Anna Katharine Green - The Chief Legatee

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THE CHIEF LEGATEE

by

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Author of
"The Leavenworth Case," "The Woman in the Alcove," Etc., Etc.

Illustrated in Water-Colors by Frank T. Merrill

Copyright, 1906, by Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs
Weinstock, Lubin & Co.
Special Edition,
400 to 418 K. Street, Sacramento, Cal.
New York and London
The Authors and Newspapers Association
1906
Copyright, 1906, by
Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs
Entered at Stationers' Hall.
All rights reserved.
Composition, Electrotyping,
Printing and Binding by
The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

[Illustration: A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending
a rent in her skirt.]

CONTENTS

PART I.--A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

CHAPTER

I. A Bride of Five Hours

II. The Lady in Number Three

III. "He Knows the Word"

IV. Mr. Ransom Waits

V. In Corridor and in Room

VI. The Lawyer

VII. Rain

VIII. Elimination

IX. Hunter's Inn

PART II.--THE CALL OF THE WATERFALL

X. Two Doors

XI. Half-Past One in the Morning

XII. "Georgian"

XIII. Where the Mill Stream Runs Fiercest

XIV. A Detective's Work

XV. Anitra

XVI. "Love"

XVII. "I Don't Hear"

PART III.--MONEY

XVIII. God's Forest, Then Man's

XIX. In Mrs. Deo's Room

XX. Between the Elderberry Bushes

XXI. On the Cars

XXII. A Suspicious Test

XXIII. A Startling Decision

XXIV. The Devil's Cauldron

PART IV.--THE MAN OF MYSTERY

XXV. Death Eddy

XXVI. Hazen

XXVII. She Speaks

XXVIII. Fifteen Minutes

XXIX. "There is One Way"

XXX. Not Yet

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her
skirt (_Frontispiece_)

"I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to cut 'em out"

"A slight, dark form steals from the shadows and lays a hand on the
stooping man's shoulder"

"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but they
will be disappointed"

[Illustration: Facsimile Page of Manuscript from THE LEAVENWORTH CASE

"Yes, sir,"

Might even have entered
his room late at night,
crossed it and stood at his
side, without disturbing him
sufficiently to cause him to
turn his head?

"Yes," her hands pressing
themselves painfully together.

"Miss Leavenworth, the key
to the library door is missing."

She made no answer.

"It has been testified to,
that previous to the actual
discovery of the murder,
you visited the door of the
library above. Will you tell
us if the key to the door
was there in the lock?"

"It was not."

Anna K. Green Rohlfs]

THE CHIEF LEGATEE

PART I

A Woman of Mystery

CHAPTER I

A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS

"What's up?"

This from the manager of the Hotel ---- to his chief clerk. "Something
wrong in Room 81?"

"Yes, sir. I've just sent for a detective. You were not to be found and
the gentleman is desperate. But very anxious to have it all kept quiet;
very anxious. I think we can oblige him there, or, at least, we'll try.
Am I right, sir?"

"Of course, if--"

"Oh! it's nothing criminal. The lady's missing, that's all; the lady
whose name you see here."

The register lay open between them; the clerk's finger, running along the
column, rested about half-way down.

The manager bent over the page.

"'Roger J. Ransom and wife,'" he read out in decided astonishment. "Why,
they are--"

"You're right. Married to-day in Grace Church. A great wedding; the
papers are full of it. Well, she's the lady. They registered here a few
minutes before five o'clock and in ten minutes the bride was missing.
It's a queer story Mr. Ransom tells. You'd better hear it. Ah, there's
our man! Perhaps you'll go up with him."

"You may bet your last dollar on that," muttered the manager. And joining
the new-comer, he made a significant gesture which was all that passed
between them till they stepped out on the second floor.

"Wanted in Room 81?" the manager now asked.

"Yes, by a man named Ransom."

"Just so. That's the door. Knock--or, rather, I'll knock, for I must hear
his story as soon as you do. The reputation of the hotel--"

"Yes, yes, but the gentleman's waiting. Ah! that's better."

The manager had just knocked.

An exclamation from within, a hurried step, and the door fell open. The
figure which met their eyes was startling. Distress, anxiety, and an
impatience almost verging on frenzy, distorted features naturally amiable
if not handsome.

"My wife," fell in a gasp from his writhing lips.

"We have come to help you find her," Mr. Gerridge calmly assured him. Mr.
Gerridge was the detective. "Relate the circumstances, sir. Tell us where
you were when you first missed her."

Mr. Ransom's glance wandered past him to the door. It was partly open.
The manager, whose name was Loomis, hastily closed it. Mr. Ransom showed
relief and hurried into his story. It was to this effect:

"I was married to-day in Grace Church. At the altar my bride--you
probably know her name, Miss Georgian Hazen--wore a natural look, and was
in all respects, so far as any one could see, a happy woman, satisfied
with her choice and pleased with the eclat and elegancies of the
occasion. Half-way down the aisle this all changed. I remember the
instant perfectly. Her hand was on my arm and I felt it suddenly stiffen.
I was not alarmed, but I gave her a quick look and saw that something had
happened. What, I could not at the moment determine. She didn't answer
when I spoke to her and seemed to be mainly concerned in getting out of
the church before her emotions overcame her. This she succeeded in doing
with my help; and, once in the vestibule, recovered herself so
completely, and met all my inquiries with such a gay shrug of the
shoulders, that I should have passed the matter over as a mere attack of
nerves, if I had not afterwards detected in her face, through all the
hurry and excitement of the ensuing reception, a strained expression not
at all natural to her. This was still more evident after the
congratulations of a certain guest, who, I am sure, whispered to her
before he passed on; and when the time came for her to go up-stairs she
was so pale and unlike herself that I became seriously alarmed and asked
if she felt well enough to start upon the journey we had meditated.
Instantly her manner changed. She turned upon me with a look I have been
trying ever since to explain to myself, and begged me not to take her out
of town to-night but to some quiet hotel where we might rest for a few
days before starting on our travels. She looked me squarely in the eye as
she made this request and, seeing in her nothing more than a feverish
anxiety lest I should make difficulties of some kind, I promised to do
what she asked and bade her run away and get herself ready to go and say
nothing to any one of our change of plan. She smiled and turned away
towards her own room, but presently came hurrying back to ask if I would
grant her one more favor. Would I be so good as not to speak to her or
expect her to speak to me till we got to the hotel; she was feeling very
nervous but was sure that a few minutes of complete rest would entirely
restore her; something had occurred (she acknowledged this) which she
wanted to think out; wouldn't I grant her this one opportunity of doing
so? It was a startling request, but she looked so lovely--pardon me, I
must explain my easy acquiescence--that I gave her the assurance she
wished and went about my own preparations, somewhat disconcerted but
still not at all prepared for what happened afterward. I had absolutely
no idea that she meant to leave me."

Mr. Ransom paused, greatly affected; but upon the detective asking him
how and when Mrs. Ransom had deserted him, he controlled himself
sufficiently to say:

"Here; immediately after that silent and unnatural ride. She entered the
office with me and was standing close at my side all the time I was
writing our names in the register; but later, when I turned to ask her to
enter the elevator with me, she was gone, and the boy who was standing by
with our two bags said that she had slipped into the reception-room
across the hall. But I didn't find her there or in any of the adjoining
rooms. Nor has anybody since succeeded in finding her. She has left the
building--left me, and--"

"You want her back again?"

This from the detective, but very dryly.

"Yes. For she was not following her own inclinations in thus abandoning
me so soon after the words which made us one were spoken. Some influence
was brought to bear on her which she felt unable to resist. I have
confidence enough in her to believe that. The rest is mystery--a mystery
which I am forced to ask you to untangle. I have neither the necessary
calmness nor experience myself."

"But you surely have done something," protested Gerridge. "Telephoned to
her late home or--"

"Oh yes, I have done all that, but with no result. She has not returned
to her old home. Her uncle has just been here and he is as much mystified
by the whole occurrence as I am. He could tell me nothing, absolutely
nothing."

"Indeed! and the man, the one who whispered to her during the reception,
couldn't you learn anything about him?"

Mr. Ransom's face took on an expression almost ferocious.

"No. He's a stranger to Mr. Fulton; yet Mr. Fulton's niece introduced him
to me as a relative."

"A relative? When was that?"

"At the reception. He was introduced as Mr. Hazen (my wife's maiden name,
you know), and when I saw how his presence disturbed her, I said to her,
'A cousin of yours?' and she answered with very evident embarrassment, 'A
relative';--which you must acknowledge didn't locate him very definitely.
Mr. Fulton doesn't know of any such relative. And I don't believe he is
a relative. He didn't sit with the rest of the family in the church."

"Ah! you saw him in the church."

"Yes. I noticed him for two reasons. First, because he occupied an end
seat and so came directly under my eye in our passage down the aisle.
Secondly, because his face of all those which confronted me when I looked
for the cause of her sudden agitation, was the only one not turned
towards her in curiosity or interest. His eyes were fixed and vacant; his
only. That made him conspicuous and when I saw him again I knew him."

"Describe the man."

Mr. Ransom's face lightened up with an expression of strong satisfaction.

"I am going to astonish you," said he. "The fellow is so plain that
children must cry at him. He has suffered some injury and his mouth and
jaw have such a twist in them that the whole face is thrown out of shape.
So you see," continued the unhappy bridegroom, as his eyes flashed from
the detective's face to that of the manager's, "that the influence he
exerts over my wife is not that of love. No one could love _him_. The
secret's of another kind. What kind, what, what, what? Find out and I'll
pay you any amount you ask. She is too dear and of too sensitive a
temperament to be subject to a wretch of his appearance. I cannot bear
the thought. It stifles, it chokes me; and yet for three hours I've had
to endure it. Three hours! and with no prospect of release unless you--"

"Oh, I'll do something," was Gerridge's bland reply. "But first I must
have a few more facts. A man such as you describe should be easy to find;
easier than the lady. Is he a tall man?"

"Unusually so."

"Dark or light?"

"Dark."

"Any beard?"

"None. That's why the injury to his jaw shows so plainly."

"I see. Is he what you would call a gentleman?"

"Yes, I must acknowledge that. He shows the manners of good society, if
he did whisper words into my wife's ear which were not meant for mine."

"And Mr. Fulton knows nothing of him?"

"Nothing."

"Well, we'll drop him for the present. You have a photograph of your
wife?"

"Her picture was in all the papers to-night."

"I noticed. But can we go by it? Does it resemble her?"

"Only fairly. She is far prettier. My wife is something uncommon. No
picture ever does her justice."

"She looks like a dark beauty. Is her hair black or brown?"

"Black. So black it has purple shades in it."

"And her eyes? Black too?"

"No, gray. A deep gray, which look black owing to her long lashes."

"Very good. Now about her dress. Describe it as minutely as you can. It
was a bride's traveling costume, I suppose."

"Yes. That is, I presume so. I know that it was all right and suitable to
the occasion, but I don't remember much about it. I was thinking too much
of the woman in the gown to notice the gown itself."

"Cannot you tell the color?"

"It was a dark one. I'm sure it was a dark one, but colors are not much
in my line. I know she looked well--they can tell you about it at the
house. All that I distinctly remember is the veil she had wound so
tightly around her face and hat to keep the rice out of her hair that
I could not get one glimpse of her features. All nonsense that veil,
especially when I had promised not to address her or even to touch her
in the cab. And she wore it into the office. If it had not been for that
I might have foreseen her intention in time to prevent it."

"Perhaps she knew that."

"It looks as if she did."

"Which means that she was meditating flight from the first."

"From the time she saw that man," Mr. Ransom corrected.

"Just so; from the time she left her uncle's house. Your wife is a woman
of means, I believe."

"Yes, unfortunately."

"Why unfortunately?"

"It makes her independent and offers a lure to irresponsible wretches
like him."

"Her fortune is large, then?"

"Very large; larger than my own."

Every one knew Mr. Ransom to be a millionaire.

"Left her by her father?"

"No, by some great-uncle, I believe, who made his fortune in the
Klondike."

"And entirely under her own control?"

"Entirely so."

"Who is her man of business?"

"Edward Harper, of--Wall Street."

"He's your man. He'll know sooner or later where she is."

"Yes, but later won't do. I must know to-night; or, if that is
impossible, to-morrow. Were it not for the mortification it would cause
her I should beg you to put on all your force and ransack the city for
this bride of five hours. But such publicity is too shocking. I should
like to give her a day to reconsider her treatment of me. She cannot mean
to leave me for good. She has too much self-respect; to say nothing of
her very positive and not to be questioned affection for myself."

The detective looked thoughtful. The problem had its difficulties.

"Are those hers?" he asked at last, pointing to the two trunks he saw
standing against the wall.

"Yes. I had them brought up, in the hope that she had slipped away on
some foolish errand or other and would yet come back."

"By their heft I judge them to be full; how about her hand-bag?"

"She had only a small bag and an umbrella. They are both here."

"How's that?"

"The colored boy took them at the door. She went away with nothing in her
hands."

Gerridge glanced at the bag Mr. Ransom had pointed out, fingered it, then
asked the young husband to open it.

He did so. The usual articles and indispensable adjuncts of a nice
woman's toilet met their eyes. Also a pocketbook containing considerable
money and a case holding more than one valuable jewel.

The eyes of the officer and manager met in ill disguised alarm.

"She must have been under the most violent excitement to slip away
without these," suggested the former. "I'd better be at work. Give me two
hours," were his parting words to Mr. Ransom. "By that time I'll either
be back or telephone you. You had better stay here; she may return.
Though I don't think that likely," he muttered as he passed the manager.

At the door he stopped. "You can't tell me the color of that veil?"

"No."

"Look about the room, sir. There's lots of colors in the furniture and
hangings. Don't you see one somewhere that reminds you of her veil or
even of her dress?"

The miserable bridegroom looked up from the bag into which he was still
staring and, glancing slowly around him, finally pointed at a chair
upholstered in brown and impulsively said:

"The veil was like that; I remember now. Brown, isn't it? a dark brown?"

"Yes. And the dress?"

"I can't tell you a thing about the dress. But her gloves--I remember
something about them. They were so tight they gaped open at the wrist.
Her hands looked quite disfigured. I wondered that so sensible a woman
should buy gloves at least two sizes too small for her. I think she was
ashamed of them herself, for she tried to hide them after she saw me
looking."

"This was in the cab?"

"Yes."

"Where you didn't speak a word?"

"Not a word."

"Though she seemed so very much cut up?"

"No, she didn't seem cut up; only tired."

"How tired?"

"She sat with her head pressed against the side of the cab."

"And a little turned away?"

"Yes."

"As if she shrank from you?"

"A little so."

"Did she brighten when the carriage stopped?"

"She started upright."

"Did you help her out?"

"No, I had promised not to touch her."

"She jumped out after you?"

"Yes."

"And never spoke?"

"Not a word."

Gerridge opened the door, motioned for the manager to follow, and, once
in the hall, remarked to that gentleman:

"I should like to see the boy who took her bag and was with them when she
slipped away."

CHAPTER II

THE LADY IN NUMBER THREE

The boy was soon found and proved to be more observing in matters of
dress than Mr. Ransom. He described with apparent accuracy both the color
and cut of the garments worn by the lady who had flitted away so
mysteriously. The former was brown, all brown; and the latter was of the
tailor-made variety, very natty and becoming. "What you would call
'swell,'" was the comment, "if her walk hadn't spoiled the hang of it.
How she did walk! Her shoes must have hurt her most uncommon. I never did
see any one hobble so."

"How's that? She hobbled, and her husband didn't notice it?"

"Oh, he had hurried on ahead. She was behind him, and she walked like
this."

The pantomime was highly expressive.

"That's a point," muttered Gerridge. Then with a sharp look at the boy:
"Where were you that you didn't notice her when she slipped off?"

"Oh, but I did, sir. I was waiting for the clerk to give me the
key, when I saw her step back from the gentleman's side and, looking
quickly round to see if any one was noticing her, slide off into the
reception-room. I thought she wanted a drink of water out of the pitcher
on the center-table, but if she did, she didn't come back after she had
got it. None of us ever saw her again."

"Did you follow Mr. Ransom when he walked through those rooms?"

"No, sir; I stayed in the hall."

"Did the lady hobble when she slid thus mysteriously out of sight?"

"A little. Not so much as when she came in. But she wasn't at her ease,
sir. Her shoes were certainly too small."

"I think I will take a peep at those rooms now," Gerridge remarked to the
manager.

Mr. Loomis bowed, and together they crossed the office to the
reception-room door. The diagram of this portion of the hotel will give
you an idea of these connecting rooms.

[Illustration]

There are three of them, as you will see, all reception-rooms. Mr. Ransom
had passed through them all in looking for his wife. In No. 1 he found
several ladies sitting and standing, all strangers. He encountered no one
in No. 2, and in No. 3 just one person, a lady in street costume
evidently waiting for some one. To this lady he had addressed himself,
asking if she had seen any one pass that way the moment before. Her reply
was a decided "No"; that she had been waiting in that same room for
several minutes and had seen no one. This staggered him. It was as if his
wife had dissolved into thin air. True, she might have eluded him by
slipping out into the hall by means of door two at the moment he entered
door one; and alert to this possibility, he hastened back into the hall
to look for her. But she was nowhere visible, nor had she been observed
leaving the building by the man stationed at entrance A. But there was
another exit, that of B. Had she gone out that way? Mr. Ransom had taken
pains to inquire and had been assured by the man in charge that no
lady had left by that door during the last ten minutes. This he had
insisted on, and when Mr. Loomis and the detective came in their turn
to question him on this point he insisted on it again. The mystery seemed
complete,--at least to the manager. But the detective was not quite
satisfied. He asked the man if at any time that day, before or after Mrs.
Ransom's disappearance, he had swung the door open for a lady who walked
lame. The answer was decisive. "Yes; one who walked as if her shoes were
tight."

"When?"

"Oh a little while after the gentleman asked his questions."

"Was she dressed in brown?"

That he didn't know. He didn't look at ladies' dresses unless they were
something special.

"But she walked lame and she came from Room 3?"

Yes. He remembered that much.

Gerridge, with a nod to the manager, stepped into the open compartment of
the whirling door. "I'm off," said he. "Expect to hear from me in two
hours."

At twenty minutes to ten Mr. Ransom was called up on the telephone.

"One question, Mr. Ransom."

"Hello, who are you?"

"Gerridge."

"All right, go ahead."

"Did you see the face of the woman you spoke to in Room No. 3?"

"Of course. She was looking directly at me."

"You remember it? Could identify it if you saw it again?"

"Yes; that is--"

"That's all, good-by."

The circuit was cut off.

Another intolerable wait. Then there came a knock on the door and
Gerridge entered. He held a photograph in his hand which he had evidently
taken from his pocket on his way up.

"Look at this," said he. "Do you recognize the face?"

"The lady--"

"Just so; the one who said she had seen no one come into No. 3 on the
first floor."

Mr. Ransom's expression of surprised inquiry was sufficient answer.

"Well, it's a pity you didn't look at her gloves instead of at her face.
You might have had some dim idea of having seen them before. It was she
who rode to the hotel with you; not your wife. The veil was wound around
her face for a far deeper purpose than to ward off rice."

Mr. Ransom staggered back against the table before which he had been
standing. The blow was an overwhelming one.

"Who is this woman?" he demanded. "She came from Mr. Fulton's house. More
than that, from my wife's room. What is her name and what did she mean by
such an outrage?"

"Her name is Bella Burton, and she is your wife's confidential maid. As
for the meaning of this outrage, it will take more than two hours to
ferret out that. I can only give you the single fact I've mentioned."

"And Mrs. Ransom?"

"She left the house at the same moment you did; you and Miss Burton. Only
she went by the basement door."

"She? _She?_"

"Dressed in her maid's clothes. Oh, you'll have to hear worse things than
that before we're out of this muddle. If you won't mind a bit of advice
from a man of experience, I would suggest that you take things easy. It's
the only way."

Shocked into silence by this cold-blooded philosophy, Mr. Ransom
controlled both his anger and his humiliation; but he could not control
his surprise.

"What does it mean?" he murmured to himself. "_What does it all mean?_"

CHAPTER III

"HE KNOWS THE WORD"

The next moment the doubt natural to the occasion asserted itself.

"How do you know all this? You state the impossible. Explain yourself."

Gerridge was only too willing to do so.

"I have just come from Mr. Fulton's house," said he. "Inquiries there
elicited the facts which have so startled you. Neither Mr. Fulton nor his
wife meant to deceive you. They knew nothing, suspected nothing of what
took place, and you have no cause to blame them. It was all a plot
between the two women."

"But how--why--"

"You see, I had a fact to go upon. You had noticed that your so-called
bride's gloves did not fit her; the boy below, that her shoes were so
tight she hobbled. That set me thinking. A woman of Mrs. Ransom's
experience and judgment would not be apt to make a mistake in two such
important particulars; which, taken with the veil and the promise she
exacted from you not to address or touch her during your short ride to
the hotel, led me to point my inquiries so that I soon found out that
your wife had had the assistance of another woman in getting ready for
her journey and that this woman was her own maid who had been with her
for a long time, and had always given evidence of an especial attachment
for her. Asking about this girl's height and general appearance (for the
possibility of a substitution was already in my mind), I found that she
was of slight figure and good carriage, and that her age was not far
removed from that of her young mistress. This made the substitution I
have mentioned feasible, and when I was told that she was seen taking her
hat and bonnet into the bride's room, and, though not expected to leave
till the next morning, had slid away from the house by the basement door
at the same moment her mistress appeared on the front steps, my
suspicions became so confirmed that I asked how this girl looked, in the
hope that you would be able to recognize her, through the description,
as the woman you had seen sitting in Reception-room No. 3. But to my
surprise, Mrs. Fulton had what was better than any description, the
girl's picture. This has simplified matters very much. By it you have
been able to identify the woman who attempted to mislead you in the
reception-room, and I the person who rode here with you from Mr. Fulton's
house. Wasn't she dressed in brown? Didn't you notice a similarity in her
appearance to that of the very lady you were then seeking?"

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