That Affair Next Door E-Book

Anna Katharine Green

• Herausgeber: Enrico Conti
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Anna Katharine Green (November 11, 1846 – April 11, 1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories.  Green has been called "the mother of the detective novel"

Leseprobe

That Affair Next Door

by

Anna Katharine Green

To the best of our knowledge, the text of this

work is in the “Public Domain”.

HOWEVER, copyright law varies in other countries, and the work may still be under

copyright in the country from which you are accessing this website. It is your

responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country before

downloading this work.

Book I: Miss Butterworth’s Window.

A Discovery.

Questions.

Amelia Discovers Herself.

Silas Van Burnam.

“This is No One I Know.”

New Facts.

Mr. Gryce Discovers Miss Amelia.

The Misses Van Burnam.

Developments.

Important Evidence.

The Order Clerk.

The Keys.

Howard Van Burnam.

A Serious Admission.

A Reluctant Witness.

Book II: The Windings of a Labyrinth.

Cogitations.

Butterworth Versus Gryce.

The Little Pincushion.

A Decided Step Forward.

Miss Butterworth’s Theory.

A Shrewd Conjecture.

A Blank Card.

Ruth Oliver.

A House of Cards.

“The Rings! Where are the Rings?”

A Tilt with Mr. Gryce.

Found.

Taken Aback.

Book III: The Girl in Gray.

Amelia Becomes Peremptory.

The Matter as Stated by Mr. Gryce.

Some Fine Work.

Iconoclasm.

“Known, Known, All Known.”

Exactly Half-Past Three.

A Ruse.

Book IV: The End of a Great Mystery.

The Result.

“Two Weeks!”

A White Satin Gown.

The Watchful Eye.

As the Clock Struck.

Secret History.

With Miss Butterworth’s Compliments.

Book I.

Miss Butterworth’s Window.

i.

A Discovery.

I am not an inquisitive woman, but when, in the middle of a certain warm night in September, I heard a carriage draw up at the adjoining house and stop, I could not resist the temptation of leaving my bed and taking a peep through the curtains of my window.

First: because the house was empty, or supposed to be so, the family still being, as I had every reason to believe, in Europe; and secondly: because, not being inquisitive, I often miss in my lonely and single life much that it would be both interesting and profitable for me to know.

Luckily I made no such mistake this evening. I rose and looked out, and though I was far from realizing it at the time, took, by so doing, my first step in a course of inquiry which has ended ——

But it is too soon to speak of the end. Rather let me tell you what I saw when I parted the curtains of my window in Gramercy Park, on the night of September 17, 1895.

Not much at first glance, only a common hack drawn up at the neighboring curb-stone. The lamp which is supposed to light our part of the block is some rods away on the opposite side of the street, so that I obtained but a shadowy glimpse of a young man and woman standing below me on the pavement. I could see, however, that the woman — and not the man — was putting money into the driver’s hand. The next moment they were on the stoop of this long-closed house, and the coach rolled off.

It was dark, as I have said, and I did not recognize the young people — at least their figures were not familiar to me; but when, in another instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after a rather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took it for granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam’s eldest son Franklin, and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its most punctilious member, should bring a guest at so late an hour into a house devoid of everything necessary to make the least exacting visitor comfortable, was a mystery that I retired to bed to meditate upon.

I did not succeed in solving it, however, and after some ten minutes had elapsed, I was settling myself again to sleep when I was re-aroused by a fresh sound from the quarter mentioned. The door I had so lately heard shut, opened again, and though I had to rush for it, I succeeded in getting to my window in time to catch a glimpse of the departing figure of the young man hurrying away towards Broadway. The young woman was not with him, and as I realized that he had left her behind him in the great, empty house, without apparent light and certainly without any companion, I began to question if this was like Franklin Van Burnam. Was it not more in keeping with the recklessness of his more easy-natured and less reliable brother, Howard, who, some two or three years back, had married a young wife of no very satisfactory antecedents, and who, as I had heard, had been ostracized by the family in consequence?

Whichever of the two it was, he had certainly shown but little consideration for his companion, and thus thinking, I fell off to sleep just as the clock struck the half hour after midnight.

Next morning as soon as modesty would permit me to approach the window, I surveyed the neighboring house minutely. Not a blind was open, nor a shutter displaced. As I am an early riser, this did not disturb me at the time, but when after breakfast I looked again and still failed to detect any evidences of life in the great barren front beside me, I began to feel uneasy. But I did nothing till noon, when going into my rear garden and observing that the back windows of the Van Burnam house were as closely shuttered as the front, I became so anxious that I stopped the next policeman I saw going by, and telling him my suspicions, urged him to ring the bell.

No answer followed the summons.

“There is no one here,” said he.

“Ring again!” I begged.

And he rang again but with no better result.

“Don’t you see that the house is shut up?” he grumbled. “We have had orders to watch the place, but none to take the watch off.”

“There is a young woman inside,” I insisted. “The more I think over last night’s occurrence, the more I am convinced that the matter should be looked into.”

He shrugged his shoulders and was moving away when we both observed a common-looking woman standing in front looking at us. She had a bundle in her hand, and her face, unnaturally ruddy though it was, had a scared look which was all the more remarkable from the fact that it was one of those wooden-like countenances which under ordinary circumstances are capable of but little expression. She was not a stranger to me; that is, I had seen her before in or about the house in which we were at that moment so interested; and not stopping to put any curb on my excitement, I rushed down to the pavement and accosted her.