The Holladay case

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

"Well," I said at last, for want of something better, "we'll go with you to the house, and see the man in charge there. Perhaps he can tell us something more."

But he could tell us very little. Ten days before, a carriage had driven up to the door, Miss Holladay and her maid had entered it and been driven away. The carriage had been called, he thought, from some neighboring stable, as the family coachman had been sent away with the other servants. They had driven down the avenue toward Thirty-fourth Street, where, he supposed, they were going to the Long Island station. We looked through the house—it was in perfect order. Miss Holladay's rooms were just as she would naturally have left them. Her father's rooms, too, were evidently undisturbed.

"Here's one thing," I said, "that might help," and I picked up a photograph from the mantel. "You won't mind my using it?"

Mr. Royce took it with trembling hand and gazed at it for a moment—at the dark eyes, the earnest mouth——Then he handed it back to me.

"No," he answered; "not if it will really help; we must use every means we can. Only——"

"I won't use it unless I absolutely have to," I assured him; "and when I'm done with it, I'll destroy it."

"Very well," he assented, and I put it in my pocket.

There was nothing more to be discovered there, and we went away, after warning the two men to say not a word to anyone concerning their mistress's disappearance.

Plainly, the first thing to be done was to find the coachman who had driven Miss Holladay and her maid away from the house; and with this end in view, we visited all the stables in the neighborhood; but from none of them had a carriage been ordered by her. Had she ordered it herself from a stable in some distant portion of the city for the purpose of concealing her whereabouts, or had it been ordered for her by her maid, and was she really the victim of foul play? I put this question to Mr. Royce, but he seemed quite unable to reach a conclusion. As for myself, I was certain that she had gone away of her own accord, and had deliberately planned her disappearance. Why? Well, I began to suspect that we had not yet really touched the bottom of the mystery.

We drove back to the office, and found Mr. Graham there. I related to him the circumstances of our search, and submitted to him and to our junior one question for immediate settlement.