Lawyers -- Fiction; Love stories; Mystery and detective stories; Political corruption -- Fiction
The car went to the bad again at Wynton, and he and Barney tinkered with
it until two-forty. They got it in shape to go back to the barn, but
that was all. Just as they were ready to start, a passenger got on, a
woman, alone: a small woman with a brown veil. She wore a black dress or
a suit--he was vague about everything but the color, and he noticed her
especially because she was fidgety and excited. Half a block farther a
man boarded the car, and sat across from the woman. Barney said
afterward that the man tried twice to speak to the woman, but she looked
away each time. No, he hadn't heard what he said.
The man got out when the car went into the barn, but the woman stayed
on. He and Barney got another car and took it out, and the woman went
with them. She made a complete round trip this time, going out to Wynton
and back to the end of the line down-town. It was just daylight when she
got off at last, at First and Day Streets.
Asked if he had thought at the time that the veiled woman was young or
old, he said he had thought she was probably middle-aged. Very young or
very old women would not put in the night riding in a street-car. Yes,
he had had men who rode around a couple of times at night, mostly to
sober up before they went home. But he never saw a woman do it before.
I took his name and address and thanked him. The chauffeur came next,
and his story was equally pertinent.
On the night of the previous Thursday he had been engaged to take a sick
woman from a down-town hotel to a house at Bellwood. The woman's husband
was with her, and they went slowly to avoid jolting. It was after twelve
when he drove away from the house and started home. At a corner--he did
not know the names of the streets--a woman hailed the cab and asked him
if he belonged in Bellwood or was going to the city. She had missed the
last train. When he told her he was going into town, she promptly
engaged him, and showed him where to wait for her, a narrow road off the
main street.
"I waited an hour," he finished, "before she came; I dropped to sleep or
I would have gone without her. About half-past one she came along, and a
gentleman with her. He put her in the cab, and I took her to the city.
When I saw in the paper that a lady had disappeared from Bellwood that
night, I knew right off that it was my party."
"Would you know the man again?"
"I would know his voice, I expect, sir; I could not see much: he wore a
slouch hat and had a traveling-bag of some kind."
"What did he say to the woman?" I asked.
"He didn't say much. Before he closed the door, he said, 'You have put
me in a terrible position,' or something like that. From the
traveling-bag and all, I thought perhaps it was an elopement, and the
lady had decided to throw him down."
"Was it a young woman or an old one," I asked again. This time the
cabby's tone was assured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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