The Black Cat, Vol. I, No. 6, March 1896

MARCH 1896 ***

The Black Cat

March 1896.

=Eleanor Stevens’ Will=, Isabel Scott Stone =To Let=, Alice Turner Curtis =Of Course—Of Course Not=, Harry M. Peck =The Marchburn Mystery=, A. Maurice Low =Their Colonial Villa=, Charles Barnard

THE SHORTSTORY PUBLISHING CO. 144 HIGH ST., BOSTON MASS.

No. 6. Copyright, 1895 by The Shortstory Publishing Co.

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The Black Cat

A Monthly Magazine of Original Short Stories.

No. 6. MARCH, 1896. 5 cents a copy, 50 cents a year.

Entered at the Post-Office at Boston, Mass., as second-class matter.

=IMPORTANT.=—The entire contents of this magazine are covered by copyright and publishers everywhere are cautioned against reproducing any of the stories, either wholly or in part.

Copyright, 1895, by the Shortstory Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Eleanor Stevens’ Will.

BY ISABEL SCOTT STONE.

When the following notice appeared in the columns of the daily newspapers, society experienced an absolutely new sensation. People who hadn’t known the late Eleanor Stevens immediately began to inquire into the history of the woman whose name was coupled with so singular an announcement. And people who had known Eleanor Stevens forthwith revived long lists of her curious fads and fancies, concluding always with the declaration: “Well, it’s just what you might expect from Eleanor Stevens.”

PERSONAL. The rejected suitors of the late Miss Eleanor Stevens may hear something to their advantage by communicating with Willard Pratt, Counsellor at Law, International Trust Building.

Now, Eleanor Stevens had been by no means either the crotchety old maid or the rattle-brained young one that these remarks might imply. On the contrary, she had been a rarely charming and gifted young woman, well born, well bred, the heiress to an enormous fortune, in fact, the possessor of beauty, brains, and money, sufficient to equip half a dozen so-called society belles. But in spite of these endowments, or, perhaps, because of them, Eleanor Stevens had been an eccentric, and with every year since her début her eccentricity had become more marked. At times, for example, she would dance and golf, pour at teas, and talk small talk to eligible young men with a persistency and success that made her for the time the sun of society’s solar system. Then, suddenly, and with no excuse whatever, she would withdraw into herself, refuse all invitations, and spend a month or more in studying Buddhism or in inquiring into the condition of the poor in great cities. As to her suitors, the most remarkable reports had existed concerning Miss Stevens’ treatment of those gentlemen. It had been said by some that each in turn underwent a period of suspense hung, like Mahomet’s coffin, between earth and heaven, at the end of which time he was always lowered to the former element by Miss Stevens’ unqualified refusal. Certain malicious rivals had even claimed that at times these proposals were so numerous that Miss Stevens used printed forms of rejection,—like those sent by publishers with unavailable manuscript,—with space left blank for the name and date. There were others who had declared that her drawing-room was always as crowded with suitors as a fashionable doctor’s waiting-room with patients. Occasionally, it had occurred to an exceptionally keen-witted person to connect the girl’s periods of self-exile with her reputed refusal of some specially manly lover. But each of these reports was, after all, founded only on surmise. For it was cited as a crowning instance of Miss Stevens’ eccentricity that she had looked upon the subject of love and marriage with an old-fashioned romanticism, and that while she had never found her special ideal, she yet believed too thoroughly in the honor of her would-be lovers ever to betray their confidence. In the end, society had concluded to accept the girl’s vagaries as simply “Eleanor Stevens’ way.” And this formula had been made to cover a multitude of oddities, ranging from the wearing of high crowns when low ones were the fashion, to Miss Stevens’ sudden and mysterious departure for Europe exactly two days after she had taken apartments for the summer with a party of friends at a watering-place hotel. Indeed, when, six months after her abrupt departure, the notice came of the young heiress’ sudden death—unattended except by her maid and companion—in some obscure village in the Black Forest, even her friends could find no phrase that so well expressed their shocked surprise as: “Well, that was just like Eleanor Stevens. She couldn’t even die like other people.”

And now, following upon the news of her strange death, had appeared this still stranger notice.

Eleanor Stevens’ rejected suitors! Who were they? Would they present themselves according to directions? What were the advantages they would gain by so doing?

To the last of these questions the public had not long to wait for an answer. Three days after the extraordinary “personal” had made its appearance, the announcement was made that Eleanor Stevens had left a will, and that this will had been probated. Before this news was twelve hours old, the sensation caused by the advertisement was completely overshadowed by that produced by the following clause with which it was discovered the will ended:

“To each one of my rejected suitors I give and bequeath twenty-five thousand dollars, to be paid subject to certain sealed conditions, exactly one year from my death, in the library of my residence in Beechwood Street, Philadelphia.”

Decidedly, society had never found a more tantalizing subject for gossip than was furnished by this mysterious will. The latest scandal, the approaching wedding at St. Peter’s, and the forthcoming private ball all faded into nothingness beside this all-absorbing sensation. In the newspapers long accounts of the dead woman’s life and character, of her house and gowns, ways of wearing her hair, and such light-throwing investigations were published daily. A popular preacher referred to the subject veiledly in his Sunday night sermon. Men who had never seen Eleanor Stevens quizzed one another about the wide swath they would cut when they claimed the money due them under her will. While every masculine being, from an office boy to a gray-haired clergyman, that rode up in the elevator in the International Trust Building, where Willard Pratt had his office, was regarded as a possible applicant, bent on further informing himself concerning the curious legacy’s conditions. One man only knew the facts in the case, and that was Eleanor Stevens’ lawyer, Willard Pratt; but from him neither hints, nor bribes, nor open question could drag a syllable. As for Mr. Pratt’s office boy, he reaped a harvest of retainers for worthless tips on the “approaching race.”

In the end, people decided that the legacy had some connection with the late Miss Stevens’ romantic ideas concerning her rejected suitors; and accepted, grudgingly, the necessity of awaiting the slow coming and going of three hundred and sixty-five days before they could find out who those suitors had been.

Meantime, Willard Pratt, counsellor-at-law, was deriving from the administration of Miss Stevens’ will the keenest enjoyment of his long and varied legal career. Being a shrewd reader of character, and possessed of a large fund of humor, he had vastly enjoyed being interviewed by the claimants or the claimants’ friends, and, though they had got nothing out of him, he had, on the other hand, got a great deal out of them. As one after another left him the keen jurist invariably chuckled to himself:

“Smart girl to refuse him. He was after the money, that’s plain. But what in the name of all that’s holy made her give him twenty-five thousand now?”

But his enjoyment reached its culminating point when, just one week before the day appointed for the settlement of the will, society was again startled by this notice in the daily papers:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

The rejected suitors of Miss Eleanor Stevens are requested to meet at her late residence on Beechwood Street, Philadelphia, on Monday, the 21st inst., at ten o’clock A. M., with reference to the legacies due them under her will. WILLARD PRATT, _Executor_.

“I think that will reawaken popular interest,” said the old lawyer dryly.

And so it did. Seven days later, when the hour appointed for the reception of Miss Stevens’ rejected suitors drew near, the street in the vicinity of her late residence was lined with an eager multitude of men and women. From behind the curtains of every window within a block, unseen spectators awaited the morning’s developments; while people who would not acknowledge their curiosity by joining the crowd of confessed sight-seers made convenient errands which took them through Beechwood Street at the time appointed for the “show.” The only drawback to the anticipated enjoyment was the fear that, after all, the suitors might at the last moment fail to appear.

But no such catastrophe occurred. It is true that as the hour drew near in which they were to stand confessed as members of Miss Eleanor’s “army of martyrs” several of the intended claimants had found themselves weakening in their resolve. Those, for instance, who had justified their claim solely on the ground of an admiration felt but never expressed, felt their courage oozing as the ordeal approached. Others, who were burning incense at new shrines, seriously considered renouncing a claim that would decidedly complicate their present prospects. Still others, who were now happily married, hesitated at opening the old wound and endangering their domestic bliss, even for twenty-five thousand dollars; while hardly one but felt some qualms at the thought of openly profiting by an experience that most men hide in the deepest recesses of the heart.

It was a question whether pride or profit would win the day. In the end, however, the almighty dollar had proved its right to that title.

When Mr. Pratt entered the library of Miss Stevens’ late residence, at ten o’clock on this eventful morning, he found the room crowded with a body of men clad in mourning garb and solemnly waiting in various stages of uneasiness for the approach of the long-expected moment.

As the lawyer silently took his seat behind a baize-covered table, the troubled faces grew visibly more troubled; and as he produced sundry important-looking documents and laid them on the table, each countenance was stamped with mingled emotions, eager expectancy in many cases being linked with shame and avarice.

“Gentlemen,” began the old lawyer, “I must trouble each of you to give me in writing a concise statement of the time, place, and circumstances attending your several offers and rejections, in order that I may have documentary proof that you are entitled to the legacies left you by the terms of Miss Stevens’ will.

“Documentary proof!” At those unexpected words the emotion that marked the faces of the strange assembly changed to unmistakable concern. Was this some disagreeable joke? No, the old lawyer waited with unmoved face for the fulfilment of his demand. There was a momentary hesitation. Then, filing up in due order, the applicants, one by one, seated themselves at the table before the old attorney and wrote the account demanded.

As the last statement was signed, the portières of the library were suddenly drawn back, and a tall, heavily veiled figure advanced slowly into the middle of the room. Then, as she raised her hand and drew back the thick gauze that masked her face, a cry of terror echoed through the house.

The woman was Eleanor Stevens!

“Wait,” she commanded. “Don’t be alarmed; I am no ghost. The Miss Stevens who died a year ago in the Black Forest was not the Miss Stevens whose loss you are so deeply mourning.

“By a stupid blunder of the peasants with whom I was staying, an exchange of names occurred between myself and an invalid girl whom I had befriended; so that when she died, her death certificate was issued under the name of Eleanor Stevens.

“Some weeks earlier I had been influenced by daily contact with one whose life was fading rapidly away to draw up my will in legal form and to send it home to my lawyer.

“When I left so suddenly for Europe a year and a half ago it was because of a conversation overheard between several of my seeming admirers which changed all my ideas of manly chivalry in affairs of the heart, and which drove me abroad, as I supposed, forever.

“It was that blundering exchange of names that has given me the opportunity of meeting you under these interesting circumstances.

“Now, gentlemen, my will, in which you have shown so deep an interest, stipulates that each of my rejected suitors shall receive twenty-five thousand dollars after my death. That bequest will be carried out to the letter when I am really dead.

“In the meantime I would gladly read your documentary proofs; but, as I have never in all my life rejected but two suitors, and as one of these died six months ago and the other is not here to-day, I shall be obliged to refer you to my lawyer.”

And with a sweeping courtesy Miss Stevens withdrew from the room.

“To Let.”

BY ALICE TURNER CURTIS.

On one of the streets leading from the park in the center of a town near Boston is a very attractive modern house with a history. It was built for the occupancy of a Mr. and Mrs. Leslie, whose mysterious deaths mark the beginning of this story.

The facts here recorded are just as I heard them. Indeed I was a resident of the town during the period in which these strange occurrences took place, and had a personal acquaintance with the people mentioned.

The Leslies had been married a year, were apparently happy, and were well and favorably known in the town. One morning a neighbor noticed that lights were burning in the Leslie house. He ran up the steps and rang the bell. There was no response, and after a few hours the neighbors decided that something was wrong inside, and that an entrance must be made at once. The front door was accordingly forced open, and as the men went in they could see into the room beyond the hall, the sitting-room. Mr. Leslie was sitting with a paper across his knees, apparently asleep, and on a couch near by lay his wife.

It took but a few moments to ascertain that both had been dead for some hours. Their faces were peaceful and composed; there were no signs of disturbance in the house.

Every possible inquiry was made. No trace of poison or of foul play could be found. Numberless theories were advanced, and the wonder and excitement over the tragic death of the young couple grew daily.

After some months their relatives removed the furnishings, and “To Let” appeared in the cottage windows. The house was immediately taken by a man from Boston, whose family consisted, beside himself, of his wife and two little girls. None of this family had heard the story of the Leslies, nor did they hear it until they had been in the cottage for some weeks.

One night, after they had occupied the dwelling for over a week, the man of the family was awakened by a sudden scream. His wife awoke at the same moment, and exclaimed: “One of the children must have the nightmare,” but just then the two little girls rushed into the room, exclaiming, “What’s the matter, mother? What are you screaming about?” Almost before they had finished speaking two more screams in quick succession rang through the house. The place was carefully searched, but no cause for the disturbance could be found.

The next night at about the same hour like sounds were heard. After that Mr. Weston made inquiries of the neighbors. None of them had been disturbed. One suggested that possibly a cat was shut up somewhere in the house and had made the noises heard, but a careful search of the entire premises failed to discover any such commonplace solution of the mysterious sounds.

A week passed without any recurrence of the midnight sounds, when one night Mrs. Weston awoke from a most terrible dream. She dreamed that she was lying upon the couch in the sitting-room. In front of her stood a young man who held a pillow in his hands. “I shall stifle you,” he said clearly; “it’s no use to struggle.” Mrs. Weston dreamed that she tried to scream; that once, twice, three times she endeavored to rise from the couch to push away the pillow, but could not.

From this dream she awoke suddenly, and, as she lay endeavoring to overcome its impression, a gasping shriek, quickly followed by two more, awakened her husband, and again sent the little girls flying in terror to their mother’s room.

This time Mrs. Weston held herself responsible for the terrible screams. “I’ve had a dreadful dream, and I suppose I screamed without knowing it,” she said. She had hardly finished this explanation when again came the screams, the last dying away in a stifled moan.

The family was by this time thoroughly terrified. They had heard the story of the Leslies, and without waiting for further experiences in the house they moved at once.

Their story got about the town, with the result that the house was vacant for a year. Then a family, consisting of an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Walters, and their son, a young man about twenty-five, moved in. The remainder of the story was told me by this son, and I will give it in his own words as nearly as possible:

“I wasn’t afraid of any haunted house. My father was deaf, so it would take a reasonably loud scream to wake him, and my mother was a sensible woman. The house just suited us. We got nicely settled in a few weeks, and my elder brother and his wife came out from Boston to make us a visit. The first night they were there I stayed in town for the theater. The train I came out in left a few minutes after eleven, and I reached the house at about a quarter before twelve. I was nearly ready for bed when a shriek like that of a person struggling for his life sounded through the house. I hurried into the hall, and as I did so my brother opened his door. Before either of us could speak a second and a third scream followed. By this time even father’s deaf ears had been penetrated, and we all sat up talking the matter over far into the night before we felt like sleep.

“In the end we decided not to mention the occurrence. We thought of several possible explanations of the noise. The next morning we made a careful examination of the house and surroundings. We made inquiries as to late trains, thinking we might have mistaken the shriek of an engine for a human voice; but all our conjectures led to nothing. We could find no satisfactory reason for the disturbance.