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Strange, but I began to feel a certain sort of sympathy for the wretched being I was hunting down. "I will be careful," said I. "I merely want to satisfy myself that she is the same girl I heard of last from a Mrs. Desberger." Miss Althorpe, who was now half-way up the rich staircase which makes her house one of the most remarkable in the city, turned and gave me a quick look over her shoulder.
Desberger the ugliest and most flaunting of silk blouses that could be found on Sixth Avenue; and as Lena's dimples were more than usually pronounced on her return, I have no doubt she chose one to suit the taste and warm the body of the estimable woman, whose kindly nature had made such a favorable impression upon me. From Mrs.
Meanwhile I had before me the still more important interview with Mrs. Desberger. As I had no reason to think that my visiting any number in Ninth Street would arouse suspicion in the police, I rode there quite boldly the next day, and with Lena at my side, entered the house of Mrs. Bertha Desberger.
It was, as she said, of the richest weaving, and was, as I had not the least doubt, a portion of the dress worn by Mrs. Van Burnam from Haddam. "Yes, it was hers," said Lena, reading the expression of my face, and putting the scrap away very carefully in her pocket. "Well, I would have given her five dollars for that blouse," murmured Mrs. Desberger, regretfully.
If this woman, steeped in misery and darkened by crime, should be there! As I shall not mention Mrs. Desberger again for some time, I will here say that at the first opportunity which presented itself I sent Lena to the shops with orders to buy and have sent to Mrs.
"Two letters came of it," said I. "One from Cox, the milliner, saying that a bareheaded girl had bought a hat in his shop early on the morning designated; and another from a Mrs. Desberger appointing a meeting at which I obtained a definite clue to this girl, who, notwithstanding she wore Mrs. Van Burnam's clothes from the scene of tragedy, is not Mrs.
I had not seen him since our rather unsatisfactory parting in front of Miss Althorpe's house, and the suspense which I had endured in the interim made my greeting unnecessarily warm. But he took it all very naturally. "You are glad to see me," said he; "been wondering what has become of Miss Oliver. Well, she is in good hands; with Mrs. Desberger, in short; a woman whom I believe you know."
So I was on the right track; she acknowledged Mrs. Desberger. "Nothing but to return you this. It fell out of your pocket while you were dressing." And I handed her the little red pin-cushion I had taken from the Van Burnams' front room. She looked at it, shrunk violently back, and with difficulty prevented herself from showing the full depth of her feelings. "I don't know anything about it.
"Miss Oliver," I said, "rouse yourself, I pray. I have a message for you from Mrs. Desberger." She turned her head, looked at me like a person in a daze, then slowly moved and sat up.
The owner of such hideous sofas and chairs and of the many pictures effacing or rather defacing the paper on the walls, could not be a judge of Madonna faces. "You admire everything that is good and lovely," I suggested, for Mrs. Desberger had paused at the movement I made. "Yes, it is my nature to do so, ma'am. I love the beautiful," and she cast a half-apologetic, half-proud look about her.
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