Chapter VII

SAUNDERS ALMOST LOSES HIS MIND, WHILE CAPTAIN YOUNG WHOLLY LOSES HIS TIME.

As soon as Captain Young had reported what had passed at the morgue, Mr. Kelly’s first act was to notify the sheriff of the district to meet him at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street, and he set out immediately for this place in company with the detective. The chief of the police wished to see things for himself, and to profit by the occasion that was offered him to visit the house of this Ada Ricard, of whom he had heard so much.

These two gentlemen found on the threshold of the house Sheriff Mortimer waiting for them. In a few words they acquainted him with the situation, then rang the bell. Mary, who answered it at once, could not help a movement of terror at the sight of these three stern-looking men, who were unknown to her. The sheriff gave his name, and the visitors entered a small reception-room on the ground-floor.

“Who are you?” then asked stout Mr. Kelly, of the young girl, as he sank into a chair.

“The maid of Miss Ada Ricard,” answered Mary, with a certain calmness.

“Well, Miss Ada Ricard, your mistress, is at the morgue; she has been found drowned in the river,” said her questioner, abruptly.

“Miss Ada drowned!” cried the servant; “it is impossible.”

“Why impossible?” resumed Kelly. “Did you know where she was?”

“No, not positively; but I believed her on a voyage, for the day after my mistress was carried away she wrote me that she would be absent a month at least--perhaps more.”

“She has returned sooner, but dead. You say that she wrote you. Where is the letter?”

“I gave it to Mr. Saunders, who came just as I had received it.”

“Did your mistress receive any one else?”

“Never.”

“Did she go out often?”

“Very seldom, and I am certain she had no relatives in the city. She had confidence in me and told me everything.”

“Had you had any news of her after that letter of which you speak?”

“No, sir; and I was perfectly free from anxiety. Miss Ada ordered me to dismiss the servants and take care of the house until her return. I cannot believe that she is dead.”

“You must go to the morgue to identify her.”

“I am ready to obey your orders, sir.”

“In the first place show us the house; are you alone here?”

“Quite alone.”

Saying this, Mary showed the magistrates into the dining-room; then, while the terrible Young visited the kitchens down-stairs, she ascended the first flight with Kelly and the sheriff.

“Ah! Ah! It is very fine here; there are signs of Saunders’ gifts, he is a lavish fellow,” the sceptical Kelly could not help saying as he crossed the parlors where we conducted our readers in the first chapter of this story.

Let us continue. They passed into the sleeping-room. It was a delightful room, hung in blue satin, embroidered with flowers and birds. The bed was a marvel of costliness and taste; the floor was completely covered by a soft Turkish rug.

“Is that all?” said the chief of police.

“Perhaps the gentlemen would like to see the dressing and bathing-room,” suggested the young girl.

“Dear me,” said Kelly, looking at Mortimer with a peculiar smile.

Mary raised the heavy portiere and introduced the two magistrates into an adjoining room, the sight of which drew an “o-o-oh!” of admiration even from the grave sheriff himself.

It would be impossible, indeed, to dream of anything more dainty than this room, for Ada Ricard had made it a real boudoir. The smallest articles of the toilet were objects of art, as well as Venetian mirrors and the small Bohemian glass lamps which hung from a ceiling draped with rare Japanese material. As for the bath-room, which communicated with the dressing-room, it was of white marble and silver. This room alone must have cost a large sum. It was there that Captain Young rejoined the two officers.

After searching the basement, the chief of detectives had visited the upper story, where were the linen closets and servants’ rooms, and he stated that he found no one there or in the kitchens, and that everything was in order.

The house, indeed, had no appearance of being abandoned. It looked like one whose mistress was soon to return. When one thought that its mistress was lying on the slabs in the morgue, it sent a chill to the heart.

Kelly’s besetting sin was not sensibility. The delight of this wealth awoke in his mind but one thought, “Who will be the heir of all this?” and it naturally led him to say to Mary: “Where are the jewels of your mistress?”

“Those which madam did not wear on the day of her departure,” she answered, “are in a little scarlet chest in the wardrobe of her sleeping-room. Miss Ada, no doubt, has the key about her, for I have not found it in looking over things, and her bank notes and money must be in that same chest. There were only twenty dollars in gold on her dressing table, of which I made use to settle the servants’ accounts. The remainder of the sum is up in my room.”

“Are you acquainted with Miss Ada’s family?”

“No, sir. I know that my mistress had been married, but I do not know the name of her husband. He lived, I think, in Buffalo. She never spoke of any relatives.”

“They must be found, however, for now everything here belongs to them.”

“Oh, they will present themselves fast enough if it is found that madam is really dead.”

“You soon will cease to doubt.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you are going to the morgue to identify the body. Captain Young will accompany you, and escort you afterwards to the judge to make your statement. After which you will return to pack up your clothing and receive my orders.”

“Very well, sir.”

Greatly impressed, either by the mere fact of the terrible news which she had just heard, or by the manner in which the big, surly man had talked to her, Mary went up to her room accompanied by the terrible Young, who did not say a word, but disturbed her by looking at her in a manner he fancied searching, and grumbling disconnected sentences. On reaching her room, the young lady hastily put on her hat and threw a cloak over her shoulders, and then rejoined the magistrates in the large parlor on the first floor. Mr. Mortimer was making an entry in his note-book.

“In the first place,” said Mr. Kelly to the maid, “lock up the furniture, and give the keys to the sheriff.”

Still accompanied by the giant detective, Mary went over the silent house again, from basement to attic, and a moment later returned and handed a bunch of keys to Mortimer.

“Now,” said the chief, “we can leave.”

They all four descended the steps, and when they had reached the street, the sheriff locked the doors of the house; then after calling a policeman from the sidewalk opposite, bade him watch the house, and went away with Kelly. As for Captain Young, after stopping a carriage passing, he entered it with the maid, shouting to the driver in a stentorian voice: “To the central morgue, Bellevue Hospital.”

A quarter of an hour later they arrived. Night was coming on; and the exhibition-hall was somewhat dark when Mary entered it with Young and the clerk. At the sight of the corpse the girl, already excited, began to tremble, and the detective had to support her.

“Come,” he said rudely, “come and look at it.”

“But I can’t see a thing, sir,” she murmured.

The director of the morgue had foreseen this, and beckoned to one of the workmen who had a lantern, and turned its light upon the face of the dead woman. It stood out in the glare of light, while the body remained somewhat in shadow, and was horrible to see; not that it was disfigured, but because of the optical conditions in which it appeared.

Mary, whom the captain, still holding by the arm, had led up to touch the corpse, uttered a cry of terror.

“Well,” said the pitiless guide, “let’s get through with it. It is really your mistress, isn’t it?”

The young girl, fortifying herself with all the courage she possessed, resolved to look straight at the corpse, and immediately answered:

“No, no; that woman is not Miss Ada.”

“What!” cried the clerk and Young at the same moment, in a tone of amazement impossible to convey. “Not Miss Ada? Why, her former coachman recognized her at once.”

“But I don’t recognize her,” said Mary with certain positiveness. “This woman resembles her very much, but I don’t think it is she. At least I could not declare it is. Yet, it is strange; but, oh! dear, I am afraid, gentlemen; do let me go away.”

“We must have a positive answer,” said the captain. “Devil take you, do try. Take one good look at her.”

“I cannot, my mind, my eyes are confused, my head swims, take me away,” stammered the young girl turning aside her head.

On saying these words she had, indeed, become pale, and had it not been for the aid of the detective would have fallen to the ground.

Finding that they could accomplish nothing further for the moment, at least, they led her to the clerk’s room. There she became calmer, and in a few moments was able to enter the carriage with Captain Young, who took her to the sheriff’s.

The maid, who had recovered her composure, declared to this magistrate that she had not positively recognized her mistress in the drowned woman, but that her emotion, it was true, had not enabled her to look with sufficient attention. Mr. Mortimer made her sign an official report to this effect, and they then returned to poor Ada’s house, from which the young girl took away her belongings.

By agreement with the coroner, while waiting until the worthy sheriff had appointed a watch over the house, in which it had been decided that Mary should be included, that she might recognize persons who might appear, she was required to live in a house in the neighborhood and hold herself at the orders of the justices.

These formalities arranged, and Mary being established at Washington Hotel, Mr. Mortimer hastened to the chief of police to tell him how things had gone on at the morgue.

“Oh!” said Kelly, “the affair is becoming complicated. That foolish girl was frightened, no doubt, but we shall soon know what to do. I have given orders to have all Ada Ricard’s former servants appear at the morgue the first thing to-morrow morning.”

This measure, which would usually necessitate long and difficult search, was executed in New York with great ease and despatch, by reason of the intelligent method which the American police employ to keep the whole body of household servants within call.

Every servant, to whatever class he belongs, receives a dollar when he goes to the coroner in his district and states that he is to enter into service at such or such a house, and they also give him one dollar when he changes his place and gives the address of the new house he is to enter.

In circumstances like those which arose from the violent death of Ada Ricard, the police and magistrate thus know where to find at once people whose information might be of importance.

Mr. Kelly, therefore, was almost certain that the majority of the former servants of the dead woman would come to Bellevue Hospital the next day; and as Doctor O’Neel had informed him that, under the influence of the air and the place in which it was exposed, the body would rapidly decompose, he had engaged Albert Moor, the skilful modeler of the Anatomical Museum of the School of Medicine, to come to the hospital.

As for the unhappy Saunders, whom we left at the close of the preceding chapter, after leaving the house with William Dow, he returned home in a state of complete prostration.

His physician, whom they called at once, feared congestion of the brain, and he forbade visitors. In spite of this order, toward eight o’clock a man disregarded it, and entered the sleeping room where the unfortunate cracker-merchant, lying exhausted in an arm-chair, with his lower lip hanging down, and his eyes suffused, murmured as he gazed at a photograph:

“Poor Ada! poor Ada! Why did I not jump into the water to save you?” The man who entered was Robertson, Jr.

Saunders barely recognized him, but his visitor none the less said to him, trying to make himself understood:

“It is a great misfortune, dear sir, and you must form some plan. But, you know, communications which we make to our clients are absolutely confidential, and the steps we take in their interest must remain secret. I have not the honor of being acquainted with you. I have never had the pleasure of seeing you, or of taking a walk with you. What the police may seek, find or not find, is their affair, not ours.”

“Ah, yes; down there at Staten Island, at night,” gasped Saunders.

“I do not know what you mean,” quietly remarked the young head of the house of Robertson Brothers & Co.

Saunders looked at him with the eye of an idiot, made a visible effort to answer him, but his face sank heavily in his hands, and he repeated: “Poor Ada, poor Ada!”

Mr. Robertson shrugged his shoulders and left. His lips formed into a smile of satisfaction, for, in his opinion, the former protector of the drowned woman had not had a gleam of reason in his brain for twenty-four hours.

Meanwhile the intrepid Young scattered his agents all along the wharves, and ransacked the innumerable dens from Shakespeare’s tavern to Harlem, but in vain, finding no sign of any useful information.