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<h2> CHAPTER VI. A BIT OF CALICO </h2>
<p>It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of
lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake. My
room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from its
windows I could easily watch the goings and comings of the gentleman whose
movements were daily becoming of more and more interest to me. For set it
down to caprice—and men are often as capricious as women—or
account for it as you will, his restlessness at this period was truly
remarkable. Not a day that he did not spend his time in walking the
streets, and that not in his usual aimless gentlemanly fashion, but
eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed here and there, like a bird
seeking its prey. It would often be as late as five o'clock before he came
in, and if, as now frequently happened, he did not have company to dinner,
he was even known to start out again after seven o'clock and go over the
same ground as in the morning, looking with strained gaze, that vainly
endeavored to appear unconcerned, into the faces of the women that he
passed. I not unfrequently followed him at these times as much for my own
amusement as from any hope I had of coming upon anything that should aid
me in the work before me. But when he suddenly changed his route of travel
from a promenade in the fashionable thoroughfares of Broadway and
Fourteenth Street to a walk through Chatham Square and the dark, narrow
streets of the East side, I began to scent whom the prey might be that he
was seeking, and putting every other consideration aside, regularly set
myself to dog his steps, as only I, with my innumerable disguises, knew
how to do. For three separate days I kept at his heels wherever he went,
each day growing more and more astonished if not to say hopeful, as I
found myself treading the narrowest and most disreputable streets of the
city; halting at the shops of pawnbrokers; peering into the back-rooms of
liquor shops; mixing with the crowds that infest the corner groceries at
nightfall, and even slinking with hand on the trigger of the pistol I
carried in my pocket, up dark alleys where every door that swung
noiselessly to and fro as we passed, shut upon haunts of such villainy as
only is known to us of the police, or to those good souls that for the
sake of One whose example they follow, lay aside their fears and
sensitiveness to carry light into the dim pits of this wretched world. At
first I thought Mr. Blake might have some such reason for the peculiar
course he took. But his indifference to all crowds where only men were
collected, his silence where a word would have been well received,
convinced me it was a woman he was seeking and that with an intentness
which blinded him to the commonest needs of the hour. I even saw him once
in his hurry and abstraction, step across the body of a child who had
fallen face downward on the stones, and that with an expression showing he
was utterly unconscious of anything but an obstacle in his path. The
strangest part of it all was that he seemed to have no fear. To be sure he
took pains to leave his watch at home; but with such a figure and carriage
as he possessed, the absence of jewelry could never deceive the eye for a
moment as to the fact of his being a man of wealth, and those he went
among would do anything for money. Perhaps, like me, he carried a pistol.
At all events he shunned no spot where either poverty lay hid or deviltry
reigned, his proud stern head bending to enter the lowest doors without a
tremble of the haughty lips that remained compressed as by an iron force;
except when some poor forlorn creature with flaunting head-gear, and
tremulous hands, attracted by his bearing would hastily brush against him,
when he would turn and look, perhaps speak, though what he said I always
failed to catch; after which he would hurry on as if possessed by seven
devils. The evenings of those three days were notable also. Two of them he
spent in the manner I have described; the third he went to the Windsor
House—where the Countess De Mirac had taken rooms—going up to
the ladies' entrance and actually ringing the bell, only to start back and
walk up and down on the opposite side of the way, with his hands behind
his back, and his head bent, evidently deliberating as to whether he
should or should not carry out his original intention of entering. The
arrival of a carriage with the stately subject of his deliberations, who
from her elaborate costume had seemingly been to some kettledrum or
private reception, speedily put an end to his doubts. As the door opened
to admit her, I saw him cast one look at her heavily draped person, with
its snowy opera-cloak drawn tightly over the sweeping folds of her maize
colored silk, and shrink back with what sounded like a sigh of anger or
distrust, and without waiting for the closing of the door upon her, turn
toward home with a step that hesitated no longer.</p>
<p>The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go with
him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my window
from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I supposed upon
his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a long, dull waiting
for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses of Mrs. Daniels' troubled
face as she appeared at one window or another of the old-fashioned mansion
before me. She seemed, too, to be unusually restless, opening the windows
and looking out with forlorn cranings of her neck as if she too were
watching for her master. Indeed I have no doubt from what I afterwards
learned, that she was in a state of constant suspense during these days.
Her frequent appearance at the station house, where she in vain sought for
some news of the girl in whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed this.
Only the day before I gave myself up to my unreserved espionage of Mr.
Blake, she had had an interview with Mr. Gryce in which she had let fall
her apprehensions that the girl was dead, and asked whether if that were
the case, the police would be likely to come into a knowledge of the fact.
Upon being assured that if she had not been privately made way with, there
was every chance in their favor, she had grown a little calmer, but before
going away had so far forgotten herself as to intimate that if some result
was not reached before another fortnight had elapsed, she should take the
matter into her own hands and—She did not say what she would do, but
her looks were of a very menacing character. It was no wonder, then, that
her countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she trod the halls of
that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich with bronzes and the
glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing suggestions of loss and
wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze from the windows for the
coming of one whose footsteps were ever delayed. She happened to be
looking out, when after a longer stroll than usual the master of the house
returned. As he made his appearance at the corner, I saw her hurriedly
withdraw her head and hide herself behind the curtain, from which position
she watched him as with tired steps and somewhat dejected mien, he passed
up the steps and entered the house. Not till the door closed upon him, did
she venture to issue forth and with a hurried movement shut the blinds and
disappear. This anxiety on her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough
was I when on the next day I found myself well enough to renew my
operations. To ferret out this mystery, if mystery it was,—I still
found myself forced to admit the possibility of there being none—had
now become the one ambition of my life; and all because it was not only an
unusually blind one, but of a nature that involved danger to my position
as detective, I entered upon it with a zest rare even to me who love my
work and all it involves with an undivided passion.</p>
<p>To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake shortly
after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship to me that
bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience, a long and
wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all probability at the end
but reiterated disappointment. But for once the fates had willed it
otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at the failure of his own
attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart to prosecute them than usual
I cannot say, but we had scarcely entered upon the lower end of the
Bowery, before he suddenly turned with a look of disgust, and gazing
hurriedly about him, hailed a Madison Avenue car that was rapidly
approaching. I was at that moment on the other side of the way, but I
hurried forward too, and signaled the same car. But just as I was on the
point of entering it I perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with his
eyes upon a girl that was hurrying past him with a basket on her arm,
regain the sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop her.
Of course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him too
closely after my late conspicuous attempt to enter it with him. But from
my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the girl, who
from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of any one of the
shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the four corners within my
view, and after talking earnestly with her for a few moments, saunter at
her side down Broome Street, still talking. Reckless at this sight of the
consequences which might follow his detection of the part I was playing, I
hasted after them, when I was suddenly disconcerted by observing him
hurriedly separate from the girl and turn towards me with intention as it
were to regain the corner he had left. Weighing in an instant the probable
good to be obtained by following either party, I determined to leave Mr.
Blake for one day to himself, and turn my attention to the girl he had
addressed, especially as she was tall and thin and bore herself with
something like grace.</p>
<p>Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain attempt
to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown five years
older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now flitting before
me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her dress to its minutest
details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged and uncouth it was. That
Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen, clad in a black alpaca frock,
a striped shawl and a Bowery hat trimmed with feathers, I could easily
understand; but that this creature with her faded calico dress, dingy cape
thrown carelessly over her head, and ragged basket, should arrest his
attention, was a riddle to me. I hastened forward with intent to catch a
glimpse of her countenance if possible; but she seemed to have acquired
wings to her feet since her interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd
of hooting urchins that were rushing from Centre Street after a broken
wagon and runaway horse, she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I soon
saw that my only hope of overtaking her lay in running. I accordingly
quickened my steps when those same hooting youngsters getting in the way
of my feet, I tripped up and—well, I own I retired from that field
baffled. Not entirely so, however. Just as I was going down, I caught
sight of the girl tearing away from a box of garbage on the curb-stone;
and when order having been restored, by which lofty statement I mean to
say when your humble servant had regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the
fact that she had effectually disappeared, I hurried to that box and
succeeded in finding hanging to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a
piece of the old calico frock of nameless color which I had been following
a moment before. Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory
day's work, I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till—But
with all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.</p>
<p>When I came home that afternoon I found myself unexpectedly involved in a
matter that for the remainder of the day at least, prevented me from
further attending to the affair I had in hand. The next morning Mr. Blake
did not start out as usual, and at noon I received intimation from Fanny
that he was preparing to take a journey. Where, she could not inform me,
nor when, though she thought it probable he would take an early train.
Mrs. Daniels was feeling dreadfully, she informed me; and the house was
like a grave. Greatly excited at this unexpected move on Mr. Blake's part,
I went home and packed my valise with something of the spirit of her who
once said, under somewhat different circumstances I allow, "Whither thou
goest I will go."</p>
<p>The truth was, I had travelled so far and learned so little, that my
professional pride was piqued. That expression of Mr. Gryce still rankled,
and nothing could soothe my injured spirit now but success. Accordingly
when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the Hudson River
Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a small town in the
northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a spruce young drummer, or
what certainly appeared such, who by some strange coincidence, wanted a
ticket for the same place. The fact did not seem in the least to surprise
him, nor did he cast me a look beyond the ordinary glance of one stranger
at another. Indeed Mr. Blake had no appearance of being a suspicious man,
nor do I think at this time, he had the remotest idea that he was either
watched or followed; an ignorance of the truth which I took care to
preserve by taking my seat in a different car from him and not showing
myself again during the whole ride from New York to Putney.</p>
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