That Affair at Elizabeth

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

"And you'll be back soon?"

"Not to-night, I'm afraid."

"Oh, nonsense, Mr. Lester——"

But I left her protesting on the step, and hurried down the street. Mrs. Fitch meant well, but she was sometimes a little in the way.

I took the elevated to Cortlandt Street, and hurried down to the ferry, expecting every instant to hear the gong which announced the departure of the boat. But I found that I had ten minutes to wait before there was a train, and I spent them walking feverishly up and down the narrow waiting-room, where the road's patrons are herded like cattle behind the slatted gates.

At last the gates opened; there was the usual rush to the boat; the slow crossing of the wide river, with the cool salt breeze coming in from the ocean; the stampede to the coaches through the great Jersey City station; and finally I found myself in a seat, with the train rumbling out from under the long shed.

I stared out into the night, wondering what the new developments could be. They must have been unusual and unexpected ones, to stir Godfrey to sending me that telegram! But what could they be? For the present, the case was closed. Curtiss and Miss Lawrence were both in mid-ocean, and any further developments must await their meeting. Besides, it was only a few hours since I myself had left Elizabeth, and there had seemed no prospect then of anything further happening there. Godfrey had announced his own intention of leaving the place at once—he had said that the case wasn't worth wasting any more time over. What, then, had detained him?

Was it possible, I asked myself, that Marcia Lawrence had not sailed on the Umbria, that the message had been merely a blind, that she had foreseen that we would trace it to the West Street office, that she had written it on a sheet of the steamer's paper for the purpose of deceiving us? Yes, that was clearly possible. She may have returned home, and Godfrey, discovering the return, had summoned me to be present at her unmasking! I had really only half-believed that it was she whom Curtiss had descried upon the Umbria's forward deck. But if she had, indeed, done all this, she must be far more deeply versed in deception than I had supposed. I should hardly have given her credit for laying a plan so adroit as that; but one can never judge a woman's capabilities.

Suddenly conscious again of my fatigue, I laid my head back against the seat, and dozed away until the sharp call of the brakeman aroused me. Not until I had left the train did I remember that Godfrey had appointed no rendezvous. He might, perhaps, be awaiting me at the hotel, or, at least, he had certainly left a message there for me, and I started up the street.

But an inquiry of the clerk developed the fact that, while Godfrey was still stopping there, he had gone out immediately after dinner, and had left no message of any kind. For a moment I was fairly taken aback, so confident had I been; but perhaps Godfrey had deemed a message superfluous after the hint given in the telegram—I knew how he detested the obvious. He had no doubt thought that hint sufficient—and it was.