Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/258

248 travelling about the room in my anxiety and impatience. "We are not absolutely sure that she is anywhere. But word has come to us that a girl’s face believed to be Hannah’s has been seen at the upper window of a certain house in—don’t start—R, where a year ago she was in the habit of visiting while at the hotel with the Misses Leavenworth. Now, as it has already been determined that she left New York the night of the murder, by the  Railroad, though for what point we have been unable to ascertain, we consider the matter worth inquiring into."

"But"

"If she is there," resumed Mr. Gryce, "she is secreted; kept very close. No one except the informant has ever seen her, nor is there any suspicion among the neighbors of her being in town."

"Hannah secreted at a certain house in R? Whose house?"

Mr. Gryce honored me with one of his grimmest smiles. "The name of the lady she ’s with is given in the communication as Belden; Mrs. Amy Belden."

"Amy Belden! the name found written on a torn envelope by Mr. Clavering’s servant girl in London?"

"Yes."

I made no attempt to conceal my satisfaction. "Then we are upon the verge of some discovery; Providence has interfered, and Eleanore will be saved! But when did you get this word?"

"Last night, or rather this morning; Q brought it."

"It was a message, then, to Q?"

"Yes, the result of his molings while in R, I suppose."

"Whom was it signed by?"