V
THE OLD HOUSE IN YONKERS
The old man whose handwriting I had now positively identified was aformer employer of mine. I had worked in his office when a lad. He was adoctor of very fair reputation in Westchester County, and I recognizedevery characteristic of his as mentioned by Miss Graham, save the frenzywhich she described as accompanying his address.
In those days he was calm and cold and, while outwardly scrupulous,capable of forgetting his honor as a physician under a sufficientlystrong temptation. I had left him when new prospects opened, and in theyears which had elapsed had contented myself with the knowledge that hisshingle still hung out in Yonkers, though his practice was nothing towhat it used to be when I was in his employ. Now I was going to see himagain.
That his was the hand which had stolen Gwendolen seemed no longer opento doubt. That she was under his care in the curious old house Iremembered in the heart of Yonkers, seemed equally probable; but why sosordid a man--one who loved money above everything else in theworld--should retain the child one minute after the publication of thebountiful reward offered by Mr. Ocumpaugh, was what I could not at firstunderstand. Miss Graham's theory of hate had made no impression on me.He was heartless and not likely to be turned aside from any project hehad formed, but he was not what I considered vindictive where nothingwas to be gained. Yet my comprehension of him had been but a boy'scomprehension, and I was now prepared to put a very different estimateon one whose character had never struck me as being an open one, evenwhen my own had been most credulous.
That my enterprise, even with the knowledge I possessed of this man,promised well or held out any prospects of easy fulfilment, I no longerallowed myself to think. If money was his object--and what other couldinfluence a man of his temperament?--the sum offered by Mr. Ocumpaugh,large though it was, had apparently not sufficed to satisfy his greed.He was holding back the child, or so I now believed, in order to wringa larger, possibly a double, amount from the wretched mother. Fiftythousand was a goodly sum, but one hundred thousand was better; and thisman had gigantic ideas where his cupidity was concerned. I remember howfirmly he had once stood out for ten thousand dollars when he had beenoffered five; and I began to see, though in an obscure way as yet, howit might very easily be a part of his plan to work Mrs. Ocumpaugh up toa positive belief in the child's death before he came down upon her forthe immense reward he had fixed his heart upon. The date he had writtenall over the place might thus find some explanation in a plan to weakenher nerve before pressing his exorbitant claims upon her.
Nothing was clear, yet everything was possible in such a nature; andanxious to enter upon the struggle both for my own sake and that of thechild of whose condition under that terrible eye I scarcely dared tothink, I left Homewood in haste and took the first train for Yonkers.Though the distance was not great, I had fully arranged my plans beforeentering the town where so many of my boyish years had been spent. Iknew the old fox well enough, or thought I did, to be certain that Ishould have anything but an easy entrance into his house, in case itstill harbored the child whom my partner had seen carried in there. Ianticipated difficulties, but was concerned about none but thepossibility of not being able to bring myself face to face with him.Once in his presence, the knowledge which I secretly possessed of an oldbut doubtful transaction of his, would serve to make him mine even tothe point of yielding up the child he had forcibly abducted. But wouldhe accord me an interview? Could I, without appeal to the police--andyou can readily believe I was not anxious to allow them to put theirfingers in my pie--force him to open his door and let me into his house,which, as I well recalled, he locked up at nine--after which he wouldreceive no one, not even a patient?
It was not nine yet, but it was very near that hour. I had but twentyminutes in which to mount the hill to the old house marked by thedoctor's sign and by another peculiarity of so distinct a nature that itwould serve to characterize a dwelling in a city as large as NewYork--though I doubt if New York can show its like from the Battery tothe Bronx. The particulars of this I will mention later. I have first torelate the relief I felt when, on entering the old neighborhood, I heardin response to a few notes of a certain popular melody which I hadallowed to leave my lips, an added note or two which warned me that mypartner was somewhere hidden among the alleys of this veryunaristocratic quarter. Indeed, from the sound, I judged him to be inthe rear of the doctor's house and, being anxious to hear what he had tosay before advancing upon the door which might open my way to easyfortune or complete defeat, I paused a few steps off and waited for hisappearance.
He was at my elbow before I had either seen or heard him. He was alwayslight of foot, but this time he seemed to have no tread at all.
"Still here," was his comforting assurance.
"Both?" I whispered back.
"Both."
"Any one else?"
"No. A boy drove away the buggy and has not come back. Sawbones keeps nogirl."
"Is the child quiet? Has there been no alarm?"
"Not a breath."
"No cops in the neighborhood? No spies around?"
"Not one. We've got it all this time. But--"
"Hush!"
"There's nobody."
"Yes, the doctor; he's fastening up his house. I must hasten; nothingwould induce me to let that innocent remain under his roof all night."
"It's not the windows he is at."
"What then?"
"The door, the big front door."
"The--"
"Yes."
I gave my partner a surprised look, undoubtedly lost in the darkness,and drew a step nearer the house.
"It's just the same old gloom-box," I exclaimed, and paused for aninstant to mark the changes which had taken place in the surroundings.They were very few and I turned back to fix my eye on the front doorwhere a rattling sound could be heard, as of some one fingering thelatch. It was this door which formed the peculiarity of the house. Initself it was like any other that was well-fashioned and solid, but itopened upon space--that is, if it was ever opened, which I doubted. Thestoop and even the railing which had once guarded it, had all beenremoved, leaving a bare front, with this inhospitable entrance shutagainst every one who had not the convenience for mounting to it by aladder. There was another way in, but this was round on one side, anddid not present itself to the eye unless one approached from the westend of the street; so that to half the passers-by the house looked likea deserted one till they came abreast of the flagged path which led tothe office door. As the windows had never been unclosed in my day andwere not now, I took it for granted that they had remained thusinhospitably shut during all the years of my absence, which certainlyoffered but little encouragement to a man bent on an errand which wouldsoon take him into those dismal precincts.
"What goes on behind those shuttered windows?" thought I. "I know of onething, but what else?" The one thing was the counting of money and thearranging of innumerable gold pieces on the great top of a baize-coveredtable in what I should now describe as the back parlor. I remembered howhe used to do it. I caught him at it once, having crept up one windynight from my little room off the office to see what kept the doctor upso late.
As I now stood listening in the dark street to those strange touches ona door disused for years, I recalled the tremor with which I rounded thetop of the stair that night of long ago and the mingled fear and awewith which I recognized, not only such a mint of money as I had neverseen out of the bank before, but the greedy and devouring passion withwhich he pushed the glittering coins about and handled the bank-notesand gloated over the pile it all made when drawn together by his hookedfingers, till the sound, perhaps, of my breathing in the dark hallstartled him with a thought of discovery, and his two hands cametogether over that pile with a gesture more eloquent even than the lookwith which he seemed to penetrate the very shadows in the silent spacewherein I stood. It was a vision short, but inexpressibly vivid, of themiser incarnate, and having seen it and escaped detection, as was
myundeserved luck that night, I needed never to ask again why he had beenwilling to accept risks from which most men shrink from fear if not fromconscience. He loved money, not as the spender loves it, openly andwith luxurious instincts, but secretly and with a knavish dread ofdiscovery which spoke of treasure ill acquired.
And now he was seeking to add to his gains, and I stood on the outsideof his house listening to sounds I did not understand, instead ofattempting to draw him to the office-door by ringing the bell he neverused to disconnect till nine.
"Do you know that I don't quite like the noises which are being made upthere?" came in a sudden whisper to my ear. "Supposing it was the childtrying to get out! She does not know there is no stoop; she seemedsleeping or half-dead when he carried her in, and if by any chance shehas got hold of the key and the door should open--"
"Hush!" I cried, starting forward in horror of the thought he hadsuggested. "It is opening. I see a thread of light. What does it mean,Jupp? The child? No; there is more than a child's strength in that push.Hist!" Here I drew him flat against the wall. The door above had swungback and some one was stamping on the threshold over our heads in whatappeared to be an outburst of ungovernable fury.
That it was the doctor I could not doubt. But why this anger; why thismad gasping after breath and the half-growl, half-cry, with which hefaced the night and the quiet of a street which to his glance, passingas it did over our heads, must have appeared altogether deserted? Wewere consulting each other's faces for some explanation of thisunlooked-for outbreak, when the door above us suddenly slammed to and weheard a renewal of that fumbling with lock and key which had first drawnour attention. But the hand was not sure or the hall was dark, for thekey did not turn in the lock. Suddenly awake to my opportunity, Iwheeled Jupp about and, making use of his knee and back, climbed up tillI was enabled to reach the knob and turn it just as the man within hadstepped back, probably to procure more light.
The result was that the door swung open and I stumbled in, fallingalmost face downward on the marble floor faintly checkered off to mysight in the dim light of a lamp set far back in a bare and dismal hall.I was on my feet again in an instant and it was in this manner, and withall the disadvantages of a hatless head and a disordered countenance,that I encountered again my old employer after five years of absence.
He did not recognize me. I saw it by the look of alarm which crossed hisfeatures and the involuntary opening of his lips in what would certainlyhave been a loud cry if I had not smiled and cried out with falsegaiety:
"Excuse me, doctor, I never came in by that door before. Pardon myawkwardness. The step is somewhat high from the street."
My smile is my own, they say; at all events it served to enlighten him.
"Bob Trevitt," he exclaimed, but with a growl of displeasure I couldhardly condemn under the circumstances.
I hastened to push my advantage, for he was looking very threateninglytoward the door which was swaying gently and in an inviting way to a manwho if old, had more power in his arms than I had in my whole body.
"_Mr._ Trevitt," I corrected; "and on a very important errand. I am hereon behalf of Mrs. Ocumpaugh, whose child you have at this moment underyour roof."