, and await her reäppearance here, which will be sure to occur within a month."

"Why within a month?"

"Women risk themselves, always, where a little child demands it.

When the nurse finds the baby abandoned by its protector, and the wages unpaid, she will throw the charge upon the authorities.

To prevent this, the girl will be back here to see after it.

However, I hope we shall not be a month getting at what we want.

It will be curious if we don't finish the whole of this melancholy business before that.

And, by the way, you and young Argyll had quite a hide-and-seek race the other night!"

and when I looked my astonishment at this remark, he only laughed.

"It's my profession, you know," was his only explanation.

CHAPTER VI.