Mona Part 18

Of course, the house which Mrs. Vanderbeck had given as her place of residence was visited, but as in the Bently affair, it proved to be empty, and Mrs. Vanderbeck seemed to have vanished as completely as if she had been a visitant from some other sphere.

All this had occurred while Mona was so absorbed in her grief for her uncle; when she had had no interest in anything outside her home, and so not having read any of the newspapers, she was entirely ignorant of the excitement that had prevailed over the robbery, and Ray's disappearance.

Thus she believed that he had deserted her, like most of her other fair-weather friends, and was trying to make herself believe that he was unworthy of her regard.

Poor Ray! it had fared hard with him during all this time, although not in the way that his father and the detectives feared.

We last saw him just after he had discovered the shred that had been torn from Mrs. Vanderbeck's dress; but when Doctor Huff again went to him he found him prostrate upon the floor in a high fever and delirious.

For four weeks he lay thus. He had taken a severe cold, and that, with the excitement and anxiety caused by the loss of the diamonds, had brought on the illness.

When Doctor Wesselhoff returned after a hard fight with disease in his wife's case, he found him very low, and just at the turning point in his fever.

He bestowed great commendation upon his pupil, however, for his management of the case, which, he said, he could not have treated better himself.

He expressed himself as very much surprised, because none of the young man's friends had called to make any inquiries about him; it certainly showed a lack of interest, if not a positive neglect, he thought.

He believed that the fever would turn favorably, for the young man had a naturally vigorous const.i.tution, and he had known of persons recovering who had possessed far less vitality.

Ray did pa.s.s the crisis successfully, but he was very weak for many days longer; too weak even to notice where he was, or who was caring for him.

But, as he gained a little strength, he looked curiously about him, then memory began to a.s.sert itself--he recalled the events which had occurred on that fateful day, when he had been made a captive, and he realized that he had been moved from that dismal padded chamber to a large and airy room in another portion of the house.

The next time Doctor Wesselhoff came to his bedside, after he had come thoroughly to himself, he said, in a grave but authoritative voice:

"Doctor Wesselhoff, sit down if you please; I want to talk with you for a few moments."

The physician obeyed, but with some surprise, for both the look and manner of his patient convinced him that he was perfectly rational.

"I have been very ill, have I not?" Ray inquired.

"Yes, but you are much better and steadily improving."

"How long have I been sick?"

"It is more than five weeks now since you were attacked."

Ray frowned at this information.

How must his father feel regarding his strange absence? What had become of that cunning thief and the diamonds? were questions which suggested themselves to him.

But he simply asked:

"When did you return to New York?"

"About a week ago," the physician replied. "I was very sorry to have to leave you as I did, but the summons to my wife was imperative, and of course my duty was by her side."

A sarcastic smile curled Ray's lips at this last remark.

"I am only surprised that you returned at all," he quietly responded.

"Why?" inquired the physician, with some astonishment.

"It is not always safe, you know," Ray answered, looking him straight in the eye, "for one who has aided and abetted a stupendous robbery to appear so soon upon the scene of his depredations."

Doctor Wesselhoff's face fell.

He had hoped that, when the young man should recover, all signs of his peculiar mania would disappear; but this did not seem much like it, and he began to fear the case might prove a very obstinate one.

"I think you must rest now," he remarked, evading the subject; "you have talked long enough this time."

"Perhaps I have, but I do not intend to rest until I have come to some definite understanding regarding my relations with you," Ray responded, resolutely.

"Well, then, what do you mean by a definite understanding?" the physician asked, thinking it might be as well to humor him a little.

"I want to know how far you are concerned in this plot to keep me a prisoner here? I want to know in what way you are connected with that woman who called herself Mrs. Vanderbeck, and who enticed me here with valuable diamonds, only to steal them from me? I believe I am in the power of a gang of thieves, and though I cannot reconcile it with what I had heard of you previously, that you must be a.s.sociated in some way with them."

Ray had spoken rapidly, and with an air and tone of stern command, which puzzled while it impressed the doctor.

"You bring a very serious charge against me, my young friend," he gravely remarked, but without betraying the slightest resentment; "but perhaps if you will tell me your side of the story I shall understand you better, and then I will explain my authority for detaining you here."

Doctor Wesselhoff was strangely attracted toward his patient. He did not seem at all like an insane person, except upon that one subject, and he would not have regarded that as a mania if he had not been a.s.sured of it by Mrs. Walton. He began to think there might at least be some misunderstanding, and that it would be as well to let the young man exhaust the subject once for all; then he could judge the better regarding the treatment he needed.

"Well, then, to begin at the beginning," Ray resumed. "A woman, giving her name as Mrs. William Vanderbeck, called at my father's store on the day I came here, and asked to look at diamonds. You will remember, I told you my father is a diamond dealer. They were shown to her, and she selected several very expensive ornaments, which she said she wished to wear at a reception that evening. But she represented that she could not purchase them unless they were first submitted to her husband for examination and his sanction. He was an invalid; he could not come to the store, consequently the stones must be taken to him; was there not some reliable person who could be sent to her residence with them, when, if Mr. Vanderbeck was satisfied with the ornaments, a check for their price would be filled out and returned to my father. This seemed fair and reasonable, and I was commissioned to attend the lady and take charge of the diamonds. I put the package in my pocket, and my hand never left it until the _coupe_ stopped before this house, when Mrs. Vanderbeck suddenly discovered that her dress had caught in the carriage door, and she could not rise. Of course I offered a.s.sistance in disengaging it; but in spite of our united efforts, the garment was torn during the operation. I suppose she robbed me at that moment, but am not quite sure, as I did not discover my loss until you--whom I supposed to be the lady's husband--entered the room, and I slipped my hand into my pocket for the diamonds, only to find that they were gone. You know the rest, and the treatment I received from yourself. Is it any wonder that I believed you an accomplice when I found myself in that padded chamber and losing all sense and reason beneath the influence of a powerful mesmerist?"

Doctor Wesselhoff had listened gravely throughout the young man's recital, and, though astonished and puzzled by what he heard, felt that he was relating a very connected story.

He was upon the point of replying to his questions, when he chanced to glance at his a.s.sistant, Doctor Huff, who had been in the room all the time, and saw that he was startlingly pale, and laboring under extreme agitation.

"Sir," cried the man, hoa.r.s.ely, "can it be possible that he is the victim of the recent diamond robbery, which has created so much excitement? The newspapers have been full of the story that he has just related."

CHAPTER XII.

AMOS PALMER FINDS HIS SON.

"What do you mean?" Doctor Wesselhoff sharply demanded, and losing color himself at the sudden suspicion that he also might have been the dupe of a set of rogues.

"Haven't you seen an account of the affair in the papers?" Doctor Huff asked. "They were full of it for two weeks after you left home."

"No, I did not see a New York paper from the time I started until I returned. I could not get one, even if I had not had too many cares and been too much absorbed in my wife's critical condition to think of or read news of any kind," Doctor Wesselhoff replied. Then, with a sudden thought, as he turned again to Ray: "Young man, is not your name Walton?"

"You know it is not," said Ray, with a flash of indignation. "I told you, the day I came, that my name is Palmer--Raymond Palmer."

"He is the man!" cried the a.s.sistant, starting up and regarding the invalid with a look of fear, "and it was Amos Palmer, the diamond merchant, who was robbed!"

"Can it be possible!" exclaimed the physician, amazed at this intelligence. "That woman--Mrs. Walton--told me that he was her son, only at times he denied his own name, so when he told me his name was 'Palmer'