Mr. Browne was voluble when he heard that a robbery had been committed in Mr. Argyll’s house. He had no doubt, he said, that the two crimes were connected, and it would be strange, indeed, if nothing could be discovered relating to either of them. He hoped that the lesser crime would be the means of betraying the greater. He trusted the rogue, whoever he or she might be, had, in this imprudent act, done something to betray himself. He had hopes of the five-hundred dollar bill.
Mr. Burton said very little, beyond asking two or three questions; but he was a good listener. Much of the time he sat with his eyes fixed upon James, who did a good deal of the talking. I could not, for the life of me, tell whether James was conscious of those blue-gray eyes; if he was, they did not much disturb him; he made his statements in a calm and lucid manner, gazing into Mr. Burton’s face with a clear and open look. After a while, the latter began to grow uneasy; powerful as was his physical and mental frame, I saw a trembling of both; he forced himself to remain quiet in his chair—but to me he had the air of a lion, who sees its prey but a little distance off, and who trembles with restraint. The light in his eye narrowed down to one gleam of concentrated fire—a steely, glittering point—he watched the rest of us and said little. If I had been a guilty man I should have shrunk from that observation, through the very walls, or out of a five-story window, if there had been no other way; it struck me that it would have been unbearable to any accusing conscience; but my own mind being burdened with no weightier sins than a few boyish follies—saving the selfishness and earthliness which make a part of all human natures—I felt quite free, breathing easily, while I noticed, with interest, the silent change going on in the detective.
More and more like a lion about to spring, he grew; but whether his prey was near at hand and visible, or far away and visible only to his mental gaze, I could not tell. I fairly jumped, when he at last rose quickly to his feet; I expected to see him bound upon some guilty ghost to us intangible, and shake it to pieces in an honest rage; but whatever was the passion within him, he controlled it, saying only, a little impatiently,
“Enough, gentlemen, we have talked enough! Browne, will you go with Mr. Argyll to the bank, and see about that money? I do not wish to be known there as belonging to your force. I will walk to his hotel with Mr. Redfield, and you can meet us there at any hour you choose to appoint.”
“It will take until tea-time to attend to the bank. Say about eight o’clock, then, we will be at the—”
“Metropolitan,” said I, and the quartette parted, half going up and half going down town.
On our way to the hotel we fell into an easy conversation on topics entirely removed from the one which absorbed the gravest thoughts of both. Mr. Burton did more talking now than he had done at the office, perhaps with the object of making me express myself freely; though if so, he managed with so much tact that his wish was not apparent. He had but poor success; the calamity of our house lay too heavily on me for me to forget it in an instant; but I was constantly surprised at the character of the man whose acquaintance I was making. He was intelligent, even educated, a gentleman in language and manner—a quite different person, in fact, from what I had expected in a member of the detective-police.
Shut up in the private parlor which I obtained at the Metropolitan, the subject of the murder was again broached and thoroughly discussed. Mr. Burton won my confidence so inevitably that I felt no hesitation in unvailing to him the domestic hearth of Mr. Argyll, whenever the habits or circumstances of the family were consulted in their bearing upon the mystery. And when he said to me, fixing his eye upon me, but speaking gently,
“You, too, loved the young lady,”—I neither blushed nor grew angry. That penetrating eye had read the secret of my heart, which had never been spoken or written, yet I did not feel outraged that he had dared to read it out to me. If he could find any matter against me in that holiest truth of my existence, he was welcome to it.
“Be it so,” I said; “that is with myself, and no one else.”