“Nice, cheerful little place!” observed Donnelly, looking about him.
Ross said nothing. He had not even dared hope for such a stroke of luck as that Eddy and the little girl should be gone, yet the silence in this dim, damp, little house troubled him. Where and why had they gone?
“We’ll just take a look around,” said Donnelly.
He opened a door beside him, revealing a dark and empty room. He flashed an electric torch across it; nothing there but the bare floor and the four walls. He closed the door and went along the passage, and opened the door of the next room. The shutter was broken here, and one of the window panes, and the rain was blowing in, making a pool on the floor that gleamed darkly when the flash light touched it.
That door, too, he closed, with a sort of polite caution, as if he didn’t want to disturb any one. Then he looked into the room at the end of the passage. This was evidently the kitchen, for there was a sink there, and a built-in dresser. He turned on the taps; no water.
“Now we’ll just take a look upstairs,” he said, in a subdued tone.
He mounted the stairs with remarkable lightness for so heavy a man; but Ross took no such precaution. Indeed, he wanted to make a noise. He did not like the silence in this house.
Donnelly opened the door facing the stairs. One shutter had been thrown back, and the room was filled with the gray light of the rainy afternoon. And, lying on the floor, Ross saw a white flannel rabbit.
It lay there, quite alone, its one pink glass eye staring up at the ceiling, and round its middle was a bedraggled bit of blue ribbon which Ross remembered very well.
“Now, what’s this?” said Donnelly.
He picked up the rabbit, frowning a little; he turned it this way and that, he fingered its sash. And, to Ross, there was something grotesque and almost horrible in the sight of the burly fellow with a cigar in one corner of his mouth, and an intent frown on his red face, holding that rabbit.
“It’s a clew, isn’t it?” he inquired, with mock respect.
Donnelly glanced at him quickly. Then he put the rabbit into the pocket of his overcoat, from which its long ears protruded ludicrously.
“Come on!” he said.
The next door was locked, and here Donnelly displayed his professional talents. Before Ross could quite see what he was at, he had taken something from his pocket; he bent forward, and almost at once the lock clicked, and he opened the door.
It seemed to Ross that nothing could have been more eloquent of crime, of shameful secrecy and misery, than that room. There was a wretched little makeshift bed against one wall, made up of burlap bags and a ragged portiére; there was a box on which stood a lantern, an empty corned beef tin, and a crushed and sodden packet of cigarettes. There was nothing else.
With a leaden heart, he looked at Donnelly, and saw him very grave.
“Come on!” he said, again.
And they went on, into every corner of that house that was so empty and yet so filled with questions. They found nothing more. Some one had been here, and some one had gone; that was all.
Donnelly led the way back to the room where that some one had been.
“Now we’ll see if we can find some more clews here,” he said. “Like the fellows in the story books.”
He took up the packet of cigarettes and went over to the window with it. But, instead of examining the object in his hand, his glance was arrested by something outside, and he stood staring straight before him so long that Ross came up beside him, to see for himself.
From this upper window there was an unexpectedly wide vista of empty fields, still white with snow, and houses tiny in the distance, and a belt of woodland, dark against the gray sky; all deserted and desolate in the steady fall of sleet. What else?
Directly before the house was the road, where the taxi waited, the driver inside. Across the road the land ran downhill in a steep slope, washed bare of any trace of snow, and at its foot was a pond, a somber little sheet of water, shivering under the downpour. But there was nobody in sight, nothing stirred. What else? What was Donnelly looking at?
“I think—” said Donnelly. “I guess I’ll just go out and mooch around a little before it gets dark. Just to get the lay of the land. You don’t want to come—in this weather. You just wait here. I won’t keep you long.”
Ross did want to go with him, everywhere, and to see everything that he saw, but he judged it unwise to say so. He stood where he was, listening to the other’s footsteps quietly descending; he heard the front door close softly, and a moment later he saw Donnelly come out into the road and cross it, with a wave of his hand toward the taxi driver, and begin to descend the steep slope toward the pond.
“What’s he going there for?” thought Ross. “What does he think—”
Before he had finished the question, the answer sprang up in his mind. Donnelly had not found Ives in the cottage, so he was going to look for him down there. Suppose he found him?
“No!” thought Ross. “It’s—impossible. I—I’m losing my nerve.”
To tell the truth, he was badly shaken. He was ready to credit Donnelly with superhuman powers, to believe that he could see things invisible to other persons, that he could, simply by looking out of the window, trace the whole course of a crime.
“I’ve got to do something,” he thought. “Now is my chance. I can give him the slip now.”
But he was a good seven or eight miles from “Day’s End.” Well, why couldn’t he hurry down, jump into the taxi, and order the driver to set off at once? Long before Donnelly could find any way of escape from this desolate region, he could get back to the house and warn Amy. And, in doing so, he would certainly antagonize Donnelly, and confirm any suspicions he might already have.
“No,” he thought. “He’s not sure about Amy now. And I don’t believe he’s got anything against me. I can’t afford to run away. He hasn’t found anything yet that definitely connects Amy with the—the case.”
But when he did?
Donnelly had reached the bottom of the slope now, and was sauntering along the edge of the pond, hands in his pockets. He had in nowise the air of a sleuth hot upon a scent, but to Ross his leisurely progress suggested an alarming confidence. He knew—what didn’t he know? And Ross, the guilty one, knew nothing at all. In angry desperation, he turned away from the window.
“All right!” he said, aloud. “I’ll have a look for clews myself!”
And, without the slightest difficulty, he found all the clews he wanted.
The makeshift bed was the only place in the room where anything could be hidden; he lifted up the portiére that lay over the bags, and there he found a shabby pocketbook in which were the papers of the missing Martin Ives.
Everything was there—everything one could want. There was a savings bank book, there were two or three letters, and there was a little snapshot of Amy, on the back of which was written: “To Marty—so that he won’t forget.”
Ross looked at that photograph for a long time. He was not expert enough to recognize that the costume was somewhat outmoded, but he did know that this picture had been taken some time ago, because Amy was so different. It showed her standing on a beach, with the wind blowing her hair and her skirts, her head a little thrown back, and on her face the jolliest smile—a regular schoolgirl grin.
It hurt him, the sight of that laughing, dimpled, little ghost from the past. He remembered her as he had seen her today, still smiling, still lovely, but so changed. She was reckless now, haunted now, even in her most careless moments.
He opened the top letter; it bore the date of last Monday, but no address. It read:
Dear Mr. Ives:
Amy has asked me to reply to your letter of a month ago. I scarcely need to tell you how greatly it distressed her. If you should come to the house publicly now, everything she has tried to do would be ruined. She had hoped that you would wait patiently, but as you refuse to do so, she has consented to see you.
She wants to see Lily as well, and, although there is a great deal of risk in this, if you will follow my directions, I think we can manage. Telephone to the nurse with whom the child is boarding to bring her to the station at Greenwich by the train leaving New York at 7.20 A.M. on Tuesday and Eddy will meet her there. You can take an early afternoon train to Stamford. Take a taxi there and go up the Post Road to Bonnifer Lane, a little past the Raven Inn. There is a new church being built on the corner. Turn down here, and stop at the first house, about half a mile from the main road. You will find the little girl there, and I shall be there, waiting for you, between three and five, and we can make arrangements for you to see Amy.
Remember, Mr. Ives, that Amy trusts you to do nothing until you have seen her.
Respectfully yours,
Amanda Jones.
Ross folded up the letter. Yes; nobody could ask for a much better clew. He took out another letter, but before opening it, he glanced out of the window. And he saw Donnelly coming back.
He put the wallet into his pocket, and went to the head of the stairs. A great lassitude had come upon him; he felt physically exhausted. His doubt—and his hope—were ended now.
Donnelly came in quietly, and advanced to the foot of the stairs. It was not possible to read his face by that dim light, but his voice was very grave.
“Come on!” he said.
“Find anything?” asked Ross.
Donnelly was silent for a moment.
“I’ve finished,” he said, at last.
“What—” began Ross.
“I’ve finished,” Donnelly repeated, almost gently. “It’s up to the police now. We’ll have that pond dragged.”
Ross, too, was silent for a moment.
“All right!” he said. “I’ll just get my hat.”
He turned back into the room; Donnelly waited for him below. In a few minutes Ross joined him, and they got into the cab.