CHAPTER II.

RECOGNISED.

In the course of either her professional or private career, Miss Montressor had never before found herself mixed up with so interesting a concatenation of circumstances. She was too true and intentional an actress, the concentrativeness to which she was hereafter to owe a very considerable success in her profession, ever to be able to lose sight of the dramatic side of any event, but it would be doing her a grievous wrong to say that it was uppermost in her mind on this occasion. She, like most women in her profession, had rarely had an opportunity of coming in contact with well-bred and well-educated women in any other than the most formal and superficial relations. Such an opportunity was now afforded her, though under melancholy and deeply-affecting circumstances, by the catastrophe which had befallen Helen Griswold, and there arose in the mind of the actress a genuine womanly sympathy, and strong liking for the young widow who bore her trouble with a calmness and a submission which the other, accustomed to the strong lines and the forced expressions of the dramatic rendering of feeling, instinctively admired, though she could not analyse.

Strictly speaking, her one interview with Helen Griswold had served the purposes for which Bryan Duval and Thornton Carey had relied upon her, and she was in no way bound to undergo any further painful emotion in connection with this subject. There had been indeed almost a tone of dismissal in Bryan Duval's manner, when he parted with her after their interview with Mrs. Griswold--something which intimated that she was now free to go and enjoy herself, and make the most of her stay in a new and delightful scene, where all the honours of popularity awaited her at the hands of the people who best knew how to make popularity pleasant. But Miss Montressor could not shake off the impression which Helen had made upon her, and the following morning, at an hour which rarely witnessed her curtains undrawn or her eyes unclosed, saw her again at the now desolate house in Fifth-avenue. The solemn silence which succeeds to the confusion and dismay of such intelligence as that of which the three had been the bearers on the previous day, had settled down upon the home of the murdered man; the tall front of the house showed long lines of white blinds, there was not a sound to be heard, not a head to be seen at the windows, and for any stir about it, the house itself might have been as dead as its master.

Miss Montressor rang at the bell very gently, and, after a slight delay, was admitted by a servant whom she had not seen before, and who, therefore, could not identify her with the visitor to Mrs. Jenkins of a previous occasion, but who had no difficulty in discovering that he was addressing the celebrated actress, curiosity concerning whom even present circumstances had not been able thoroughly to repress among the household. Miss Montressor had had no fixed purpose in her mind beyond making an inquiry for Mrs. Griswold, but when she had done so, had been assured that 'she was wonderfully well, considering,' the man, with a thoughtful regard for the feelings of his fellow servants who had not the chance of opening the door to Miss Montressor, suggested that perhaps that lady would like to see the nurse, who could give her full particulars of Mrs. Griswold's state.

Miss Montressor thought she would very much like to see the nurse. The man then showed her into the dining-room, and went joyfully to inform Mrs. Jenkins of the great chance that had turned up for her.

Mrs. Jenkins glanced into Helen's room, where she was still sleeping heavily under the influence of the opiate, and laying the child, who had dozed off so soundly asleep, by the mother's side, where she must touch her on awakening, went softly down the stairs to meet her sister.

There was no longer any disguise or concealment in the household; the nature of the accident to their master, at which Thornton Carey had dimly hinted when he entreated their care and caution of observing Mrs. Griswold, was now fully known and incessantly discussed among the servants, who had become in some mysterious way thoroughly acquainted with the facts revealed by Bryan Duval and Miss Montressor to their mistress on the preceding day.

Their horror and regret were extreme. Alston Griswold had the good will and good word of all who held a dependent position with regard to him, and it never occurred to them, as it would have done to English people under similar circumstances, to discern anything sinister in his change of name. If he had called himself Foster instead of Griswold, it was because he had good reasons for it; every one knew how sharp was the practice in his line of business. The newspapers containing accounts of the murder at Liverpool, had been eagerly looked up and read all over again, now that the details had gained additional and ghastly importance, for the members of the Griswolds' household and Mrs. Jenkins had been made thoroughly familiar with all the particulars, extending to Thornton Carey's commission to Jim with regard to the speedy delivery of the telegram. On only two points she had not been informed, for the good and sufficient reason that they had not come to the knowledge of Jim himself. One of these points was the name of the person to whom the telegram had been despatched, the other was the place from whence the answer was expected.

Mrs. Jenkins closed the door of the dining-room as noiselessly as if Helen, two stories above, might have been disturbed by its sound, and instinctively the two women addressed each other in a whisper.

'O, my dear Bess,' said Miss Montressor, 'what an awful thing this is! To think of our having talked about her that night and what she would wear at the play, and her husband being murdered all the time, and our knowing him.'

'Awful, indeed,' said Mrs. Jenkins, as she seated herself by her sister and possessed herself of her hand, 'but tell me, what is this about this pin?'

'What pin? asked Miss Montressor, momentarily oblivious.

'The pin you left on the table here yesterday--how did you come by it?'

'How did I come by it--didn't Mrs. Griswold tell you?'

'She! bless you, she has not been able to speak two rational words since the doctor came yesterday.'

'Why, that is one of the great points in the case, Bess. Mr. Foster, or rather Mr. Griswold, gave me that pin a few days before we left London, and told me himself that it belonged to his wife. It went a great way in making us sure that he was Mr. Griswold, and they say it is a most important piece of conviction in case they catch the murderers.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Jenkins, shaking her head, and looking extremely puzzled, 'it is very odd; I have seen that carved head before, only there were two of them, and they were not pins, they were wrist buttons. I know the thing as well as I know my own wedding-ring; and how Mrs. Griswold ever got hold of them is strange, for my Ephraim bought those very heads--I can swear by the little speck in the edge of the cap in that one of them up-stairs now--when he was travelling with Mr. and Mrs. Moffat, as a courier at Rome, for a mere nothing. He believed them to be shams, but some one who knew all about such things told him afterwards they were nothing of the sort; that they were real antiques--I suppose you know what that means, Clara? I don't, except being very old, and dug up somewhere; and the same person said that the man who sold them to my Eph must have stolen them, for they were worth ten times the price he gave for them, and he got ten times the price when he sold them afterwards to Warren.'

'Who is Warren?' said Miss Montressor.

It was on the tip of Mrs. Jenkins's tongue, when she happily remembered her husband's injunctions not to talk of him, so she simply said:

'Nobody particular; a man Eph knew in the way of business; but I cannot understand how Mrs. Griswold came by them.'

'She probably bought them,' said Miss Montressor, 'from the other man, and very likely paid him ten times as much as he paid to Eph. That's the way people who have lots of money get done. I don't see any beauty in the pin; and you must understand, Bess,' she continued, assuming a sudden air of very amusing propriety, 'that it was not as a present--at least not deliberate and intentional--I came by the pin. I just could not manage to keep my shawl on with a stupid little pin I had in it, and Mr. Foster took this one out of his scarf, and lent it to me. I never thought more of it till I found it in my shawl here at New York.'

Mrs. Jenkins let the subject drop. She had so nearly erred from her strict fidelity to Eph's directions, that the sooner she put herself out of reach of a similar danger the safer she felt. 'Well, it don't matter,' she said. 'It will be many a long day before Mrs. Griswold will have any thought of such things again. She kept up wonderfully yesterday, when you and Mr. Carey were here, and even till after the doctor had seen her, but she must have suffered horribly when she shut herself up in her own room, for when it got quite dark, and she hadn't rung her bell, or made no sign, Justine and I got frightened, and we consulted as to what we had better do about going into the room without she had rung her bell; but, at last, I made up my mind I could not bear it any longer, and I took the baby and went in. She was lying all her length on the hearth-rug, with her face hidden in her hair and her hands; not insensible, she was in a kind of stupid despair. She let us lift her up like a log, and she never spoke one word, not even when I brought the baby to her. She just took her little hand up listlessly in hers for a minute, and let it drop.'

In the fulness of her heart, Mrs. Jenkins's homely manner gained a certain dignity of refinement, which acted immediately upon the sensitive nerves of her sister, whose tears fell silently, and who saw with her mental vision the scene her sister's words represented.

'And then we got her into bed, and sent for the doctor. He gave her a sleeping draught, and said she was to be watched. Justine wanted to sit up with her, but I would not let her--she is young, and young people are never wakeful--so I stayed and sat until this morning, just outside the curtain, peeping at her through a little chink where it joined the tester; and through the chink I could see her eyes wide open, quite unchanged all through the hours of night. I suppose it was the medicine that kept her so still, for she neither sighed, moaned, spoke, nor stirred. She might have been a dead woman, with only the eyes alive, until after the sun rose, and then she began to shiver. I put an eider-down over her, and in a few minutes she dropped asleep. I suppose it was the medicine had its own way at last, and there she is now.'

'The longer she sleeps the better; she has nothing but trouble to wake to,' said Miss Montressor. 'My goodness! I wonder why it is so--what harm did this creature ever do?'

'Ah,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'and what harm did Mr. Griswold ever do, or anything but good, so far as I can find out? They say here he hasn't an enemy in the world.'

'O, that's all nonsense, my dear!' said Miss Montressor. 'No man ever was so rich, so prosperous, and so happy as Mr. Griswold without having lots of enemies; the only wonderful thing is, that he could have any enemies so much in earnest about it as to run the risk of killing him. I suppose they will find out who did it?'

'Suppose they will find out!' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'Of course they will find out--what's the police for?'

'A good many people have been asking that same question lately,' said Miss Montressor, with a smile at her sister's simplicity. 'That is not, by a long way, the worst murder that they have not found out. You manage things better over here, I daresay, but in England, for some time past, the police have been making themselves famous either by catching no one at all in cases of crime, or by catching the wrong man.'

'They say it was not robbery,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'but that he was taken for somebody else.'

'That's all hearsay, my dear,' replied Miss Montressor, with an air of superior wisdom. 'Don't talk about it to the other servants, but I may tell you in confidence that Bryan Duval, who is about the best detective going, has very little doubt that the motive, if not the murderer, is to be found on this side the Atlantic.'

'No,' said Mrs. Jenkins; 'you don't say so! Then you may depend upon it he will be hunted down, because they tell me here there is no man more respected or liked than Mr. Griswold, in general; but that he has one friend whose devotion is quite a talk in the place.'

'Ah,' said Miss Montressor; 'I suppose that is Mr. Warren they were inquiring about yesterday? It is rather a pity he is away just now.'

Again Mrs. Jenkins felt herself on dangerous ground, and once more withdrew from it, changing the conversation to her sister's prospects and proceedings in New York.

The interview between the sisters lasted long, and was undisturbed by any summons from Helen. Once, in the course of it, Mrs. Jenkins went softly up-stairs, and looked into the room, whose stillness she dreaded to find roused into act of suffering. But Helen was still sleeping, with her child by her side. At first sight the scene was one of quiet and touching beauty, for the baby's face lay close to that of the girlish mother, and both looked equally fair; but on a nearer inspection, it might be seen that Helen's lips were colourless, and were marked with a dry, black line that comes of artificial sleep supervening upon acute suffering; and the waxen eyelids, which ranked among the chief beauties of her face, were tinged with purple; the weight of the weary head indented the pillow deeply, and the hands, listlessly stretched out, were cold and heavy. Mrs. Jenkins made some slight change in the attitude of the sleeper, fearing the constrained, long-maintained position, and again left her.

'She is sleeping still,' she said. 'One cannot look at her without thinking what a good thing it would be if she were never to wake.'

'O, nonsense, my dear Bess,' said Miss Montressor, who, having talked it out fully, was experiencing release from the tension of nerves occasioned by her excitement and genuine sympathy. 'It is an awful thing, no doubt, but she has youth, strength, and wealth to pull her through it--and these things do pull people through, somehow or other. She will be bright and happy again after a while, and then you will be very glad that the poor child is not left fatherless and motherless too, at one blow.'

'Yes, to be sure, Clara--you are right,' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'If women were easily killed, especially by trouble, there would not be much gray hair to be seen on women's heads in the world--what a deal they have to go through in comparison with men!'

'Well, men are mostly let off easy,' said Miss Montressor; 'but after all, it is Mr. Griswold that has been murdered, recollect.'

They entered no further upon this metaphysical subject, and Miss Montressor shortly after rose to go.

'Are the gentlemen coming again today?' asked Mrs. Jenkins, while her sister was resuming her bonnet and jacket.

'I believe so,' replied Miss Montressor. 'Bryan Duval said something about it being necessary that Mrs. Griswold should see some of the police authorities, in order to give any information in her power that may throw light upon Mr. Griswold's correspondents. It appears that he wrote a great many business letters at home, so that the office papers are not sufficiently explicit to account for all his business transactions. I don't know when they are coming, but I think it is settled for to-day.'

'Then,' said Mrs. Jenkins, looking very serious, 'I think that is exceedingly wrong. I am quite certain Mrs. Griswold will be unable to see anybody, judging by her looks at present; for even when she was in no trouble I have known her perfectly stupefied for twenty-four hours after taking an opiate. I think it would be very cruel to hurt her, and I am quite sure it would be useless. They had much better not come here to-day, and I am quite certain that the doctor would strongly object to anything of the sort if he knew how long it was before she got rest.'

'Has he not been here this morning?'

'No; the orders were that he was to be sent for when she woke, but that she was not to be disturbed on any account, until the effect should go off naturally.'

'Shall I, then, tell Bryan Duval,' said Miss Montressor, 'that you think it would be useless to make any attempt at taking her evidence to-day? He is very energetic and deeply interested in this business, but he has a great objection to wasting his time on his own account, or on other people's account; and if she could not see them, he would be greatly annoyed at having been brought up here on a useless errand. Suppose you were to send round and ask the doctor, Bess?'

Mrs. Jenkins thought this an excellent suggestion, and forthwith proceeded to carry it out by means of Jim, who she interviewed in the hall, mindful of her sister's incognito.

'You've a head worth half a dozen,' was Jim's approving comment upon the commission with which he was intrusted, to the increase of his own sense of importance, which had been largely cultivated by Thornton Carey's confidence. 'I will just go round at once, and ask whether Mrs. Griswold is to be disturbed on any account whatever.'

Jim departed on his errand, and returned with marvellous celerity. The doctor's orders were that Mrs. Griswold was not to be disturbed, was not to be allowed to see any one, and he added that he would look in at five o'clock in the afternoon.

'Then I tell you what it is, Bess,' said Miss Montressor. 'I will just make the best of my way back to the hotel, and put off this appointment; Bryan Duval will know where Mr. Carey is to be found.'

Mrs. Jenkins accompanied her sister to the street-door, and once again encountered Mr. Thornton Carey there. He had come in order to ascertain the very fact of which Miss Montressor was about to apprise him, and perfectly agreed, on hearing their report, that no further steps should be taken on that day. He looked exceedingly worn and weary, and in answer to Miss Montressor's eager inquiries, informed her that no further information had transpired, but that his own conviction that the murder had been at first instigated from this side was deepened by every additional item of information which he had been able to gain respecting the magnitude and complication of Mr. Griswold's commercial transactions, and the conflicting interests involved in their failure or success.

* * * * * *

When her sister left her, accompanied by Thornton Carey, Mrs. Jenkins returned to her watch in Helen's room, from which she removed the infant, by this time awake.

Lurking under all her true womanly sympathy and acts of helpfulness in the great calamity of the household was a sense of deep personal disappointment; the heart of Mrs. Jenkins was filled with two great affections, one towards her husband, the other towards her sister, and her intellect contemplated but two absorbing pleasures; the first, the presence of her Ephraim was denied to her by Fate in so conclusive a manner that she had ceased to fret over it, for practical common sense had a large share in her organisation; the second, a personal observation of her sister's celebrity, success, and proficiency in her profession she had counted upon as within her reach, and now the great event had taken place, the star actor and his company were in possession of the boards of the Varieties, all New York was talking of Miss Montressor, the papers contained specific and voluminous descriptions of her appearance, dress, manners, and also indulged in dainty anecdotes respecting off-the-boards utterances of hers to the favoured few who had yet seen her in private. From all these glories and delights Mrs. Jenkins was excluded by hard Fate, which had hit her by a back-handed blow. Once or twice she had cherished for a moment the notion of slipping out for half an hour, and occupying some unobtrusive corner of the theatre, where she might see her sister for a few minutes in one of her great impersonations, and slipping back again unsuspected, but her better feelings utterly prevailed over the temptation. She could not leave her mistress, and she could not bear the contrast which the gaiety and brilliancy and pleasure of a theatre would present to the awful desolation of the fine house to which she had once thought of coming from the poverty and the difficulties that had condemned her to parting with Ephraim. 'It must be sheer heaven to live so,' she said with just one sigh, given to the recollection of the high hope with which she had heard the promise of her sister's coming, she went back to the painful round of her duties, many of them self-imposed.

Helen Griswold had the faculty of winning the love of all those in her employment, and there was not a servant in the house who would not willingly have shared Mrs. Jenkins's watch, but she had a notion that as she was the only wife and mother among them, she could draw nearer to the bereaved wife and mother who still lay there in merciful unconsciousness; so the hours wore away and Mrs. Jenkins watched her patient. The doctor came, looked at the sleeping form on the bed, felt the pulse, touched the clammy forehead, listened to the faltering breath, and went his way, declaring it still safe to leave her undisturbed.

'If she could sleep all round the clock,' said he, 'so much the better. Twenty-four hours' oblivion is not to be lightly thought of in such a case as hers.'

'I am afraid, sir,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'she will have to see the police people tomorrow, that it cannot be put off longer, because they talk of sending an agent to England by the next mail.'

'In that case,' said the doctor, 'when she wakes let her have food and stimulants; take her up, give her a warm bath, and, according as you find her nerves stronger and her mind clearer, prepare her for the task that lies before her. I shall see her in the morning, and will remain here to meet the gentlemen who are coming.'

Late that night Thornton Carey again called to hear the doctor's last report, which he did from Mrs. Jenkins, and then, begging, if possible, to prepare Mrs. Griswold for the trying visit upon which they were obliged to insist, at eleven o'clock on the following day, he went down to the theatre, where the performance was just coming to a close, and joined Bryan Duval. They returned to the Fifth-avenue Hotel together, and held a long conference, which lasted long into the night.

Immediately after Thornton Carey left Mrs. Jenkins, she once more pressed into her service the indefatigable Jim, despatching him with a note to Miss Montressor, adopting the periodical fiction that Mr. Carey had employed her to communicate on his behalf with that lady, who wished to know the latest accounts of Mrs. Griswold; but the purport of her note was to beg that Clara would come up to the house as early as she could on the following morning. 'The truth is,' wrote Mrs. Jenkins to her sister, 'I am exceedingly worn out, and though they are very willing up here, they have not much sense; and in case there is a great to-do to-morrow morning with the gentlemen and the police people, I do not feel equal to it all by myself or with only Justine, who is as incapable as any foreigner I have ever met, though not bad meaning. So, my dear Clara, come up if you can at all. Mrs. Griswold, who has been sitting up and talking quite rational, has taken a great fancy to you, and would, I am sure, be very glad that you should be with her in case I broke down altogether, which does not seem unlikely, and would be a very had job, especially for baby.'

As this invention jumped precisely with Miss Montressor's own wishes, she acceded to it with great alacrity, and with the full and cordial consent of Bryan Duval, with whom she communicated that very night.

'Quite right, my dear Clara; you are a capital person in emergencies, and everything of the sort is first-rate study.'

Miss Montressor arrived early, and was again conducted to the dining-room where her sister soon joined her.

'Mrs. Griswold had passed a good night, and was wonderfully composed.' Mrs. Jenkins related admiringly how she had risen early that morning, allowed herself to be carefully dressed, striven to eat the food which was prepared for her, and made a great effort to be cheerful and considerate towards her attendants. 'The only thing she is not equal to,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'is trying to play with baby. She just looks at her until the tears come, and then she turns away. Now she is quite ready to see Mr. Duval and Mr. Carey, and I have left her sitting before her writing-table, with a pile of papers and letters, sorting them all as regularly and orderly as possible. She said so meekly, "I must not waste these gentlemen's time, or give them trouble, you know. I must be prepared for them." They do say in the house that she never knew anything about business, and that Mr. Griswold thought she had no head for it; but I am greatly mistaken if she hasn't a head for anything she might choose to employ it in. She knows you are coming, Clara, and said she thought it very kind of you, indeed, and that she would be quite able to see you before the gentlemen came; but I think that would be a risk. She would get talking to you about everything Mr. Griswold said and did during the time you knew him, and that would be sure to make her cry. I daresay there is not much composure really in her; but the more she can keep her manner composed the better, and those violent fits of crying are so exhausting.'

'You are quite right, Bess,' returned Miss Montressor. 'I would much rather not see her until after they have all gone away; then it will do her good to talk it over in detail with me, and then to cry her poor eyes out if she likes. So if you will just put me into a room handy to the one you will put these people in, I will be ready in case you are wanted. The only thing you must not do is give me the baby to hold, for I don't know anything about babies, and, to tell the truth, I don't like them.'

With this amicable understanding, the two sisters were about to walk up-stairs, and Mrs. Jenkins had assumed the distant manner which she always put on when there was a risk of their encountering any of the other servants, when their progress was interrupted by overhearing a dialogue which was taking place in the hall between Jim and an unknown individual.

'Whoever can it be?' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'There are such strict orders for no one but Mr. Duval and Mr. Carey, and the people with them, to come in, that I cannot understand who Jim can be parleying with. I will just go and see.'

Mrs. Jenkins opened the dining-room door just sufficient to enable her to catch sight of the unknown individual, and to whom Jim was protesting, with characteristic vehemence, that something or other which he had demanded was an out-and-out impossibility.

The stranger was a man of rather low stature and slight figure, dressed in a loose, shaggy coat, with a low felt hat pulled down over his eyes, so as effectually to hide all the upper part of the face, and he was speaking to Jim with great urgency, placing one hand against the door, as if he dreaded that the servant, in the strict appreciation of his duty, would close it against him by force. 'I must see Mrs. Griswold,' he said; 'I must, indeed.'

'It is quite impossible, sir; Mrs. Griswold cannot see any one. You surely do not know the trouble the house is in, or you would not think of asking such a thing. You must send up your message.'

'I cannot send up my message,' said the stranger, 'it is totally impossible; pray take up my request to Mrs. Griswold.'

'I assure you, sir, it is useless to persist,' said Jim, 'and quite out of the question that you should see Mrs. Griswold. Do you really not know what has happened?'

'I know nothing,' returned the man.

'Then, sir,' said Jim, 'you had better know it--Mr. Griswold is dead, and what's more, he has met with foul play.'

The stranger started a little and exclaimed: 'How very dreadful! But is there nothing else wrong? Is there nothing wrong with any one in the house?'

'No, nothing,' replied Jim, 'except that Mrs. Griswold is very ill indeed, as might be expected; and you will now see, sir, how impossible it is that she could receive you.'

'I fear it is impossible. Can I not see any other member of the family?'

'There is no female,' returned Jim, 'except the baby, and she ain't weaned; but you can see Mrs. Jenkins, the nurse, if you will step into the dining-room; in case that can do you any good, I will go and call her down to you.'

In the general confusion, Jim, who had momentarily forgotten all about Miss Montressor, advanced to the dining-room, followed by the stranger, simply threw the door open, allowed him to pass through it. and without having glanced into the room, went on his errand in search of Mrs. Jenkins, who had withdrawn from the door and closed it as the sound of the stranger's voice reached her ears; also, to Miss Montressor's amazement, she had sat down, looking exceedingly pale and faint; she was realising her apprehensions, Miss Montressor thought, and breaking down in earnest.

It was only a minute from the time Mrs. Jenkins stepped back from the door until the stranger walked into the dining-room, at the farther end of which were the two women, who both rose at the sight of him. One, Mrs. Jenkins, cried out, 'Ephraim!' and rushed towards him; while the other, standing still in rigid amazement, exclaimed, 'Mr. Dolby!'