The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин
with no further play upon my curiosity, which was now, as you can believe, thoroughly aroused, though I could not believe that anything he had to bring up against Mother Jane could for a moment stand against the death and the burial I had witnessed in Miss Knollys’ house during the two previous nights.
Chapter XXIV.
The Enigma of Numbers
“When in our first conversation on this topic I told you that Mother Jane was not to be considered in this matter, I meant she was not to be considered by you. She was a subject to be handled by the police, and we have handled her. Yesterday afternoon I made a search of her cabin.” Here Mr. Gryce paused and eyed me quizzically. He sometimes does eye me, which same I cannot regard as a compliment, considering how fond he is of concentrating all his wisdom upon small and insignificant objects.
“I wonder,” said he, “what you would have done in such a search as that. It was no common one, I assure you. There are not many hiding-places between Mother Jane’s four walls.”
I felt myself begin to tremble, with eagerness, of course.
“I wish I had been given the opportunity,” said I—“that is, if anything was to be found there.”
He seemed to be in a sympathetic mood toward me, or perhaps—and this is the likelier supposition—he had a minute of leisure and thought he could afford to give himself a little quiet amusement. However that was, he answered me by saying:
“The opportunity is not lost. You have been in her cabin and have noted, I have no doubt, its extreme simplicity. Yet it contains, or rather did contain up till last night, distinct evidences of more than one of the crimes which have been perpetrated in this lane.”
“Good! And you want me to guess where you found them? Well, it’s not fair.”
“Ah, and why not?”
“Because you probably did not find them on your first attempt. You had time to look about. I am asked to guess at once and without second trial what I warrant it took you several trials to determine.”
He could not help but laugh. “And why do you think it took me several trials?”
“Because there is more than one thing in that room made up of parts.”
“Parts?” He attempted to look puzzled, but I would not have it.
“You know what I mean,” I declared; “seventy parts, twenty-eight, or whatever the numbers are she so constantly mutters.”
His admiration was unqualified and sincere.
“Miss Butterworth,” said he, “you are a woman after my own heart. How came you to think that her mutterings had anything to do with a hiding-place?”
“Because it did not have anything to do with the amount of money I gave her. When I handed her twenty-five cents, she cried, ‘Seventy, twenty-eight, and now ten!’ Ten what? Not ten cents or ten dollars, but ten——”
“Why do you stop?”
“I do not want to risk my reputation on a guess. There is a quilt on the bed made up of innumerable pieces. There is a floor of neatly laid brick——”
“And there is a Bible on the stand whose leaves number many over seventy.”
“Ah, it was in the Bible you found——”
His smile put mine quite to shame.
“I must acknowledge,” he cried, “that I looked in the Bible, but I found nothing there beyond what we all seek when we open its sacred covers. Shall I tell my story?”
He was evidently bursting with pride. You would think that after a half-century of just such successes, a man would take his honors more quietly. But pshaw! Human nature is just the same in the old as in the young. He was no more tired of compliment or of awakening the astonishment of those he confided in, than when he aroused the admiration of the force by his triumphant handling of the Leavenworth Case. Of course in presence of such weakness I could do nothing less than give him a sympathetic ear. I may be old myself some day. Besides, his story was likely to prove more or less interesting.
“Tell your story?” I repeated. “Don’t you see that I am”—I was going to say “on pins and needles till I hear it,” but the expression is too vulgar for a woman of my breeding; so I altered the words, happily before they were spoken, into “that I am in a state of the liveliest curiosity concerning the whole matter? Tell your story, of course.”
“Well, Miss Butterworth, if I do, it is because I know you will appreciate it. You, like myself, placed weight upon the numbers she is forever running over, and you, like myself, have conceived the possibility of these numbers having reference to something in the one room she inhabits. At first glance the extreme bareness of the spot seemed to promise nothing to my curiosity. I looked at the floor and detected no signs of any disturbance having taken place in its symmetrically laid bricks for years. Yet I counted up to seventy one way and twenty-eight the other, and marking the brick thus selected, began to pry it out. It came with difficulty and showed me nothing underneath but green mold and innumerable frightened insects. Then I counted the bricks the other way, but nothing came of it. The floor does not appear to have been disturbed for years. Turning my attention away from the floor, I began upon the quilt. This was a worse job than the other, and it took me an hour to rip apart the block I settled upon as the suspicious one, but my labor was entirely wasted. There was no hidden treasure in the quilt. Then I searched the walls, using the measurements seventy by twenty-eight, but no result followed these endeavors, and—well, what do you think I did then?”
“You will tell me,” I said, “if I give you one more minute to do it in.”
“Very well,” said he. “I see you do not know, madam. Having searched below and around me, I next turned my attention overhead. Do you remember the strings and strings of dried vegetables that decorate the beams above?”
“I do,” I replied, not stinting any of the astonishment I really felt.
“Well, I began to count them next, and when I reached the seventieth onion from the open doorway, I crushed it between my fingers and—these fell out, madam—worthless trinkets, as you will immediately see, but——”
“Well, well,” I urged.
“They have been identified as belonging to the peddler who was one of the victims in whose fate we are interested.”
“Ah, ah!” I ejaculated, somewhat amazed, I own. “And number twenty-eight?”
“That was a carrot, and it held a really valuable ring—a ruby surrounded by diamonds. If you remember, I once spoke to you of this ring. It was the property of young Mr. Chittenden and worn by him while he was in this village. He disappeared on his way to the railway station, having taken, as many can vouch, the short detour by Lost Man’s Lane, which would lead him directly by Mother Jane’s cottage.”
“You thrill me,” said I, keeping down with admirable self-possession my own thoughts in regard to this matter. “And what of No. ten, beyond which she said she could not count?”
“In ten was your twenty-five-cent piece, and in various other vegetables, small coins, whose value taken collectively would not amount to a dollar. The only numbers which seemed to make any impression on her mind were those connected with these crimes. Very good evidence, Miss Butterworth, that Mother Jane holds the clue to this matter, even if she is not responsible for the death of the individuals represented by this property.”
“Certainly,” I acquiesced, “and if you examined her after her return from the Knollys mansion last night you would probably have found upon her some similar evidence of her complicity in the last crime of this terrible series. It would needs