ARTHUR RIPLEY—good-natured, impressionable, unpractical Arthur Ripley, as his familiars called him—dwelt in Beekman Place. Beek-man Place, as the reader may not know, is a short, chocolate-colored, unpretentious thoroughfare, perched on the eastern brink of Manhattan Island, and commanding a fine view of the river, of the penitentiary, and of the oil factories at Hunter’s Point. Arthur and a friend of his, Mr. Julian Hetzel, kept house in the two upper stories of No. 43, an old German woman named Josephine acting as their maid-of-all-work. They had a kitchen, a dining-room, a parlor, two airy dormitories, a light closet which did duty for a guest-chamber; and over and above all, they had the roof. Upon the roof Hetzel had swung a hammock, and in earthen pots round about had ranged an assortment of flowering shrubs; so that by courtesy the roof was commonly styled the loggia. Here, toward sundown on that summery April day mentioned in the last chapter, the chums were seated, sipping their after-dinner coffee and smoking their after-dinner cigarettes. They could not have wished for a pleasanter spot for their pleasant occupation. By fits and starts a sweet breeze puffed up from the south. Westward the sun was sinking into a crimson fury. Eastward the horizon glowed with a delicate pink light. Below them, on one side, stretched the river—tinted like mother-o’-pearl by the ruddy sky overhead—-up which a procession of Sound steamboats was sweeping in stately single file. On the other side lay the street, clamorous with the voices of many children at sport. Around the corner, an itinerant band was playing selections from Trovatore. Blatant and faulty though the music was, softened by distance, it had a quite agreeable effect. Of course, the topic of conversation was Arthur’s case.

Hetzel said, “It will be slow work, and tedious.”

“On the contrary,” retorted Arthur, “it seems to me to furnish an opportunity for brilliant strategy. I must get a clew, you know, and then clinch the business with a few quick strokes.”

“Just so; after the manner of Monsieur Lecoq. Well, where do you propose to strike your clew?”

“Oh, I haven’t started in yet. I suppose I shall hit upon one soon enough.”

“I doubt it. In my opinion you’re booked for a sequence of wearisome details. The quality you’ll require most of, is patience. Besides, if the lady should sniff danger, she’ll be able to elude you at every turn. You want to make it a still hunt.”

“I am aware of that.”

“What’s the first step you mean to take?”

“I haven’t made up my mind. I need time for deliberation.”

“There’s only a single thing to do, and that’s not the least Lecoq-like. Write to the place where she was last known to be—Vienna, did you say?—to the consul or postmaster or prefect of police, or better yet all three, and ask whither she went when she left there. Then, provided you get an answer, write to the next place, and so on down. This will take about a hundred years. So, practically, you see, Peixada has supplied you with permanent employment. The likelihood that it will ultimately succeed is extremely slim. There is danger of a slip-up at every point. However, far be it from me to discourage you.”

“What do you think of Peixada’s plan—an advertisement?”

“Gammon! You don’t fancy she would march with open eyes into a palpable trap like that, do you? I suspect the matter will end by your making a trip to Europe. If Peixada knows what’s what, he’ll bundle you off next week. You could trace her much more effectively in person than by letters.”

“Wouldn’t that be jolly? Only it would involve my neglecting the other business that might turn up if I should stick here.”

“What of it? What other business? What ground have you for believing that any other business will turn up? Has the past been so prolific? Besides, isn’t the summer coming? And isn’t the summer a lawyer’s dull season? You might lose a couple of two-penny district-court cases; but suppose you did. See of what advantage it would be to your reputation. Somebody calls at your office. ’Is Mr. Ripley in?’ ’No,’ replies your clerk, ’Mr. Ripley is abroad on important business.’ ’Ah,’ thinks the caller, ’this Ripley is a flourishing young practitioner.’ And mark my words, nothing hastens success like a reputation for success.”

“Such a picture sends the blood to my head. I mustn’t look at it. It would make me discontented with the reality.”

“If you’re diplomatic,” Hetzel went on, “you can get a liberal education out of this Peixada case. Just fancy jaunting from town to town in Europe, and having your expenses paid. In your moments of leisure you can study art and languages and the manners, costumes, and superstitions of the hoary east.”

“And all the while, Mrs. Peixada may be living quietly here in New York! Isn’t it exasperating to realize the difficulty of putting your finger upon a given human being, when antecedently it would seem so easy? Nevermind; up-hill work though it be, it’s sure to get interesting. A woman, young, beautiful, totally depraved, a murderess at the age of twenty-one—I wonder what she is like.”

“Oh, probably vulgar to the last degree. Don’t form a sentimental conception of her. Keep your head cool, or else your imagination will get the better of your common sense.”

“No fear of that. But I shall go at the case with all the more zest, because I am anxious to view this novel specimen of womankind.”

“You’ll find she’s a loud, flashy vixen—snapping eyes, strident voice, bediamonded person. Women who resort to powder and shot to get rid of their husbands in this peaceable epoch of divorce, are scarcely worth a respectable man’s curiosity.”

“Hello!” cried Arthur, abruptly. “What’s that?”

“Oh, that,” answered Hetzel, “that’s the corner house—No. 46.”

Hetzel spoke metonymically. “That” was a descending musical scale—fa, mi, re, do, si, la, sol, fa,—which rang out all at once in a clear soprano voice, from someplace near at hand; a wonderfully powerful voice, with a superb bugle-like quality.

“Fa, sol, la, si, do, re, mi, fa,” continued the songstress. .

“By Jove,” exclaimed Arthur, “that’s something like.” Then for a moment he was all ears, and did not speak. At last, “The corner house?” he queried. “Has some one moved in?”

“Yes,” was Hetzel’s answer; “they moved in yesterday. I had this all the morning.”

“This singing?”

“Exactly, and a piano to boot. Scales and exercises till I was nearly mad.”

“But this—this is magnificent. You were to be envied.”

“Oh, yes, it’s very fine. But when a man is trying to prepare an examination paper in the integral calculus, it distracts and interferes. She quite broke up my morning’s work.” Hetzel was a tutor of mathematics in a college not a hundred miles from New York.

“Have you seen her?” Arthur asked.

“No, they only took possession yesterday. A singular thing about it is that they appear to confine themselves to one floor. The blinds are closed every where except in the third story, and last night there was no light except in the third story windows. Queer, eh?”

Arthur approached the verge of the roof, and looked over at the corner house across the street. The third story windows were open wide, and out of them proceeded that beautiful soprano voice, now practicing intervals—fa-si, sol-do, and so forth. “Well,” he affirmed, “this is a regular romance. Of course a woman with such a voice is young and beautiful and every thing else that’s lovely. And then, living cooped up on the third floor of that dismal corner house—she must be in needy circumstances; which adds another element of charm and mystery. I suppose she’s in training to become a prima donna. But who are they? Who lives with her?”

“How should I know? I haven’t seen any of them. I take it for granted that she doesn’t live alone, that’s all.”

“Hush-sh!” cried Arthur, motioning with his hand.

The invisible musician had now abandoned her exercises, and was fairly launched upon a song, accompanying herself with a piano. Neither Arthur nor Hetzel recognized the tune, but they greatly enjoyed listening to it, because it was rendered with so much intelligence and delicacy of expression. They could not make out the words, either, but from the languid, sensuous swing of the melody, it was easy to infer that the theme was love. There were several verses; and after each of them, occurred a brilliant interlude upon the piano, in which the refrain was caught up and repeated with variations. Arthur thought he had never heard sweeter music in his life; and very likely he never had. “That woman,” he declared, when silence was restored, “that woman, whoever she is, has a soul—a rare enough piece of property in this materialistic age. Such power of making music betokens a corresponding power of deep feeling, clear thinking, noble acting. I’d give my right hand for a glimpse of her. Why doesn’t some mesmeric influence bring her to the window? Oh, for an Asmodeus to unroof her dwelling, and let me peep in at her—observe her, as she sits before her key-board, unconscious of observation!” Even Hetzel, who was not prone to enthusiasms, who, indeed, derived an expert’s satisfaction from applying the wet blanket, admitted that she sang “like an angel.”

Arthur went on, “Opera? Talk about opera? Why, this beats the opera all hollow. Can you conceive a more exquisite mise en scene? Twilight! Lingering in the west—over there behind the cathedral—a pale, rosy flush! Above, a star or two, twinkling diamond-like on the breast of the coming night! In our faces, the fragrance of the south wind! Below us, the darkling river, alive with multitudinous craft! Can your Opera House, can your Academy of Music boast any thing equal to it? And then, as the flower and perfection of this loveliness, sounding like a clarion from heaven, that glorious woman’s voice. I tell you, man, it’s poetry—it’s Rossetti, Alfred de Musset, Heinrich Heine—it’s—Hello! there she goes again.”

This time her selection was the familiar but ever beautiful Erl Konig, which she sang with such dramatic spirit that Hetzel himself exclaimed, when she had finished, “It actually made my heart stand still.”

“‘Du liebes Kind, komm geh mit mir!’” hummed Arthur. “Ah, how persuasively she murmured it! And then, ’Mein Vater, mein Vater, und horest du nicht?’.—wasn’t it blood-curdling? Didn’t it convey the entire horror of the situation? the agony of terror that bound the child’s heart? Beekman Place has had an invaluable acquisition. I’ll wager, she’s as good and as beautiful as St. Cecilia, her patroness. What do you guess, is she dark or fair, big or little?”

“The odds are that she’s old and ugly. Patti herself, you know, is upwards of forty. It isn’t probable that with her marvelous musical accomplishments, this lady is endowed with youth and beauty also. I wouldn’t cherish great expectations of her, if I were you; because then, if you should ever chance to see her, you’ll be so much disappointed. Better make up your mind that her attractions begin and end with her voice. Complexion? Did you ask my opinion of her complexion? Oh, she’s blonde—that goes without saying.”

“Wrong again! She’s a brunette of the first water; dusky skin, red mouth, black, lustrous eyes. You can tell that from the fire she puts into her music. As for her age, you’re doubly mistaken. If you had the least faculty for adding two and two together—arithmetician that you are—you’d know at once that a voice of such freshness, such compass, and such volume, could not pertain to a woman far beyond twenty. On the other hand, no mere school-girl could sing with such intelligent expression. Wherefore, striking an average, I’ll venture she’s in the immediate vicinity of twenty-five. However, conjectures are neither here nor there. Where’s Josephine? Let’s have her up, and interrogate her.”

With this speech, Arthur began to pound his heel upon the roof—the method which these young bachelors employed to make known to their domestic that her attendance was wanted. When the venerable Josephine had emerged waist-high from the scuttle-door, “Josephine,” demanded Arthur, “who is the new tenant of the corner house?”

But Josephine could not tell. Indeed, she was not even aware that the corner house had been taken. Arthur set her right on this score, and, “Now,” he continued, “I wish you would gossip with the divers and sundry servants of the neighborhood until you have found out the most you can about these new-comers, and then report to me. For this purpose, you are allowed an evening’s outing. But as you prize my good-will, be both diligent and discreet.”

As the twilight deepened into darkness, Arthur remained posted at the roof’s edge, looking wistfully over toward the third-story windows of the corner house. By and by a light flashed up behind them; but the next instant an unseen hand drew the shades; and a few moments later the light was extinguished.

“They retire early,” he grumbled.

“By the way, don’t you think it’s getting a little chilly up here?” asked Hetzel.

“Decidedly,” he assented, shivering. “Shall we go below?”

They descended into their sitting-room—a cozy, book-lined apartment, with a permanent savor of tobacco smoke upon its breath—and chatted together till a late hour. The Peixada matter and the mysterious songstress of No. 46 pretty equally divided their attention.

Next morning Hetzel—whose bed-chamber, at the front of the house, overlooked the street; whereas Arthur’s, at the rear, overlooked the river—Hetzel was awakened by a loud rap at his door.

“Eh—er—what? Who is it?” he cried, starting up in bed.

“Can I come in?” Arthur’s voice demanded.

Without waiting for a reply, Arthur entered.

Hetzel’s wits getting out of tangle, “What unheard-of event brings you abroad so early?” he inquired.

“Early? You don’t call this early? It’s halfpast seven.”

“Well, that’s a round half hour earlier than I ever knew you to rise before. ’Is any thing the matter? Are you ill?”

“Bosh! I’m always up at half-past seven,” averred Arthur, with brazen indifference to the truth.

He crossed the floor, and sent the curtains screeching aloft; having done which, he established himself in a rocking-chair, facing the window, and rocked to and fro.

“Ah, I—I understand,” said Hetzel.

“Understand what?”

“The motive that impelled you to rise with the lark.”

“You’re making much ado about nothing,” said Arthur. But he blushed and fidgeted uncomfortably. “Any body would suppose I was an inveterate sluggard. Grant that I am up a little in advance of my usual hour—is that an occasion for so much talk?”

“The question is, rather,” rejoined Hetzel, with apparent irrelevancy, “are you rewarded?”

For a moment Arthur tried to appear puzzled; but as his eyes met those of his comrade, the corners of his mouth twitched convulsively; and thereupon, with a shrug of the shoulders, he laughed outright.

“Well, I’m not ashamed, anyhow,” he said.

“I’d give a good deal for a glimpse of her; and if I can catch one before I go down-town, why shouldn’t I?”

“Of course,” replied Hetzel, sympathetically.

“But don’t be secretive. Let’s have the results of your observation.”

“Oh, as yet the results are scanty. The household seems to be asleep—blinds down, and every thing as still as a mouse.—No, there, the blinds are raised—but whoever raises them knows how to keep out of sight. Not even a hand comes in view.—Now, all’s quiet again.—Ah, speaking of mice, they have a cat. A black cat sallies forth upon the stone ledge outside the window, and performs its ablutions with tongue and paw.—Another! Two cats. This one is of the tiger sort, striped black and gray. Isn’t it odd—two cats? What on earth, do you suppose, possesses them to keep two cats?—One of them, the black one, returns indoors. Number two whets his claws upon the wood of the window frame—gazes hungrily at the sparrows flitting round about—yawns—curls himself up—prepares for a nap there on the stone in the sun.—Why doesn’t she come to the window? She ought to want a breath of the morning air. This is exasperating.”

The above monologue had been delivered piecemeal, at intervals of a minute or so in duration. At its finish, Hetzel got out of bed.

“Well,” he cried, stretching himself, “maintain your vigil, while I go for a bath. Perhaps on my return you may have something more salient to communicate.”

But when he came back, Arthur said, “Not a sign of life since you left, except that in response to a summons from within the tiger-cat has reentered the house; probably is discussing his breakfast at this moment. Hurry up—dress—and let us do likewise.”

At the breakfast table, “Well, Josephine,” said Arthur, “tell us of the night.”

Josephine replied that she had subjected all the available maid-servants of the block to a pumping process, but that the most she had been able to extract from them was—what her employers already knew. On Thursday, the 24th, some person or persons to the deponents unknown, had moved into No. 46. But two cart-loads of furniture, besides a piano, had been delivered there; and the new occupants appeared to have taken only one floor: whence it was generally assumed that they were not people of very great consequence. Arthur directed her to keep her eyes and ears open, and to inform him from time to time of any further particulars that she might glean. This she promised to do. Then he lingered about the front of the house till Hetzel began to twit him, demanding sarcastically whether he wasn’t going downtown at all that morning. “Oh, well, I suppose I must,” he sighed, and reluctantly took himself off.

Down-town he stopped at the surrogate’s office, and verified the statements Peixada had made about the administration of his brother’s estate. Mrs. Peixada had taken the oath to her accounting before the United States consul at Vienna, January 11, 1881, Short and Sondheim appearing for her here. It was decidedly against the woman—added, if any thing could add, to the blackness of her offense—the fact that she was represented by such disreputable attorneys as Short and Sondheim.

From the court house, Arthur proceeded to Peixada’s establishment in Reade Street near Broadway. He had concluded that the search for Mrs. Peixada would have to be very much such an inch by inch process as Hetzel had predicted. He could not rid his mind of a feeling that on general principles it ought to be no hard task to determine the whereabouts of a rich, handsome, and notorious widow: but when he came down to the circumstances of this particular case, he had to acknowledge that it was an undertaking fraught with difficulties and with uncertainties. He wanted to consult his client, and tell him the upshot of his own deliberations. The more he considered it, the more persuaded he became that he had better cross the ocean and follow in person the trail that Mrs. Peixada had doubtless left behind her. Probably the wish fostered the thought. As Hetzel had said, he would not run the risk of losing much by his absence. A summer in Europe had been the fondest dream of his youth. The very occupation of itself, moreover, was inviting. He would be a huntsman—his game, a beautiful woman! And then, to conduct the enterprise by letters would not merely consume an eternity of time, but ten chances to one, it would end in failure. It did not strike him that this was properly a detective’s employment, rather than a lawyer’s; and even had it done so, I don’t know that it would have dampened his ardor.—Meanwhile, he had turned into Reade Street, and reached Peixada’s place. He was surprised to find it closed, until he remembered that to-day was Saturday and that Peixada was an orthodox Jew. So he saw nothing for it but to remain inactive till Monday. He returned to his office, and spent the remainder of the day reading a small, canary-colored volume in the French language—presumably a treatise upon French jurisprudence.

He dined with a couple of professional brethren at a restaurant that evening, and did not get home till after dark. Ascending his stoop, he stopped to glance over at the corner house. A light shone at the edges of the curtains in the third story; but even as he stood there, looking toward it, and wishing that by some necromancy his gaze might be empowered to penetrate beyond, the light went out. Immediately afterward, however, he heard the shades fly clattering upward; and then, all at once, the silence was cloven by the same beautiful soprano voice that had interested him so much the night before. At first it was very low and soft, a mere liquid murmur; but gradually it waxed stronger and more resonant; and Arthur recognized the melody as that of Schubert’s Wohin. The dreamy, plaintive phrases, tremulous with doubt and tense with yearning, gushed in a mellow stream from out the darkness. No wonder they set Arthur’s curiosity on edge. The exquisite quality of the voice, and the perfect understanding with which the song was interpreted, were enough to prompt a myriad visions of feminine loveliness in any man’s brain. That a woman could sing in this wise, and yet not be pure and bright and beautiful, seemed a self-contradictory proposition. Arthur seated himself comfortably upon the broad stone balustrade of his door-step, and made up his mind that he would retain that posture until the musical entertainment across the way should be concluded.

“I wonder,” he soliloquized, “why she chooses to sing in the dark. I hope, for reasons of sentiment—because it is in darkness that the effect of music is strongest and most subtle. I wonder whether she is alone, or whether she is singing to somebody—perhaps her lover. I wonder—ah, with what precision she caught that high note! How firmly she held it! How daintily she executed the cadenza! A woman who can sing like this, how she could love! Or rather, how she must have loved already! For such a comprehension of passion as her music reveals, could never have come to be, except through love. I wonder whether I shall ever know her. Heaven help me, if she should turn out, as Hetzel suspects, old and ugly. But that’s not possible. Whatever the style of her features may be, whatever the number of her years, a young and ardent spirit stirs within her. Isn’t it from the spirit that true beauty springs? I mean by the spirit, the capability of inspiring and of experiencing noble emotions. This woman is human. Her music proves that. And just in so far as a woman is deeply, genuinely human, is she lovely and lovable.”

In this platitudinous vein Arthur went on. Meanwhile the lady had wandered away from Schubert’s Wohin, and after a brief excursion up and down the keyboard, had begun a magically sweet and thrilling melody, which her auditor presently identified as Chopin’s Berceuse, so arranged that the performer could re-enforce certain periods with her voice. He listened, captivated, to the supple modulations of the music: and it was with a sensation very like a pang of physical pain that suddenly he heard it come to an abrupt termination-break sharply off in the middle of a bar, as though interrupted by some second person. “If it is her lover to whom she is singing,” he said, “I don’t blame him for stopping her. He could no longer hold himself back—resist the impulse to kiss the lips from which such beautiful sounds take wing.” Then, immediately, he reproached himself for harboring such impertinent fancies. And then he waited on the alert, hoping that the music would recommence. But he waited and hoped in vain. At last, “Well, I suppose there’ll be no more to-night,” he muttered, and turned to enter the house. As he was inserting his latch-key into the lock, somebody below on the sidewalk pronounced a hoarse “G’d evening, Mr. Ripley.”

“Ah, good evening, William,” returned Arthur, affably, looking down at a burly figure at the bottom of the steps.—William was the night-watchman of Beekman Place.

“Oh, I say—by the way—William—” called Arthur, as the watchman was proceeding up the street.

“Yassir?” queried William, facing about.

Arthur ran down the stoop and joined his interlocutor at the foot.

“I say, William, I see No. 46 has found a tenant. You don’t happen to know who it is?”

“Yes,” responded William; “moved in Thursday—old party of the name of Hart.”

“Old party? Indeed! Then I suppose he has a daughter—eh? It was the daughter who was singing a little while ago?”

“I dunno if she’s got a darter. Party’s a woman. I hain’t seen no darter. Mebbe it was the lady herself.”

“Oh, no; that’s not possible.—Hart, do you say the name is?”

“Mrs. G. Hart.”

“What does G. stand for?”

“I dunno. Might be John.”

“Who is Mr. G. Hart?”

“I guess there ain’t none. Folks say she’s a I widder.—Well, Wiggins ought to thank his stars to have that house taken at last. It’s going on four years now, it’s lain there empty.”

Mused Arthur, absently, “An old lady named Hart; and he doesn’t know whether the musician is her daughter or not.”

“Fact is,” put in William, “I dunno much about ’em—only what I’ve heerd. But we’ll know all about them before long. Every body knows every body in this neighborhood.”

“Yes, that’s so.—Well, good night.”

“Good night, sir,” said William, touching his cap.

Upstairs in the sitting-room, Arthur threw himself upon a sofa. Hetzel was away. By and by Arthur picked up a book from the table, and tried to read. He made no great headway, however: indeed, an hour elapsed, and he had not yet turned the page. His thoughts were busy with the fair one of the corner house. He had spun out quite a history for her before he had done. He devoutly trusted that ere long Fate would arrange a meeting between her and himself. He whistled over the melody of Wohin, imitating as nearly as he could the manner in which she had sung it. When his mind reverted to the Peixada business, as it did presently, lo! the prospective trip to Europe had lost half its charm. He felt that there was plenty to keep one interested here in New York.

All day Sunday, despite the fun at his expense in which Hetzel liberally indulged, Arthur haunted the front of the house. But when he went to bed Sunday night, he was no wiser respecting his musical neighbor than he had been four-and-twenty hours before.