The House of Mystery: An Episode in the Career of Rosalie Le Grange, ClairvoyantIrwin, Will
General
The House of Mystery: An Episode in the Career of Rosalie Le Grange, Clairvoyant
Irwin, Will
Clairvoyants -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories
"I was comin' downstairs in the afternoon a week ago Thursday, and I
saw Ellen let in a man. Good-looking man. Good dresser. Seemed about
thirty-five till you looked over his hands and the creases around his
eyes, when you saw he was risin' forty-five if a day. Stranger, I
guess, for Ellen kept him waiting in the hall. He read the papers while
he waited, and he didn't look at nothing but the financial columns. I
took it from that, he was in Wall Street, though you can't never tell
in New York, where they all play the market or the ponies. I didn't
wait to size him up real careful; that wouldn't do. I just passed on
down to the pantry and then passed back again. He was still there. This
time he had put up his newspapers, and he was looking over some pencil
notes on that yellow legal cap paper. He didn't hear me until I was
close on him, the rugs in the hall are that big and soft. But when I
did get close, he jumped like I had caught him in something crooked and
made like he was goin' to hide the sheets. Of course, I didn't look at
him, but just kept right on upstairs. When I turned into the second
floor, I heard Ellen say, 'Mrs. Markham will receive you.' I didn't pay
no attention to that at the time. It was only one of twenty little
things I remembered. Stayed in the back of my head, waitin' to tie up
with something else.
"Come Tuesday--week ago to-day and my afternoon off. I was comin' home
early, about nine o'clock. I've got front door privileges, but I
generally use the servants' entrance just the same. Right ahead of me,
a green automobile with one of those limousine bodies drove up to the
front door. It's dark down in the area by the servants' entrance. I
stopped like I was huntin' through my skirt for my key, and looked. Out
of the automobile come a man. He turned around to speak to the
chauffeur and I got the light on his face. _Who_ do you suppose it was?
Robert H. Norcross!"
"The railroad king?"
Rosalie pursed her lips and nodded wisely.
"How did you know? You've never seen him before."
"Ain't it my business to know the faces of everybody? What do I read
the personals in the magazines for? You'd know Theodore Roosevelt if
you saw him first time, wouldn't you? But I made surer than that. Next
day I matched the number of his automobile with the automobile
register. That number belongs to Robert H. Norcross."
Dr. Blake whistled.
"Playing for big game!" he said.
"That was what struck me," said Rosalie, "and while it wasn't
impossible that this Mr. Norcross might have a straight interest in the
spirit world--well, when you see big medium and big money together, it
looks like big _fake_. And there was the man with the notes who read
the financial pages--he jumped back into my mind.
"The servants' entrance comes out through the kitchen onto the second
floor. When I come into the hall, Ellen was waiting for me. She was
tiptoeing and whispering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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