Detective and mystery stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
She surveyed me with strange apathy, and yet with a certain sort of
relief too. Then she slowly shook her head.
"I don't know anything about it. My head swims and everything looks
queer, but some one or something sent me to this place."
"Come in," I urged, "come in for a minute." And half supporting her,
half dragging her, I managed to get her across the threshold and into
the Chinaman's shop.
Immediately a dozen faces were pressed where hers had been.
The Chinaman, a stolid being, turned as he heard the little bell tinkle
which announced a customer.
"Is this the lady who left the clothes here a few nights ago?" I asked.
He stopped and stared, recognizing me slowly, and remembering by degrees
what had passed between us at our last interview.
"You tellee me lalee die; how him lalee when lalee die?"
"The lady is not dead; I made a mistake. Is this the lady?"
"Lalee talk; I no see face, I hear speak."
"Have you seen this man before?" I inquired of my nearly insensible
companion.
"I think so in a dream," she murmured, trying to recall her poor
wandering wits back from some region into which they had strayed.
"Him lalee!" cried the Chinaman, overjoyed at the prospect of getting
his money. "Pletty speak, I knowee him. Lalee want clo?"
"Not to-night. The lady is sick; see, she can hardly stand." And
overjoyed at this seeming evidence that the police had failed to get
wind of my interest in this place, I slipped a coin into the Chinaman's
hand, and drew Miss Oliver away towards the carriage I now saw drawing
up before the shop.
Lena's eyes when she came up to help me were a sight to see. They
seemed to ask who this girl was and what I was going to do with her. I
answered the look by a very brief and evidently wholly unexpected
explanation.
"This is your cousin who ran away," I remarked. "Don't you recognize
her?"
Lena gave me up then and there; but she accepted my explanation, and
even lied in her desire to carry out my whim.
"Yes, ma'am," said she, "and glad I am to see her again." And with a
deft push here and a gentle pull there, she succeeded in getting the
sick woman into the carriage.
The crowd, which had considerably increased by this time, was beginning
to flock about us with shouts of no little derision. Escaping it as best
I could, I took my seat by the poor girl's side, and bade Lena give the
order for home. When we left the curb-stone behind, I felt that the last
page in my adventures as an amateur detective had closed.
But I counted without my cost. Miss Oliver, who was in an advanced stage
of fever, lay like a dead weight on my shoulder during the drive down
the avenue, but when we entered the Park and drew near my house, she
began to show such signs of violent agitation that it was with
difficulty that the united efforts of Lena and myself could prevent her
from throwing herself out of the carriage door which she had somehow
managed to open.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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